Warming butternut squash soup

I had a request for vegan soup...and the next day along came a cookery book put together to raise some money for the Cheshire Homes here on Guernsey and in that book I came across a recipe for a  warming butternut squash soup that could be adapted to ensure it is vegan...which I made and we enjoyed for supper this evening, yummy indeed (despite Elijah's facial expression!!!).  So here it is:

Ingredients

1kg/2lb squash
1 large onion
Olive oil
2 apples
3 sticks of celery
800ml/11/2 pints of vegetable stock
1 tsp curry powder
1 bay leaf
1 clove of garlic
salt and pepper

How to make

Peel and cut the squash into 1cm cubes and brush with olive oil.  Cook on top shelf of oven at 200 degrees c/gas 6 for 40/45 minutes until well tinged on edges;

Chop onion, celery and apple.  Cook on a low heat for 10 minutes with olive oil and bay leaf.

Add crushed garlic and curry powder and cook for 2 minutes.

Add cooked squash, seasoning and vegetable stock.

Simmer for 30 minutes. Pulp with a masher and serve.

Enjoy! x

Happy bonfire night!

Happy bonfire night! How did that happen, it is already the first week of November with another full moon tomorrow night, phew this year is flying be, I can hardly believe Elijah will be one next week!  Still, I do love seeing the bonfire, all that light, let alone the potentially sleepy effect of watching flames - a little like tratak, the Hatha Yoga cleansing technique to literally cleanse the eyes and also to induce sleep, now this is something I need!!

It has been an interesting time recently.  I enjoyed my first night away from Elijah with a fleeting trip to London with my Dad to watch Van Morrison play in the Royal Albert Hall.  This was amazing, not least Van the Man but also the opportunity to read my book while travelling (opposed to entertaining small child!), enjoy a yoga class at TriYoga in Soho and do some shopping with only myself to think about.  Of course it was fabulous to spend time with Dad too, this is something we have done every year for a while now except for last year when I was pregnant so that we have watched quite a few bands now, and enjoyed some father/daughter bonding in the process.

I doubt I shall be going away again on my own anytime soon though, Elijah missed his Mummy and Daddy was quite exhausted by all the wake up calls.  Yes, almost a year on, and I am still getting woken quite a few times a night.  If someone had told me this time last year that I would not get to have a whole night sleep for a whole year plus, I would have wondered how I would survive.  But you do.  Somehow.  Some nights are better than others and I guess those must help to keep me sane.  A few bad nights on a trot (we are on our third tonight) does challenge the ability to think clearly at work, let alone access any memory.  We try and laugh and remember that this is not forever.  And each evening there is hope that he may sleep a little better!

Swimming in the sea has become a touch more challenging of late, although it feels really rather warm for this time of year.  We do love going down to Petit Bot the three of us.  Often we have the beach to ourselves, which is fab, and we take it in turns to go in the sea while one of us hangs out with Elijah, who just loves the beach. There is something so magical about being here n our own, not least the liberating nature of changing without worrying about covering yourself with a towel, but so too the way in which you feel so connected to the nature of it all.  We always feel alive when we leave - and that is not just due to submerging ourselves in the sea!!!

I have been working on my grounding the last few months and accepting the need for routine.  As is always the case, when you finally let go of the old and accept the new, you find it really rather works for you, so that I am thoroughly enjoying having the evenings to myself after years of teaching yoga most evenings, and I am relishing cooking and nourishing myself and my family with food. We are fortunate to still be getting goodies from the folks' greenhouse, they have the most amazing Satsuma tree, literally covered this year.  I haven't quite managed to chant while cooking just yet, but that it is my intention eventually, to really imbue our food with some extra energy.

I have been chanting in my own practice though, having let this go for some time.  I do love to chant and I find it very powerful.  I particularly enjoy chanting with others and only wish we had a chanting group over here who meet more regularly than 3 times a year.  There is so much healing power in sound, quite incredible really, although very confrontational for people too.

I have been giving some thought to the confronting nature of yoga generally and I have written an article which touches on this a little.  You can find it on my website, "I want to get back to yoga but...".  I just had this creative urge and managed to write two articles, I suspect it is the effect of all the Ayurvedic herbs I am taking, bringing something up and out, or just the time of year...

On that note I realise I could waffle for hours, a combination of the creative urge and the full moon energy, plus of course the wiring nature of fireworks.  But it is indeed time to sleep.

Until next time, keep well.

Much gratitude.

x

Aram Raffy comes to Guernsey

Amazing, amazing, amazing. 

I am so grateful to Aram Raffy for taking time out to fly across the channel and come and join us here in Guernsey ton share his passion (and indeed mine) for Vinyasa yoga.  Breathe, flow, breathe, move, breathe, present, breathe, be, breathe, accept, breathe, sweat, breathe, here, breathe, challenge, breathe, laugh, breathe, feel so wired that you need to calm down before bed a little, breathe, move, breathe, still, breathe, mind, breathe, spirit, breathe, body, breathe, laughter, feel so wired after class the next morning that you keep going all day and all evening,  happy natural highs, doesn't get much better, next day can hardly move but you are still grinning.  I LOVE VINYASA YOGA.

Aram is a joy.  I stumbled across him a few years ago now on one of my many trips to London a where I just happen upon a yoga class...I loved his style and energy and returned again taking Ewan with me on my next trip and he loved the class too. Intrigued as I was to his background I came across reference to his teacher, Stewart Gilchrist, who happened to be running a workshop on one of my next trips to London.  So I chanced upon it and was positively blown away by the similarity to my own teacher, Lance Shuler, albeit their accents are very different - Stewart Scottish and Lance Australian (well New Zealand technically).

Still, it was a joy to bring Aram to the Island and share him with many local students - and manage a couple of classes myself without having to traipse across the Channel!  I have received a whole heap of positive feedback from Aram's time here, so that I am hopeful we can bring him back again - it is not everyday we have access to such a dedicated, energetic and well practised yogi who is male too, such a treat over here where most of us yoga teachers are female.

It has all come at a good time too.  There are signs everywhere of the lessons to learn always.  We just have to be receptive to them, that is the challenge!  Still I cannot help noticing how often I have been reminded of the need for selfless practicing - dedicating our practice, our life then, for the benefit of others.  It is always much easier said than done, but how liberating, to get ourselves out of the way.  I love what the Dalai Lama says about this:

"We are visitors on this planet. We are here for ninety or one hundred years at the very most. During that period, we must try to do something good, something useful with our lives. If we contribute to other people's happiness, you will find the true goal, the true meaning of life".

I love even more that we can give so selflessly through yoga, to share the gift of yoga, to try to be useful in doing so.  This blows my mind and makes me feel very happy to be alive.

Thank you so much Aram for showing up and teaching and taking the time.  Please come back soon!!

As for the after effects, it did make me chuckle that the last two nights when I have been so wired, little monkey Elijah has slept badly, perhaps wired off the wired energy of my milk.  Funny, but not so funny when you long for sleep!!!  But still, this kind of practice makes you feel so clean, so energised and clean, and centred and grounded and balanced and present and all those wonderful things.  Like Aram and indeed Patthabi Jois says, it is all about the practice.  That is all you have to do, just show up and practice (and the turning up for many is the challenge).

I must admit that I was aching though, my muscles are not used to working so hard - strange now to think I practiced to that level every day for the 6.5 weeks of my teacher training in Byron Bay, wow, no wonder I felt to hug a tree each morning!  Still a swim in the sea and Epsom salt bath this evening should sort things out...well here is hoping!

So thank you again Aram, please do come back and perhaps bring Stewart too, it would be a delight.

With love, light and ever so much gratitude.

xx

Jill's tomato, vegetable and lentil soup

This is a super yummy soup that we enjoyed at the recent Reiki One Attunement Session, courtesy of my Mum.

Over to Mum...

I don't measure the ingredients exactly but I use 2 pans.  In one are just half an onion with chopped up tomatoes and in the other one is about the same volume of chopped vegetables.

So, ingredients:-

Pan 1

Assorted tomatoes - or whatever you have got, chopped very roughly.

1/2 large onion peeled and chopped.
A little olive, veg or sunflower oil

 Pan 2

Your choice of:-

Carrot

Parsnip

Courgette

Celery

Sweetcorn      All chopped to uniform size, about little finger nail size

Calabrese

Sweet potato

Butternut squash

Etc....

1/2 large onion chopped and about 1/2 cup red lentils. A little olive, veg or sunflower oil. Vegetable stock - either home made or powder/cube etc. Large sprig or sprigs thyme.

So, in pan one, fry onion in oil until just going translucent, then tip in all roughly chopped tomatoes and simmer covered until tomatoes are really well cooked (about 20 mins).

Meanwhile in pan 2 fry onion in oil until translucent then tip in all 'hard' vegetables and enough vegetable stock to cover.  Simmer for about 10 mins and then tip in rest of veg, red lentils and sprigs of thyme.  Simmer for another 10 mins ensuring still covered by enough liquid.

At end of 20 mins of tomatoes simmering in pan 1, take off heat and blitz with wand blender until smooth.  Tip in contents of pan 2 (remove sprigs of thyme) and stir well.  Season with salt/pepper to taste.

Enjoy!

Healing

It has been some time since I last posted...in fact funnily enough it was just after the Reiki One attunement and just as we were beginning our 21 day cleansing period.  Phew, this some cleansing period, I am feeling it more this time than I have ever done previously, probably not helped by the unsettling nature of the recent full moons, which have well and truly shaken things up and thrown light on the shadow side...there is no more escaping.

Funny how you can be so unintentionally unaware of the fact that you have outgrown the life you have been living, so that it no longer fits.  I mean you know something isn't quite right, but you do not realise what it is, until the moon and Reiki and yoga help to make it clear, let alone the angels who are trying to get your attention along the way.

So the words that have appeared in my life these last few weeks have been alignment - no surprise that my neck has been out of alignment at the same time that my outer life is out of alignment with my inner truth - and nurture, or the need to nurture. And with that the realisation that we can continue to live as we are living, but it will not bring us the feelings of happiness, peace and security that we  are seeking.  It is a bit like that wonderful quote, "if you always do what you have always done, then you will always get what you have always gotten".

The process of change, or transformation then, is never easy, and the best thing is to get yourself out of the way.  Only that you have such a vested interest in the process that this is easier said than done.  I like to think that it is an uncasing, that a part of you is no longer needed, the old stuff, a layer can come off, but the coming off is the hard bit, because we have a habit of wanting to hold on.

So I have dig deep and been very fortunate to support the journey with some reflexology, acupuncture, Ayurveda, Reiki and chiropractor work, let alone my daily yoga practice and a powerful Vedic chanting session with  a visiting yoga session.  Plus of course the ears of some good and trusted friends.

So life has been a bit of a challenge this last few weeks not helped with the seasonal virus circulating the family - funny how this happens in Autumn, a release of all that phlegm and helping the transition from summer to autumn.  Elijah is still not sleeping more than 2-3 hours at a time at night either, and the collective 11 months of sleep deprivation does finally feel very heavy on my eyes and indeed spirit...but I am reminded that this too will pass.

It all sounds a little down and out, but really life is full of so many blessings - this healing is a blessing, even though it does not feel it at the time.  But really this is the joy of Reiki, and indeed yoga, but Reiki especially this time, that it helps to bring us closer to our truth, to align our inner and outer worlds, to empower us to make changes so that that which no longer serves us drops off, and so we may grow a little stronger and committed to the path.  And there is a lot of learning in the process - of healing, cells, energy, mind and body. 

I am hoping that the more we can all hold to the truth and to the light, the more this will help to balance the imbalance of darkness and light in this world.  There is so much darkness in the news these days and usually I try to ignore it, put my head in the sand, but it has been difficult to ignore, that I find it distressing, which actually serves no use either.  So I figure all I can do is pray and practice and chant and open my heart and smile and share light where I can and try and make myself a better person so that this can be a better world to live in.  All we can do is try.  And when we fall down, pick ourselves up and try again...and again...and again.

On that note I am off to bed...sleep is indeed the greatest cure of all.

With much love and light

Emma x