Nepalese Time by Emma(2007)

Rhyme, rhyme, Nepalese time.

Slow, slow, we wait, we wait.

Muddy road, Western faces.

There is random rhyme to this pace.

Endless and slow, we wait, we wait,

An entrance to India, make haste, make haste.

Prayer, prayer, on the wings of life.

Slow, slow, beyond time, beyond space

On the wings of angels, we wait, we wait,

an entrance to poverty and yet more strife.

Endless and slow, Western white faces.

An entrance to India, we wait, we wait.

The yamas and the niyamas

In Patanjali's yoga Sutra, the eight limb path is called ashtanga, which means "eight limbs". Essentially these eight steps act as guidelines on how to live a meaningful, purposeful and committed life. they promote andoral, ethical and self-disciplined approach to life, they direct attention towards one's health an acknowledge the spiritual aspects to one's nature.

The eight limbs include yama, niyama, asana, pranayama, pratyahara, dharana, dhyana and Samadhi.  Most practitioners are familiar with asana (postures) and pranayama (breathing exercises) but know very little about the other limbs.  Here I have set out a little about the first two limbs, the foundations, yama and niyamas which are ethical and spiritual practices:

The five yamas are primary yogic values, principles and observances – essentially ethical foundations for living one’s life.  The five yamas include:

• Ahimsa is often translated as non-violence, but it is not just about avoiding violence.   It is about having consideration for all beings and living in a way that causes as little harm as possible.  Yoga wishes happiness for all beings and respects the sacred nature of all life. This is reflected in yogic prayers and chants for universal peace.
• Satya is truthfulness in the deepest sense of the word.  We should be true to ourselves and to others, and speak the truth. We should approach the world with pure intentions, promoting the cause of truth in the world in our actions and expressions.
• Asteya is non-stealing so that we only take what is freely given, to take only what is needed in life, to live simply. Further we should not take credit for what we have not actually done.  In the highest sense, nothing belongs to us, we are only stewards of nature’s resources.
• Brahmacharya refers to the proper usage of our sexual energy, which has great power not only for creation but also for destruction of applied carelessly.  Thus unless we use this energy in a conscious manner, much pain and suffering will be caused in the world.
• Aparigraha is often challenging to translate but equates to non-possessiveness.  This means not accumulating any unnecessary possessions outwardly or inwardly, being able to step back and to watch and to observe what we grasp for.  Further the mental side is also important, because even if we may not physically possess something, we may still hold or cling to it in our thoughts and emotions.

As for the five Niyamas these are more internally focused than the Yamas.  They are five basic attitudes behind yoga practice, ways of holding, conserving and internalising our energies. The Niyamas include:

• Tapas means discipline and is a conscious commitment to an aim and staying with it through all distracting desires and obstacles. Tapas refers to the inner heat or fire of yoga that can develop higher capacities within us and arises from our own inner seeking.  Essentially it includes the austerity or self-control necessary to turn our awareness within.
• Svadhyaya comprises self-study and getting to know the self. It is understood that we have much potential in our life but we cannot use it without the ability to see inside ourselves. In the broadest sense it means fulfilling one’s individual dharma, or purpose in life.
• Ishvara pranidhana appears throughout the Yoga Sutras as a prime principle of devotion to the divine presence. It is a consecration of our energy to the cosmic power – taking shelter in this supreme state.
• Saucha refers to purity in the broadest sense of the term, purity of body, speech and mind. This means engaging in things that are purifying including a vegetarian diet.
• Santosha is inner contentment so that we should be content with what we have outwardly, finding our true happiness within – practicing contentment in all life.

Chop chopping - the spiritual ego again

My Mum tried to point it out to me a few weeks ago but of course I wouldn't listen, well I did listen, but I thought she was talking a load of rubbish, isn't that what everyone does these days, pontificates on blog postings?!

But the thing is, it played on my mind, I just couldn't shake it and so I suppose it really wasn't a coincidence a few days later to find myself lying on a treatment couch with Jo the marvellous osteopath, having my legs 'grounded' when I heard myself saying that it was much easier to be up in my head than down in my legs and Jo laugh and agree, and comment on the trouble being that that often leads to the spiritual ego taking a hold.  Spiritual ego, what was that?!

So perhaps it wasn't a coincidence to be talking to the wonderful Dr Deepika, an Ayurvedic doctor in Surrey who I have been seeing on and off for about 10 years now, so that we now have quite a relationship and she is beyond doubt a direct and honest spiritual teach for me. So I posed the question and yes, that's exactly what's going on.  My spiritual ego has been in full swing.  And I have been in denial.

Yikes!

The thing is I can see it so clearly in others. But it is so difficult to identify in oneself.  Although now I come to think about it, the signs were clearly there!

As Dr Deepika so succinctly explained.  We 'spiritually orientated bods' can sometimes - completely unconsciously, as in totally unintentionally - get caught up in the spiritual ego so rather than remembering that ALL of us are merely a conduit for the Divine to express itself in the world, we get caught up in ourselves and before we know it we have our heads quite intensely stuck up our bums, our ego expands (but we are spiritual so we are in denial of this) rather than shrinks...we think we have become someone, rather than becoming no one, which is where this is all - ultimately - heading.

As Dr Deepika reminded me:

 "Before enlightenment, chop wood, carry water. After enlightenment, chop wood, carry water"

"Get chopping", she said, Which made me laugh a little because Elijah is always 'chop chopping', well 'cut, cutting' but same thing.  He likes to cut cut his home-made play dough with his plastic scissors or, sometimes, use a proper knife to cut cut a pear or apple or something.  He is so focused when he does this, it really is his meditation in action as Dr Deepika was insinuating.  But more than that, she means get right down into the root, cook, look after the family, do the washing, mop the floor, be present in all that you do.  It sounds so easy, but I know it can be so difficult in practice - so much easier to float around on a yoga mat or meditation pillow!  And herein the practice.

So with my tail between my legs I humbly identified with the spiritual ego and I though, 'heck I've done it again'. Oh well.  Clearly time to get down low and play tractors with Elijah and get chopping some vegetables for a lovely winter soup, oh and drink a large glass of wine!

For you beautiful ladies

I've a hard time dealing with the death of people before their time.

A few many years ago now a lovely lady and neighbour came to me for Reiki.  She had cancer from which she was recovering, only that it came back again and despite the Reiki and the other treatment she was receiving she still lost her fight for life and with that her teenage children lost a mother and her husband a wife.

Her passing had a huge impact on me.  She used to swim at Saints Bay with her friends and if you go there you will know that there is a rock to your left that looks like the hand of someone showing his or her fingers up to the world.  Before she got too sick to swim, my beautiful lady would swim with her friend in the early morning and sit and drink champagne and feel some sense of connection with that hand as she wanted to stick her fingers up to the world too.

So did I when she died and I must admit that every time we go to Saints - which funnily enough is a regular thing for us these days - I always think of her and I take great comfort in those finger rocks!  In any event after her passing, I took a break from channelling Reiki because I figured it didn't work anyhow right, because after all she died.

A few months later I received Reiki myself, from a lady who also channels from the other side.  And she channelled for me that day and I was told that a beautiful lady wanted to talk to me, to reassure me that the Reiki had helped her enormously, brought her a lot of comfort and that she was ok, safe on the other side and that I was to start practicing Reiki again. Mind blowing really, but so comforting,  I remember that experience like it was yesterday.  I still think of that lady reguallry and the impact she had had on my life.

It was a few years later and over some wine that I was having a deep conversation with our lodger at the time who was a palliative care nurse, and we were talking about healing and death and she reminded me, or educated me I guess, that healing does not necessarily mean getting better.  This was lost on me.  As a healer, I expected people to heal, make changes, live another way, learn lessons, get better, move on, do whatever it took to - essentially - LIVE. But alas here she was giving me a totally different perspective and while it comforted me a little it also horrified me that healing did not necessarily mean living happily and forever after and I had to take some time to process and accept this.

But it was hard for me.  And the passing of Sue most certainly pulled the rug from under my feet.

I met Sue in Goa when I attended a yoga retreat led by her and my most special yoga teacher, Emil.  While Emil led us through the more contemplative, philosophical and meditative part of the 2 week retreat, Sue led us through the asana and the kitan and the dancing.  She was full of life and confrontational with it too.  I'll never forget the skinny dipping night when she pulled off all her clothes at the outdoor pool and dared us to bare ourselves whole, us Brits and Swiss had more of a problem with this than the other Europeans and hid under water!

I invited her to Guernsey and she came and stayed and led a weekend intensive with lots of asana, devotional singing and dancing and I will always remember leaping around St Peter's hall and one of my fellow attendees having such sore calves from all the dancing that she couldn't attend the next morning, let alone the poor solitary man who decided the female vibe was too much for him. So too the deep conversations we had and the pouring of souls and the richness of her eyes and her vibrancy and inspiration for life.

Sue joined a few of us for a meal and the family for walks and happy times on the Sunday so that we all connected on some level and we vowed to stay in touch and she was keen to help with aretreat on Guernsey.  We stayed in contact following the weekend, but life shifted and mine was focused on conceiving Elijah and hers, I was later to discover, was focused on saving her own life. So actually the contact became silent and despite sharing the joy of Elijah's birth, I never heard a word back. I know now the reason for this because 10  months later later I heard the announcement of her passing.  Rug was pulled.

I could NOT get my head around the fact she had died.  She was Ewan's age, late 40s and vibrant and beautiful and a dedicated yogini who set up yoga on a shoe string and oozed beauty and loveliness and was just such a special alive person.  Dead.

I just could not process it. It really affected me. She led an ultra clean life, she practiced daily, it was her life.  She sang devotional chants in the most beautiful way, she was a yogini nomad travelling to share her joy, to die from stage 5 breast cancer, it made no sense.

I found a video of her at a cancer conference, in which she said that there was more at work than diet, or thinking or whatever it may be, that she had the healthiest lifestyle, that she did weeks of juicing and other alternative nutritional therapies, positive thinking, a lot of processing of the issues she had from her childhood and all sorts of things, and then chemo and then all sorts of other allopathic things and yet she was STILL was called to the other side.

It left me broken really. Not that this is about me.  But it blew my healing world to pieces and I felt sad that I never got to say goodbye and thank you to such a shining light. She was all I ever could imagine being, so dedicated to the practice, to the nomadic yogini world and to the children she helped. So now, here, Sue, thank you. I listen regularly to your kirtan CD and sometimes I sing and sometimes it reduces me to tears. 

I re-read a book recently by Caroline Myss called "Why People Don't Heal and How they Can", to remind me a little.  Because some people don't want to heal, I see this a lot, some people derive so much attention from their illness that they do not want to lose that attention by getting better ( we talk about this in Reiki 1).  So too others derive their whole identity from their sickness that they have not idea how or indeed who else to be, it is their story, but also the person they have chosen to be.  I am sure we all know one of each of these.

And then there are others, for whom healing means a gentle passing to the other side. They are no longer meant for this world. And Reiki and reflexology and massage and counselling and whatever else it may be, helps them to come to terms with their next step to the other world.

And I understand this now, as a healer, I get that healing does not mean necessarily getting better.  It can. And for many the healing journey is profound and awakening and life enhancing and indeed life prolonging. But for others, it is simply a comfort and a coming to terms with, and an acceptance of, their dying from this world and their transition into the next.

There should be some comfort from that recognition.

Yesterday a most beautiful lady passed on to the other side.  She was still so young and she leaves behind two daughters who are 7 and 3.  She attended a yoga retreat with me in Herm a few years ago now with her two friends so that united they were the 3 witches. It was here, on Herm, that she discovered the joy of Reiki and she went on to study to Master Level and during the course of her illness she embraced all alternative healing modalities and nutritional therapies.

It was her path I suppose, not that that concept will bring much comfort to her family and to the daughters who will grow up without their Mum. And I have to dig deep if I am honest to trust that this is how it is meant to be, that there is a reason for everything, and that all will be well in the end. But the practice assures me of this.  It does. We practice to put into practice moments like this.  Perhaps it s a cop out, but it eases the pain in my chest and calms my tears.

Earlier on today my Mum (as only Mum's can) told me that she had read a few of my blog postings and complained that I pontificate and preach a little. I don't mean to, I just love writing and I like to share.  But regardless, it is at times like this that I think, it is all relative anyway. Death has a habit of stripping back the layers so that we are raw and exposed. This is how it is. Life. Death. This is another wakeup call on the back of so many recently, to remind me that it is not about going out and getting wrecked, or living life precariously or dangerously, or on an edge, but to love. just love. Just love yourslef. Just love everyone.

No pontificating, merely an observation that perspectives shift.

Always. Ever. Is. Love.

Love, love, love.

F - love and peaceful passing beautiful lady - Namaste.

x

So it was both a shock and a comfort to hear her words.  That for some, like

Jill's chunky winter warming soup

Ingredients

• 1 onion finely chopped
• A mixture of veg to taste, chopped into pieces about the size of end of little finger.  We used celery, pepper, sweet potato, baby sweet corn, carrot, calabrese, courgette, aubergine, green beans and peas.  About a fistful of each.
• A jar of passata.  We used our own roasted and puréed tomatoes.
• 2 or 3 tins coconut milk
• 2 level teaspoons ground cumin
• 2 level teaspoons ground coriander
• 1 level teaspoon turmeric
• 2 level dessert spoons vegetable stock powder.
• Olive oil

Method

• Prepare vegetables.
• Mix spices with enough water to form a paste.
• Using a couple of tablespoons of olive oil, fry the onion over medium heat until it is translucent.  Clear space in middle of pan and add spice paste.  Fry for a few minutes, stirring frequently.  Addpassata, then coconut milk from 2 of the tins (wash each tin out with 2/3 water and add to pan).  Stir well to combine, then add vegetable stock powder and all vegetables.   Bring to the boil stirring frequently and then lower to a simmer for about 30 mins, depending on whether you like your vegetables to have a little 'bite' or not.
• If it seems too tomato'ey, add the 3rd can of coconut milk.
• I have not specified adding salt, as I try not to, but you can of course add if you like.

Enjoy x