About Alison Stormwolf
My name is Alison ‘Stormwolf’ Bunker, a Scottish Highlander by birth, having been born in a town called Nairn, on the beautiful Moray Firth. I am the mother to three grown children all talented in their own areas and am now a grandmother to three.
I love to write poetry, to capture moments in time, deep emotions for release and leave a trace of me after I am gone. I love nature and animals and helping others when the need arises. I have a passion for Scottish history and old buildings, hence why I love living in Edinburgh. I also love the Moray Firth where I was born and brought up. It is a place of great natural beauty. I like to see beyond the everyday and listen to nature and dreams for guidance and to live multi-dimensionally and be aware of my connection to all that is.
What I Do
I am a seeker after truth, healer and poet walking the path of spiritual development and self empowerment. Although I trained as a nurse my interests were always in alternative health and spirituality. I am a Crystal Healer and Reiki Master, natural empath and HSP (highly sensitive person).
My Story
From earliest memory I was drawn to wonder about the unseen world. It held a great fascination for me and I have never, even once, doubted its existence.
That insatiable curiosity was rewarded aged 18, when I had my first 'out of body' experience. This was totally spontaneous and so life-changing that it was many years before I could really speak about it freely. This was the start of my major spiritual awakening. From that day on, I was given experiences that defied logic. (or as we have been conditioned to see logic). I learned to look beyond logic for the answers. It also demonstrated beyond argument (for me at least) that we are spirits inhabiting bodies for a brief time and as such are eternal beings.
It was also alienating at the time. There was no internet to explore and share and those very few I took into my confidence, treated it with mirth and barely concealed ridicule.
And so my education began… I studied all the major classics of spirituality. I took what resonated with truth and discarded the rest…until maybe later? For we all have our peaks and troughs of acceptance and understanding according to life experience.
My Mission
My calling is to serve and enable others to realise their inherent gifts and abilities, to free them from constricting thoughts and self doubt and allow them to realise fully their spiritual natures. To raise up those depressed and worn down by feelings of joylessness by allowing them to access the magnificence in them, their birthright as creators born in the image of the Creator. To live a life of meaning and relevance, practice kindness and compassion for all sentient beings. Most importantly, to feel I tried to live my life purpose whatever that may be.
What Others Say
Healing comes in many different forms, from many different avenues. Just as I am passionate about hands-on healing and working with crystals, so I am also hoping some may find healing in my writing, sharing, poetry and quotes. Everyone is unique. We may find deep healing in the laugh of a child, the love of an animal, beautiful music, to messages given in dreams. It does not have to be a long drawn out affair... It is my earnest wish that this site can be a place of healing, comfort, inspiration and awakening.
Please read what past visitors to this site have shared on my now-closed guestbook...
Feel free to share you own experience here on our new Comments section:
Blessings to all who take the time to read even one poem.
Mother of three, Sister of many.
Namaste!
For those who may be curious or want to know more about what makes me tick and how i came to this position in my life, read further.
More About What Makes Me Tick
Why The Name 'Stormwolf'?
Several reasons... Names, like everything in the universe, have energy attached to them.
Storms make me come alive. They remind me of my visceral connection to nature, my primal being. The energy changes in the run up, then the unbridled passion of nature unleashed...then the calm, renewal, blessed refreshment.
So the name encapsulates the blueprint of who I am. The cycles and the dramas. A reminder of going with the flow of life. The comfort of connection. We all suffer from the chastening storms of life but if we can become aware of the "reasons for our seasons" we can find peace in the centre of the hurricane. No matter how lost or overwhelmed we may feel, it is a natural and spiritual law, that after every storm, comes the calm... eventually.
It is my cry you hear in the night,
My eyes that gaze at you from the shadows.
It is my heart that beats in your Soul,
My strength that makes you whole.
I am Wolf. I am in you.
You are in Me.
We Are Wolf.
~ Wolf Dreamer
Wolves:
It was following a very 'dark night of the soul' (see Healing & Coping With Depression in my Spiritual Philosophy Articles section) that I started to write poetry. The wolf is my totem animal from childhood. It was the energy I needed to fight my way back to my rightful place as a strong woman, and so I hold these creatures in very high esteem.
At one time, I was a member of a sorority of women who had all read and been inspired by the classic, Women who Run with the Wolves, written by author and Jungian psychologist Clarissa Pinkola Estes. We all had to choose wolf names.
This was the name I chose, the name I write under, and it has become an integral part of 'who I am.'
My Lessons
The Gift of Suffering
I have learned the place and purpose of suffering. No suffering comes without a hidden gift attached. It usually comes in deep disguise and is one we would never in our earthly minds have asked for, but there is a reason behind all pain.
When we inhabit a world of duality we have to embrace the shadow side of everything in order to know completeness. This may sound nonsense but in fact it is grass-roots living and soul-food learning. We are often broken so as to be rebuilt with a new-found compassion and love for our fellow travellers.
As Rumi says:
An old saying is "never envy anyone their life…you do not know the price they have had to pay". Very true, and something to be always aware of. No person's journey can be yours. Your path is unique to you.
I have had to learn many very hard lessons. These have ingrained my soul with such power that although I could curse them I never will.
Everyone has their 'own story'. It's what we do with the realization of it that matters. Do we sit and stew, become embittered, ruminate endlessly about our grievances? ...or do we understand, that that road keeps us on a low vibrational prison of our own making.
"Holding onto anger is like drinking poison and expecting the other person to die."
~ The Buddha
Becoming self-aware means going within for answers. Deciding to stop all blame and practice forgiveness. This is our 'get out of jail free' card. It is liberation of the soul.
but the experience of pain couples with an understanding
that the pain serves a worthy purpose as suffering.
Suffering can be endured because
there is a reason for it that is worth the effort.
What is more worthy of your pain than the evolution of your soul?"
~ From 'The Seat of the Soul' by Gary Zukav ~
To those who chose the better path… I offer my inspirational philosophy
Who Am I?
From birth I was always extremely sensitive to my surroundings and nature, the Moon in particular. I always loved her and would ask my mother if I could stay out really late when the moon was full just so that I could bask in the unique atmosphere.
I was fascinated by the different energy of the silver light opposed to the harsher light of day. To me it was like major and minor keys in music. This was the start of a life-long connection for me. I have also come to acknowledge a deep connection to the Pleiades constellation. I am aware of a yearning in my soul.
Somehow, in a way I cannot explain, I am strangely comforted by this cosmic connection. I often look to the skies for reassurance, as I have done from the time I was an infant.
I feel that deep in our souls we are aware we are not of this world (repressed inherited memory) and that sets up a certain homesickness that manifests in us from time to time. I believe God wipes our memories clean of our spiritual home lest we yearn to return too much. This takes much of the fear of dying away as we now view it as a joyful return. Also the Bible tells us that God "did not leave us as orphans" I know that to be true. We have spirit guides around us all the time...angelic support...many invisible friends.
Read the words of William Wordsworth (1770-1850) who explains this far more eloquently than I:
The soul that rises with us, our life's star,
Hath had elsewhere it's setting, and cometh from afar;
Not in entire forgetfulness,
And not in utter nakedness,
But trailing clouds of glory do we come.
From God, who is our home."
~ William Wordsworth Longfellow
Faith and Surrender
I have faith that sometimes, just as we may have to run from a burning house with only what we are wearing to survive, so we may be forced by a higher power to lose almost everything which gives joy and security in life, in order to unveil the potential of a richer, more fulfilling and authentic life waiting just around the corner.
He threshes you to make you naked
He sifts you to free you from your husks
He grinds you to whiteness
He kneads you until you are pliant
And then he assigns you to his sacred fire,
That you may become sacred bread for God's sacred feast."
~ from 'The Prophet' by Kahlil Gibran
Our only true security lies in the realization of who we really are and in developing our spiritual natures. We need to to embrace our Authentic Power and realize our position is not one of victims of fate but manifesters and creators. Yes, we all hold that power! We are only beginning to understand that "thoughts are things" and we create our own realities...good or bad!
We are being called to return to our rightful place in the whole web of life. To live in harmony and respect for the natural world around us. Technology is a good servant but a terrifying master. We need to walk in balance and mindfulness of the wonderful planet we inhabit and have reverence for the entire created Universee.
My Present Position on The Path
It is now about 15 years since this website went 'live' to the world. Much has changed. Many challenges along the way. We all have challenges. They can be stepping stones to more fulfilment or they can be obstacles. Everything depends on mind-set. I fully expect to be continually honed in this way until it is time for me to return to Source.
There is a certain mellowness in me now. I try to practice unconditional love but also compassion. Not just to other people but also to myself. I can look back on my convoluted life, seeing my many mistakes and understanding it was all part of growing and blossoming...evolution of the soul... although I could not see it at the time.
My sense of wonder has never diminished, neither has my intense curiosity and seeking mind. I feel the more we learn, the more we open our minds, the more we see just how imprisoned we have been. Many paths, many teachers but in the end we have to strengthen our own inner connection to our Source. This is our shared source as we all sprung from it and so we are all connected in the web of life. When we do that, it brings a certain peace and contentment.
I see everything, animate and 'inanimate' as infused with God consciousness. I see animals as special beings who teach us unconditional love. We still do not understand the roles they chose to come here but we shall come to see the ways many are treated as barbaric beyond belief. They are sentient beings and I could never imagine a world without them. They are an integral and treasured part of the 'Great Mystery' to me.
I have come to see my life as a book. I instinctively know or recognise the chapters. All life is change and it takes wisdom to know when a chapter is finished and when to turn the page and begin the next. I have been guided all my life and feel even more so now, as I enter the last quadrant of the medicine wheel.
does our greatness lie.
Leave your comfort zones,
spread those wings of flight,
soar high, dive deep, Live!
Alison Stormwolf
About Nairn
Nairn is on the shores of the beautiful Moray Firth in Scotland, home to the Bottle nose Dolphins, seals and whales. It is an area steeped in ancient myths and legends, history and mystery. A few miles away is Culloden Battlefield and the Burial Cairns and the Standing Stones of Clava.
