Our Herm Retreat

That was a truly memorable, enjoyable and magical retreat on Herm. We’ve been retreating on Herm, Vicki and I, for almost 12 years now and I don’t know that there’s ever been a bad retreat, some have been more stressful than others, and some more enjoyable than others, but they’ve all been magical in their own way.

This year the retreat coincided with a blue moon and Samhain, the first time that has happened since 1944 and I was keen to celebrate that and make memories. I don’t think I’ll forget waking that Saturday morning and E telling me to look out the window at the most amazing sunrise, only to laugh and remind him that we were looking west and seeing the moon set! Amazing was definitely the word!

Only a matter of minutes after that we were swimming at high tide in Herm harbour, 13 of us in total, a good show, especially considering that it was very blustery and only 7am! Later that day, in an attempt to celebrate Samhain, the festival of the dead and the end of the Celtic year, I encouraged a walk to Belvoir via the dolmen on the common. I was carrying a sleeping Eben at the time (this because he was wired on the eve of the full moon and slept poorly, as did I therefore!) so merely managed to lay a hand on the stones, while Vicki and Elijah investigated further!

At Belvoir, while the boys played in the surf and managed to soak their feet and clothes, E and I enjoyed our second swim of the day, the sun shining by then, and beautiful views of Sark ahead. This was just what I needed to clear my energy and set me up for the Vedic chanting class that followed next, one of my favourite classes on every retreat because I love chanting and I love being able to share it with others; I was positively vibrating thereafter!  

Don’t get me wrong though, I loved teaching the asana classes too, there was a real sense of commitment shown by all students over the weekend and it was wonderful to witness some break throughs and smiles, let alone the calm energy after the evening yoga nidra, and seeing everyone enjoying themselves. 

That Saturday evening we met at 9pm, 9 of us this time for an evening swim at low tide at the beach opposite the hotel, wading through seaweed and just praying (or at least I was) that a seal’s head wasn’t going to pop up as it did a few years ago, albeit that in the morning light. Jo and I howled to the moon, even though she was hidden by cloud, but we wanted to acknowledge her anyhow.

 It was late and I was tired so my Samhain celebrations were short, a bath, a mediation and a tiny bit of magic work. Let’s see, it’s the ancestors really we need to thank for all of this. I only hope our future generations look back at us, ancestors too one day, and feel we are worth celebrating for all we are giving to this world (rather than taking away from it); I’m sure they will, we’re all doing our best aren’t we.

Sunday brought with it a little of the retreat drama about weather and boat sailing times, and while we prepared for a potential earlier sailing, 8 of us (I think) meeting for a 6.30am swim this time, and an earlier class time of 7am, the boat left as planned at 11am, so we had time to take a walk through the new trail and enjoy the wind blowing residual cobwebs away!

Herm is a beautiful place to retreat and I am very grateful to all the lovely souls that have supported our retreating there over the years, and those especially who have facilitated, through running (JP and Debbi), jewellery making (Athene Sholl) and the various treatment ladies who have all made the trip across to give massage, Reiki, Shen and reflexology (but sadly not this year due to the poor weather). 

I am also grateful to all the students who have attended time and time again, some making it a bi-annual, let alone annual trip. However it is time for me to take a break. I’ve loved it, but part of my heart is in Sark right now, and it’s here that we will continue retreating, and freeing up some time and energy for me to focus on other projects during 2021 instead. 

A big thank you to all of you and I hope to see you on Sark during 2021 instead!

Love Emma x

The November Herm Retreat!

I’m biased of course, if I didn’t love running retreats and spending weekends in lovely spots, then I wouldn’t run them. But, I have to say that that was another wonderful retreat we just held on the beautiful island of Herm!

I wasn’t sure how it would work out, as we are running it much later than usual, due to changes on Herm and them opening the white House Hotel much later than normal, into October. Typically the weekend coincided with the first Christmas shopping trip to Herm too, so I was imagining the Island packed with other people, which is not perhaps ideal when we have been running these retreats out of season for 10 years now, to make the most of the out-of-season-lack-of-other-people-on-Herm experience.

There was also concern about the weather, the closer we get to the darkness of winter, the higher the winds, in theory anyway, albeit there’s no guarantee for October either. So it was a relief to see that while higher winds were forecast, the boat was still able to travel in this.

It was a touch on the rough side though, and I can’t say I’m a fan of boat journeys when its quite so rough, but this seems to be a theme for the retreats to Herm and Sark, so I’m getting used to it now! It’s almost like that obstacle on the spiritual path. If you can pass the boat journey all will be well!

On Herm all was well, warm and cosy and ideal for retreating ahead of the new moon, as we were settling almost into the dark moon (which naturally asks us to turn inwards and see what might be lurking in the darkness). I hadn’t booked the retreat with an awareness of the moon cycle, but I have no doubt that it was well timed, and it definitely does affect the energy of a retreat.

i’ve had a few full moon retreats these last few years, it’s not forget that famous retreat on Herm three years ago when my water’s broke seven weeks early. There was a full moon on both the Glastonbury retreats this year too, and the first one, back in May. was particularly potent and there was many a tear and challenge for each of us in our own ways.

So for me anyway, this pre-new moon, on the cusp of the dark moon timing was interesting, beautiful and ideal really. It’s been a challenging year for so many of us, and it was a relief to be able to experience a gentleness for a change. I really felt this collectively.

It’s the first time on Herm at least that everyone has attended the first three classes, so there was a real sense of group energy. Understandably a few stayed in bed on the Sunday morning with our early 7.30am pranayama and meditation session, before asana and relaxation. About 14 of us met for the swim on the Saturday afternoon, but a number of others had swum on their own, so there was that energy too, of being connected to the sea, to nature and to the elements. A record number attended the chanting session with me too.

For me this was the most special part of the weekend. I love collective chanting of devotional mantra (Bhakti yoga), and have always found it deeply nourishing, enlightening and heart opening, my soul loves it! Tp have the opportunity to sing with other ladies who are open to it was a joy. I also love Vedic chanting, and am still studying this, so am not really in position to teach it as such, but we did explore AUM, and this was beautiful. We shared crystals and Reiki too, and it touched me that we unintentionally ended up sitting in a heart shape as a group! I should have taken a photo!

The sun shone when it wasn’t expected to, and I credit all the sun salutations! I made the most of it with Vicki and the family to go and see the Herm cows and get some fresh air. The shop was open so we got to peek in there too. It wasn’t as busy as we had expected and I still felt that I was getting away from it all!

Because of the shopping trips and the Mermaid being busy, we took our breakfasts and Saturday lunch in the Ship. This did work well, and I’m grateful to the hotel staff who are probably meant to be on holiday, who came in to serve and make it all happen for us. The evening meals were taken in the Mermaid as normal and I am grateful to the staff here too and especially the chef who had to juggle a number of food insensitivities and still managed to produce tasty vegan, gluten-free, soya-free and nightshade-free food - thank you!

I managed an early morning dip (I stress the word dip) on the Sunday early morning in the darkness, down at the beach in front of the hotel, slightly concerned that I might meet the Herm seal, and just thought how wonderful to have this opportunity. To be able to stay in the White House hotel and enjoy those views of the East coast of Guernsey, and spend my weekend with such lovely souls.

I’m grateful to Sarah Thackeray, Sam Le Compte and Jo de Diepold Braham for offering magical treatments and Athene Sholl for her jewellery making. I’m also grateful to Vicki Eppelein for helping me during the classes, and my Mum for making sure there were yummy snacks available and that all was well. Ewan and my Dad did a marvellous job of looking after the boys too, they love all this retreating, especially with Baba in tow!

A huge thank you to all the beautiful students who joined me this weekend, for their openness and going with the flow attitude - I found the weekend nourishing and transformative (some interesting dreams and processing) and I hope they might have returned touched by the magic of retreating on Herm too.

While I thought this might be my last Herm retreat on a count of the fact I don’t want to hold another one in November (I miss the October morning and evening skies), it seems that I might be able to get a date in October 2020…so I’m just waiting on that!

Lots of love and gratitude.

Running a retreat in India with the family in tow!

The Goa retreat may have brought with it some challenges, but it was an amazing retreat nonetheless and I know that I am not the only Goan adventurer who is feeling a pang for the nourishing energy of Satsanga Retreat Centre and the warmth of Goa.

One of the Yoga Sutras talks about the obstacles that one may experience on the spiritual path, and while these may include such inflictions as disease and laziness, we were all tested in our own way with obstacles on the path to India and the potential spiritual growth that lay ahead.

Sri Swami Satchidananda writes “…Yoga practice is like an obstacle race; many obstructions are purposely put in the way for us to pass through. They are there to make us understand and express our capacitates. We all have that strength, but we don’t seem to know it. We seem to need to be challenged and tested in order to understand our own capacities. In fact, this is natural law. If a river just flows easily, the water in the river does no express its power. But once you put an obstacle to the flow by constructing a dam, then you can see its strength in the form of tremendous electrical power”.

It seemed that many of us needed to demonstrate our strength to overcome the obstacles placed in our path! For example, there were a number of us challenged in the preparations for the retreat as the Indian authorities, in their infinite wisdom, have made it increasingly difficult for Channel Island residents to obtain a tourist visa. No longer can we obtain a simple and cheaper online e-visa, instead we have to apply by post, at increased cost and hassle. 

I admit that I found the whole visa thing an incredibly stressful experience, mainly because I had to complete the process four times, for each family member, and had to pay for it four times too, £140 each! This, may I add, after trying to obtain an e-visa (because I didn’t at that point know that we could no longer obtain e-visas, the system only changed in the spring) and losing £80 on that pointless application. 

Then there were the flights, as Jet Airways with whom we originally booked our outbound flights went bankrupt. I was keen to take night flights, thinking that this may minimise the challenge of travelling with young children, so this did limit the options available to us. Furthermore, as Dabolim airport in Goa is a military airport, international flights are only able to arrive during the night, so this adds another consideration.

Then, about two weeks before we were due to travel, Air India cancelled our flight out of Goa and onto Mumbai for our connecting flight home. By then I’d learned little of the lesson, that one clearly has to go with the flow, and try not to get stressed about things that are completely beyond our control. For us it just meant a night in Mumbai, and in many respects (and as it turned out), this was a positive and welcomed experience.

So all of this before we’d even left Guernsey! Still, it was all character building and there were definitely a few of us learning the lessons before we’d even got going. It’s like one of my friend’s, Alice, said, “don’t fight India, or India will fight you back”.  So true!

The four of us, me, E and the two children, left Guernsey on time and arrived into Gatwick in time, from there a train ride to Victoria and a bus ride up to Paddington by where we had arranged a day-use hotel from which to base ourselves ahead of our flight that evening. We thought we were terribly well organised, getting a hotel here, not only because we had to meet someone to take possession of a large pink suitcase containing taps, which we were taking with us to our friend Emma in Goa (don’t ask, long story that always makes me chuckle!), but also because it was close to the Heathrow Express. 

Taps in our possession and the children starting to tire at the end of the day (having fitted in a walk to the Princess Diana Memorial playground in Hyde Park for the children to play), we made our way towards the Heathrow Express platform at Paddington Station, Ewan having already bought the tickets earlier in the day (super organised see), only to find that all Heathrow Express trains had been cancelled. Arghh! So it was to follow, an expensive taxi ride for us instead. I should have known then that this was setting the scene for the journey ahead, but nonetheless it was clearly a process that we had to go through, for whatever reason, character building I suppose.

Heathrow was manic. I had forgotten how manic it can get. You need more than three hours these days to get through the whole check-in, security, obtaining-water for the flight etc. process, especially with children in tow. We thought we had ample time, I’d even checked out where we might find the children’s play area, but due to the chaos of Air India check-in, we ended up running past the children’s play area, because by then our gate was closing. As is always the case though, there was plenty of time once we had boarded the plane to sit around and wait, wishing that we had not rushed so much to get to the flight in the first place! Another lesson learned!

The flight from Heathrow to Delhi went without drama, but then we were delayed in Delhi for a good few hours, to the extent that we missed our connecting flight from Mumbai to Goa, so had to sit around Mumbai airport for a good few hours too; always a joy with children! The luggage went missing for a time too upon arrival into Mumbai. I couldn’t help thinking how typical it was, that our bags should go missing when we were in possession of the taps, which Emma was desperate to have so that she could finally get running water in her new kitchen.

This was most definitely a lesson in non-attachment, and I concluded that the only thing I was slightly sad about losing was my Tibetan singing bowl and my Yoga file, plus the crystals that I had brought with me as gifts for the retreat attendees. The rest of the stuff was just stuff that could be replaced, we’d managed to travel light with only 36 kilos between us all, which was much less than the 100 kilos we had available to us, and I wasn’t attached to it. “So what?”, I finally thought. 

As I reached this conclusion, by then at some early hour in the morning at Mumbai airport, me chasing our giggling boys around the arrivals hall (much to the delight of the elderly Indian ladies sitting and watching us), Ewan confirmed that our bags had been located, we just needed to wait for them to be delivered. More entertaining of children under the bemused and amused eyes of the Indian women who were desperate to get a hold of Eben and give him a squeeze.

This we encountered frequently, lovely Indian ladies of all ages, desperate to pick up Eben and have their photo taken with him, and with Elijah too if he’s indulge their requests, which he did eventually, disinterested as he was to all the attention. The main comment was about the length of the boys’ hair and how they look more like girls. “Yes, we know”, we were frequently saying, “but it’s less unusual back at home where we live”, although when I think about it, we don’t know many boys with long hair here either!

Finally, we arrived into Goa during the middle of the night/early morning, as we had been keen to avoid, and I did wonder at the ludicrous nature of our route to Goa all in the quest to avoid this exact outcome. We arrived into rain too, heavy rain, most unusual, the monsoon was meant to have finished.

The next day, it was still raining. Heavy rain. Not that this stopped us from having fun. It was wonderful to see our friends, Emma and Olaf, the owners of the retreat centre, and their beautiful boys Lomax (5) and Leo (2), plus all the beautiful staff who work at the centre and live in the local village. Our boys were grateful to have playmates and books and toys on hand, and there followed much playing and swinging from the indoor swing and interaction with the resident animals.

This was yet another challenge for us, when it came to the children at least, because Eben (who had turned 3 the day before we travelled) loves dogs but has no awareness of the fact that some dogs are kinder and more child-friendly than others. By the end of the trip he finally recognised this, but initially he was trying to hug and kiss all three of the dogs and one of them, Simba, was not so sure about this, and I’m not sure Shanti was that taken either! Prana, the friendliest sandy coloured dog, became the firm favourite and Eben was frequently found trying to pick him up or lie on him, or generally bother him. 

Seeing Goa through a child’s eyes was interesting, especially from the animal side of things. There was the novelty of the frogs and the lizards in our room, and then seeing cows in the roads, and the packs of dogs who frequented some of the beaches. Our first afternoon on the beach at Vagator, for example, during a brief break in the rain, a couple of dogs followed us to our spot in the shade, and were hanging around on account of the fact that the children were eating biscuits. Eben was desperate to interact with the dogs, but these are stray dogs, and it was certainly a challenge trying to educate him that these dogs are not like the dogs on the beaches at home who have owners and who are often on leads.

Those first few days, the rain continued to fall relentlessly from the grey-laden sky and soon the winds whipped up – there was a cyclone sitting offshore that wasn’t moving, just our luck! If ever there was the lesson in letting go of attachment to outcome and going with the flow then this was it. I have been working with both this year, as part of boundary work (the theme of the year it seems, not only for me but for others too as it is in the “field’) and letting go of the need to control outcomes, be that taking responsibility for other people’s experience or trying to force things to happen.  If there’s one thing I absolutely cannot control, however, it is the weather!

I’ll admit that this awareness didn’t stop me fretting! The thought of 19 lovely students travelling all the way to Goa and being met with relentless rain was not ideal. There followed a sleepless night the evening before the retreat began, as I listened to the relentless rain falling heavily, knowing that some of the ladies were arriving during this time, and some with wonderful open-top bathrooms – no need for a shower with that rain, they just needed to stand in their bathrooms with the heaven’s pouring down upon them! 

Fortunately, by the Saturday morning and the arrival of the last remaining guests, the rain had eased and while the forecast had suggested rain all week, we were happy to go with our taxi driver’s prediction that the cyclone was moving away and sunnier weather was ahead. He was right! By the time the retreat began later that afternoon, the sun had reappeared and life looked decidedly brighter.

As for the retreat itself; if there is one thing I love more than anything else (bar the family and writing) is teaching yoga, and especially teaching yoga in the Shiva Shala at Satsanga, which for many years was a dream. I felt enormous gratitude to the students who had travelled so far to help to make this dream a reality, and I had to catch myself at times, because as a teacher who teaches most of these students regularly at home, it was a blessing to have the time and the space within which to help them explore and deepen their practice and for me to share what I have learned with them in more ways than I can at home. 

This was my third trip to Satsanga and it was as beautiful as ever. It’s difficult to explain the attention to detail and the nurturing energy until you have experienced it for yourself, from the friendly smiles, to the flowers that were carefully and lovingly placed around the centre, to the men who cleared leaves from the pool, swept the paths, and made sure we felt safe with 24-hour security watch, to the women who cleaned, cooked and washed for us. Nothing was too much trouble, and no one ever imposed on your space. 

The food was a definite highlight and I am grateful to the local women who lovingly prepared this for us – no one was sick and all dietary requirements were catered for, including one of the ladies who had a severe nut allergy and various other dietary restrictions. For her, it was a real treat, because the majority of the dishes she was able to eat, and for once she didn’t feel as if she needed to be treated differently.  

The centre is strictly vegetarian although the majority of the dishes were vegan to allow for the various dietary requirements. This was the most amazingly tasty and nourishing home-cooked vegan food I have ever had the fortune to taste, and I am missing it very much now I am back home. It was served buffet-style so that you could help yourself and help myself I did!

Breakfast composed of a variety of cut tropical fruits, plus soaked chia seeds and a quinoa-puff cereal. There was also a choice of breads, porridge and another warm option, maybe a local savoury dish or pancakes, it always smelled yummy but I never managed more than just the fruit. 

We were often away from the centre for lunch, heading straight to the beach after breakfast, to get the children off-site and give the guests some quiet space, but also because we rather enjoyed travelling up north and exploring the beaches, playing in the sea and drinking chai!

I am assured that lunch was yummy, and certainly if it was anything like the evening meals then this is true. There was always so much choice and so many different flavours, and a real range of vegetables too.  There was a mix of rice, noodles, chapatti and dosa. It makes me miss it, just writing about it, and I’m not usually a foodie!

As for the yoga, this took place twice daily (apart from Wednesday when we took a break in the afternoon) in the stunning wooden-floored Shiva Shala, so called because it features an amazing bronze statue of Nataraja (the dancing Shiva) so that you cannot help but welcome Shiva into your life come what may – he being the destroyer of the trinity, including Brahma, the creator, and Vishnu, the preserver. 

We embraced mouna in the morning, and therefore arrived to class in silence, able to enjoy the morning sounds of the birds and insect life outside! Here we practiced some breathing exercises together before sitting in silence, building up a minute a day so that by the end of the retreat we were sitting for 11 minutes in silent meditation. This may not sound very much for seasoned meditation practitioners, but was a real achievement for those who had not sat for any length of time previously.

The rest of the morning class was active in nature, and everyone rose to the challenge. Not once was there any moaning about the heat, or about the fans being on too much or not enough, these practitioners just got on with it! it was a delight for me to have a whole cupboard of props available to use during the classes (mine are sadly all packed away in storage awaiting the moment I finally have my own yoga space!) so that we were supported where needed and were able to explore our practice. 

It was also a joy to have wall space available to us too. Much of my training was undertaken using walls and it really does add another dimension to practice and testing limitations (often of the mind, more than the body!). The walls helped many of the students to access inversions and backbends in a way that they might not have been able to otherwise. Furthermore, we were able to consider alignment principles, and experience postures in a different way – even on our yoga mats we get stuck in ruts and in habits so it is good to challenge these and maybe shift our perspective on life generally. 

The afternoon class was softer in nature and we often chanted together, learning the Om asatoma mantra (sometimes known as the peace mantra), but also singing devotional mantra and exploring ‘Om” as well as chanting the Bija mantra regularly. There was gentle movement, some yoni yoga (embraced by our male participant too), restorative yoga and daily yoga nidra too.

I invited Chiara one evening, an Italian singer of the Dhrupad tradition, who sang to us on the last retreat; she is fab! Dhrupad is a form of music to bring the mind to a peaceful and meditative state. It is an ancient science of sound and music that aims to develop human consciousness and its corresponding nervous system. An original form of Indian classical music, it has retained its pure form to date – it’s ancient, beautiful and powerful and I was certainly moved by the experience and felt a moment of heart opening and momentary expansion. 

I also arranged a singing workshop another evening with a lady called Natalie, also a Reiki Master, who has lived in Goa for many years and uses the voice for healing. I was joined by 9 other lovely ladies and together we found our voices and managed to create a beautiful sound together. I was proud of us for embracing the fear and joining together and supporting my efforts in arranging this. 

On our penultimate night I arranged a sound bath, which was unfortunately not as enjoyable as I had hoped. Simply because by then we had created a rather special group energy and it was a lesson for me in bringing someone else in to manage this, who was not part of the group energy. This meant that her resonance did not resonate with us as a group per se, and therefore it was not as restful an experience, or indeed as much of an expanded experience as I and others on the retreat know that sound baths can be (we’ve been spoilt in Guernsey!). We live and learn!

But really, this didn’t matter. The fact the group energy was so strong and had taken on so much of its own energy was testament to the positive attitude of all the students and their willingness and openness to embrace each other and all these new experiences. For me it was a joy to witness friendships formed, and everyone getting on with it, with non of the drama that can sometimes accompany these retreats, with different personalities and needs.

It was also a joy to see so many embracing what they could of Goa in their down time. While we as a family may have limited our excursions to exploring the beaches, with only a short trip to the weekly famed Anjuna market, others ventured further afield. There were visits to temples and to the Spice Farm, to Mapsa, the main centre of the area, to local eateries and villages, and even a sunset-viewing drink from one of the beach bars. 

There was also a lot of lying around and chatting beside the pool, and of course swimming - Elijah finally learned to swim properly on this trip! I took great delight in swimming in the evenings once the children had gone to bed, and I was joined by a few other ladies on a couple of the nights. On the last retreat we had managed a full moon swim, but this retreat coincided with the new moon, so there were star-swims instead!

The retreat was, without doubt, an unforgettable experience, that allowed all of us to get away from it all and dive deeply into our yoga and spiritual practice. You can’t help but be spiritually nourished and expanded, practicing in that beautiful Shiva Shala with all the energy of years of yoga practice and meditation that has taken place in that space under the watchful eye of Shiva. There is also no doubt that staying at Satsanga leaves you feeling nourished and nurtured and with a renewed sense of wellbeing that continued after the retreat finished.  

Not to say that India wasn’t still challenging us as she does. We left the retreat centre at 7pm the same day that the retreat finished, for our 11.35pm flight up to Mumbai. To say we were tired might be an understatement, given that I had taught about 22 hours of yoga, and Ewan had looked after the children during this time, all the while tested by our 3-year old testing boundaries. Twice he managed to run away from Ewan and turned up in the Yoga Shala while I was teaching! Nothing like teaching tree pose with a small child in arms!! 

So we could have done without the delay to our flight that meant sitting around the airport with the children until well after midnight. The highlight was the fact we attracted a number of Indian children who were keen to play games with the boys, their ability to speak English was just amazing and here they were some of them only 6 years old. 

By the time we made it to our hotel in Mumbai it was 3.35am. Not quite what you have in mind when you have finished a retreat, and needless to say body clocks being body clocks we were all up by 7am! Still the hotel was a treat, and we are grateful to our travel agent, Lisa, for having taken pity on us with all the flight changes we had encountered which meant we needed to stay a night in Mumbai; and we were treated to pure luxury and we relished every moment of it!

We enjoyed our limited time in the city too, taking a tuk tuk (at Elijah’s request) to see some of the boats and the beaches, passing shanty towns and the luxury buildings that lies side-by-side. Our tuk tuk driver, appreciating we had limited time, stopped enroute at a building crowded by Indian tourists. We had no idea what it was but took an obligatory photo anyhow, thinking maybe it was a famous temple, but when I later googled it, I discovered it was the home of a famous Bollywood actor! This is certainly a city that deserves more time and more exploring. 

We chanced upon a café near to our hotel that served the most wonderful India chai. This felt like a gift from India before the long journey back home. The caffeine was also much needed, because after only 3.5 hours sleep post-retreat, we had to keep going until our 10pm flight that evening. We had learnt by then the need to get to the airport really early, and this certainly made the whole experience less stressful – I even managed a final Thali. 

The flights home were uneventful fortunately. Admittedly it would have been a joy to take a direct flight back to the UK, rather than a short hop to Dubai and a wait there, before the longer leg, at 1.30am back to the UK. The boys slept on the short hop and then in pushchairs throughout Dubai, but Ewan and I had to keep going. I think we managed 3 hours of broken sleep on that journey. 

I admit that while we are experts in sleep deprivation having had two boys who still, 6 years on, don’t sleep through the night without waking us at least once, the 6.5 hours of broken sleep split over two nights, following the end of an intensive week-long retreat, was a whole other level of sleep deprivation, that I don’t want to experience again if I can avoid it! We are only now beginning, slowly, slowly, to feel more human, especially now the children have stopped waking at 5am!

Sleep deprivation aside, it was a wonderful retreat and I miss Satsanga and our friends dearly. India was as wonderful as ever, and the challenges perhaps necessary for us to learn the lessons she was trying to teach us. Namely, go with the flow, non-attachment to outcome and running retreats in India with the family in tow is a sure sign of madness!!

In all seriousness, though, I did question whether this was some form of self-harm that I had set-up for myself – teaching a retreat in India with two small children on site and enduring all that travel. It’s something I am still pondering, because these patterns do have a way of playing out in our lives, even though we may try and convince ourselves that it is character building and all in the quest for love and light.

Don’t get me wrong, I thoroughly enjoyed all of it, and would love to teach at Satsanga again, but all the challenges did get my attention! Perhaps I was also, on some level, testing out the superwoman role. This is being tested for many of us women at the moment – do we want to be superwomen? No, I can honestly say I don’t. It’s an old paradigm, that we women need to move on from now.

How? I don’t know. But in our quest to ‘rise, sister, rise’ I do feel that we’ve got ourselves trapped even more into the ‘being of all things’ with this pressure we’ve put on ourselves to run a household and run a business, like it’s a badge of honour now, the latter, rather than the former. I don’t get off on the ‘running the business’ thing anyway, because what is that all about anyway, who cares?! Just do what you love and love what you do.

Which is my problem. Because I do what I love and love what I do, and somehow that takes me on crazy adventures to India! Thank you Shiva for calling me back, and thank you to our most beautiful friends Emma and Olaf for making it as easy as possible when we were there. Thank you also, to you most wonderful yoga students who joined me, I really miss you all and look forward to seeing you at class soon!

*Many more photos can be found on the Beinspired Facebook pages.

Retreating on Sark

I love retreating and while I’ve never had a ‘bad’ retreat, there are some retreats that are very special, and this Sark retreat was certainly one of those.

The weather forecast for the weekend didn’t look that great earlier in the week, but we were indeed blessed. There was the usual strong winds on the Friday, testing us all in some way, but I’m very aware that there is always an obstacle on the spiritual path and always an obstacle in the days leading up to a retreat (or the months in the case of Goa and the whole visa drama), if not on the day itself.

But we arrived safely, albeit the journey was a little bumpy and a little longer than ordinary, setting us back a little from our tight schedule, which meant that the class started later than planned on the Friday and was therefore shorter than intended. But all good! Plus we were joined by a number of Sark residents, so there was certainly a welcoming feel to our first few hours on Sark, which continued throughout!

It was only when I was cycling home on my own that night, in the seeming pitch black that it hit me that this is one dark place! I know it’s a dark sky Island, but I’ve never noticed quite how dark it really is! It almost made me feel claustrophobic and certainly disorientated, and I couldn’t help thinking that it was a metaphor for life, as the recent moon cycle and equinox shift made a lot of us feel desperately disorientated and uncomfortable.

I was reminded that one has no choice really, but to just surrender to the flow as I too had to surrender to the bumpy path beneath me and keep pedalling, trusting that I would end up at my home for the night eventually! Of course we do have a choice, we always have a choice, we choose our thoughts after all! But what sense is there, what sense would there have been for me to go against the flow of the path on that dark evening? In life, what sense is there is pushing and battling against the flow of things?

The flow can be tricky though, simply because we can’t be sure, exactly, where we will end up. There is no certainty! But really, apart from the certainty of our breath (at least from the moment we are born, to the moment we die), and the fact we will age, what certainty is there in our lives anyway? It is more than this though, flowing often means that we need to let go. Letting go of who we think we are, so that we can settle more fully into a more authentic version of ourself, because life changes and sometimes we just stop fitting into the one that we have previously created.

There is grieving that comes with letting go, we have to break down all that we have created, and that can be tricky, heart over head, that is definitely not without its issues, the head likes to control, the heart doesn’t know what control means. So inevitably fear arises - there is some vulnerability that comes with following the heart and trusting the flow of things - and it could be very easy to resist and close the heart, dropping back into old well trodden paths instead, and yet knowing that you have outgrown these now so inevitably they will feel uncomfortable (cue head in sand or numbing out somehow).

Inevitably I made it home, to the light, and there were the children wired, absolutely wired with the excitement of being on Sark and of having my Dad, Baba, on hand to play with them at every opportunity, and of course Daddy too, but in comparison to Baba, Dady is rather boring! So there followed a mission to get them to sleep, and it was a late one! 10pm before the pickle otherwise known as Eben finally settled, and I was not far behind him! I’d love to say it was a restful night but it wasn't! Much bed swapping and finally some sleep!

I might only teach on retreats, rather than attend them as a student these days, but they are still transformative by their very nature. Not least because of the practices and spending at least 9 hours in a yoga environment full of beautiful yogic energy, but because of sharing my passion with others, which is a joy - I love to share yoga and only hope that others may be positively touched by the practice as I have been in my own life, this is what motivates me to teach, it is a duty!

On Saturday, the sun was shining as I cycled to the yoga space at the Island Hall for the first class that morning. We may have had a terrible night with our children, but I was beginning to see even more of the light - this is such a beautiful spot on Planet Earth, a tonic for the soul.

The class was active in the morning, raising the energy, and after brunch, a few of us met for a walk through the beautiful valley to Dixcart Bay for a high-tide swim. Others joined Caragh for her popular chocolate making sessions (you even get to take lots of chocolate home with you!). Other still cycled around enjoying the views, walking, chatting, doing what you do on Sark and on retreat - as little or as much as you like!

Later afternoon some of us met at 4.30pm for some Bhakti yoga and devotional chanting of mantra to Krishna, Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva. We also enjoyed the illuminating and energising Gayatri Mantra; with much gratitude, thank you. This before the chanting of the Bija mantras, to raise the vibration of each of our seven main chakras. We shared Reiki too, and held crystals, there was a lucky dip and most definitely a theme with rose quartz for the heart and sodalite for the throat showing up frequently. It is all about the heart and voicing this!

The tea time yoga session was gentle in nature. By then my voice was well and truly giving up on me, my sore throat had been getting worse during the day, a message there for me metaphysically, and a chance to look clearly at my fear of not being heard, ha ha! I just loved the class regardless of the croaky yoga nidra!

More dark night and this time walking and chatting to Stocks with Sarah, before cycling on home alone, but this time enjoying the solitude and the unknown within the darkness and finding my way easily home. I wasn’t sure what to expect, but the children were suitably exhausted by their Sark antics, all that fresh air had worked its magic, phew, a night of quality sleep!

More sunshine awaited me Sunday morning and this fairly much set the scene for the whole day, which whizzed past after another active morning class, and the end to the yoga element of the retreat. I really enjoyed the group energy that the students helped to create, and felt emotional that this was us done, so quickly! Thank you to all you really lovely ladies who attended and joined together so easily, it was an absolute honour and a joy.

I joined the family and we cycled out to the dolmon on Little Sark. This place blows my mind. How did people get the stones here and why? It’s a beautifully protected spot, with the midday sun, at least at this time of the year, shining in. I suppose it’s just really peaceful, there was no urgency to leave. As those of you who know me will know, I love any sort of ancient stone for they contain a special energy, a link above and below, and I would certainly encourage the traipse to find these one next time you are in Sark.

We cycled around a little more but I’ll be honest, while others went sea swimming, I lay down in the bedroom of the house where we were staying and enjoyed a yoga nidra and opportunity to rest as Eben napped on the bed. Navigating Sark on a bike and breathing in all the fresh air, let alone the yoga, certainly makes one tired, plus of course life slows down a pace and all the stress dissipates.

We returned to Guernsey on the 4.30pm boat, but I can’t say I was ready to leave, there is something about this magical Island, which just gets right under the skin, you can’t help but be uplifted by a stay, there’s something in the rocks and in its general energy.

I feel very blessed to have the opportunity to retreat on Sark, and for the family to come with me. The children absolutely love Sark, especially as they love tractors and tractors are everywhere, but also because they can just be so free. We can all be so free! It feels to me that Sark frees us a little bit in some way, maybe that sounds esoteric but here is some truth in it.

I’m very grateful to all of those who retreated with me and to Sark for holding space so marvellously, and for enlightening, and lightening the path a little. There was a lot of love on that retreat, and on that island generally.

Thank you. xx

The Glastonbury retreat!

We have just returned from another amazing retreat at the most beautiful Lower Coxbridge House (how you steal my heart).

It certainly wasn’t intentional, but clearly meant to be, as the full moon arrived on the Saturday, a big and powerful one too, Scorpio, with a sting in her tail and a lot of emotionally charged energy to challenge us all in our own way. This was the perfect time for retreating and letting go and we embraced both.

Olga’s amazing vegan food, made with love, was just perfect and really helped to support the healing s that took place over the weekend. This was a big one. It felt at times that a tornado came through Lower Coxbridge House and whipped everyone up in its path turning us upside down and around again and making us look at things differently, see through the detail, be clearer. At times it might have been devastating, at others, liberating.

Saturday afternoon and the usual pilgrimage up the Tor, it has to be done, following in the footsteps of many for an awfully long time now. There’s something special about pilgrimaging, even if you don’t really know the reason that you’re doing it. Some went into town, others chilled out at the House, others still went for massage, there is so much to do here, finding the time is the problem.

I was so pleased that Sam joined me for the obligatory skinny dip in the White Spring, in the cavern that the boys find a little overwhelming as it is lit by candles and is probably a bit too out there for even them. Ewan skinny dipped after us. It just makes you feel so alive, cleansed and invigorated every time.

We held a burning bowl ceremony on the Saturday evening, when the weather had calmed and we were treated to stunning sunset skies (how I love those sunsets here). Bless Elijah for taking his role so seriously and carefully in helping daddy set up the fire and keep it going while the ladies wrote their notes to burn in it.

At the time I felt like crying, but looking back, I can only laugh at the timing. Just about the time the full moon peaked on that Saturday evening, Eben tipped a small shovel full of cold ash from the log burning stove in the barn (my back was turned for What felt like a second!, I wasn’t even checking my phone or anything!) into the bath I had just run for him and Elijah. It was late. I was tired. I wanted to sit with the ladies by the fire and in the moonlight and we still had to get the children to bed. Now we needed to run the bath all over again…

…it was perfect timing really. I did my fair share of letting go later that evening! Ash in the bath. That sums up that moon. It mixed everything up. The light and the dark. Everything got properly stirred up. My phone went missing…I couldn’t photograph the full moon (thank you Mandy for capturing her)…but my phone going missing found me wondering outside in the later hours trying to find it so that i actually got to see the moon rising, not that I felt like giving thanks to her at that exact time. She stirred good and proper this moon cycle!

I awoke early the next morning to step out of the yurt and find the mists of Avalon had returned. How I love the early morning mists and the Tor appearing finally in the distance, like it was, like it is, coming home to Avalon and the Goddess.

We were treated to views of a hot air balloon going over the Tor and we couldn’t help commenting on the fact the balloon was red. As if the Goddess herself was sailing past us and bringing with her a sense of calmness and renewed energy. There was still residue to release in class however and some fabulous compass poses to try to orient ourselves again!

There’s nothing I love more than teaching yoga in that space, you journey there, there is no doubt. The chanting, the breathing, the asana, the resting, the Reiki, the robins gazing in, I just love it all and am so grateful that I can share it with others as they make that journey too.

I bought a little image of the labyrinth for my altar and that summed up the weekend. We made it through the labyrinth, or so it felt to me returning home yesterday evening. That was one huge journey we all went on together. Thank you ladies and the Goddess for supporting us. Thank you to my beautiful boys for showing me the way, as always, and for loving Lower Coxbridge House as much as I do.

That was definitely a special and memorable retreat.

Love xxx

P.S. You can see more photos on the Facebook page.

P.P.S Thank you Alex for this photo and to Kristin, Mandy and Ewan for the others. xx

Herm yoga retreats have come to an end

All good things must come to an end and sadly, after 9 years, the very popular bi-annual yoga & wellbeing retreat on Herm Island must also come an end. Unfortunately the directors of Herm Island Limited have increased the tariff for 2019 to the extent that the retreat is no longer an affordable and viable option and there is no goodwill in place for those who have supported the Island previously. Thank you to all of you who have supported and attended the retreat over the years, i am sure you will be as sad as us, but time to let go and move on!

On a positive note, there are 3 spaces available on the Glastonbury September 2019 retreat and a handful of spaces still available for Goa in October 2019.

The Magic of the Outer Hebrides - a Place for Edge Dwellers

We have just returned from an incredible trip to the Isle of Lewis in the Outer Hebrides.

It’s funny how things happen and how seeds are sown.  A good few year’s ago now a friend gave me a CD of Stornoway’s music and I was rather curious about the name.  What was this Stornoway? Well Stornoway happens to be the main town on the Isle of Lewis and that got me thinking, what would life be like living on an island so far North. 

Then a few years later I happened upon an episode of Island Parish, which was set on the tiny island of Barra in the Outer Hebrides and it just looked like one of the potentially amazing places on this Earth, what with the runway on the beach and there being so few people and beautiful beaches. I had a look into it, but it seemed rather complicated to access and Elijah was only little at the time.

So it followed that 18 months or so later, I came across Sharon Blackie’s amazing book If Women Rose Rootedand here she writes about the four years she spent living in a remote part of Lewis, and there was something about what she said, about living on an edge, that resonated with me and I thought to myself, I have to visit this place.

 So that’s what we did. I’m not sure E knew what to make of my decision to travel up to the Outer Hebrides with the boys being the age they are (2 and 4).  He half heartedly looked at some of the accommodation I showed him as I spent hours trawling through this over a year ago now. I’m sure he nodded at all the right times, and tried to show a little bit more interest in the hire car, given that it was a car and he likes those!

But truthfully both of us were a bit blind and it really was an intuitive thing.  I emailed about some accommodation but they never got back to me and instead the same cottage kept catching my attention.  I took it as a sign eventually, especially when the booking was made easily.  Sometimes you just have to flow and trust, even though you have no idea where you might end up. 

We ended up in the middle of nowhere, just under an hour’s drive from Stornoway, arriving in the dark, on a Sunday evening (when all shops are shut, the petrol station that is open that day closes at 4pm, al other shops observe Sunday closing), so that we had no real idea of where we were until the following morning.  It was a fitful night sleep for me as I was obsessed at that point in seeing the Northern Lights and kept getting up to look at out of the window, not really knowing which direction I was looking, and with no awareness that ahead of me was a huge hill, so I wouldn’t have seen them even if they had been shining that night!

The next morning dawned bright and very cold and windy and what a treat to find that we had a view of the sea from the kitchen window.  We wrapped up in our layers, laughing because days ago I’d been wearing flip-flops and swimming easily in the sea back home and now it was utterly freezing and I wasn’t sure that I was going to put a hand in the sea, let alone my entire body!

The pebbly beach below our homely croft, reminded me of Petit Bot, and I had this strange feeling as we arrived that a seal was going to pop up (as keeps happening this last year) and lo and behold a few minutes later and this is exactly what happened. It freaked me out a little because I had been talking to a friend about seals the day before we left Guernsey and she had reminded me of the Selkie story in If Women Rose Rooted, which I had re-read the night before our trip and here again the sign…queue reading up on the spiritual reason for seeing seals…always insightful!

Thus began a magical week of wonderfulness. This is most definitely a place that just keeps giving. We loved its raw and wild nature that had us awestruck time and time again with the changing light – there’s so much light here – and the skies that were utterly mesmerising. This is the land of rainbows and of stunning and empty beaches, of peat and bogs and hills in the distance, and of kind and generous people, and of community and freedom and this overwhelming sense of just letting things be.

What struck me the most though was the fact there was something so ancient about the place.  The predominant rock type is Lewisian Gneiss, a metamorphic rock which is astonishingly up to 3 billion years old, making it the oldest rock in Britain – two thirds the age of the Earth – and one of the oldest in the world. It’s stunningly beautiful and I was blown away by the concentric rings on many of the pebbles which looked too perfect to be real.

Furthermore, Lewis is home to the Callanish stones. Now I admit that this was a major draw for me, although I knew nothing about them until I visited, and was certainly not disappointed.  Wow! I love stones and stone circles in particular and I hadn’t realised that by visiting Callanish, we were completing the magical four – Callanish, Stonehenge and two we had happened upon quite by chance at Carnac and Avebury.

These ones are something else though, so unassuming, left to just do their own thing without the need for fencing or anything which means the general public have total access. They’re ancient too, believed to have been erected 5,000 years ago (thus predating Stonehenge) and believed to be an important place for ritual activity for at least 2,000 years.

What I also hadn’t realised is that there are actually three stone circles at Callanish all within a mile of one another. We chanced upon Callanish III, which is the medium sized one and has four remarkable stones within the main ring, three of which are thought to represent the ancient Celtic triple goddess. I trekked across the boggy peat in my wellies, a poorly Eben in arms, to have a feel. 

I really like to touch stones, to somehow get to know them.  I’m not sure whether that makes me weird or not, but there’s something rather lovely about feeling such an ancient energy that has borne witness to thousands of years of life on this beautiful planet. I like to try to get a feel with my pendulum too but I quickly realised that the constant wind wasn’t going to make that very easy, plus Eben was proving a bit of challenge.

 You see for some reason he hated the stones and started screaming as soon as we entered the circle, even though I had asked permission to do so (as I feel this is very respectful to the ancient circle keepers and energies), which made me feel a little uneasy because he is usually very good natured.  I tried to put my hands on the stones but this made him scream louder, so I took a few photos and retreated to the car to hand him over to E.

I returned on my own and settled against one of the stones, and felt peaceful, resting up there on my own with the incredible view ahead of Cailleach na Mòintich, a group of hills that resemble the sleeping woman. I then traipsed 200 metres or so over the boggy land to a smaller circle. I felt safe here too, and had a sense that this was a very special place affording views of the main stone circle in front of me – I had no idea of its vastness, it’s rather extraordinary.

It was a treat to be here on my own. That’s the beauty of Lewis, it is wild and free and raw. The wind was howling and the skies were cloudy, threatening rain that never came and so the light kept shifting. Here I sat totally on my own. On my own. Totally on my own at ancient stone circles.  That’s just so unusual, you certainly don’t get that opportunity at Stonehenge and actually the time I got to touch those stones was mid-summer sunrise when there were thousands of other people there too. It was a treat I can tell you.

We drove a little further up the road and E and I carried the two boys up to the main circle, but this was slightly challenged by their indifference to the stones and their desire to be looking at the mower at the visitor’s centre instead!  Queue sighing from me.  We’d come all this way and all Eben could say was “mower, mower, mower”, while Elijah moaned about wanting to see the decrepit tractor in a nearby field again. It’s comical really!

Still we persevered and having asked for permission again and with Eben still in arms I stepped into the circle only for him to start screaming again.  I put my hand on one of the stones and he literally peeled my hand off it.  I was so surprised I did it again.  Same reaction. I couldn’t believe it.  There was something that he absolutely didn’t like about these stones.  So we walked back down to the visitor centre and the mower and the views of the rusting tractor, and I had to laugh at how children put a totally different spin on things!

Still I then got to go back to the circle on my own and I happened to arrive at the same time as two guys, one of whom was educating the other one into the history of the stones and I heard for the first time that this is believed to be a moon circle.  Of course! It suddenly made sense and I almost laughed out loud because that very morning on the seal beach, and for the first time ever, Eben (in arms again, won’t walk - my arms got super strong this week!), pushed my head and pointed up to “moo….”. Ah yes, a half moon was visible in the sky. And that very morning I had a strange urge to wear moonstone, which I had brought on holiday with me but haven’t worn for a while.

And here now in the circle, I realised there are 13 stones, presumably representing the 13 moons in the year. The stone circle is actually contained within a Celtic cross, which makes it even more extraordinary. The guess is that the standing stones were erected as a kind of astronomical observatory. Patrick Ashmore, who excavated the site in the early 1980s writes,“The most attractive explanation…is that every 18.6 years, the moon skims especially low over the southern hills. It seems to dance along them, like a great god visiting the earth. Knowledge and prediction of this heavenly event gave earthly authority to those who watched the skies”.

It’s certainly a very special site even without the moon skimming!  There’s just something about its energy and its ancientness (is that even a word?!). I walked around a little bit and touched some stones and tried to do some dowsing. However, I started to feel a little unease and I crouched against one of the stones out of the wind and it felt to me that someone was saying, “please leave us in peace now and go to your family”. So that’s what I did.  It felt the right thing to do.

That same afternoon we headed up to the very north of the island to Ness, stopping at a lovely beach at Shawbost on the way.  The weather had improved throughout the day and the further north we drove the brighter and clearer it got, so I had a feeling that if we were going to see the Northern Lights then this would be that night.  However, while I may have had in mind that we would camp out at a carpark in Ness awaiting this magical light display, I had forgotten that of course we had two young boys in tow.

The two young boys were struggling a little with the amount of time spent in a car (in Guernsey journeys are so short!) and the fact we had skipped dinner time, and that it was pitch black and unknown to them. After ten minutes of moaning and E and I unsuccessfully trying to turn it into a bit of an adventure I think we both realised that our quest for the lights of Aurora Borealis was going to have to wait until another time. So with that we drove the hour and a quarter back to the cottage, both boys falling asleep in the process!

The week just got better and better from then on and we concluded that it is the island that just keeps giving and giving.  The rainbows were sublime, the deserted beaches a dream, the sea very cold to swim in but energising all the same, the ever changing skies enchanting and entrancing so that I was constantly reaching for my phone to try to capture it, and then of course the people who seemed so lovely and genuine. 

Then there was the joy of the remoteness and slower paced living that appeals on some deep level, so entwined with the elements and the Celtic land, rooted in the moment to moment changing weather patterns that have influenced the way of life, as wind blows and blows and the rain falls, and yet the rainbows come as the sun shines once more. It’s heaven on earth, a gift all of itself. It’s also, I now realise, the edge that it offers us edge dwellers.

Sharon Blackie talks about this in her book, If Women Rose Rooted, where she writes, “We are all edge-dwellers, those of us who inhabit this long Atlantic fringe in the far west of the continent of Europe. I have always been drawn to the edges of things, the places where two things collide.  Where bog borders riverbank, where meadow merges into forest. Where you stand in the margins of what is behind you and look out across the threshold of the future. The brink of possibilities – will you cross? Edges are transitional places; they are also the best places from which to create something new…

 …The Shore is the greatest edge of all. Sometimes it seems gentle, on a still summer’s day when the sun warms the shallows and the soft sand cradles you. But you must also be prepared to face the storm…Those of us who live here [on Lewis] must be comfortable with storms and with change, for it is on these unsettled, unsettling edges that we will hear the Call which launches us on our journey. And though we can never quite be sure what that journey will involve, we know that new possibilities may be created only if we surrender to uncertainty. 

You know it’s true isn’t it. We talk about edges in yoga, always flirting with the edge, never pushing into it, just being curious about it, that edge between one way of being and another (some will argue that we are boundary-less and maybe that too is true, but I believe that on some level we are always creating our own boundaries and at times these are essential for our health and energetic and mental wellbeing), nudging it almost, not too tight, not too loose, breath in and breathe out.

I joke in class about this and how much it might or might not change someone’s life to all of a sudden touch their toes in a forward bend, to have moved from one edge to another.  But the reality is, that every shift on our yoga mat brings with it the potential for transformation, for things to shift, for life to start looking and feeling a little bit differently.  Edges are huge. This is the place where we learn the most about ourselves…how are we on an edge? How does that edge make us feel? What is that edge trying to tell us about ourselves and the way that we’re living? Too fast, too slow, mind too hectic, too chaotic and scattered, or rooted clearly in the moment, on the breath, in the body, here grounded and present on Planet Earth? 

Lewis brought me back to Earth and slowed my mind to a gentler pace. I noticed this most when I attended the weekly evening yoga class at Uig community centre with Julie who inspired greatly with her authenticity and passion for both yoga and the Outer Hebrides. It was a gift truly, not only to attend on the Thursday with one other student, but to return again on the Friday morning (E seeing how much the previous class has positively affected and effected me) and have a one-to-one as no one else turned up to the class (their loss) and a yoga nidra just for me, I truly thought I had died and gone to Heaven.

The children were waiting for me following the class and it was straight back to reality, a calmer reality perhaps, or maybe not, because I am human and it a challenge going straight from chilled out post-yoga-bliss-state to the next minute finding yourself in the car with two screaming children because Eben was hungry and screamed to make me aware of it, which made Elijah scream as he hates the sound of Eben screaming and so I tried to maintain my peacefulness and smile on face on the short journey back to our cosy croft. And I laughed because I was also re-reading the Yoga Sutras at the time, which touch on obstacles on the spiritual path. Not that my children are obstacles, only that they do add another element, certainly making me even more grateful for the peaceful three hours I spent at class while on a family holiday (thank you E)! 

But actually this whole experience is a reality, this is life! We can’t expect to walk around in post-yoga-bliss the whole time.  I mean that’s be nice, but where’s the fun in that!  But what yoga does is it helps us to notice what happens when we reach our edge – it helps us to recognise when we’re approaching an edge so that we have a moment to consider whether we might just fall over it or retreat from it, or smile through it. [Btw, Eben doesn’t always scream, he just doesn’t like standing stones or being hungry!).

I like what Sharon writes about edges and islands, “Edges define an island…and yet an island’s edges are not strictly defined. They shift with the tides, in an ongoing, fluid, co-creative partnership between land and sea. They are in an unending state of becoming, and we are like them: we ebb and we flow; we soften sometimes, merge into ecosystems of others, then retreat into the safety of our own sharply defined boundaries. We are gentle, and warm, and then we are storm. Perhaps this is why islands fascinate us so; perhaps this is why, at certain times in our lives, they draw us to them”.

Any of you who have lived on islands will know this to be true.  I am certainly drawn to islands because they are always changing and yet there is a defined edge to them too - the cliffs! Standing on the cliff at Ness by the lighthouse in the north of Lewis I struggled with the very defined and yet undefined edge. There was no boundary between the edge of the cliff and the 30m fall below. It made me feel desperately uncomfortable and Elijah’s running was put on hold, “keep away from the edge”, I shouted at no one in particular. I had found my edge. Cliffs.

I noticed this later as we drove around Uig and I could see the cliffs and I was keen to walk to them but desperately uncomfortable with them being so raw and real. There’s no coming back from that edge. No edging into that edge. That’s the thing about edges. We have to have a sense of them. They bring up the fear with their uncertainty and they encourage us to go deep within. To listen clearly. Awareness heightens. Present moment. Standing on the edge of a cliff (only recently in the news three people died from taking selfies on cliff edges…).

Lewis cast a spell over me (and over E too, even Elijah was sad to leave). It took me to an edge of freedom, there was just so much freedom, no rules or regulations, so much space. This was an edge I liked. It made me edgy because it was boundless. It was for me to create my own boundaries. And that is when it dawned on me, the message that Lewis was conveying to me (it had been my Sankalpa…never underestimate a naturally arising Sankalpa). Because it’s true what Sharon says about islands drawing us to them. They have a habit of doing this. Pay attention!

There are a few special places in this world that I have been fortunate to visit and Lewis is one of them. There is still so much we have yet to see and Barra now to finally visit, so I’ve now doubt that the seed that was sown all those years ago will continue growing - there’s always another edge to investigate Thank you Lewis!

Another beautiful retreat in Glastonbury

The moon and stars aligned, the sun shone and the goddess wove her magic into our lives! What an amazing bunch of ladies, what an amazing place, what an amazing retreat. Thank you Glastonbury and Lower Coxbridge House; you both just keep giving! Looking forward to May and next September! xx