The Old Ways

Dance the old ways

Trust the knowing
Mend and heal
Energy flowing

These words are posted by Cari Ferraro; they are a 'spell' she wrote & I recommend going over to see her thoughts & pictures. Also, Cari’s website has images of her books on the theme of “spelling words” and further explanation on how she came to write them is here. She writes about going back to the origins of the words & what a spell originally was... a story.


I love these words- they really resonate with me & inspired this piece of calligraphy.

These 12 words ooze healing energy and apply so much to any healing modality or situation. Just take a few moments to run them through your mind… breathe deeply and repeat them slowly… you can use them to encourage yourself to heal, bringing in the healing energies to flow through your body…. Or think of someone else, concentrate on them, speak to them either mentally or face to face, encouraging them to open up to the healing energies… or perhaps send the words out to humanity over the world… Cari wrote them, but these words have a sense of being from Source Her/His/Itself… or from The Earth, Gaia imploring us to dance & trust & heal…

Dance the old ways…
It is often said that Dr Usui ‘discovered’ reiki; we hear of ‘new’ healing systems, ‘unique’ ways; phrases such as ‘new energies for our times’ etc etc. They may be new to us, but surely these vibrations are older than time itself, strands of energy that sprang from creation or even before. The Ancients knew about them… every culture has stories of healing miracles, every culture had Gods or Goddesses of Healing, so it’s more a case of us ‘re-discovering’ or gradually becoming more aware & open to them. Even with our modern science & medicine there is so much more that we barely know of, & we have barely scratched the surface of the things we are aware of such as herbal & plant medicine, energy systems & energy healing. But slowly, slowly more people are learning to re-connect and dance the old ways.

Trust the knowing…
We all have a little voice inside that guides us if we let it speak… an inner wisdom & instinct that we often suppress in favour of logic or ‘common sense’. It often speaks through our solar plexus…. It’s not called ‘gut-instinct’ for nothing! It’s where we get butterflies when we are excited or that churning feeling when we are nervous or afraid, in between these extremes it is there if not so obvious. Try looking out for it when you make a decision, whether you turn left or right, whether you need a coat on or a cardigan, or do you need a bit more seasoning in a stew…. Notice the feeling & whether your decision turned out right or wrong… get used to the language of that inner voice, give it permission to speak & learn to listen. Once you learn to hear it, it will lead you to that inner knowing & wisdom that we all possess, that can help with our own healing & helping others to heal.

Mend & heal, Energy flowing…
That’s all you need to think as you open up to the healing energies… whether you are bringing them into yourself or directing them to others repeat these words… mend & heal, trust the energy to do what is needed, just let the energy flow. If it helps, visualize it as light, or a wave, or glow, coming into & around your body. In Reiki, we connect to Universal Energy… the healing energy of the Universe that is there, available to all. You may choose to call on God or Goddess, others may prefer to draw on your connection to Angels or ascended Masters, Spirit Guides or Power Animals… whatever is right for your belief or faith. No matter what we call it, or where we believe it comes from that healing energy is there, just waiting for us to connect & allow our body, mind,& spirit to mend & heal.

This is something Cari has to say…
“I had a strong feeling about these words, that many many people need to trust the old ways, dance the knowing, mend and heal their lives and the planet, and do it with energy flowing. See, they can go together different ways! So the words have their own lives and are out in the world to do what good they can.”

What more can I add, except take these words, use them & pass them on!

Dance the old ways
Trust the knowing
Mend and heal
Energy flowing

Cari's Spell

..."Dance The Old Ways" inspired by Cari Ferraro.

Well, it's finished & I'm really pleased.... even more so when I looked again this morning. The light on the 'standing stones' moves as you walk round the room so the lettering feels within the suggested circle, rather than behind or in front of the elements on the page... & the spiral seems to twist through the letters. I can't stop looking at it at the moment... I don't think I've done a piece anything like this before.

I cut a stencil in the shape of the ceramic pieces I'd tried laid on top of it last time, then applied decorators filler through it to form the 3D 'stones'. I had been going to add another layer like carved symbols that were on the ceramic, however I 'just forgot'... and i'm glad I did... methinks the energies of the words were guiding me, as they seem to have done throughout this one! The colour is acrylic, layered on with a sponge in several shades to get the depth & texture of stone.

The spiral is chalk pastel brushed through a stencil, which I cut free-hand... I wanted that randomness in the coils. I initially resisted the use of a spiral even though I'd visualised it there beforehand....strange eh? Purely from a design angle it needed 'something' in that position, but wasn't a spiral too much of a clichee? Or was it cos someone else suggested it too? But really it could have been nothing else.... again the energy guided me!
Now, technically some of the letterforms are a bit 'pinched', and an odd space or two here n there are a bit wayward... and I was very aware of this when I'd completed the writing. In fact I was disappointed with myself at that stage, because this piece was important to me from the start & I wanted it so much to be 'right'.

And you know what? It is 'right'... the whole thing works for me... technically my feet are too wide & some of my curves are a bit wayward... but I'm quite right for me, at this time. I'd be devastated if someone scrunched me up & chucked me in the bin... but that's what so many of us do with unfinished creations when they don't match up to a standard we set for ourselves. By carrying an idea through we can still create something lovely. So what if a letter or stitch or colour or whatever could be better? It's still a valid piece of work if we choose to see it as such. And if we want to do another version we can change or incorporate ideas to create something else without taking anything away from the original piece.

We often look at our work or our selves & see them for what they are not... but only compared to our often unrealistic expectations... that picture in our mind that we aspire to. Now, there's nothing wrong with aspirations, but we can only work with the skills we have at a given time! It may be a fact that we need to work to improve something... but we & our creations are a work in progress, sometimes we just need to look at the overall picture at a given time... at what we have or can do, instead of our limitations or shortcomings.

Dance The Old Ways

Dance the old ways
Trust the knowing
Mend and heal
Energy flowing

These words are posted by Cari Ferraro; they are a spell she wrote & I recommend going over to see her thoughts & pictures. Also, Cari’s website has images of her books on the theme of “spelling words” and further explanation on how she came to write them is here. She writes about going back to the origins of the words & what a spell originally was.

I love these words- I really ‘feel’ them, & immediately wanted to create a piece of work with them. I didn’t know what until I actually started…
Running the words through my mind I scanned paints, inks, pencils… picking up & putting back down… til I came across some wood dyes & pounced on them, settling on a dark oak & spring green combination.

A few brush-fulls of colour, a paint-roller and water, repeating the words as I rolled them across the paper to capture the sense of earthiness I was feeling… ‘dance the old ways’…earthiness… & ancient woodland… as I worked across the page & added layers I knew I wanted water too… a sense of a stream through the forest… ‘energy flowing’… oops, stop before I over-work it.

While it dried I started on something for my ‘Blog Candy’… if you want some there’s room for a few more to sign up! (this is a nudge for someone to send their address, not mentioning a name but it begins with M & ends with L). I couldn’t do much as the wood dyes dry quickly & I was soon back to cari’s spell.

The dyes work well as a background, having a translucency & a sheen that varies with the dilution, so the colour seems to have depth & movement… Questions… how & what to use for the lettering? would the colour bleed or should I use a fixative? What colour to write in? Here lies a lesson that I regularly preach but frequently forget… always prepare a spare bit of paper to do samples on… huh!… ‘trust the knowing’….aha… Pencil crayons…


So, I used a dark brown crayon & a built-up letterform with the idea of the words dancing & blending with the background… in the top three lines I softened the colour with some bright green, & some blue in the last line. The spirals in the letters just crept in with a mind of their own! I was particularly pleased with the ‘g’ in ‘energy’ (any calligraphers or lettering artists will know what I mean, getting excited about one letter!)


At this stage, it was ok, but needed something else… more texture… so was pondering what next when I remembered some ceramic pieces I had been gifted to use in my work… these two are perfect in shape, texture & colour… a sense of a stone circle perhaps? They are a bit too heavy, literally, to attach to the paper, so I still have to finish this piece, but at least I know what the next stage is.


Now, the thing is, once you have written or spoken something- it is ‘out there’ open to interpretation by whoever reads or hears it… I have no idea what cari was actually thinking or feeling, though I can make a guess… I interpret what I hear & feel from her words, as you will. We may pass them on, hopefully with a similar intention… but no matter what we see in them the essence of cari’s intention remains… out there with a distinct energy pattern… that reverberates whenever they are read, thought or spoken.

(note to cari: thanks for sharing your words & hope you don’t mind what I’ve done with them)