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Over the weekend I had an extraordinary experience around a Virgo New Moon meditation that I held at my home. This is what happened - I hope this gives people the awareness of how a simple evening of focused meditation, can bring unexpected healing into everyday life.

Three of us gathered for the Virgo New Moon meditation at my house. We started by sharing together, much sadness coming up around the fires burning in the Amazon rainforest and the devastation of our Earth. I spoke of my childhood years growing up in East Africa in a time when wildlife was abundant and I never thought it would be possible to witness the loss of iconic species that we are seeing today.

When we started to meditate I soon felt the presence of Spirit - with a physical sensation in the middle of my head as my 6th chakra opened up to my Higher Sense Perception. We stayed for a long time in silence and then began to give voice to our prayers. As I spoke of my sorrow for the Amazon forests I felt that the giant trees were with us in the room, surrounding our little circle. Then Sima spoke and she called upon the Hindu god of the wind Pavan Dev, to come and work with Indra Dev, the god of rain, to push the clouds over the forest and bring rain. As she named to gods, I felt the rain falling in sheets as it does in the tropics, running down the tree trunks and into the Earth. When we closed the circle I felt happy to have had this small gathering and to have felt such a powerful connection with the Earth spirits.

The next morning I woke up and, very unexpectedly, found myself stuck in a place of deep personal pain. I am at the beginning of a year of transits from Pluto and Saturn to my natal Venus in Capricorn and I was sinking fast into all my personal issues around Venus the goddess of love, happiness and prosperity. Soon I was inescapably locked into feelings of being unloved, rejected, unwanted and opening up deep old wounds around failed relationships. Failed is the key word - I spent the whole day sunk in relentless unyielding feelings of failure and worthlessness, in Voice Dialogue we call this a 'Critic Attack'. I realised I was not able to shift out of the pain and by the end of the day I was reaching out to friends asking for help. It was not until the next day that I got to speak to my dear friend Fern. Speaking with Fern I found stillness in deep acceptance of the pain of old wounds, neither of us making any effort to 'fix' these feelings, just allowing myself to own the grief and pain of my experience. The only affirmation that came out of that sharing was a deep commitment that I would continue to meditate with the New Moon and Full Moon, to create sacred space, deepen my relationship with the Earth spirits and with the spirits of the planets, archetypal gods and goddesses, especially to heal my relationship with Venus.

The next day I felt somewhat recovered and got on with some practical work setting up the workshops I will be running this autumn. At the end of the day I suddenly remembered that I had promised a friend that I would go along to a little gathering happening at a community garden at the end of my street. I hurried along to the garden and when I arrived I could see very small group doing a walking meditation around the little garden and I quietly slipped in to join them.

The workshop was being led by three beautiful young women. The first one was leading the meditation and asked us to sit in a little circle around a rose bush baring one red rose. The woman invited us to meditate on the rose, focusing on the real sensual experience, the delicacy of the petals, the perfume as well as the thorns.

Then the second woman, who was a herbalist and flower essence practitioner talked about the properties of the rose, how it is connected in many ways to the heart. She told us how the rose provides medical remedies for physical heart conditions, she also spoke of the historic poetic connection with the heart as a symbol of love and gave me a little jolt when she mentioned that the rose is the flower of Venus. She passed around little cups of rose hip tea and also gave each of a rose hip - asking us to get the sensual experience of the beautiful red seed pods. I broke open my rose hip and when I saw the little collection of seeds the thought suddenly came into my head - these seeds are the people who are coming to my workshops this autumn.

I was aware that I was beginning to shift into an altered state and then the third woman invited us to find a comfortable seat or a place to lie down on the grass. She had some big sounding bowls and soon the gentle musical tones of a sound bath were ringing out. And then I went into a profoundly altered state. There I was lying on the grass in a very humble garden, surrounded by three blocks of social housing flats and looking up at the sky through some dusty but determined silver birch trees. I could hear the big London buses rumbling to the bus stop about a hundred yards from where we were, I could hear the ordinary working people chatting as they walked home. The musical tones from the singing bowls mixed with all the everyday sounds, with the wind in the trees and even with the sounds of jet planes flying through the pink evening sky. And all of it was utterly beautiful. It was like a fairy tale that such humble, non-glamorous surroundings became completely luminous with the beauty of life, that every sound was music, and that I should be lying there feeling myself 100% present with each moment, each breath of the wind in the trees, each rumble from the buses in the street, the distant laughter of children mingling with the heavenly ringing sounds from the singing crystal bowls.

Of course it came to an end. I made a lovely connection with the three women, helped clear up and walked slowly home, still amazed by the synchronicity of what had occurred and profoundly grateful to have had this experience. Three young goddesses, London girls, bringing spirit and connection to a rag bag collection of random people in an insignificant garden in the back streets of London. When I looked back at the garden, I knew that I had been given a great gift, welcomed into the presence of Venus. I saw the humble square lit up with the goddess light of love, peace, beauty and the oneness of all life.

Writing in my journal afterwards, one thing stood out. That extraordinary blessing did not come from "me", not from little everyday "Me". I had not consciously been seeking this but I felt it connected straight back to the New Moon meditation as well as to the intense grieving process I had the next day. In my process of grieving and accepting I had cleared a space and this utterly beautiful moment of grace flowed through from the essence of Venus, allowing me to enter into another dimension where all is one and there is only Love.

I am just going to say a bit more about this experience. This is not the first time this has happened to me. Back in the 20th century, before I went to BBSH I used to meditate regularly on the New Moon and the Full Moon. And now I am remembering that often, in the days after the meditation a big healing would occur, often something completely unexpected, like my experience in the garden.

So I felt called to share my experience, to encourage people to remember that the gods and goddesses are right here, right now, waiting for us to reach out to them, just a breath away from consciousness. Wherever you are, the Goddess is walking alongside you and she is within you and our only task is to make ourselves available for grace.

For people in London, the next meditation will be on the evening of Friday 13th at my place in Walthamstow, all welcome. Full Moon in Pisces conjunct Neptune, the planet I associate most with the Goddess and square to visionary expansive Jupiter.