“The privilege of a lifetime is to become who you truly are.” – Carl Jung …. i.e not who we “think” we should be, who others would like us to be, or who we think we should have been more, in order to receive love, approval and acceptance…
For a long time, I have felt drawn to the energy and symbolism of the Lion. To me, the Lion represents the courage to be our authentic self, – to speak and act in harmony with our heart…even if it means, we stand alone in a crowd.
“Journey with my Lion – what it means to embody Lion energy” incorporates my artwork and writing to share some of my own vulnerabilities, strengths and awareness gained, through working closely (over a period of many months) with the energy and symbolism of the Lion and Lioness.
“To be free is to be capable of thinking one’s own thoughts…Not the thoughts merely of the body, or of society, but thoughts generated by one’s deepest, most original, most essential and spiritual self, one’s individuality.”
– Rudolf Steiner
As long as I can remember,…I sensed I was different and loved to be alone,…
It has been said that for Introverts, being alone with our thoughts is as restorative and nourishing as eating and sleeping…However, (like many others) I grew up in a culture and time in society when being “introverted” was not as acceptable, widely shared about or even celebrated like it is today!
Despite this, (and the wounds I accumulated to work with over-time) as from the age of 20, I was questioning and longing to “unfollow the herd”!…
I sensed that to find true happiness and self-fulfillment on my path in life, I needed to learn to disyfer, truly listen and follow the guidance of my own intuition and heart…Developing and nourishing my individual, Spiritual core became very important to me and still is today…I’m grateful to have met a partner who shared and supported these core values…
Now in my early 40’s, I am embracing a life and a future of not “needing” to be “understood” by others,…while at the same time, I am allowing myself to truly feel the unlimited, sovereign power, uniqueness and freedom within that….
If you resonate with these musings about Introverts,…
I hope despite what is happening in your life or whichever stage you are at on your journey, you keep following and finding strength in your intuition and unique identity.
Above all, keep walking at your own pace and find the solace, clarity, balance and restoration you need in your alone time.
The earth needs the unique essence and energy you carry within you!
Over many years, I have been offering support and intuitive guidance for sensitive empaths/introverts/mavericks/creative souls – born for this curent paradigm shift we are moving through…Drawing on my artistic expression and my experiences of a self-awareness, healing path of 20+ years, I write, ponder and offer inspiration about similar themes and ideas in many of my blog posts.
…Feel free to browse through this website/blog and also follow my/our journey in the Alps on Instagram.
Life is a journey…are we making life choices, which support and nurture our inner-soul-growth?
…On reflection, I see that from the “outside” the choices I made and the path I/we forged and created may have appeared irrational, unconventional, obscure and unplanned to some people. However, as I began to view my life choices more from the “inside” and less how others and society perceived me, I came to realise that the most important was that I listened to my own intuition and followed my heart and soul. I now know that this way never demonstrates a carefully-calculated-straight-path because it is open to flow and spontaneously change as we grow to become more authentic and self-embodied…
Jaymie Elder
Excerpt from: “The Soul Purpose of our Journey” This post is about looking at life and our journey from the perspective of our soul, where I share much from my own personal life teachings, wisdom and journey…it was written in May 2018.
…Which life choices have you made lately, which may have appeared irrational, “unplanned”, or obscure to other people or society – but they felt TRUE to your heart and soul?…🌺
Jaymie Elder is a soul journey guide, artist, writer and traveller offering intuitive guidance/Soul Sessions internationally via Skype. Jaymie is dedicated to supporting others to heal and grow towards their authentic self – and a life in harmony with their heart and soul being. Learn more about Jaymie and her work here
Dandelion Spring Tonic: Apple Cider Vinegar with chopped dandelion roots, leaves and flowers
As I am making this Dandelion Spring Tonic from the roots, leaves and flowers of Dandelion – I am being reminded of how wonderful it is that Mother Nature shares her abundant medicinal wild plants to support us on our healing journey through life.
For many beautiful and magical reasons, my love friendship began with dandelion as a small child. However, it was not until later in my mid-twenties, (feeling burned out, and having developed digestive imbalances and food allergies), that I began to reconnect with the ancient medicine of this remarkable healer and plant ally.
My Swiss partner had the herbal wisdom and knowledge of dandelion instilled in him from childhood and throughout his adult life. Often he would go with his Grandparents to collect dandelion in spring, even if they lived inside the city. An example of a delicious, typical and simple springtime dish in Switzerland is a dandelion, walnut and egg salad.
Freshly picked wild, free and delicious dandelion leaves and clover buds with egg, roasted hazelnuts and a dressing of balsamic vinegar, olive oil, lemon juice, honey and seasoning.
When I met Juerg 16 years ago, it was springtime in New Zealand. He showed me the many dandelions growing on his land, and we gathered the leaves and flowers for salads every day. Over time, I got so used to the bitter flavour of dandelion leaves and I found my body craved it!
During Autumn, we collected dandelion roots for tea. We also cleaned, dried, roasted and ground the roots with Juerg’s Grossmama’s antique coffee grinder to make coffee. Often, we stir-fried dandelion greens mixed with other wild weeds in garlic, turmeric, a bit of soy sauce, lemon juice and sesame oil.
Stir-fried dandelion greens mixed with other wild weeds in garlic, turmeric, a bit of soy or tamari sauce, lemon juice, sesame oil and sesame seeds.
Especially in springtime, dandelion is a wonderful natural tonic to stimulate your liver and your immune system – building up strength, shifting and filtering out any toxins from the body, flushing out kidneys, supporting the function of your pancreas and generally bringing your digestive system back into tone and balance.
Tasting dandelion before a meal, (whether in salads, a few drops of a tincture made of the root or a tablespoon of the dandelion vinegar tonic like I have made) helps to stimulate digestion, which in turn can help you to get more vitamins and break down fats in your food because it supports and enhances your stomachs beneficial and natural acids.
I believe that dandelion’s medicinal and overall effect for me was – slow and steady – on my body’s immune and digestive system. Overtime, my heartburn, indigestion, allergies etc balanced out and disappeared. Like a loyal and true friend, dandelion supported me to feel safe and inwardly strong – so that I could dive deeper in my own healing process.
Some of my core wounds related to savouring food came to light for me to face and heal through love, understanding, forgiveness and compassion. I am now confident to say that dandelion medicine enhanced and supported me to begin to truly savour life again – connected to the vitality and joy of my playful inner child.
I began to reconnect again with a world of magic in nature around me – a magical world I had felt intricately a part of as a small child. Since then, my favourite “being-time” in spring has been watching and photographing bees and other pollinators while they collect the pollen of the dandelion – one of the first and most important food sources for bees after winter hibernation.
If you are collecting dandelions in spring, please always make sure you leave plenty of flowers for the bees and other pollinators. Also, be aware and very careful of areas that may be polluted by poisons like pesticides or harmful fertilizers.
It has been said that the flowers of dandelions have higher levels of antioxidants than the leaves or roots! Other possible benefits include relieving pain from headaches, backaches, and menstrual cramps, stomach cramps and depression. The flowers also contain Vitamin A and Vitamin B12, which are both good for eye health.
In spring (when there are enough flowers), we love to make syrup from the bright yellow flowers together with young pine shoots. Some people also make dandelion wine from the flowers but I have never tried this!
We also have a spring ritual of making healing massage oils from the dandelion flowers. Dandelion oil is exceptionally soothing for tired muscles and can be simply rubbed into tense muscles or joints for relaxation and pain relief.
Flower Fairy Food! – Super Tasty Dandelion Flower Fritters.
Dandelion flower fritters are so easy to make, delicious and full of healthy vitamins, iron and antioxidants. A wonderful, simple recipe to make with children after foraging for dandelion flowers on a sunny day.
To make these dandelion flower fritters: Prepare a simple batter and replace normal flour with rice flour for gluten-free. I used rice milk. Some recipes use a teaspoon of baking powder but I prefer without it! After gathering, make sure you leave the blossoms for some time out in the sun, to let any insects disappear, but don’t wait too long after picking, as they will close up their petals!) Gently dip the flower blossom in the batter and fry both sides in oil.
Ingredients: Freshly picked dandelion blossoms 1 cup flour (replace with rice flour or other gluten-free flour) 1/2 water or sparkling water
1 cup rice milk or milk 1 egg 1 teaspoon fresh rosemary or (cinnamon if you prefer sweet)! sea salt olive oil or coconut oil for frying
For more about dandelions health benefits and uses, watch our short video below:
What are some of your favourite ways to use dandelion? Feel free to leave a comment below…
About us
Juerg and I have been journeying together for the past 16 years. While Juerg is originally from Switzerland we have both lived and met in New Zealand in 2005. We have since traveled extensively in New Zealand, Australia, Indonesia, Nepal, North America, North Africa and Europe.
Both Juerg and myself are offering support to people who long to connect more deeply with the magic and abundance of Mother Earth, including learning, gathering, and using/cooking with wild medicinal and edible herbs, mushrooms, and other edible wild foods. However, we strongly believe it is not just about benefiting from what Mother Earth has offered us for millions of years but that we also have an obligation to do our inner work, to heal and grow in love and soul wisdom.
We advocate a simple, humble and authentic way of life. For many years, we have lived and traveled in small campervans being as close as possible to nature, in particular mountain regions such as for the past few years in the pre-alpine region of Italy, France and Switzerland.
Over the years, we have created many videos, which can be viewed on Juergs YouTube channel. Juerg is the author of the book “Sacred Journey” which you can learn more about on his website. We have a shared “Sacred Journey” page on Facebook. I regularly post writings and sharings on this blog, which I also link with Instagram.
Both Juerg and I are available for personal guidance and couple sessions via skype. These sessions are for people who long to grow more deeply towards an authentic relationship based on heart and soul love. If you are interested to know more about working with myself or Juerg, please contact us.
The night before last, I dreamed I was walking through a large crowd of people who were gathered together for a special out-door event.
As I walked slowly through the crowd, I became aware that there were many stand-alone-people speaking out to the masses surrounding them,… sometimes a small group was gathered around one speaker and sometimes a larger group was drawn in towards a speaker. The people were listening and learning from these truth speakers and I was aware that important information and energy was being revealed and transferred. As I watched them, I felt a deep respect for the courage and fear-less attitude of these truth speakers. They stood out like beacons of light – embodying the awakened energy of the Lion, among fearful, sleeping and confused crowds of people. With every truth speaker, I felt a surge of energy rippling out to others. Everywhere I turned to walk in the larger macro-crowd of people, this micro-script was playing out in smaller groups around me. I had the overall sense that a great shift was taking place.
When it came to me standing in front of my own small group of people, I was overcome with emotion and tears streamed down my face. Part of this was to do with what I had been witnessing (my higher self) and part was feeling the pressure to “measure up” to the other Lions shining example (my human self). My human self felt I was being put on the spot “to be like” the other Lions – and then I realised later, this was my human conditioning, which had a lot to do with expectation and never feeling good enough.
When I awoke from my dream, I was urged to re-read the “most-visited” post on my Rainbowtreewoman blog! “Journey with my Lion – what it means to embody Lion energy.” I was reminded of my own words about the symbolism of lion energy (feminine AND masculine), which I explore much deeper in the post.
Strength does not appear in the same ways for all people. It’s how we value ourselves and our uniqueness that makes us strong. For many of us, valuing our uniqueness is not something we learned to feel or be comfortable with as children. This is because often we had to give up our true selves in order to “fit in” to what was accepted and expected of us by family members, school and society…
Inner strength grows deeper like the roots of a tree, over a long period of time. The more we trust, follow our heart and find the courage to honour our truth and soul being, the more we come into alignment and harmony with our inner Lion. The inner strength of our Lion will ultimately lead us to make new choices, embrace the unknown and a creative path, which is uniquely our own and no one else’s. The more we are embodying the Lion energy in us, the more we realise how our conscious choices and actions do affect the whole. We realise our own energy (being true to who we are) can send out a ripple effect to influence others, sometimes in profound, mysterious ways.
Please feel free to leave a comment at the end of the post, I would love to hear from you, especially if you have your own strong connection with the symbolism of Lion!
Bring your grief, sadness, loss of hope, emptiness, despair, – whatever you are feeling – to a wise, ancient, tree being. A true, majestic, spirit friend.
Climb up high in your tree beings branches, sit or lay down low near your tree beings trunk.
Take several long, deep, breaths… let your heaviness and tears be comforted by the great loving arms of your tree beings branches.
Let your hurt be softened by peace as you become one with your tree (true) being.
Remain with your tree being, as long as you need too. Close your eyes, fall asleep, dream…
Exchange your blessings and gratitude. – whatever it was you needed – energy, balance, peace, unconditional love, wisdom, courage, inner strength… you can now move forward on your journey.
Always remember, the potential for a true friend – a spirit brother or sister – exists in the heart and frequency of all living beings!
We only need to feel, become more receptive and patient with an open, loving heart.
Copyright Jaymie Elder, Spring Equinox, Italy, 2021
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More reading from Rainbowtree Woman about the Soul Journey and the path of healing and transformation: – Click here
Have you noticed that now as the earth is receiving much more light than ever before, the shadow parts in many people, as well as dysfunctional power structures, have become much more visible or less “hidden” from plain sight?
If we are continuing with our own most important inner work, we find we can transmute and move through old wounds/triggers much faster than ever before. But at the same time, it appears that relationships or people who are no longer an equal resonance of energy simply fall away – more quickly than ever before.
Carl Jung left us with some amazing insights and revelations about his “shadow work”. He said that we do not grow/become “enlightened” through only focusing on the light or imagining “figures of light”, but by looking deep inside i.e bringing to light the unconscious, through facing and transforming our shadow *. He also said that “to confront a person with his own shadow, is to show him his own light”…
This article was written by me several years ago. I wrote it to honour the journey of shadow work in a relationship, which over time, with steady commitment and devotion, allows us to grow to become a much more authentic expression of our true selves.
As we continue with this shadow work, we open ourselves towards a deeper capacity to feel and share love, and attract relationships that are more supportive, authentic and harmonious with who we are becoming.
However, I believe because we are here to evolve and continue to grow, this journey is not linear, a straight path or finite,…Therefore, our inner work will always take us deeper and higher, much like an infinite energy spiral – returning to our innermost core and then expanding out towards the ether.
* Our shadow is made up of our unhealed, hurt, vulnerable parts of self – often originating in childhood but remaining with us throughout life. We can choose to ignore our shadow and unconsciously project it out onto others OR embrace and work with it for the many deeper gifts and insights it can offer us on our journey through life.
Everybody wants a loving relationship,… but few people are really open or prepared for the ongoing commitment and challenge of shadow work i.e. to take full responsibility for our own projections, inner child wounds and personal healing.
Relationships are so important because the deeper we are connected to someone physically, emotionally and spiritually – the greater the opportunity or catalyst for healing our inner child and transforming our core family and generational wounds.
Without this awareness, we may continue to protect or react from our wounds (hurt inner child) through becoming defensive, angry and blaming others, shutting down or avoiding intimacy altogether.
If we pretend that everything is wonderful and perfect on the outside, we deny ourselves the sacred opportunity to work with the truth – the unpleasant emotions that get triggered in us. It is only through acknowledging that our shadow/wounds exist, that we can begin to grow towards…
“When you know how to listen,
everyone is the Guru”
– Ram Dass
How do we practice compassionate listening?
We practice compassionate listening by spending time alone in communion with nature and becoming comfortable in our own inner silence.
Only then, do we begin to hear with our heart – our right brain, which is connected with a higher intelligence – present in nature and magnified in all of creation.
Only then, do we begin to tap into a magical vibration – the universal energy of love – which we are and always will be part of.
What does it mean to “commune from the heart”?
To commune from the heart simply means we listen for what the heart is trying to express.
In our relationships and encounters with strangers, we are receptive and open to the feeling, sensory and telepathic messages. Often for humans, these are the messages and clues about what is NOT being expressed, because the left-brain-mind is trying to convince, persuade, manipulate, impress, or control in a person.
We help another person, not by becoming like them and therefore losing our center of Self – but by helping them to see where their words and thoughts are not in harmony with their soul being, heart and body.
We help another person, not by overpowering them with our own thoughts, ideas, or projections of what we would like to see, have affirmed, validated or believed – but by offering a mirror where they have an opportunity to recognise their own light of truth reflected back at them.
Ultimately, we support and encourage a person to feel safe and not to be afraid of their own inner silence… because this is where they access their own innate wisdom and what can only be right and true for them.
Why did we not learn about this in school?
We did not learn about this in school, because instead we have been trained to utilise our left-brain, which is more easily persuaded and conditioned to obey an authoritative structure or power system. Now, more and more our world moves towards a new set of compassionate, feminine values with an appreciation of our heart’s intelligence at the core.
Anyone can practice compassionate listening – it’s not restricted to those with a degree in psychology, any form of elite status, religious or spiritual authority.
Of course, what we are speaking about is not only limited to human exchanges but how we interact and form relationships with all beings (“seen” and “unseen”) and with all of nature.
How do we know when we have achieved a “heart communion” or practiced “compassionate listening”?
We know when we have achieved a heart communion and practiced compassionate listening because both participants leave a conversation or exchange feeling received, uplifted, fulfilled, energised, joyous, lighter and more open.
These are the feelings and signs, which tell us we have truly listened and communed with and from the heart (as it is, in all of nature and magnified in all of creation).
Rainbowtree Woman 