Discovering wisdom and joy - full moon passing
"Every spiritual life entails a succession of difficulties because every ordinary life also involves a succession of difficulties, what the Buddha described as the inevitable sufferings of existence. In a spiritually informed life, however, these inevitable difficulties can be the source of our awakening, of deepening wisdom, patience and compassion. Without this perspective, we simply bear our sufferings like an ox or a foot soldier under a heavy load. Like the young maiden in the fairy tale "Rumpelstiltskin" who is locked in a room of straw, we often do not realize that the straw all around us is gold in disguise. The basic principle of spiritual life is that our problems become the very place to discover wisdom and love". Jack Kornfield.
I can relate to this entirely, for me life - like so many I am sure - has provided many difficulties, which have served as opportunities for awakening and discovering more wisdom and indeed love. This pregnancy has not been without its on going challenges and there have been many moments when I have had to laugh in the face of despair at the manner in which the opportunities for growth - in a spiritual and heart-felt level - have presented themselves to me. The very fact I have not been able to numb myself through alcohol or running away, has been a blessing in terms of the awareness I have instead been able to gain.
Like many others I have spent much of my life trying to avoid difficulties and running away from them when they do appear, and yet now I see how much we should welcome them into our lives for the messages, teachings and experience they provide. Whether others can sense a change I do not know, but I feel a change within me, especially this last year, with all the challenges E and I have faced to try to make dreams into realities.
Reading Jack Kornfield's book, "A Path with Heart" has been a joy, the timing has been impeccable as these usually are and I have taken much comfort from his words. He writes:
"The Tibetan Buddhist tradition instructs all beginning students in a practice called Making Difficulties into the Path. This involves consciously taking our unwanted sufferings, the sorrows of our life, the struggles within us and the world outside, and using them as a ground for nourishment of our patience and compassion, the place to develop grater freedom and our true Buddha nature. Difficulties are considered of such great value that a Tibetan prayer recited before each step of practice actually asks for them:
Grant that I may be given appropriate difficulties and sufferings on this journey so that my heart may be truly awakened and my practice of liberation and universal compassion may be truly fulfilled. In this spirit, the Persian poet Rumi writes about a priest who prays for thieves and muggers on the streets. Why is this?
Because they have done me such generous favours.
Every time I turn back towards the things they want
I run into them. They beat me ad leave me
in the road, and I understand again, that what they want
is not what I want.
Those that make you return, for whatever reason,
to the spirit, be grateful to them.
Worry about the others who give you
delicious comfort that keeps you from prayer."
It is so true, as ever Rumi is an inspired soul, awakened indeed.
I find this all rather fascinating actually, especially when it comes to the world of teaching Yoga and witnessing the energy of students and their comings and goings from class. Some are very committed, making an appearance week in and week out. Others come when they need the support and then drop off when life sorts itself out again, some come and then find that it is all too much, the spiritual side, the time with themselves, the awakening, that they turn their back and go to sleep again, and others more, just can't seem to break through the door, despite being drawn, time and time again.
For many years I have wanted to make it better for people, to take away their pain, but I have learnt over the years that you cannot take away others pain, you can not remove their difficulties and their sufferings, caretaking for them so that actually you end up exhausting yourself (and on an extreme, as I have witnessed with a number of holistic practitioners, focusing all your energy on trying to save others so you don't have the time to look at your own pain and suffering) in the process. No, that doesn't work, not in the long term, we have to do the work ourselves, we have to sit with our pain and suffering.
That is not to say I cannot help. We can all help on some level. Just being there can help. As can teaching Yoga and sharing what we may have learned from our own life experiences, from the difficulties we have faced, from the practices we have learned that may help to ease and indeed let go of the pain. Yoga. That's my thing. Yoga has been transforming for me on so many levels. Healing. Inspiring. Awakening. Energising. It has opened up a whole new bright, wonderful world to me. I want to share it with everyone, to help everyone to feel this sense of connectedness to self and to the greater whole. But everyone has their way, and it is not my place to preach or judge or push onto someone else.
It has been a busy time and I am delighted that the Aries full moon has now passed and we are waning down. It is a lovely time of release and letting go, a gentle energy that means I can now sleep!! It was a powerful moon and I would encourage you to read all about it - there is a link through the "Beinspired Yoga" facebook page. Really fascinating for me as I can see so clearly how many people's lives are in tune with the moon's energy, which means we all have quite an exciting few months ahead to the end of the year. Change really is happening, on quite a deep level too.
As the full moon wanes, so too am I! With 4 weeks to go until the bean is due I am intending to start calming down my responsibilities so that I can retreat a little before our life truly changes. The nursery is almost ready, I spent much of this week putting together furniture and shifting things, not sure my back appreciated it, we even have a baby friendly car now, it is all coming together! The bean is really rather active, but then so was I in utero and actually not much has changed, so I am preparing myself for many energetic years ahead! We shall see. It is difficult to now how it will be, one just go with the flow. We are both longing to take flight and hope the bean is a traveller too, Nepal is calling more than ever, but one has to be realistic about travelling to Asia with a little bean in tow.
Here in Guernsey we managed a few dips in the sea the last few days, gosh it is warmer than one expects, lovely high tides at Petit Bot, no one else around, nude changing, just love the sense of freedom. Car cleaning, nesting in the house, autumn tidying, and making space for the new to come in. So let us see what this week brings in the aftermouth of the Aries full moon, all rather exciting.
With love and much gratitude.
xx
Commitment to the spiritual practice
While reading Jack Kornfield's book, "A Path with Heart", I came across this wonderful paragraph that resonated immediately with me for it is not only something I have experienced for myself but something I witness repeatedly in the Yoga teaching world:
"Spiritual work requires sustained practice and commitment to look very deeply into ourselves and the world around us to discover what has created human suffering and what will free us from any manner of conflict. We must look at ourselves over and over again in order to learn to love, to discover what has kept our hearts closed, and what it means to allow our hearts to open. If we do a little of one kind of practice and a little of another, the work we have done in one often doesn't continue to build as we change to the next. It is as if we were to dig many shallow wells instead of one deep one. In continually moving from one approach to another, we are never forced to face our own boredom, impatience, and fears. We are never brought face to face with ourselves. So we need to choose a way of practice that is deep and ancient and connected with our hearts, and then make a commitment to follow it as long as it takes to transform ourselves".
It is something I have touched on before, this need for commitment to one way, to sit and deal with the pain, rather than flitting around from one way to another way, to another way, to another way, seeking happiness but never really getting to the depth of the matter so that transformation on that deeper level never really takes place and happiness is still this concept of being out there, if only we could find the right therapist, right Yoga class, right holistic treatment, right diet, you know all those things that we chop and change so easily.
Diet is a huge one. I have lost count of the number of times I hear people changing their diets, that this new diet is definitely the one for them, they lose a little bit of weight and then their ingrained habits start coming back again and their weight is back to where it was, or perhaps it a little heavier, and there is confusion about what they should be eating because nothing seems to work, and perhaps there is actually something wrong with them and with that depression sinks in, as one judges oneself for lack of willpower, lack of ability to stick to something, you know, that internal narrative that never ends.
At the end of the day we need to go deeper. We need to address our core beliefs in terms of our relationship to food. We need to understand the reason we make the food choices we do and be mindful, therefore, in doing so. Of course yoga helps this process enormously, not only by helping us to be more in touch with ourselves, but encouraging mindfulness and also helping to transform and heal the core beliefs so that we become that little more conscious of the choices we are making the reason for those choices.
But it can be tough. On a deeper level, beyond the physical practice itself, yoga encourages us to face ourselves truthfully, and sometimes that hurts. We don't always want to be reminded of who we really are. But essentially it is only by doing so that we can make long term changes and step a little closer to that concept of happiness. Inner happiness of course. Let us not forget that it is ALL about what is going on, on the inside. If you feel centred, whole, complete and happy on the inside then the chances are, your life (and experience of life) will be reflective of this on the outside too.
It is only by committing that we can ever hope to make the long lasting change that we may seek. Be that commitment to one diet, to one therapist, to one treatment, or simply to a regular yoga practice. And more often than not, that is where the issue lies, in committing in the first place for there are a zillion reasons to not do so - we are tired, busy, too much going on, need to do this or that to ourselves before we can begin. Of course this is all rubbish. Like anything in life it is about taking that first step and just getting on with it...and remembering to laugh, let us not forget that, it is after all a path with a heart:-)
And on that note I am going to take myself to the beach for a morning wake up swim in the sea before getting on my mat, sitting, and practicing being still for a little bit!!
With much love and gratitude.
x
A weekend of relative creativity
Busy, busy, busy. Well that is how the last few days have been! I am hoping for a more restful week ahead, balancing the yin and yang!
I guess the nesting instinct has kicked in. This weekend found us finally getting around to putting some flower boxes together to brighten the front of the cottage. I am very drawn to red at the moment, Autumnal colour of course and no doubt there is some grounding attraction in there too. Funny how we do get drawn to particular colours at particular time sin our lives.
Before I discovered Yoga, when I was a lost soul, I used to wear black all the time, covering myself up, disappearing into the background. That was one of the most significant shifts for me, especially with all the Reiki training and its heart opening nature - let alone the Yoga - that all of a sudden black did not feel right anymore and finally colour came into my life again.
In those earlier Reiki days pink was the focus, no surprise really, given that it is the colour of the heart, I just couldn't wear enough of the stuff. Then there was the purple stage when I guess my third eye was opening again. And then blue, lots and lots of blue, communication, before a brief spell with green, more healing, and white when I was feeling virtuous and pure, the world was full of angels, no coincidence perhaps that I had spent 40 days undertaking a kundalini-led meditation practice, then back to blue, and very occasionally the odd red spell when I needed some grounding. Now I just love colour, all colours, except black that is, you an tell a lot about someone who predominantly wears black all the time.
Anyhow our cottage is now decorated with red and violet, which was so simple really to put together, yet so pretty. I just have to remember to water them...
I made a cheesecake too this weekend for a Christening party. My friend, Laura, had made the cheesecake a week earlier and had left us some to try. My gosh it was divine albeit incredibly rich and it was only when I got the recipe I realised the reason or that. For someone who is insensitive to dairy it is not ideal, in fact I did wake up the next morning struggling to breathe, but ideal with all that calcium when you are growing a baby! We shall overlook the sugar and chocolate of course, although these do have emotional benefits as I am sure others know!
It is so simple to make, even for me, that I am going to share the recipe with you here:
Fudge cheesecake
6oz/175g choc digestive biscuits
1.5oz/40g butter
Crush biscuits and melt butter. Mix. Press into tin.
10oz/300g Bournville chocolate
7oz/200g cream cheese
8oz/250g quark (or ricotta)
150ml/1/4pt double cream
3oz/75g icing sugar
Melt 275g/9oz chocolate. Beat cream cheese with quark. Beat in chocolate, cream, icing sugar. Turn into tin, chill.
To decorate melt remaining 1oz/25g chocolate and drizzle over cheesecake.
Enjoy! xx
We managed a swim in the sea this weekend too, beautiful high tide at Vazon yesterday morning, certainly sets you up for the rest of the day. I am watering the folks' greenhouse at the moment too, it is such a soothing environment to spend time and I am in awe at the cucumbers, tomatoes and figs that grow between my visits. The freezer is now well stocked with tomato sauce for the winter months ahead and the butternut squash are ripening and ever so tasty - I do love butternut squash season.
Here we had the new moon on Saturday, what a relief, I don't know about anyone else but I felt the power of is this time around, usually I don't notice it so much, but there was certainly something going on out there and in me too!!
Anyhow a lovely sunny day awaits and time to go practice being quiet and still!
With love and gratitude.
xx
Did I love well?
October already! Quite crazy how quickly time is now flying by and still I am wearing my flip flops, what wonderful warm autumnal weather we have had recently, long may it continue. Not sure if that means we will have a really cold winter, regardless it is lovely to have an extended summer, so to speak. Mind you the nights are drawing in and the lights are definitely needed during Yoga in the evenings.
I am 33 weeks pregnant tomorrow, in theory another 7 weeks to go. I never really understood this until being pregnant, that you are actually, per the medical way of thinking, 40 weeks pregnant when you reach full term, which equates to 10 months rather than 9. Even then there is no guarantee you will birth at 40 weeks and more often than not women go over the 40 weeks, after all we are all different.
This is one of the reason's I personally feel it is important not to get too attached to the due date. After all the baby will come when it is ready (as I understand it, when the lungs are fully formed and ready to breathe in the outside world, a hormone is released that triggers labour) and being told that you are due on a certain date and then finding you have to keep going can be challenging, mentally and emotionally as much as anything else.
Anyhow 33 weeks and my tummy is challenged with all the stretching it needs to do to allow for the amazing growth that is currently taking place. The baby is still creating quite a bit of movement but he/she has less room so it is not as intense as it used to be. Reassuring all the same however. You start to notice patterns too, and if these continue when he/she is delivered then 10pm is going to be an active part of the evening for us, let alone the 4am shuffle!!
I am noticing that it is more of a struggle to get my leg forward on my Yoga mat now, inevitable really, but still so wonderful to be teaching, not least because I forget about everything else for a few hours, but my body gets to move and with that the back ache dissipates. needless to say the back ache is worst when I am at my desk at work and gives me a good excuse to go and lull around in the swimming pool or bath each day!!
It is quite incredible the changes that go on in a woman's body during the course of pregnancy. I doubt my body will ever be quite the same again! Still I do love it, and will no doubt miss the bump when the baby is delivered, but at the same time I am quite keen to meet him/her and introduce him/her to this marvellous world we live in and learn all I can from this brand new being, who has taught me so much already. It is true that our practice is right here in front of us, pregnancy has certainly proved that to me.
In fact they say that pregnancy throws up all sorts of things, so that stuff you have gone through previously and you thought has been done and dusted, healed then, comes right back at you again, so old scars start itching, old allergies re-appear, I can certainly vouch for that one, I think I spent a month just sneezing, and old emotional stuff too, and again I can vouch for that one, I thought the anger has dissipated a long time ago but no, there is was, the odd anger bout again! Of course you can blame the hormones but it does feel as if a deeper healing is taking place, aligning yourself with your self in preparation for the new beginnings, open heart, ready to love unconditionally in a way you never thought possible...or so I am led to believe...
There has been a lot of reflection too, about life, how it has been, the journey we have found our self taking, and of course some thought to the future, which isn't all together very healthy as this is so unknown, and with the unknown often comes fear. So it is perhaps good timing to find myself reading another book by the inspiring jack Kornfield. There is a chapter called "Did I love well?" and in that a very interesting few paragraphs that we could all do with reading, because this is surely what it is all about, the rest, well the rest is just what happens along the path...
"In undertaking a spiritual life, what matters is simple: We must make certain that our path is connected with our heart...In the end spiritual life is not a process of seeking or gaining some extraordinary condition or special powers. In fact such seeking can take us away from ourselves. If we are not careful, we can easily find the great failures of our modern society - its ambitions, materialism, and individual isolation - repeated in our spiritual life.
In beginning a genuine spiritual journey, we have to stay much closer to home, to focus directly on what is right here in front of us, to make sure that our path is connected with our deepest love...
When we ask, "Am I following a path with heart?" we discover that no one can define for us exactly what our path should be. Instead, we must allow the mystery and beauty of this question to resonate within our being. Then somewhere within us an answer will come and understanding will arise. If we are still and listen deeply, even for a moment, we will know if we are following a path with heart.
It is possible to speak with our heart directly. Most ancient cultures know this. We can actually converse with our heart as if it were a good friend. In modern life we have become so busy with our daily affairs and thoughts that we have forgotten this essential art of taking time to converse with our heart. When we ask it about our current path, we must look at the values we have chosen to live by. Where do we put our time, our strength, our creativity, our love? We must look at our life without sentimentality, exaggeration, or idealism. Does what we are choosing reflect what we most deeply value?".
And on that note I shall leave us to reflect as I take to my mat and enjoy the background sound of the rain cleansing the earth as we step one day closer to the new moon on Saturday.
With gratitude,
x
Nature and healing
What a contrast of weather this weekend, from dull and foggy on Saturday to blissful summer temperatures on Sunday. We tried to make the most of it yesterday, such a rare treat to find yourself celebrating Mabon, and the Autumnal Equinox on such an incredibly beautiful day.
We managed a swim at high tide down at Petit Bot, bliss, only us, which again is a true blessing to living on this Island and awakening early. The tides are high at the moment, which makes for a very quick entry, we swam at high tide on Saturday too, and probably because the air temperature was cooler than day, the sea felt warmer. Needless to say it makes for a refreshing beginning to the day, and opportunity to clear our the nasal passages - who needs a neti pot when you have the whole ocean at your feet...or nose - before a lovely warm shower to invigorate the skin.
I cycled to pregnancy Yoga through the quiet lanes, it is lovely to be out and about on Sunday mornings when the roads are so much quieter than usual. There were 3 new people at the class, which served as a good reminder to me of how nerve wracking it really can be beginning Yoga. One of the ladies was particularly nervous and while the teacher did her best to out the lady at ease, reminding us all that Yoga is non-competitive in approach, you start where you are at and work with your breath to encourage ease to your body and mind, it did make me realise how easy it is to forget - when you have a regular Yoga practice - that we do live in this world of perceived good/bad, wrong/right etc etc.
Of course one of the many joys of Yoga is that it helps us to let go of these judgements a little, not least in terms of judging oneself, but also in terms of deciding if something is indeed good or bad, because often this changes over time. It is the same with our practice, in so much as when we begin perhaps there are poses that we find more challenging, or that we feel we really can't do (whatever that really means) and yet over time that does indeed change so that we find it becomes our favourite pose and that we can practice it with some ease. Yoga reminds us that everything is impermanent and subject to change and best to let go of this fixed mind and be open to all possibilities.
As for beginning Yoga, however, the judgement, especially to self, is so deeply grained that many may contact and express an interest in attending Yoga, but never mange to make it through the door. They have limited themselves before they have even begun. And I am not saying that Yoga is a boon for everyone, we all have a way of finding our peace and journey to enlightenment, but it does sadden me a little that we don't even give ourselves a chance, that life has already make us decide that there is no changing to be done, or indeed undone. And some do bravely make it through the door, but spend the whole session comparing themselves to others that they never return again.
We followed Yoga with another trip down to Petit Bot to have a quick catch up with the family, the sun beginning to break through, low tide now, such a lovely beach when it is so quiet as it was yesterday! And from there on to Lihou Island for the annual duck racing fundraiser. So much fun, especially for the children and of course a great way of bringing everyone together. I do love Lihou and the fact you feel like you are getting away form it a little. It was super hot and we walked around the Island and sat and watched the sea, a low pressure must be on its way as the waves are building. The colours were amazing, such a richness to the light at this time of year.
Back on Guernsey and we walked around St Germain Nature Reserve trying to find some blackberries. What a gem this place is. The whole time we were there we only saw one other woman. It is just so peaceful and so vibrant in energy. It reminded me of an article I had read in the "Style" section of the Sunday Times earlier that day. In it there was is an article entitled, "My choice" about a lady who chooses a natural approach to treating cancer. It reads,
"When Bond was researching her book, she found several common traits among people who had managed to beat cancer on their terms - the ability to overcome the fear of death and dying being one of them. "There are practical steps, like mindfulness and not getting caught up in catastrophic thoughts about the future", She says, "And being out in nature, where you feel part of the bigger picture". One doctor told her that faith in what they were doing "creates a sense of relaxation, and that's when healing occurs. If you're afraid, pumped full of adrenalin and cortisol, these conditions aren't conducive to healing".
Now I have heard this many times before, I know it to be true from my own healing, not from cancer necessarily, but healing nonetheless. In fact only that morning the pregnancy teacher was talking about the need to remain calm while giving birth to prevent the fear taking control and causing all sorts of problems with the shift in hormone levels. This is true. And this is the joy of mindfulness, of breathing mindfully, of Reiki, of Yoga, of all these healing modalities that, essentially, encourage one to relax, thereby helping to create the environment for healing to take place.
But the other point that struck me about the article, that again I know to be true from my own experiences and that I try to impart on others, especially those experiencing depression, anxiety or a general shut down to life and its possibilities, is to get out into nature, because that truly does help to get our feet back on the ground and remind us of the bigger picture and our part within that. And what better place than St Germain Nature reserve. I tell you, there is something extra especially powerful about the energy up there, all that new life perhaps and the views of the fields and the trees and the sea in the distance. So if you do find yourself feeling under the weather, and even if you don't, then take yourself up there and enjoy some quite moments.
But talking of healing, I was reading Pema Chodron's wonderful book, "Living Beautifully" in between activities yesterday and there was a bit that struck me as it seemed to fit in nicely with my thought processes at the moment about how people can often get stuck in their spiritual practice, or their healing too. You see it regularly, people moving from one modality to the other, from one perceived wonderful healer to another, hoping that by seeing said wonderful healer, their whole life will be changed, their problems resolved and all done for them by someone else. Nope, not going to happen. All that does happen is you spend an awful lot of money searching for the miracle cure, that is actually within yourself, if only you could stop giving your power away to others. Only it is more than that too, and Pema knocks it on the head when she writes:
"Wanting to escape pain is the reason that many people start on a spiritual path. It can be a good motivator, because it drives us to look for answers. The problem is, most of us spend our entire life going from one promise to another, never staying with the pain long enough to learn anything from it".
I was reminded of this again last night at the lovely NCT RSB Yoga session with Anita where we held practice contractions, basically sitting against a wall without a chair so that your thigh muscles burn and scream at you to move away. The idea is that you breathe into the discomfort, as you would do during a contraction, and accept the pain (and fear that sometimes goes with it) rather than running away from it, as this will often make it worse. In fact this is another one of the joys of Yoga really, that you stay with what is arising, be that your thighs screaming at you, or your hips in pigeon pose and you breathe and over time you notice how the sensation changes, pain changes, it transforms into something else. And then it is over, it happened, time to move on, impermanence, just like nature, everything changes, more warm weather today, next week it will no doubt be cold again, today leaves on trees, next week they could all have been shed.
I shall leave you with Pema's wonderful words:
"May we all learn that pain is not the end of the journey, and neither is delight. We can hold them both - indeed hold it all - at the same time, remembering that everything in these quixotic, unpredictable, unsettled and unsettling, exhilarating and heart-stirring times is a doorway to awakening in sacred world".
With much love x