End of the year ramblings

So here we are, almost at the end of 2014 and here I am sitting on the sofa in a friend's house in Brighton unable to sleep with the excitement of going to Vancouver tomorrow for New Year's Eve.

It is funny how life turns out.  The last time I was in Vancouver I was recovering from a bout of adrenal fatigue and depression and Ewan was off travelling around Asia with his friends.  I went out to Vancouver to attend a Yoga therapy course with Phoenix Rising, without realising I was actually on the course to heal myself. 

It had been a hard core year that one before.  I was teaching yoga full time and practicing Reiki and I was working 7 days a week from sunrise to sunset and beyond and I got utterly exhausted .  This wasn't helped by the fact that Ewan and I simply couldn't get our relationship together, we both loved one another but commitment was a problem.  No surprise really, he was 8 years my senior and used to living life on his own and I was a traveller, always jetting off to Nepal or Australia if I got the chance!

My illness meant I ended up moving in with Ewan about the same time that he was made redundant.  This meant we spent the summer gardening - there is a lot to be said about the healing and indeed grounding benefits  of getting earth on your hands,  it was a healing summer with lots of swimming too.  In any event sadly it the redundancy meant that Ewan was keen to go and do all the travelling he had heard me doing - and indeed watched me doing.  So despite my heart breaking at being left behind, off he went and with  a heavy heart and burnt our adrenals, I went off to Vancouver instead.

I still reminisce about this time in Vancouver, especially more recently with the responsibilities and the hectic nature off being a working Mum.  But I was staying out there on my own in an ensuite room in a YCA for one month.  The course was 2 weeks during which I would interact with the other course attendees but other that that, for a whole month I spoke to no one else.  I didn't drink a drop of alcohol nor socialise once (how boring I know!), instead I went to yoga, I read books and I wrote.  My three passions in life.  All in my own silence.  Bliss!!

By the time I met Ewan in New York on his way home from his trip I felt like a new woman, stronger, lighter and with more skills under my belt.  It was all part of the process and we haven't really looked back since, settling down, moving in together and then finally getting around to the concept of children and with that a few years later, Elijah showing up.

What a journey!  Here I was planning (or thinking I was planning) and praying for the life I now live and for Ewan, well it just happened!  This makes me laugh, the way we can all live our lives so differently, so that I question the way I live mine with all my intentions and burning bowl ceremonies and vision boards because perhaps it is already written....

And here we are, now fulfilling another of my dreams, which is to show Ewan Vancouver and Vancouver Island and introduce my son to one of my closest friends who lives on the Island and who we are visiting and who was one of my first yoga students in Guernsey.  Love you Sami!!

A new year ahead of us and with that my 40th too.  So planning my new year year's intentions is proving a little challenging as I have all I dreamt and now I need to dream again...of the yoga studio, of the written books, of the trips to visit my friends in Nepal and show them Elijah.  Or perhaps I should sit back as Ewan has done and so many others have done and see what happens...and enjoy another Christmas as we have just done and a new year head.

On that note I would like to wish you all a very happy and healthy new year (don't let us underestimate our health) and hope that it is a peaceful, compassionate, forgiving, accepting and fulfilling year for you and the world as a whole.

Love xxx

Happy solstice and new year ahead.

Happy solstice!

Yule is a pre-Christian holiday celebrated n the winter solstice.  It is the true new year both astronomically and spiritually. At Yule the new God comes to earth, bringing hope and light.

Yule is the time to begin to think about what you want to accomplish in the months to come.  It is the time to outline the goals you wish to work towards. So the attention now is inward to allow your higher self, your spiritual side then time to clarify what needs to be done and which goals to set.

Yoga can certainly offer you with the space and awareness and indeed clarity to know where best to focus your energy and attention - to create an intention then - and there is of course great power in this.

Happy solstice everyone, happy new year ahead.  Here is a beautiful new year blessing that I would like to share with you:

On the day when
the weight deadens
on your shoulders
And you stumble,
May the clay dance
To balance you.

And when your eyes
Freeze behind
The grey window
And the ghost of loss
Gets into you,
May a flock of colours,
Indigo, red, green
And azure blue,
Come to awaken in you
A meadow of delight.

When the canvas frays
In the currach of thought
And a stain of ocean
Blackens beneath you,
May there come across the waters
A path of yellow moonlight
To bring you safely home.

May the nourishment of the earth be yours,
May the clarity of light be yours,
May the fluency of the ocean be yours,
May the protection of the ancestors be yours.

And so may a slow
Wind work these words
Of love around you,
An invisible cloak
To mind your life.

("Bennacht For Rosie" from Benedictus by John O'Donohue).

Hooray for yoga!

It has been a tough few weeks.

Elijah has been sleeping badly, although to be honest he has never slept well, but it seems that he has regressed so that he has been waking every few hours and is sometimes unsettled and restless.  It is his teeth of course, yet more teeth coming through, but good grief what a challenge.

It is not just the lack of sleeping though, but also the fact that he is very clingy at the moment, which is endearing of course, but does make it difficult for me to leave him on his own or even put him down on the floor and out of my arms.  My arms are certainly much stronger these days from all the carrying!!  Bless him, he loves his cuddles and being attached to one of us in one way or another - our little koala!

Still it doesn't do to complain too much as this is how it is, we have chosen to "be" with him and to be led by him and he seems very happy for it and we love being with him, even if he does kick me in the night and still likes to hang off my boob when others have grown out of it!!

The sleep deprivation is the killer though, torture no less, quite literally too, and it does make for a challenging time of it as your mind becomes less able to focus, your emotions become a little more tricky to manage and getting through the day can be a struggle at times.  Not helped that my day job has been ridiculously busy so that my stress levels have risen and I can literally feel the pressure of it all getting to me.  I just need sleep!!  But it never comes and just serves to demonstrate how resilient we are as human beings because you have to get on with it as there is always the hope that things will change.

For a while though it did feel that things were rather stuck, one day after the next, busy, busy, busy, relentless so that my spirit was sinking and with that sinking spirit all that old stuff coming up again, stress levels rising, OCD habit of clean floors in house returning (ha ha!!) and a short bout of low moods...so that it felt that I had regressed somewhat after years of feeling good.

Still things come and go, and often for a reason and it was with some relief that I headed off to London with my boys last weekend for some much needed yoga and time away from the routine of life back here in Guernsey.  Timings were perfect as they tend to be, and the course coincided with another "clarity giving" full moon.

The course was with the infamous Doug Swenson who has been practicing and teaching yoga for 45 years now.  Wow.  I have to say, and I won't know that I have said this for some time, but he is an incredibly inspiring man and the course was teensy weensy bit life changing.  There I said it.  The weekend as a whole was life changing.  Hooray!

Doug's approach to yoga resonates with me hugely and helped me to soften quite literally.  The practice is challenging of course, it is Ashtanga based, but his approach is soft and gentle and based on his observations of the flowing nature of nature and when one embraces this energy in one;s practice, well wow, I have not felt so light in my practice for some time.  Nine hours of yoga practice and I didn't ache once, and I practiced poses I have not practiced much before, and with such ease too, so that everything seemed possible, not simply on the mat but off the mat too.

And of course it will come as no surprise that the practice on my mat affected the way I felt off my mat, so that clarity did arrive and with that a strength that I have not felt for a while.  So there was shift quite a noticeable one too, back on track and feeling positive again hooray!!!

I managed to enjoy some peaceful time on my own, which is a rare joy and also some fabulous times with my boys going to Selfridges (and loving the snow leopard), wandering around Marylebone and visiting Abbey Road studios.  I also got to enjoy a whole night and morning with Elijah when Ewan was celebrating his birthday with friends and we walked all the way from St John's Wood through Regent's Park, up to Primrose Hill and down to Camden for a mooch around the markets, and then back again.  I just love spending time wandering around London and it seems Elijah loves it too as he actually stayed in his pushchair the whole walk!!!

We went down to Brighton for a night too to stay with one of our friends, which was great fun, having a good old catch up and feeling so energised (and yet tired too, go figure) from the yoga that day so that I actually didn't want to go to bed.  And then didn't want to get up again the next morning!!

So here we are, back in Guernsey, me feeling incredibly inspired and desperate to spend as much time as I can on my mat playing around, keen to share what I have learned and experienced with my students and yet still as busy as ever at work and Elijah still waking frequently.  But oh well, it is what it is and no doubt it will change, there is a new moon coming soon, I am quite sure that that will shift things along a little.

Anyhow it all comes as a reminder how much yoga supports our lives, well my life, that bit has become once again blindingly obvious to me, not that I forgot as such, but more so to see it in practice like this, the way it changes how you feel, the strength it gives you and the joy too.  I shall most definitely encourage Elijah on my mat with me for maybe he will start to sleep better and then I shall sleep better and the world will seems an even brighter place to live!!

So a big thank you to Doug Swenson and to yoga and to all the yoga teachers who have helped to enlighten the path, I am indeed in awe of this marvellous practice.

With much gratitude. xxx

The moos!

Wow, it has been some time since I have found any time to sit down and type on here.  Life is like that though, peaks and troughs.  One thing is for sure though, I am looking forward to a quiet trough again!

It has been an interesting time of late.  I have been seeing my Ayurvedic doctor again for one thing or another and so the last few months have been spent taking lots of herbal concoctions to help get to the root cause of the problem.  This is the joy of Ayurveda, it doesn't just treat the symptoms as the allopathic treatments tend to do (and needless to say never truly solve the problem) but really tried to literally ease out at the root.  Not to say it is a an easy process, the mind and body are so connected that what presents as a condition in the body is a reflection of some "imbalance" in the mind or way of thinking and consequently in the lifestyle generally. So one does need to be prepared to look at oneself honestly, which is never ever an easy process, we are always in some level of denial.

So it is a process. And it is fascinating when you can finally stand back and see what has been going on.  I have come to realise how I have been in denial about many aspects of my life, really very not easy, because with that comes the realisation that there will be other aspects I am not yet ready to "see" or indeed accept.  And life has thrown the challenges, so that one does come to see things a little more clearly.

I have felt recently that I have gone backwards, that my attitude and mental make-up was very reminiscent of where it was over 10 years ago now before I discovered the joy of yoga and reiki. This is not entirely true of course, but I gained a glimpse nonetheless so that I have become aware that the remnants of the pattern are still there, somewhere.  And of course I fought in my denial, as we tend to do when we have a vested interest, clinging on, always right, until we are ready, prepared then, courageous enough maybe to accept where improvements could be made, where we need to let go...and let God in.

Which is generally when things start to shift.  Just invite the Divine into your life and get yourself out of the way.  Simples as Aram would say.  And when you do eventually do this phew, what a relief...clarity, calmness, ah, no more fight, gentleness, and time to truly be quiet.

Well I am there.  In the quiet space.  Dust settling.  Soul craving time out.  Phew (that was a powerful new moon).

Elijah and I had a magical moment this week when we went out walking in the lanes and stopped to look at the "moos" and all 8 of them came up to us and just stood with their beautiful faces fascinated by Elijah as we were both fascinated by them.  It is moments like that that remind me of the interconnected nature of all beings, of this world, of life. And love.  How much love there is in this world.  I smile at the memory.

Keep well and standing in your power.

xx

Transforming

What a week, stunning sunrise, full moon, rainbows, fires, flocks of starlings, strong winds, a whole heap of rain and glorious sea swimming.  This has all helped me to feel lovely and connected to nature. What a wonderful world it is.

Been taking a whole lot of Ayurvedic herbs, which has helped the connection to self and the greater whole, and encouraged grounding activity such as cooking and cleaning.  Ha, the joys of the simple living!!  It has also helped me to become a little more conscious of some of my previously unconscious self-sabotaging patterns of behaviour and living, and with that (I guess) an opportunity for transformation...not always easy though, to break down old patterns of behaviour.  Still yoga offers much support with this.

I am reminded of this marvellous poem that was shared with me on the last day of my very intensive teacher training course all those years ago now...

Autobiography in Five Short Chapters by Portia Nelson

1.  I walk down the street.

There is a deep hole in the sidewalk.

I fall in.

I am lost … I am hopeless.

It isn’t my fault.

It takes forever to find a way out.

 

2.  I walk down the same street.

There is a deep hole in the sidewalk.

I pretend I don’t see it.

I fall in again.

I can’t believe I’m in the same place.

But it isn’t my fault.

It still takes a long time to get out.

 

3.  I walk down the same street.

There is a deep hole in the sidewalk.

I see it is there.

I still fall in … it’s a habit.

My eyes are open.

I know where I am.

It is my fault.

I get out immediately.

 

4.  I walk down the same street.

There is a deep hole in the sidewalk.

I walk around it.

 

5.  I walk down another street.

 

Love this!!!

 

Let's hope for a jubilant week ahead...with much fun regardless.

 

x  

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