"Each indecision brings its own delays
And days are lost lamenting over lost days…
What you can do or think you can, begin it.
For boldness has magic, power and genius in it."
Johann Goethe
Every once in a while, I have the sense of wanting to seek advice outside of my usual support network, it is usually in the form of some kind of reading, be it aura reading, tarot cards or in this case to seek guidance and a kind of check-in with a spiritual medium.
I went to my first ever psychic and spiritual development group just before my 21st birthday. It really did feel like all my birthdays had come at once. I felt such a sense of belonging, the experiences and learning I received gave meaning to some of the previously unexplainable and odd encounters I had had during childhood.
It was in fact the tarot that helped to wake up my dormant gift of "colour talk", I found that the colour symbolism in each card had so much more to say to me than what was in the book that accompanied the cards, it also seemed to mean more to the person I was reading for too. My go to tarot person now is Avril Price, her experience and wisdom of the tarot really is second to none.
Whilst colour took me down another path the three years of being in the development group on a weekly basis were and have been invaluable. Which is why every now and again I have this sense of a call to seek out such a reading. From previous experience when that urge comes, I've learnt to follow it as usually there's something important to know or hear in a way that I wouldn't normally understand.
I'd heard about a lady called Penny who offered the very thing I was looking for. We arranged our Zoom meeting time and I waited with curious excitement to see what those in the invisible worlds were wanting to say to me.
It was one of those meetings where all that she said made sense to me, getting descriptions of my Mum and Grandmother with such personal detail of their demeanour and dress style was heart-warming. One of the many significant things Penny said to me was about moving, she said, "You are moving house in September" my response to her was an adamant "No I'm not". When you work with people you get to recognise sensitive areas and where not to push, looking back on it now I think that was a sensitive area that I was unaware of at that time.
As it turned out she was right, in September a series of unexpected events lead me to move at the end of November. A much-needed move and yet unknown by me, but clearly not by those looking on from the invisible realms. Which on reflection was probably part of the reason I had a sense of a calling to seek out a reading. See my blog post The End Game
Again, one of the curious things this Penny said to me was to ask what connection I had to Melbourne, Australia. I replied, "I don't have one" to which she said, "You will receive an invitation to go there, it will seem bizarre to say, but just say yes". That was the end of that seemingly short and sweet part of the overall reading.
To be honest I didn't really give that part of the reading too much attention, I let it go and focused more on the messages I had received from my Mum and about my work. Funny how the two shortest messages had and continue to have the greatest and most profound effect.
A few weeks later I received an email from the Australasian Light Association, which is a chapter of the International Light Association, enquiring whether I would be interested in presenting at the June 2023 retreat, which was being held in the Yarra Valley about an hour outside of... Melbourne.
It was, as ALA committee members Lyn and Amanda said, a long shot and a wildly out there invitation as they were only able to offer and provide accommodation at the retreat, and of course a wonderful friendly Aussie welcome. After re-reading the email a few times I remembered what Penny had said, "It will seem bizarre to say, but just say yes". So, I did.
"Everything in the world began with a yes.
One molecule said yes to another molecule
And life was born"
Clarice Lispector
Winter Solstice
Australasian Light Association Retreat 2023
Yarra Valley.
Photo credit: Amanda Hoffman
As soon as I said yes magic started to happen. I happened to mention to Karmen, one of my practitioners, that I was heading down to Australia in the June of 2023, she immediately replied "Come to Indonesia, let's do something here in Jakarta and Bali" to which I just said, Yes.
On the 13th June I left London heading to Jakarta, not knowing what to expect or how everything would unfold. I surrendered into "Just say yes", as well as knowing I had the complete support of all my colours.
We'd had a long conversation, my colours and I, about this trip to the other side of the world, and they too agreed with the notion of following the Yes down the golden path.
It's keeping in mind that your Life Path Colour, found through your date of birth, (Click here to find yours), is always there walking by your side, supporting and encouraging you to live your own best life. Mine just happens to love travelling on aeroplanes, with a window seat!
Arriving in Jakarta felt strangely familiar as if I'd been there before. Over the past few years the colours have been revealing to me how deeply connected they are to us and the life we live. One of the things I've learnt and remain open to and curious about is this; what if you have lived this life, the one you are living now, many times before? What if this were to be so, and that your future self has left you little colour clues along the way to affirm the path you are following, as well as symbols and clear signs for when you feel a little bit lost and confused? Could this be another explanation for deja-vu? And, is part of intuition simply recognising the patterns of something we have lived and experienced before?
I have no definitive answer, I'm still in the experimental stage, playing along with "as if it were true". So far it has proved to be a true adventure, much like following a treasure map with each X on the map having the opportunity to be a rich experience. What I am learning, even after thirty-six years I'm still learning, is that colour is the most wonderfully kind and compassionate guide.
OK, so I said yes, I had a wonderful time in Melbourne, Bali and Jakarta, sharing and teaching colour, I got to meet friends who I hadn't seen for a number of years and of course got to meet people in person whom I only knew previously from Zoom classes. All great, but so what, some might ask?
You've heard of that phrase about when we set intention the Universe conspires to make things so and as this happens, so it sets off a chain of events which are seemingly unrelated or connected but all start leading towards a certain moment and point in time. Well, as I sat talking to El during a colour training in Jakarta all of those synchronistic past moments converged into this one conversation. El told me that about a year ago she had been going through a turbulent time and had called out to the Universe for help and the reply she heard was "He will come".
The training in which El was present is a new training I am offering called "Colour Stories" which is an integration of colour and past lives. It's something that I've been working on for some time, I trained in regression therapy way back in 2000 and have taught it since 2006. As I've said over the years, "Colour is an amazing storyteller, if you would but listen".
This is a brief excerpt from the chapter I wrote for the ILA's second volume on The Power of Light, Colour and Sound for Health and Wellness.
The Colour Story El had just worked on was the healing and aha moment she had been looking and waiting for. It was this experience that inspired her to tell me her shout out to the Universe from the previous July, which was more or less the same time, give or take a week, that I had said Yes to going to Melbourne. Funny that.
“We do not create our destiny; we participate in its unfolding.
Synchronicity works as a catalyst toward the working out of that destiny.”
David Richo
A few years ago, I attended a number of cacao ceremonies, which as I've shared with many people, I took the view that it would either be an amazing experience or an expensive cup of hot chocolate!
It was incredible and it was within these ceremonies that I received the blessing and instruction from the spirit of cacao to offer "The Colour of Chocolate" ceremonies as a way of bringing the healing power of both colour and cacao together. Both are fiercely gentle in their approach which makes them ideal working companions. Both are of the heart and have the ability to reach deep into the dark recesses of the psyche with the most profound sense of love and compassion.
Once experienced, chocolate can rarely be the same again. Much like colour.
The reason I tell you this story is because during one of those ceremonies my intention and question to Cacao Spirit was "Where is my forever home?" As with any form of spiritual enquiry be prepared for what you are shown, remain open to what comes in response to your quest, and as the saying goes, "be careful what you ask for because you may just get it".
Cacao Spirit showed up in her usual manner, she makes herself known in different ways to each person. She makes herself unique to all. I stated my intention for the meeting.
Almost immediately I was watching a super-sized Google Map open in front of me complete with the blue dot showing the location. What I was not expecting was for it to speed its way across the Atlantic Ocean, right across the U.S. and locate itself in California and stop very precisely over Beverly Hills.
Really? Seriously?
During this encounter, don't ask why, I even tried with my mind to get the blue dot to move elsewhere in LA, as much as I tried it always returned back to its original centre. Cacao spirit looked on somewhat bemused by my attempts to move it, she looked at me as if to say, "Well you did ask".
I've shared with friends my Beverly Hills story, because as well as the location I can also describe the outside of the house and the garden right down to the jasmine growing around the patio doors at the back of the house which leads into the lounge. I honestly couldn't imagine how it could be so, and yet together with my friends we have watched with amazement how over the past four to five years, without forcing or trying, life has brought me numerous work connections and opportunities in and around Beverly Hills.
Since November last year I have been asking that very same question to myself as I did to cacao "Where is my forever home?" Maybe the answer is obvious considering my cacao enquiry, and indeed maybe Cacao spirit, along with all my colour allies and my ancestors, are sitting there twiddling their thumbs, rolling their eyes at each other, as if to say, "which part of the answer doesn't he get, how clear do we need to make it?"
Over the years of guiding and helping people to become and live their own colour-full best life I've noticed that it is often more difficult for us to accept and recognise our own magnificence of being. I've learnt that we all have our own "Enough Point". It's the point when life becomes, in our mind, too good for too long. It's like we are programmed to wait, anytime soon, for the bubble to burst because we are either too happy, too content, or we are on the threshold of amazing and some part of us steps in because it's all simply too much.
It's worth taking time to explore your own "Enough Point", how good does life have to get before you start feeling uncomfortable. Have you ever been with a group of friends where one person will arrive almost waxing lyrical how wonderful things are, and then when that person leaves everyone kind of looks at each other and someone will say "That won't last". Of course, life has its twists and turns with ups and downs and all the rest, the "enough point" is more about how well do you do with accepting the good stuff, and importantly accepting and believing that we are all worthy of it.
In all processes, be it self-exploration or just living life it's about who we become because of the experiences we have, which in turn shape us into how we respond now and in the future. I'm at the place now where I'm looking more closely at my own "Enough Point", especially in relation to home. What's been interesting about that is life circumstance have brought me options of home all around the world ranging from Norwich, Hastings, on the South Coast of England, Lisbon (what's not to love about this city), Jakarta, Bali, and just a bit further round, Melbourne and Adelaide too. I'm not quite sure how that has happened, but this is the threshold place I find myself standing at.
All offer a myriad of different and wonderful opportunities, but which one is the next X on my treasure map? Which one has my future-self laid clues upon to say, "This way, come down this path"? Equally which one leads me towards my Forever Home, the place where the scent of jasmine hangs in the midnight air?
In Bali I got to say Yes to talking about what I love in front of the camera.
Is it a clue that I find recording selfie videos so difficult and usually have more in the trash bin than I do useable, and yet give me an audience and it's a take in one, has my future-self walked this path before?
As bizarre as it may seem, maybe, just maybe, it really is a case of surrendering to "Just Say Yes"
"If you do say yes to an idea, then it's showtime" Elizabeth Gilbert
Until very soon, somewhere, sometime,
Colourfully yours,
Mark