Celebration of Samhain

I have just returned from a meditative weekend of Yoga in Jersey with Godfrey Devereux, staying with my wonderful friend, Alyssa Burns-Hill.

Godfrey's approach seems to have changes since I last had any involvement with his teachings. then it was reading one of his books and watching a DVD, where he appeared to be very much focused on the strength of the physicality. Since then he has clearly found meditation, and the weekend was far from physical, concentrating instead on the breath, with gentle movement to release and lengthen the lower back, and lots of sitting in silence, and lying in Savasana. One "posture practice" as he calls it, asana, the rest of us may say, lasted a whole 2 hours and 20 minutes, of just moving through a sun salutation broken down into bits. Phew. The class yesterday was a full on 4.5 hours without a break. I felt I had run a Marathon, and actually, I probably could have done in that time.

Still, it was enjoyable to have the time and space to breathe so consciously, and also to really enjoy the benefits of lengthening one' spine and noticing the behaviour patterns and movements of one's own body - how we are so programmed to move a certain way, even if that certain way is not within our best interests. I enjoyed his ramblings, even if I did not always agree with his take on life and God and spirit, but great to have the opportunity to learn from someone who has clearly gone through some stuff.

Of course it was wonderful to spend time with Ally and chatter together as we do, sharing and inspiring and creating new ideas. Ally and her husband, Gary, have a lovely property with large Windows offering views of the sea, a lovely spot to stay and chill in the mornings and evenings before class. One can just sit on the sofa and stare at the sky and the clouds, which became clearer as the weekend progressed. Thank you to the Burns-Hill family, much appreciated.

So today is Samhain, or All Hallows' Eve. Technically it means "end of the summer", the end of the agricultural season and the beginning of the Celtic year. Samhain is the festival of the dead. The day was Christianized when the day that follows it was designated All Soul's Day, or All Saints Day. This is a time of chaos and the reversal of normal order; endings and beginnings are occurring simultaneously.

In the past, Samhain was when the majority of the herd were butchered, providing food for the winter months. Slaughter, barren earth and decreasing daylight made the concept of death an ever present reality. Because of this, Samhain has always been considered a time when the veil between the worlds was thin, a night of magick charms and divination, when the dead could be easily contacted.

On a personal basis this is now the time to rest and reevaluate your life and goals. Now is when you want to get rid of any negativity or opposition that may surround your achievements or hinder future progress. Samhain should have seen the accomplishment of your desires, and now you need to stabilise and protect what you have gained. This is important because it is impossible to concentrate, let alone put energy into new goals, if what you have is not secure.

So have a good day, enjoy the pumpkins and the energy of celebration.

xxxxx

New moon power

Well today we have a powerful new moon in Scorpio and, apparently, we reach the alternative end date for the Mayan calendar, the other date being December 21, 2012, which I believe is meant to be the end of the world as we know it...

...only I can;t help thinking that there is an awful amount of fear attached to this whole concept of the world ending and us, I guess, with it. What I believe may be more likely, is that we are simply going through a shift in consciousness. With that, then yes, there will be changes to the world as we kn ow it, but, not some big bang, there we go, all in darkness, type change, but more so the way we live changes. And is changing. Already.

Big changes have been taking place. I was only thinking this the other night when I happened to catch the end of the one of the many baking programmes on the TV over here at the moment. I don't remember the name of the lady, although that is somewhat irrelevant, as it is more so what she was saying about the money we spend buying these nice cakes and yet how easy it is to bake them yourself without all the
expense and how rewarding to be able to serve a homemade cake that you have made with your very own hands, to your friends and family.

It made me think how times they are a changing. Not that long ago, well maybe a few years now, it was all the rage to buy pre-packaged food stuff because that was easy, and here we were, trying to save time. Likewise the demise of the high street and the fact all these out of town super stores started to spring up because people wanted the ease of driving to one place and being able to do all their shopping in that one place from lots of choice.

Now we are moving back to basics. Even baking cakes again. I mean there is this whole baking cakes revolution. And I think it is great. Here we are, bringing back the tea and home made cakes, so that soon it won't be about how much money you spend on a cake, but how much you enjoyed making that cake by your own hand.

On a bigger level. Nature is certainly bringing us back to base. Patterns are all over the place. And look at your financial situation these days. Yes, changes are a afoot, but actually, they are already taking place.

And within us too. Those light workers called to step up a gear, consciousness increasing and people awakening. You only have to consider how many people are offering their services as energy workers over here, not to say that means people are awake, far from it, but the probability is perhaps higher. It is all about the true purpose and the true self. Even Shameless talked about this last night.

Pat touches on all of this in her New Moon reading, where she writes, "
One of the ways you can recognize the shift is by observing how fast your thoughts manifest into reality. This happens most efficiently if you’ve found your life’s purpose and are working on how best to share your unique gift with the world. The mere fact that more people are asking about their true purpose is a big sign that a shift in consciousness is taking place. Astrology happens to be one of the best tools for discovering this critical bit of self-knowledge, so it’s also no coincidence that more and more people are turning toward this ancient discipline.
This week’s New Moon in Scorpio is brilliant for manifestation work, as it falls within two days of a trine between Jupiter and Pluto in earth signs. The earth signs, remember, represent the tangible and material – what we can see and touch on the material plane. This includes relationships. Where this New Moon falls in your chart tells you where you can best use this energy to draw a new situation or relationship into your life that serves your higher purpose.

For more from Pat about today's new moon please see http://realastrologers.com/weekly-forecast-october-24-new-moon-in-scorpio-jupiter-trine-pluto?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Realastrologerscom+%28realastrologers.com%29

Enjoy the New moon's powerful energy, hold tight!!

xxx

The winds have arrived again, just in time for the full moon!

Don't you just love the changeable nature of Autumn's weather - one minute warm enough for the flipflops, the next you need to the heating on, and now mad winds to blow away all the cobwebs. There is nothing like living on an Island for the wind. And there is certainly nothing like landing an aeroplane with winds crossing the runway, as I just had to experience this afternoon!

Well I am fully entrenched back in the world of being a company secretary and even got to flit across to Jersey today for meetings in our Jersey office. It is quite a refreshing commute actually, lovely to see the rough seas from above, and be driven to the office by someone else - the decadent world we live!! I am finally accepting my reality. It may not be as I imagined my life at this stage, so much for living form the land and just teaching retreats, but one must remember the bigger picture and that while the Universe delivers our dreams, they are not always in the way we expected them to be. Plus my body is very pleased of the break from so much Yoga teaching, time and time again I am reminded of the need for balance!

Back home in Guernsey and it has been a fairly uneventful few days. E and I attended a 39th birthday party on Saturday night, which was great fun. It was particularly lovely to bump into an old friend from school days and share quite deep conversations about God, spirituality, the law of attraction and relationships. She is the first person I have met who - in need of answers at crisis points in one's life, does the same as me and asks the questions of google. It is incredible the answers you get - from hearing her story I know for sure that this is a medium within which our angels talk to us and open up doors. And how strange and yet beautiful that I got to be inspired by it all over again on a Saturday evening quite by chance - thanks Jac.



On Sunday E and I managed a walk around Jerbourg headland and sneaked into the derelict old Idlerocks site. it is a such a shame as it is an incredible location for a hotel, with views over the other Islands, and now it just has that dead and run down energy. What is interesting is the fact that within only a few years, nature has really started to exert her control again. Makes me think how much time is spent trying to control nature and yet it will always be stronger than us somehow. found a tepehone hanging in a tress, such a strange image.

Time for a poem..."Autumn Flight" by the wonderful Danna Faulds from her book, "Prayers to the Infinite":-

A lone leaf cartwheels
skyward, riding an updraft
over the house, flying like
a drunken dove to the edge
of the far woods. What a
glorious end, to be borne
aloft, the whole Autumn
landscape spread out below
in riotous gold and orange;
nature caught in a flagrant
act of transformation".

It certainly does seem to be a season of transformation. For me at least. The wind is certainly helping to blow the cobwebs away so that the new can enter where the stagnant once laid, even my allergies have improved today!!. New moon on Wednesday too.

Time for a nice and cosy Yoga practice to centre inside. If anyone is in Kathmandu and fancies some free Yoga classes with international teachers then please email val@yogi-nomad.org. I can only dream of Nepal at the moment and maintain faith that there is a reason I am not returning this year...

With love and gratitude.

Another wonderful Autumnal weekend

We have now been blessed with two wonderful weekends of bright sunshine, blue skies and fresh air...I wonder if these are our weekends of grace before the particularly cold temperatures predicted this year. Someone mentioned to me that if there is a full moon in the middle of October, then you always get a good week of weather around it! Incidentlaly a friend of mine in Canada also reported lots of sleeplessness around this mornth;s full moon last week - we can only deduce that it was indeed a powerful one!!

On Saturday and Sunday mornings E and I ventured down to Petit Bot and joined a few other people swimming in the crystal clear sea at high tide with the sun shining down on us - unbelievable, we really had to catch ourselves and remember that this is the middle of October and here we are swimming in the sea with other people. Amazing.

We spent Friday and Saturday afternoons charity shopping - we just love it, there is something ever so slightly satisfying about coming across bargains, plus of course the recycling value of it all. We have quite a choice over here, although it is nothing quite like what I have come across on my travels - America has provided many a wonderful charity shop and then there are the op shops in Australia. In fact everywhere I have travelled, I have manged to find some groovy clothing from second hand stores, that keep me going for years and have the added bonus of reminding me of my travels!

Saturday evening I was blessed with the company of some of my local spirit friends. Always a pleasure to spend an evening in the company of other women who share a love of Yoga and energy work and healing. As always there was lots of laughter and some interesting conversations about enlightenment, and of course Yoga. Thank you ladies.

Sunday dawned glorious again and after our swim E and I joined family for brunch together, with lovely warm tea and croissants to refuel after our swim. My parents were in Sark so we watered their greenhouse and picked some of the amazing tomatoes and some aubergines, courgettes and raspberries. Sadly the harvest is coming to an end and due to the weather conditions this year the butternut squash have not fared so well, so I am having to stock up from the hedge stall at Vazon instead. The colours this Autumn are incredible, I came across some wonderful leaves at my parents' place.



In the afternoon we headed out to Lihou Island for the unveiling of the new solar panels, which E helped to cart back from Majorca, a very generous gift from John Hume, a Guernsey man who now lives out there. There were loads of people on the Island supporting the event and making the most of the homemade cakes for sale in the house. E and I absolutely adore Lihou Island - I would love to hold a retreat here, but I believe the shared dormitories would put people off attending and staying the night. Still, we try and get there once a year to shut off from the rest of the world.


Talking of retreats, I am very much looking forward to the forthcoming Yoga & Wellbeing retreat on Herm mid November. These weekends are always so enjoyable and while we may only be away for 2 nights, it feels like we are away for far longer - time slows down over there I guess, fascinating really, how much the pace of life can change one's experience of time...and indeed life! I hugely recommend this weekend to anyone who just wants to get away from it and restore their energy levels.


Back to Lihou, we were some of the last to leave and took great delight in walking around the back of the island on our own, checking out all the bird life and wild flowers, before heading back along the causeway and watching the tide coming in at quite a pace - you don't want to take your chances crossing that causeway! Beautiful views towards the Hanois from there too.


So I have yet another cold. This whole adrenal exhaustion thing definitely gets the body to tell me when I am overdoing it as I clearly have been recently - my new office job is going well, but it has been a challenge trying to balance that with my passion for teaching Yoga and offering the Reiki, which I love too. So I took time away from everything this weekend to reflect on the bigger picture and I am now consciously mindful of my schedule and - here comes the challenge - remembering to say no and establish clear boundaries for my own health and wellbeing - should be a more restful and fun week ahead therefore!!

With gratitude and much love

Powerful full moon

Wow, that was a powerful full moon...I was certainly struggling to sleep earlier this week and could felt vibratory as the moon was rising while I was teaching Yoga the other night - there is certainly a heightened energy in that Yoga room these days.

I have noticed that people are commenting on their cats eating much more than usual. I wonder if they know too that it is going to be a cold winter, so are establishing extra fat and insulation now!!

I was sent this wonderful astrological reading from www.healingstars.com about where we are at this week:-

"Each month I absorb and integrate the astrological influences and reflect what I have experienced back to you.

I was saddened to hear of the death of Steve Jobs last week. His words in this picture are poignant and also fully sum up this Full Moon as the Sun joins Saturn. To use an old English colloquial expression it's time to 'piss or get off the pot'. Commitment and action are called for. Let go of perfectionism and allow the flow to begin in your life.

"Your time is limited, so don't waste it living someone else's life. Don't be trapped by dogma - which is living with the results of other people's thinking. Don't let the noise of others' opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary." Steve Jobs

His speech at Stanford University is powerful and very moving. He was adopted and rejected at birth because he was a boy! A college drop out, he was very poor as a young man.

An excerpt:-
"My second story is about love and loss.
I was lucky — I found what I loved to do early in life. Woz and I started Apple in my parents garage when I was 20. We worked hard, and in 10 years Apple had grown from just the two of us in a garage, into a $2 billion company with over 4000 employees. We had just released our finest creation — the Macintosh — a year earlier, and I had just turned 30.
And then I got fired. How can you get fired from a company you started?
..... What had been the focus of my entire adult life was gone, and it was devastating.
..... I had been rejected, but I was still in love. And so I decided to start over.
I didn’t see it then, but it turned out that getting fired from Apple was the best thing that could have ever happened to me. The heaviness of being successful was replaced by the lightness of being a beginner again, less sure about everything. It freed me to enter one of the most creative periods of my life.”

His inspiration and vision lives on. Listen to the whole speech on YouTube at http://youtu.be/D1R-jKKp3NA
Saturn and the Sun: Self Attack
Saturn moves to join the Sun on October 13th, and can create depression, so watch out for the blues until October 17th when this energy wanes.

This can result in feelings of failure, lack of self belief and self attack. They are all symptoms that the ego is taking over.

Illness, or an accident, is a clear message from the body that we are beating ourselves up. The Shadow of the Bully has been evident over the last few weeks.

However Saturn is also the planet of discipline and mastery.

So there we go...yet more fun and interesting times.

Enjoy the weekend.

xxxx

Full moon approaching!

I cannot believe how much colder it has been this weekend compared to last weekend, Autumn is definitely here and I keep reading articles suggesting that it is going to be a particularly cold winter ahead due to the sun taking a rest, well it is perhaps not as simple as that, but there are changes due to our weather patterns in the northern hemisphere. As I have written before, nature is certainly giving this impression - not only are the hawthorn and holly trees laden with red berries, but our cats are eating tons of food to build up their fat store for the colder months ahead.

I have been suffering with a cold these last few days. Ever since I got adrenal exhaustion last year my immune system has not been working as well as it should do, and lets me know, in no uncertain terms when I am burning the candle at both ends - as I have a tendency to do. So I have been feeling rather sorry for myself, laid up at home, taking Sambucol (elderberry extract that takes the spiky bits off the cold virus so that it stops piercing the cells) and missing the Sark Folk Festival fundraiser at the Fermain Tavern on Saturday night.

Anyhow I am beginning to feel much better, but with a full class schedule and a week in the office ahead, I will certainly be getting to bed early and practicing a lovely and nourishing restorative sequence with lots of healing singing bowl music and eating more fruits and vegetables than usual!

It really has been a very testing year and a half for me health wise and I will certainly be delighted when I start to feel properly healthy again. The trouble is, when you are used to living your life a certain way, full on and without taking much of a break (!), then it is difficult to make the change - but of course the reason we often get ill is because the way we are living is not serving us anymore and we are being given the opportunity to learn another way - for me, as much as for anyone else living in this frenetic age, a much calmer and more balanced way of being.

My cousin Nick, sent me this wonderful story about the gorse on the cliffs

"You will find some gorse blooming in any month somewhere, though it is unusual to find large amounts together except in spring.
There was an old Guernsey story about a woman who died and she made her husband promise that he wouldn't take another lover in a month where the gorse bloomed. Initially he was happy thinking it was just a spring flower until he discovered that gorse blooms all year round! Or something like that anyway."

Well it is full moon on Wednesday so no doubt those of us who are emotionally sensitive will experience increased sensitivity these next few days. I just hope that the weather calms down so that we can actually see the moon - although your crystals will still get cleansed if you leave outside in the moon's energy. It will be interesting to see how everyone practices balancing poses at Yoga the next few days, it really is a good time for half moon, just to balance things off a little.

Until next time,

With love and gratitude

xx

Our Indian summer

This weather is just incredible - I am loving this Indian summer! It is going to come as a bit of a shock to the system when the temperatures plummet us back into Autumn later on this week.

E and I have really tried to make the most of this weekend. The last 2 weeks have been really busy for both of us, with us working last weekend and me starting a new job at the investment company again and hitting the ground running and E having to dash off to Switzerland for a funeral, sadly.

I must admit I haven't been quite so stressed for a while now...it was a good reminder of how it can be, when you don't seem to have much time to do anything and you can't sleep because the lists are running through your mind and you suddenly remember at 3 in the morning that you haven't included so and so on the contractual agreement!! Plus of course the weather was so wonderful and like so many of us, I was stuck inside - this wasn't the flexible and balanced working lifestyle I had imagined!! (and actually that is half the problem - when our expectations are not fulfilled!).

So it was with some relief that Friday evening arrived and we were able to go and enjoy low tide at Petit Bot before meeting a friend for a drink in the lovely gardens of Les Douves, with its magnificent oak tree and get a much needed early night as we both started to unwind a little. Phew!

Saturday we were awake early so E could fill the truck with branches from a tree job the weekend previously and we could get to the dump before it closes at 10am. I find this whole experience rather entertaining because you have to wear a bright yellow reflective vest and a hard hat if you are entering the area, despite the fact I am only ever wearing flipflops on my feet. Anyhow the whole place stinks, like badly. There is the smell of methane of course, but where you dump the green waste smells of decaying green waste, which makes me feel sick and it is literally filled with sea gulls, it must be some sort of seagull heaven.

What I like is the fact it makes me think about waste and recycling. I mean seriously, there are just so many plastic bags dumped in there and yet they are going to take forever to break down. And seriously, what are we going to do when that land fill has been filled up, how can we possibly keep managing all the waste produced over here.

The thing is, it could be so easy to get slack about recycling, but it really does make a difference, as does having some thought about the packaging you are buying from the outset. We were staying with a friend in London recently who doesn't recycle for one reason and another, and it felt strange, just putting everything into the bin. And back at the dump, all those plastic bags sticking out of the mounds, not going anywhere for a very, very long time.



Anyhow after the fun of the dump, we went for a swim at Grand Havre, which is a first for both of us. It was high tide and stunning, we had to pinch ourselves - here we were swimming in the sea on 1 October in bright sunshine! From there we enjoyed the warmth of the sun in the garden of the new cafe at Earlswood garden centre - I love it there, it always makes me think how peaceful it would be to teach Yoga in that sort of environment, like the greenhouse perhaps, with all the trees and plants. The place is alive with prana and I always want to take home all the pretty flowers, the herbs and the lavender!

In the afternoon it was time for some serious garden crashing and book reading before we decided we ought to do something more active and we headed out on the bikes. of course I got a puncture within 10 minutes of being out but as luck would have it, we were only a matter of minutes away from a bike shop in St Martins and catching them just before they closed they very kindly put a new tire on my bike!

From there we headed out beyond the airport and all the way through the lanes back on ourselves a little to the Gouffe. We cycled right down to the point and carried out bikes down the path towards the launching bit for the boats. In all my years of living on Guernsey I have never been down here and it was lovely to pass a group of Latvian youngsters hanging out together enjoying the views, and just as lovely to meet two guys fishing all the way at the bottom.



So we clambered down the rocks and onto the pebble beach below, which is rather incredible with the cliffs looming above, and offers a whole different perspective on the Gouffe generally, and was novel going swimming down there at low tide with all the sea weed, which irrationally scares me sometimes!!!



The trek back up the cliff was a little testing, what with having to carry the bike, but I stopped from time to time to feast on the scrumptious and plentiful blackberries lining the path. And you know the weirdest thing. Gorse. Yes, the gorse is back again, which I am sure is not normal, not at this time of year. It seems the weather is confusing nature now too.



A stunning day and with a lovely evening - a party to wish Sally a safe bon voyage as she leaves the Island shortly to go off travelling for a year or so. Great to meet some new people and sit around the bonfire staring into the flames - I certainly didn't have any trouble sleeping with the release of all that melatonin, a little like Tratak, one of the 6 Shatkarmas, which involves staring into a candle flame, and has the effect of increasing concentration, memory and mental power, reduces stress and tension and slows the rate of breathing.

Well all that swimming in the sea, cycling and staring into a fire certainly helped me to sleep well last night!

So today dawned sunny again, how wonderful, it reminds me of living in Australia! We made the most of the morning high tide again and after a Yoga practice we headed down to Petit Bot, which was beautiful. Needless to say we weren't alone, it is great to see so many people on the beach and in the sea this weekend. I wish i could take photos while swimming, it is stunning looking up at the cliffs above, all the vibrant colours and this incredibly blue sea. I love it here in Guernsey, we are so blessed to have such beauty on our doorstep.



We bought breakfast and some take away drinks and headed out to the model yacht pond and sat in the sunshine chatting and watching all the boats heading out to Herm before I headed down to my parents' house for a long lobster lunch in the garden and a chance to lie in the sun and read books again. And to think that it is the 2nd of October!



At tea time E and I headed back out for another swim, my second of the day and E's third!! It was low tide and we settled on Cobo to enjoy the setting sun and the warmer sea - it really does feel warmer on the West coast! A perfect way to start the Sunday evening slow down, and again so many people still out and about, Guernsey really is in its element in this weather, it shines!!

So all in all it has been an incredibly uplifting weekend for so many reasons, not least the sunshine and swimming, but all that fresh air and the conversations which such a range of people. Essentially I am reminded not to take life so seriously and to lighten up!!

With love and gratitude.

xxx