Coming home

Whenever I've travelled, and I've travelled a lot throughout my life, I've always felt like I'm ready to go home. But the anticipation to get home at the end of June was palpable as I stood in Bogota's El Dorado airport, hands shaking, body pumped with adrenaline or anxiety, I couldn't tell you the difference. My uncle, who had accompanied me to the airport, asked me for some profound words to summarise my experience, but I was lost for words. He offered up some of his own, "You came with questions, you found answers. You came alone; you left with a team." That was as close to summarising those six months that words could get. As I weaved through immigration, who were keen to point out I was cutting it fine leaving the day before my visa ran out, I finally got to my gate.

My phone rang, a call from a spiritual doctor I'd been introduced to who had been supporting me in my quest. I was surprised he called, and up until that moment, I had been holding it all in until he said, "I just wanted to call to wish you a good flight back. Know that I'm here if you need anything and that you are okay. Everything is okay now." With that, all my emotions came rushing through and uncontrollably and tears poured and poured out of my eyes. The tension in my body eased, and a weight left me. I was on the other side of it now. I was alive, I had made it, and I was going home. When I eventually got on the plane, it dawned on me that I'd never been away on a trip where I had thought I might not make it home this time.

My mum had offered to meet me at the airport, something that we hadn't done in a long time, and that was particularly symbolic as the daughter returning from her motherland. When going to Colombia, I intended to uncover what felt like the final piece of healing the mother wound, a journey I had been on for eight years. The final piece of the puzzle, something I had intuited for a while, was buried in the land or the roots of the family tree and needed healing. My intuition was right and so was my impulse to go on that trip. I had succeeded in finding it, but it was a journey that left me pretty bruised and physically, emotionally, and spiritually battered.

I only stayed a night in London because I knew I had to return to the women in the woods. If you've been following my writing, you'll know that when I had a miscarriage in 2019, I ended up in some magical woodlands with women mandala making, writing poetry, grieving my loss, and listening to myth. It was there that my spiritual path began, and there where I moved two years later. I had spent a year living there before moving to Colombia to spend more time near those women and in those woods. On the train from London to Hampshire, I kept repeating, "I made it". I genuinely didn't think I'd come back alive, and writing that in black and white makes me teary. One of my soul sisters picked me up at the train station, and I just broke down crying in her arms. I was home.

We had a picnic in a beautiful spot, with a dip in a healing river surrounded by wildflowers and the sun glistening on the surface. A herd of cows approached us when we sat for food, encircling us. They didn't feel aggressive or dangerous, more enthusiastic and curious. It felt like a welcome home to the person I'd become, the one who swims naked in ponds, dances barefoot on mud, sings to the water, and makes offerings to the land. I'd not just come home to a physical place. I'd come home to myself, the wild woman within. And having spent all my life looking for home, belonging and family abroad, I had finally found it. I no longer had this impulse to get on a flight and go. Instead, something else crept in: a solid grounding, an invite to root, a community to belong, a life to build.

At a later date, I will sit down to write the story, but for now, I will leave you with a poem about the place I call home that I wrote just before I left on my quest.

"I buried my grief in a land not mine but with the days, the weeks, the months and the years the ground drew me back. It tugged at the threads of mycelium that had weaved themselves around my heart. And with every step I took to move away, move forward, the roots that had wrapped themselves around my soles and up my legs. I ran away from my grief but my grief had other plans and so did my sisters.

It wasn’t long before I found myself back at the foot of the giant oak tree, mandala making and fire stoking. With every visit I made to the woods, the layers of my city life were shed like autumn leaves. Until one day I woke up and caterpillars landed on my leg and moths fell out of my hair.

But I always knew this land was not mine. And with every visit I made to the woods, like the layers of my city life shed, the Hampshire moss grew on me. The mycelium whispered through messengers “she will be back”. And so I set off to find the land that is mine, knowing that my adopted land awaits me on my return. Because where I buried my grief is where my joy was born and while my motherland calls, my homeland awaits."

With love and magic,

#AuthenticAlex

I have evolved a lot in the past few years and so have my words, my work and my wisdom. That's why it feels time to birth a new brand and I can't wait to show you! If you've been following me a while, you know that my love for the healing journey and getting to the core of who I am is my purpose. Not only for me personally but also in guiding people on the same journey. That's why I'm super excited to launch new offerings supporting people in that way.

This work is deep. I hold space for you to bring whatever is present for you. Guiding you with practical wisdom, spiritual tools and myths that alchemise transformation for you to meet yourself. If this sounds like you, I have three spots opening up to start in October to work with me on a 1:1 basis. I'm offering a free 20 mins call to see if we might be the right fit to work together.

I'm also opening up space to do some akashic record readings. For those unfamiliar with what it is, I'd recommend having a look at this article for an in detail explanation. In a nutshell, people that are trained can open up the library of your soul and look into the past, present and future to gain insight, awareness and guidance.

If you're curious and feel called, you can email me directly here: alex@authenticalex.com.