I am delighted to share another beautiful submission to the Monk in the World guest post series. Read on for Patri Hernandez’s reflection “Why the Islands Have Captivated My Heart.”
Feeling I needed to strengthen my spiritual connection to Goddess, I travelled back to the Canary Islands a few years ago and found Her there, waiting for me.
She revealed herself so beautifully and simply! I was born in one of the islands 53 years earlier, but somehow could not understand the nature of the world or the nature of my own heart. Goddess had always been there when I was a child, and I remember feeling Her and Knowing Her but I also remember forgetting Her when I became an adolescent and wanted to know the world more than I wanted to know my Goddess.
In those days I began to covet all the material things of the day. I became educated, learned the human ways, studied, worked, went to parties and just went all out in a very humanly constructed world, trying to define myself. As the years passed and I trusted my mind more and more, the thought of recklessly throwing myself into the deep seas of life was greatly diminished, because I was busy trying to get on top of things, fit in and win a ‘sure bet’ at all costs.
I began to study media and became a writer and a filmmaker but more and more I sought answers from the universe. It was all very attractive but there were times when I felt I was repeating the same day over and over, just changing the form the day took.
How then to understand these many other wonderful secrets within the universe? I needed again to learn to connect with the Goddess. This became particularly important to me because I had family members that were born in the Canary Islands and I wanted to express my motherly love to them, particularly my youngest sister, from a true relationship with my spiritual source. It was from out of this need that I knew I had to go back to the Canary Islands, to learn again about my Goddess. But I wasn’t ready yet.
Years passed, but still I searched. I discovered beautiful spiritual practices such as constant surrender, acceptance of painful emotions, nightly journaling to identify persisting behaviors, asking others for forgiveness, owning past mistakes, daily prayer and meditation, and letting go of any expectations. I had the amazing privilege to learn about the psychic arts, became a teacher and somehow felt more alive, but I was still not being able to complete the state of Being.
Finally, one day, I was able to reach the divine feminine within through deep spiritual practices and honest, intense searching. Feeling far more understood and comfortable with my new spiritual language, and the human world, I then began a three-year process of passionate soul searching.
I remember ever since my repeated visits to the Canaries, They have been a most important part of my life and life path. The first time I returned, I felt as if I was a small child again, naked and cold. I remember being able to see the sea from where I was staying. I was searching for something, for something that was almost out of memory but deep within me at the same time.
Then, the little girl in me was transformed into an infant hopelessly crying in my mother’s arms and finally into an adult. I have always known I was in the Canaries, at least deep in my heart. Part of me always stayed there. It is my mother’s body that brought me to this world, to this cold and warm island, to my human birth and to my spiritual path. I have had feelings of love over the years, feelings that keep trying to speak to me in various forms.
Now the Canaries have spoken to me once again, that I am one of them and can be found there if I am patient and if I search, but it took a while to meet and to find a connection.
I can hold on to feelings and sensations a little longer, and I am so grateful that I learned to love myself enough to make this journey.
In the meantime, I have also learned to hold on to these feelings, and to turn to my spiritual language, the Canaries, and to write.
Patri Hernandez had a spiritual awakening in the summer of 2017 and now loves to transmit the gifts of Divine Energy via her blog ohmightyhealth.com. Her body of work is a spiritual practice that reveals to others her path to healing, inspiring and motivating them towards radical self-care and ultimately awakening.
