The antidote to fear is love - happy full moon!
So it’s the Gemini full moon today and there’s a real push in it to let go, let go and let go again of what you don’t need to be carrying with you as we head towards the winter solstice, unburdening and lightening ourselves in the process.
This moon is especially highlighting fear patterns, it has been coming up since the last eclipse, whether it’s this life time, societal, generational, ancestral or past life, it doesn’t really matter. All that matters is that we recognise it, keep going to the feeling it brings when we are triggered by it and then allowing it to keep moving through us.
This is not easy as I know only too well myself, but necessary though, unless we intend to keep repeating old and unhelpful patterns over and over again, impacting our mental and emotional well-being, let alone our physical vitality and spiritual connection.
When the moment takes me I love a full moon ritual, but it has to feel aligned, there is absolutely no point doing these things because we think we ought to, or because someone else has told us we should. It needs to flow. Instead maybe enjoy a warming dead sea salt bath - or do both!
If the moment takes you and you have the space for it, then maybe you might do something like this:
Light a candle, smudge yourself, centre yourself, have the intention of letting go.
Lie down, make yourself cosy, take a few deep breaths, hands on heart, taking a moment to connect to your heart - what does it need to let go of? Is there grief, stubborn unforgiveness, anger, rage, frustration, sadness. What do you no longer need to be holding onto? How did it come to be there, what it is you really need to let go of, a thought, a behaviour pattern, a way of being, a mind set, a fear?
Listening to a yoga nidra - choose from here https://www.beinspiredby.co.uk/free-audios - while working with the intention of letting go.
When you’ve finished, write down ten things you would like to let go of from your life and really feel into them as a possibility. Notice where there is resistance.
Fold the paper and place in your hands, giving it Reiki if you can.
Then give thanks to the moon for helping with your healing as you tear up the paper and burn it with the help of the candle. Make sure you have a bowl of water to hand to pop the burning paper in.
Take the bowl of water and burnt strips outside and pour onto the earth (in a respectful way, especially if the paper is still not properly burned) or pour down the sink, but again respectfully.
Say a little prayer of thanks and blow out the candle.
It’s a lovely ritual and helps you connect with your deeper self as well as the moon energy.
I find myself in Brighton on this full moon, after a weekend of reconnecting with one of my oldest and bestest friends in Chesham, who I haven’t seen since the pandemic and then down to a city I also haven’t visited since the pandemic but with very fond memories of many trips with the children, to catch up with another friend I haven’t seen for ages, and a return to the wonderful Infinity Foods and the Brighton Buddhist Centre tomorrow, it has been too long.
All of this feels timely, I have this sense that we’re finally moving out of the collective Covid fear and re-connecting, re-discovering and re-visiting activities and ways of being that dropped away during the pandemic, but that we are changed, and for the most positively too, more clear about the uncertainty of life, more grateful perhaps for all we have rather than all we don’t have, more determined to follow our heart, and let go of our fear.
The antidote to fear is love. If we do what we love there is no space for fear. So let go from the heart, as much s you can, so there is more lightness and more love to be shared and really, what the world needs now, more than anything else, is love. But this has to start with each of us individually. We have to find that love within ourselves if we hope to see it reflected back at us in the outer world.
Love on this full moon
Emma x
Warm & nourishing Ayurvedic recipes
Rice porridge
A warm & nourishing breakfast
Ingredients
2-3 servings
1/2cup of white or brown basmati rice
1/2 cup coconut milk
salt
stick of cinnamon (small)
sugar or maple syrup as necessary
dry fruits
almond flakes
Cook the rice and cinnamon with 3 cups of water until it becomes soggy
When the rice grains are very soft, add milk and stir continuously until the milk boils
Mix sugar/maple syrup, almond flakes and a few dry fruits (if they are pre-soaked much better)
If you prefer more liquid form, add a little more hot water. If you prefer semi solid, keep on fire until it becomes thicker.
Coconut butternut squash
Ingredients
1 medium-sized butternut squash cut into pieces
1 can of coconut milk
2 cups of water/stock/broth
1 tsp of cinnamon
1/4tsp of nutmeg
1/2tsp of salt
Freshly chopped coriander to serve
Heat oven to 350f
Roast squash for approximately 30 minutes and then leave to cool slightly
Warm coconut milk and water/broth/stock in a large saucepan over a medium heat. Add the roasted squash to the pan along with the spices. Bring to the boil and then lower heat and simmer for 5-10 minutes.
Remove from the heat and blend until smooth and creamy.
Season with salt and pepper
Sing's nutty granola recipe
Sing has very kindly agreed that I can share this recipe with you. It is brill for those of you navigating a Vata imbalance - more on this in one of my next newsletters so sign up for those if you haven’t already. Just go easy on the nuts and seeds.
This is a treat for those of you following a pitta reducing diet, but please avoid the honey using maple syrup instead and focus on almonds, walnuts and hazelnuts, avoiding cashew and brazil nuts.
If you are reducing kapha, just be mindful of its yumminess…and have with milk, avoiding yogurt.
It is very satisfying to make, full of prana and love, go organic if you can to reduce toxins - you can really taste the difference in comparison to those processed in a factory…
Ingredients
50ml coconut/vegetable oil
75ml agave syrup, maple syrup or clear honey - use agave or maple syrup if vegan
400g porridge oats - use gluten-free oats if required
150g mixed seeds and nuts
½ tsp ground cinnamon
½ tsp fine sea salt
100g sultanas, raisins or dried cranberries and coconut flakes (or any dried fruit of your choice)
What to do
Heat the oven to 180°C, fan 160°C, gas 4. Mix the oil, syrup or honey and vanilla together in a large bowl.
Add the oats, seeds, spices and salt to the bowl. Mix well so everything is coated, tip onto 2 large baking trays and spread out evenly.
Bake for 25-30 minutes, stirring halfway through, until golden, crisp and smelling toasted. Add the flaked coconut and dried fruit to the granola, and bake for 2 more minutes. Leave to cool.
Store in an airtight container for 2-3 weeks - good luck with that, doesn’t take long for it to be eaten in our house!
Thank you Sing, really lovely recipe and I am grateful to share.
x
Full moon fear, anxiety and the abdominal breath
We have a full moon lunar eclipse approaching on Saturday, days before Samhain. We’ve been doing a lot of letting go this year but this is a big one and many of us can feel it in the air.
There is anxiety and a certain unsettled feeling, because life is about to change. Endings always bring new beginnings but endings are sometimes difficult to navigate. Eclipses have a habit of changing things for us you see, if we are not already aligned with our truth and where we are meant to be.
There are various tools that can help us navigate this time, as we are also in Vata season, air and ether, and this just enhances anxious feelings because of its floaty nature, and lack of earth and grounding. I’ll be writing more on this in my newsletters to those of you interested in our Beinspired offerings.
What I will say though, is that the breath is our best friend, especially at times like this, when we are feeling as little insecure and uncertain. The best breathing technique is also the simplest in many respects - always simple is best! This is abdominal breath and I highly recommend up to 30 abdominal breaths each morning and evening in bed - it really does make a difference!
Here’s how you might do it:
Please sit or lie comfortably.
Take a moment just to notice how you feel - body, mind, emotional state, mood, spirit.
Then place one hand on your abdomen, somewhere near your belly button is probably best;
Notice your breath, breathing in and out through the nose if you can, otherwise breath through your mouth;
Now take a deep and slow breath in, through the nose if you can, using as much of the lower part of your abdomen as you possible. As you inhale, expand the abdomen up into your hand and as you exhale gently contract at the belly button so that the abdomen drops towards your spine. Really try and focus on the abdomen rising with each inhalation and falling with each exhalation. Try not to look at your abdomen, just feel it moving with each breath you take.
Continue this practice for a minute or so, focusing on taking a full breath in, all the way to fill, and then a full breath out, making sure that you are completely empty before you inhale again.
After a minute or so, stop and just notice how you feel.
Initially it may feel strange to connect with abdomen in this way but it is helping you to connect with your diaphragm. We can hold a lot of tension in the diaphragm as it is the meeting place between apana vayu (downward flowing energy) and prana vayu (upward flowing energy) so energy can get stuck here, especially if we don’t want to let go or find it difficult to find the words to express what we want to say.
Interestingly the voice comes from the abdomen and if we are struggling to process our life experiences, let alone our food stuff, then the words can get stuck in the throat - think of those moments when we experience a shock, we then find it difficult to speak, we are stunned to silence. We can also keep the energy too high, unable to let go and this shows up with constipation and bloating and excess flatulence too, like the thoughts bubble through our digestive system but we can’t actually release physically.
The relationship between our gut and our mind is very interesting. Not so good when it is all out of balance and we are stuck in fear and anxiety.
If you are stuck then please don’t lose hope, there is lots that can be done. Yoga is brilliant and if you are a lady then yoni yoga is especially effective but the Friday morning Tantra class of course is always focusing on freedom of mind, body and soul and especially into our middle, the meeting place of al our worlds.
There’s Ayurveda too, which is amazing at helping to restore good digestive health and helping us to process whatever needs to be heard/seen and expressed/released so that our digestion improves in the process. And of course Reiki helps us to get to the root, to release whatever we are holding onto that is causing the disturbance. Spiritual Life Coaching encompasses ALL of this. I am passionate about all these practices as they are ancient and have been tried and tested, they are not some new age attempt at healing or spiritual something or other, they are the REAL deal! You can sign up for any of these sessions through the website.
In terms of abdominal breath, it can take time to release, but this will really help to support your digestion and state of mind, and will improve your general wellbeing over time too. Gradually you will start to breathe like this all the time, but initially it can be challenging, so be gentle with yourself.
Enjoy the full moon and Samhain ahead!
Love Emma x
Our intimate Sark retreat!
Well we enjoyed another marvellous retreat on Sark, this one our first intimate yoga & wellbeing retreat in conjunction with Caragh, Sark’s amazing qi gong and yoga fusion teacher as well as being a very wonderful chocolatier!
It was new for us all, the seven ladies staying in Caragh’s accommodation up near her chocolate shop and us using the cider room in Stocks for the classes. This space is amazing, Stocks is a wonderful hotel and is held beautifully by the magic of Dixcart Valley as well as the beautiful gardens which are looked after so well. There is certainly love on this retreat, not least at Stocks but in Caragh’s houses, Pourquoi Pas and the The Old Forge.
As a family, we got to enjoy the Chill Inn, which is a wonderful home from home spot on the East coast run by Helen and Carl, who are really hospitable and lovely. The location offered incredible view of the sunrise and made for quite a bike ride out to the dolmen on our last night. It was magical and well worth the trip, a shooting star greeted me as I walked in the dark down the final path to the dolmen, and there was a crystal awaiting me too, I LOVE Little Sark.
E and the boys joined me for two of the nights, not that I got to see that much of them but we did get down to Dixcart for a swim (well done Elijah) and they loved cycling around on their bikes. E was grateful my Dad joined them for one of the days, but this was the day that Eben just couldn’t decide which bike worked best testing everyone’s patience, but such is life with a wilful 6 year old, just yesterday turned 7!
It was funny actually, because some of you will remember that fateful night 7 years ago (the exact same weekend I was this year on Sark leading this retreat) when I was then on Herm leading a much larger retreat while 33 weeks pregnant. This was on a super full moon and I’d been going on about the power of the full moon and lo and behold that Saturday night my waters broke and I had to be taken off Sark in the middle of the light, with the full moon almost laughing overhead at me, in rough seas on the life boat, and in an ambulance to the hospital on Guernsey.
The question of course - what was I thinking running a retreat at 33 weeks pregnant?! Well Eben stayed in my tummy another 4 days, and a year later I took him to India the day after he turned 1 for my first Goan retreat (again what was I thinking). So this time of year certainly has some memories of crazy retreats and putting myself under pressure somewhat!
But this recent retreat on Sark did show me that we do indeed live and learn and life does change, because while the intimate retreat on Sark of course had its challenges - the afternoon boat on the Friday that many of us were booked to take was cancelled due to rough weather so we had to pack quickly and get on the 10am sailing that morning instead - I didn’t really get that stressed, hoorah for that!
Intimate for me is the way forward and I have provisionally booked Stocks for 12-15 April 2024 as another two or three night yoga & wellbeing retreat, with veggie breakfast and evening meal. I’ll be leading this alone as Caragh will be focusing on her other work next year, and Stocks have kindly agreed to host the role retreat, luckily those who get to enjoy its beautiful healing and uplifting energy! More details on the retreat will follow.
Just to say a huge thank you to all of you who joined me or who facilitated, hosted or otherwise helped in the running of the weekend. We love Sark and are grateful for the opportunity to visit and immerse ourselves in the healing energy and magic of this, well, magical island!
Love Emma x
P.S. These are the only two photos I took all weekend, bar the ones of the stones, I guess that indicates present living?!
Emma's yummy flapjack recipe
Many of you have asked for this recipe, having sampled a yummy flapjack at one of the attunement sessions.
These are especially great for children, supporting them during the kapha stage in their lives, when they need good solid food, but also for any of you needing some grounding.
Recipe
Ingredients
300g of dairy-free marg
200g of organic coconut sugar/demerara sugar
300g organic oats
100g organic desiccated coconut (optional)
50g organic cocoa powder
Extras: You could add nuts, seeds and dried fruit. You can also make without the cocoa.
Method
Melt marg in a saucepan and add the sugar into the melty liquid goodness
Mix oats, desiccated coconut and cocoa powder in a large bowl
Add melty liquid goodness and mix again into even more of a chocolate melty goodness!
Oil a baking tray and pack the mixture into it, and pop into a pre-heated oven at 160 degrees for 15 minutes. Leave to completely cool before cutting into bits and enjoying!
Finding a new flow
Full moon evening and one of the first thing’s one of my best friends said to me was “have you unfcked yourself yet?”.
It was blunt but he was spot on. That rather potent harvest moon, rising directly east and setting directly west, the equinox full moon, was all about getting out of our own way (the more eloquent way of saying unfcking ourselves!), seeing through more of our mind based limitations, letting it go and taking action in much more positive and heart felt direction.
In fairness the Equinox shifted things. I returned home from Jersey and had a massive clear out, of a whole heap of stuff I had been holding on to for years, books, clothes, jewellery, trinkets and even some crystals. It felt cathartic and freeing, to let go of all that ‘held on to for no reason other than some some slight feelings of sentimentality’ which ended up creating clutter and stopped the energy flowing so easily.
As soon as I had let it got I felt so much better, as if I had been burdened by it and hadn’t even realised. What is interesting to me is how we form these attachments to material objects in the first place and how they can clutter our home and indeed work environment until our energy shifts, and then we have to shift the energy in our external environment too and in the process the attachment drops away and we can finally let go, wondering why we were so attached in the first place…
And in fairness how can we expect to bring in the new until we have created space by letting go of the old. These equinox shifts are brilliant at helping us to do exactly that, shifting our internal environment so that we naturally want to shift our external environment too. Then then new beginnings come in.
Certainly the full moon highlighted for me at least where change needed to take place and I am grateful for that insight, despite its discomfort. I know it wasn’t just me though, I saw others going through it, being forced to get out of their own way, to let go of old patterns and behaviours that no longer fit, to let go of ways of being that have become too safe and limiting, and to find a new way and flow in their lives instead.
I now find myself home schooling, or unschooling, two boys. I’m not doing this alone btw, E and our families are helping, so too our little home school community. This is most definitely a new way. One boy, a quiet and reserved boy at that was pretty easy I now realise, having a rather manic younger brother added into the mix does make for more testing time of it! Still, we are beginning to find our new way, and it has forced upon me many changes that I probably should have been making anyway.
The thing with yoga, Reiki and Ayurveda, is that all they make us more sensitive, which means we crave nature and space. I guess ultimately they encourage us to be in more of our own nature so our separation from nature lessens and our need to be merged within it increases. We want to eat lighter vibrational food. We find the grating energy of WIFI more testing. Even being on a laptop disturbs our energy. We become increasingly aware of people who drain our energy and those who fill it up. We also crave increasing solitude and quiet and sacred space.
I now see how this new flow to our lives allows more of what we all need, time in nature, time with those who fill us up, time alone and time just to be. Many of you are probably already meeting your needs in this way, just I realise I wasn't meeting this need within me. I was spreading myself too thinly, trying to be too many things to too many people, and not being as present with my boys, not being the mum I always wanted to be, and not honouring my soul in the process. I am grateful to my boys and to this moon for showing me that there is an another way, not that it’s easy, but it’s definitely more spacious and freeing.
Maybe the moon highlighted your unhelpful patterns too, the ways in which you get in your own way, don’t make life easy for yourself, compromise on your dreams, give in to your fears, don’t stand in your power and are drifting, getting through the days but not feeling fully aligned.
Using death as your advisor can be really helpful.
If you were to die tomorrow, what would you do differently today?
That certainly made me think.
It’s very easy to get caught up in the mundane, to resign ourselves to the status quo because we forget it could be any other way, to forget that we have a choice.
The wonderful thing about the universe is though, that if we forget, it tries to get out attention gently initially and then if we are still not listening, it literally forces change upon us, forces our re-alignment.
It’s never easy, but nor is staying stuck.
My friend told me on the full moon that no one really cares. I thought long and hard about that. About whether anyone cares. Certainly we care too much as a society about what other people think of us, to the extent that we compromise on our true selves for the sake of others, giving away our power in the process. And sometimes we care more about other people’s welfare than we do our own. Maybe that was what the moon was doing, helping us to care more about ourselves and the favourite people in our lives than we usually do - clear out the clutter and set ourselves free, put ourselves and our health and wellbeing first.
Enjoy this beautiful weather as the moon wanes and darkness descends earlier.
Love Emma x
Happy Equinox!
Happy Equinox! We are now on the wane down to the winter solstice on Friday 22 December, while the moon is on the wax to full this Friday 29 September. Interestingly it was at half moon as I stood watching sunset on the west coast of Jersey on the Equinox, having watched sunrise on the East coast this morning. If ever an Equinox was about balance then it is this one!
Known as Mabon, this festival marks equal day and equal night and the second harvest festival. It is a time for gratitude, acknowledging all that we have in our life, for the successes of the summer crops in all its many guises, and a time for letting go of that which is no longer required in our lives.
I have been reading a really interesting book on holding space. How easily we can hold space for others but not for ourselves. This is not true of everyone, obviously, but there are some of us who err towards making sure everyone else is OK and forgetting sometimes to take care of ourselves too. It seems to me that the equinoxes gift us the opportunity to witness these imbalances. The seasonal cold which comes in to release excess pitta and kapha in the body is indicative of this as it slows us down. Now, really, is the time to go within.
In our yoga practice we are encouraged to focus on movements that help to keep us grounded as the vata (air and ether) energy of autumn takes over from the pitta (fire and water) energy of summer. Simple practices calm vata and help us to focus on our breath, calming and relaxing our nervous system and supporting our need for letting go into the deeper parts of self that this transition to the winter solstice and the inner darkness encourages.
On a spiritual level, going inwards is of course a return to our true self, purusha, beyond the masking of the ego-self and all the ‘posturing’ which we might do in our lives. Through our yoga practice, we are trying to let go of the doing and proving so we can just ‘be’, connecting to higher and expanded levels of consciousness.
The concepts of purusha and prakriti comes from the Samkhya school of Hindu philosophy, which believes that the universe is made up of two realities. These two forces are purusha and prakriti, male and female, unchanging and changing, divine and natural.
According to this philosophy, we are made up of a balance of purusha and prakriti. Our body, mind, thoughts and actions are prakriti, always subject to change, and thus the challenge of the spiritual path lies in connecting back to our unchanging core, our essence, our soul, which is purusha. The idea is that our bodies change, our minds and ideas and perceptions change, but the core of who we are remains the same from birth to death. The spiritual path therefore, is about connecting to that which doesn’t change and to let go of the things that do.
It is very easy to identify ourselves with all that we do or think - I am a yoga student, I am a mum, I am a Reiki practitioner, I am spiritual etc, but according to the concepts of purusha and prakriti, all of these conceptions are prakriti, subject to change, unreal and not who we truly are in essence. Recognising and realising who we truly are, in essence, at core, means letting go of all our attachments to the perception of ourselves as physical and mental beings. Thus we let go of criticising our bodies, because our physical body is not our spiritual self. We let go of giving ourselves a hard time for ‘not being good enough’ because from a spiritual perspective, our essence ids exactly as it should be. We let go of criticising others too, and instead recognise the divine in them.
Our body, thoughts, beliefs and the roles we play throughout our life is transient. They all make up a whole, but our true self, is the core of the whole self.
On this path, we are encourages to find balance. Not only between the masculine and feminine energies inherent in each of us, but between stability and change, real and unreal, spirit and nature and stillness and the creative force.
We can consider balance in our life from this perspective. Where do we focus our energy, on prakriti or purusha and can we find a balance between the two?
We can also apply this concept to the seasons and to the manner in which these will influence our life and our opportunity to connect more fully to our internal self. The summer, for example, is all about being out there, it is active and fun and can disrupt our ability to go within. The winter, on the other hand, slows us down, encourages us to hibernate and access deeper realms within ourselves. And autumn is the transition between the two, a gradual retreat. This means softening and leaning into the ground, of letting go, rather than having to push ourselves out.
I’m certainly keen to flow with this energy, quieten down, go within and tightening boundaries accordingly.
The equinox was indeed a gift, and no doubt the full moon will help us see more of what needs to be forgiven or let go of ahead of the wane ahead.
Love Emma x