My New Book, Namaste, is out now!

Here it is, the book I started writing over 11 years ago now, finally published!

It took me 7 months to complete the first draft before I gave up on it for 7 years, only returning to it following a failed IVF cycle (when I needed more creativity in my life).

It’s gone through many re-writes since then and has been a journey all of itself.

Here’s a little video explaining more about the inspiration behind the book:

The book is available from Amazon and Waterstones - please buy, share and spread the word!

Buy from Amazon here: https://bit.ly/2qP0gFQ

Buy from Waterstones here: https://bit.ly/2RXpxJM

Thank you Nepal for all you have given me xxx

Jill's Gluten, Dairy & Refined Sugar Free Chocolate Cake

Gateau de Nancy

Ingredients:

• 125g Pure Margarine (I prefer the Sunflower one)

• 125g 70% dark chocolate (I use Lindt)

• 4 eggs

• 125g coconut sugar (or brown caster sugar if you don’t mind the sugar content)

• 25g gluten free flour

• ¼ teaspoon baking powder

• 100g ground almonds

Topping:

• 100g 70% chocolate

• 4 tablespoons water

• 30g Pure

Method:

Preheat oven to 150/300 degrees 

1. Cream the Pure using a handheld or electric whisk.

2. Break the chocolate into smallish pieces and melt (either in Bain Marie or microwave – I do it in the microwave – 1 minute on full power and then stir until last few ‘lumps’ disappear).

3. Add chocolate to Pure and mix well.

4. Separate eggs and add just yolks to mix.

5. Add sugar and mix well.

6. Add flour, baking powder and ground almonds.

7. Whisk egg whites until stiff and then fold into mix carefully until combined.

8. I line the base of my tin and wipe the sides with Pure.

9. Bake for 25 to 35 mins (depends on oven I have found), so check after 25 mins until skewer, inserted in middle comes out clean. Don’t overbake!

10. Whilst cake cooking, make topping. Melt chocolate and add Pure and water.  You will find that the mix ‘stiffens’ a little as you add the Pure and water, but just stir or whisk hard until it is smooth and glossy. You can add more water, but do so sparingly.

As soon as cake is cooked, take out of oven and invert on to serving plate and cover immediately with topping (this helps retain its moistness). Leave to cool and enjoy. 

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!

The Herm Autumnal Yoga & Wellbeing Retreat

Mahāvākya – ‘great saying’ 

Om asato mā sadgamáya

-       may I go from what is unreal to what is real 

Om tamaso mā jyotirgamāya

-       may I go from darkness to light 

Om mrtyorma amrtam gamáya

-       may I go from what is passing to what is eternal

This was the beautiful mantra that I chanted in my room on Herm on Friday afternoon with a beautiful view of the sea, just a short while before the boat arrived from Guernsey with the participants of the Beinspired Herm Autumnal Yoga & Wellbeing Retreat.

I’ll admit I needed some grounding and calming. About six weeks ago, Herm management had told us that things were changing in the hotel this retreat, which meant that we were no longer able to use our usual yoga space.  Instead we would be using a darker, and what appeared to me to be a slightly smaller space, and I couldn’t quite let go of the concern about how we were all going to fit in. 

I love Vedic chanting and have been studying it for about 18 months now. I also love Sanskrit and have just started learning this in earnest too. The chant was most definitely helpful in easing my slightly challenged state of mind as that boat arrived, reminding me that energy spent worrying is indeed wasted (one of the Reiki principles is “just for today, do not worry”, so I know this really!) and that what will be will be.

It helped enormously that the sun was shining (and due to continue shining during the weekend) and that I knew I had a wonderful bunch of students attending. It was still a relief however when my wonderful fellow yoga teacher and friend, Vicki, managed to figure out a way of fitting everyone in and we had all settled into the space. 

Needless to say, chant or no chant, the weekend was amazing (I’m biased I know!). 

We had a record number of 19 swimmers for the 7am Saturday morning swim; blissful as the sun began to rise and lightened the sky with a planet (potentially Mars) still twinkling to the south.  I stayed in far too long with Charley and took a good long while to warm up (thanks Charley, fab swim!), but I couldn’t not, as the sun rose into the sky. 

It was Eben’s second birthday that same day, which seemed rather fitting given what happened two years ago on retreat (you’ll have to read my book “Dancing with the Moon” to read about that!). Amazing though to think that this year (quite a contrast to two years ago!) we spent an hour or so late morning on Belvoir Beach, basking in the sunshine and enjoying our second swim of the day…in late October (I doubt he’ll enjoy many birthdays in the UK in shorts and t-shirts on the beach!).

We managed a third swim of the day that same afternoon, this time with Debbi and my Mum, Jill. This reminds me, thank you Mum, I’m very grateful, more biscuits next time though please, ha ha (the joke being I said no to the biscuits and she insisted and they all ran out…I opted for the chocolate and that ran out too!)

Swimming was followed by my favourite session of the weekend, Bhajans, where we sung devotional mantra together. I just adore these sessions, what a treat, with my little helper Elijah dishing out sage and crystals (and interrupting me in the middle of chanting to ask how many dried apricots he was allowed to eat, nothing quite as grounding as having children with you on a retreat!). Regardless of the distraction of Elijah, I felt the tears rising on the Gayatri Mantra, profoundly moving. Thank you ladies. 

The food was astounding throughout the weekend and a huge thank you to the team at the Mermaid for this. The chef really rose to the challenge and produced some incredibly clean and tasty gluten and dairy free vegan food for us so that everyone was able to eat every dish (if they wanted!), including me (I’m still breastfeeding Eben who has insensitivities (read my book to find out why!). It was a real treat, no cooking all weekend, and yummy and healthy food to eat and not an animal killed as a result (lighter energy therefore!).

The yoga was fab, I know I’m biased as I was teaching (!), but I really had a sense that everyone was embracing the opportunity to deepen their practice, not just asana but also pranayama and to really feel into the energy of the practice. That’s what it’s all about really, the energy, and I was really keen that we let go of whatever wasn’t needed over the weekend (“what is not necessary in our lives in this moment…thoughts, people, clothes, behaviour patterns…”).

This morning 13 of us met for another 7am swim…we were joined by a seal.  It was the weirdest thing.  I’ll admit I had found my way onto Facebook at 6.15am as I drank tea and attempted to enjoy some quiet time before the children woke.  It didn’t last long as Eben noticed I wasn’t in the bed, and started crying, but long enough for me to watch a short video that someone had posted of a diver swimming with a seal and stroking said seal…

…as we were entering the sea in the dawn light, it suddenly came to mind that maybe we might see a seal…

…fast forward eight minutes or so and there found Charley, Cate and I swimming out a little deeper than the others when all of a sudden I was made aware that a seal had indeed joined us – the law of attraction!

I turned towards the shore, swimming a little quicker than I had been swimming and trying not to panic! 

I experienced three seal encounters last winter.  One at Shell Beach on Herm when a seal popped up minutes after I got out when I’d been swimming on my own, and then with my sea swimming ladies, once at Saints and another time when the rather large fella got rather close to us at Petit Bot. I’m not entirely comfortable swimming with them, because…hmmm, not sure…fear…teeth…irrational I know. 

Fear aside (silly fear!), it was pretty special though. [Yes, I swam as quickly as I could back to shore, freaked by the seaweed that brushed my leg, “arghhhh”]. 

The last class of the weekend (first thing this morning) was fun.  My energy was hyper (I love Herm, I’d seen a seal, the moon and star shone brightly overhead each night, I slept metres away from the sea - warm in my rather huge bed but close enough to hear the sea lapping the shore- and I just love retreating) so I was well up for the class! It was fun, we breathed, we moved, we laughed and we relaxed!

I’ll admit, soft touch as I am, I had a bit of a lump in my throat as we finished the session.  I love retreating, they might be hard work in preparation, but there is something ever so special about joining together with the common purpose of enjoying yoga and retreating from the rest of the world. The boys love them too, and it helped enormously that my lovely parents were on hand to help Ewan with them. 

It’s been a very special weekend and I’d like to say thank you again to all you wonderful beings who joined me this weekend and it made it such a special one, a huge thank you to my Mum and Dad, and to Ewan and the boys – and I love the fact that some of you have been joining me regularly since the first Herm retreat in 2009!

We only took one photo this year, Vicki took it too, we were very lost in the moment, which can only be a good thing, so apologies to those of you on the retreat that igjt have hoped for more visual recording, but you’ll have to remember how it felt!

Mahāvākya – ‘great saying’

Om asato mā sadgamáya

-       may I go from what is unreal to what is real

Om tamaso mā jyotirgamāya

-       may I go from darkness to light

 Om mrtyorma amrtam gamáya

-       may I go from what is passing to what is eternal

Shifting around the autumnal equinox!

After what was an amazing retreat in Glastonbury, it’s been a little tricky fitting back into “life” in Guernsey this week.  This has not been helped by the rather challenging shifting energy of the autumnal equinox.

I’ve a sense that this equinox is always rather tricky but this year it’s been particularly testing.  And we haven’t even reached D-day just yet!

Work has been especially difficult. Most people don’t realise that I’m a company secretary by profession, working part-time and flexible hours for a wealth management company. Well, this week, the egos have been out in force – I suspect I’m a little more sensitive to it due to Mabon and the Glastonbury experience, but nonetheless, phew, it’s been a touch interesting.

It seems that the fact you have “Head of”, “Director” or some other inane title to define your role means that for some reason you think it’s OK to treat others as if they are less worthy. Umm hello people, we’re all people, right? One day we’re all going to die and titles will be utterly meaningless in the grand scheme of things. People won’t remember us for our job title, they’ll remember us for how loving, compassionate and kind we might have been (and forget us quite quickly if we haven’t been any of these things) and whether we’ve made a difference to people’s lives/the world.

I find it incredible that people – sensible, intelligent, responsible people - can create such a divide within an organisation, and yet not have any awareness of this or the impact on people’s lives, nor on society and the world as a whole. We need to remember that we are all connected and our actions affect everyone, not just those immediate to us. 

We are all the same. Human. People. Living. Breathing. Remember! The sooner we realise this the better for everyone.

I can’t tell you how happy I was yesterday reading about the landmark ruling against two leading drug companies, which could save the NHS hundreds of millions a year. The case centred on the treatment of patients with a common eye condition, wet age-related macular degeneration. Twelve NHS bodies in the north east of England were offering these patients Avastin, a cheaper alternative to the licensed drug, Lucentis. The drug companies were trying to prevent the NHS from doing this. 

Drug company Novartis said they were "disappointed" because patients were being asked to accept an unlicensed treatment to save the NHS money. The truth is, unlicensed or not, the drug was doing the job. Crazy that the drug company thinks the NHS should have to pay more for a drug in the first place – don’t they want to help people? Perhaps they do but clearly making money is much more important.

The pharmaceutical companies have been holding people to ransom for years and putting profit ahead of people’s wellbeing. I don’t doubt that there are scientists working for these companies who truly want to find a cure and make a difference to people’s lives. But I’m also well aware that the bottom line is what is important to these companies. This saddens me beyond belief. People’s lives hang in the balance because of a balance sheet and a profit and loss account.

But sadly this is the very nature of many companies, especially the bigger ones – maximising profits regardless of the ethics. Not only do they put people’s lives at risk for the bottom line, but so many people sell their souls to work in these organisations, trapped because they don’t see they have an option as they have to pay the mortgage. I’ve lost count of the number of times someone tells me that they work for an organisation that they have little interest in, but they feel they have to do it to afford to live.

Perhaps fundamental to this is the fact that we live in a debt-driven society. It keeps the masses controlled so I can’t see this changing any time soon. Ridiculous when you think about it, that so many are sadly and effectively ‘trapped’, spending their lives working in jobs they don’t enjoy to pay mortgages for houses that they rarely inhabit as they’re at work paying for them. But that’s how life has become and there doesn’t really seem to be many options to live differently.

What’s even worse is that many end up sick, suffering with stress, depression, anxiety and/or paranoia as they try to live a life that doesn’t truly suit them. This isn’t helped by the modern pace of life that sees us constantly rushing…always rushing…there’s never enough time, always too much to fit in, too much to do, too many deadlines, too much choice, too much of everything.

And we destroy our beautiful planet in the process of all this rushing, because we don’t have time to do things differently. We put redundant “stuff” in landfill because we can’t be bothered/are too busy to recycle them, we continue to buy products wrapped/held in plastic even though we know we shouldn’t but they’re easy and we’re too busy. We ignore litter at the side of the road because we think it’s someone else’s job and we don’t have time. We clean our houses, our schools, our hospitals and our offices with chemicals that get flushed or washed into the water system.

We’re also too busy rushing that we don’t always have time to look after ourselves, not properly. We don’t have time to grow our own food, or to pop to the veggie stall, choosing some plastic-packaged produce from the nearest shop instead, too busy to cook from fresh, putting foods into our body that have very few nutrients and certainly lack the love of good home cooking cooked by those of a loving heart.  

Then there is the land being utterly destroyed with all the building and the quarrying and the reaping of the natural resources so that we can keep living as we’re doing, and so we can keep rushing. I’ll never forget a little 4-year old boy I met commenting that my car emitted pollution. I was quite taken aback because my car was no different to anyone else’s and then I realised. Yes. My car does excrete pollution. So does his Mummy’s, he wasn’t judging me, just making me aware. Using my car means that I can rush more easily! 

Elijah is fascinated by smoke coming out of a vehicle. On our trip to Glastonbury he was always looking for exhausts with smoke. It was heartening to see so few now really emit smoke, but emit we do. Pollution. Into the air. That we breathe. That nourishes the plants we eat. 

On and on.

We’re living in a way that isn’t sustainable but who really cares? We just keep living the same way because that’s all we know and because that’s how society goes. I can tell you from experience that it’s difficult doing things differently, going against the norm, but perhaps it’s time that we all started doing this a little bit more.

This week it has gotten to me a little bit and I’ve been thinking about the many ways that I don’t live in harmony with my inner truth and with the world as a whole. Plastic is a good example of this. I loathe plastic and seek to reduce my use of this. But still I continue to buy plastic packaged fruits because there is no other option if my sons want to continue to eat the berries they love. I’ve tried to overlook it or make excuses for it, but how can I expect things to change unless I, the consumer, make the change.

I haven’t yet managed to avoid buying the berries, but I was delighted to come across www.theplasticfreeshop.co.uk where I invested in a number of plastic free products including deodorant, toothpaste, dental floss and lunchboxes. I was delighted when my goodies arrived in record time and beautifully packaged and with a thank you note from the lady running the site.

I also finally got around to ordering a starter pack of reusable and environmentally (and vagina) friendly sanitary pads from www.honouryourflow.co.uk. I’ve been meaning to buy these for a while but the initial cost always seemed so high… I wish I hadn’t waited so long because they’ll more than pay for themselves before long. Until now, I’ve tended to use the Natracare range, but I find that they can leak and cause soreness. 

The Bodyform stuff doesn’t leak, but it’s non-environmentally friendly (made entirely of plastic) and definitely creates soreness, especially with that awful scented stuff. So these soft and beautifully packaged and presented pads are a revelation and every menstruating lady should get themselves a starter pack - you get a free couple of goodie things and a thank you note from the owner too. I can’t tell you what a difference these thank you notes have made – people selling products that they actually care about, that come with heart energy, a revelation after the ego events this week!

So while I’ve been a little despondent this week, it has spurred me into action and I’m pleased I’ve finally made some progress to reduce my reliance on plastic - plus there have been many other positives like that drugs case. It seems I’m not alone this week though in becoming increasingly aware of how badly we are treating this planet. I almost laughed out loud therefore when I read the astronomical reading for this week in my moon diary (written at least a year ago);

”The innovative and revolutionary T-square continues to hold between Taurean Uranus, Mars, still in the earliest degrees of humanitarian Aquarius and Venus, now in Scorpio and is guaranteed to bring the shocks and uncertainty that raise adrenalin levels. Evoked by deep-seated anger from the collective, a new awareness is awakening – of the limits of existing attitudes to acquisition, growth and natural resources.”

So it seems it’s in the field and change is afoot.  

Change is afoot in other (and yet related) ways, because the cycle of the wheel is turning and yesterday was the autumnal equinox, when the night time becomes equal to the length of the day time and the sunrise and sunset align exactly east and west. The final fruit harvest time is upon us and root vegetables are now plentiful – it’s time to prepare for the hard winter times ahead.

Some call this the festival of Mabon in honour of the God of Light, son of Modron, for others it is Alben Elfed “the light of water”. The God of Lights is defeated by his twin and alter ego, the God of Darkness, and many stories talk of the gods and goddesses returning to the underworld.

It’s a time of shifting as we too shift to find our new balance. You might feel therefore totally out of balance, and a little all over the place as some of the older ways of being drop away and the new has yet to come in. These periods of transition can be tricky and this is the reason I’m always keen that we’re aware of transitioning in yoga – how we move from one place to the next? This is the reason I love to flow (consciously), not simply focusing on the beginning and the end, but on that place in the middle too, the link.

The transition is a practice in its own right because how we transition on our yoga mats might give us an insight into how we transition in our lives. Can we retain our balance when everything around us is in flux? Can we hold true to ourselves when everyone else is doing something different? Can we stay centred as everything falls apart to be rebuilt again in a way that might be better aligned?  Can we resist the fear and maintain a solid base, rooted and trusting (always a challenge when fear kicks in!).

It seems to me that this truly is a time for letting go of all that’s been and trusting that we end up where we now need to be, re-aligning and re-adjusting to a new way of being, of both endings and new beginnings. This is also a time of purples and greens (think blackberries and hedgerows), and trusting in the intuition and the heart, as we get truly to the heart of things.

I really hope that this seasonal shift creates a shift in how we’re living and that we start being a little kinder and compassionate to ourselves and to each other and that we start taking better care of this beautiful world in which we live – we’re lucky to be able to call it home.  

Happy equinox!