Happy full moon

It was the first full moon of the year yesterday, powerful as ever.  I awoke in the middle of the night and saw it shining through the skylight, incredible, I just love the full moon, thank you Goddess of the Full Moon, it enhances our emotions and provides us with a  good opportunity for healing.

I slept incredibly well last night and I believe that was thanks to a wonderfully calming Yoga session with Fiona Ashdown yesterday, in the Desikachar tradition.  I have to say it really does offer so many benefits on a therapeutic level.  Incredible.  Lots of slowing of the breath, lengthening of the exhalation, gentle movement and chanting of "Om Shanti".

We got out on the cliffs again yesterday too, there is so much benefit to getting out in nature and grounding the feet to the earth, slowing down and breathing fresh air - plus getting the heart pumping on those challenging steps all over the cliffs, they provide the ideal opportunity to increase one's fitness!

In fact I was reminded of all this when I picked up my copy of Candace Pert's "Molecules of Emotion".  This lady is indeed both inspired and inspiring, she really has made leaps in our understanding of long-debated questions, establishing the biomolecular basis for our emotions - it is revolutionary!!

As an Appendix she offers "prevention-orientated tips for healthful, blissful living".  In this she tells us that "we must take responsibility for the way we feel".  I agree entirely - consciously, or more often unconsciously, we are choosing how we feel in every moment, it is not the fault of others whether we feel good or bad, in every moment we have a choice how we react to other people.  It goes without saying, therefore, that the external world is a mirror of our beliefs and expectations - and it is fascinating when you see this at work.  You feel fear, you attract fear.

This actually happened to me the other day.  I knew I could feel fear, not for anything in particular, just that it was there, in my solar plexus.  By coincidence I went for a reflexology session that day and needless to say that night I suffered a few nightmares as the fear came to the surface.  The next day the residue of it was still there for when I pulled an angel card it was the one that creates a sense of fear in me.  I didn't identify with it, laughed at instead.  And so off it went.  But there it was.  Life a reflection of our beliefs and expectations.

So the list from Candace suggests the following for healthful and blissful living:

Your quality of sleep improves the more you link with the motion of the planets.  Ideal time for bed is between 10-11pm, if you want to ensure a restful awakening with the sunrise.

In the early morning envision a wonderful day.

In the morning re-enter the body with body play such as Yoga or a brisk walk.

Spend time in nature every day.  Look at the sky!

Don't starve yourself and eat late.  Ideally eat your largest meal at midday, and don;t eat too late in the evening.

Avoid drugs, legal and illegal.

Consider sugar as a drug with chronic effects right up there with more acknowledged "drugs of choice".

Drink 8 glasses of unchlorinated water every day.

Aim for emotional wholeness.  Try and figure out what is eating you, before it literally does that.  Express your emotions.

If emotions feel stuck then see an alternative or complimentary therapist - these work by shifting our natural balance of internal chemicals around so we can feel as good as possible - Reiki is such a therapy.

Never wind down with the nightly news.  instead read a book, have a bath, say thanks for your wonderful family and friends.

Meditate.  In Candace's words, "Meditation practiced early morning and early evening, routinely, even religiously, is, I believe, the single quickest, easiest, shortest, and cheapest route to feeling good, which means being in sync with your natural feelings".  More about this another time. I do agree with her though.

To conclude, she says, "Last, but definitely not least, health is much more than the absence of illness.  Live in an unselfish way that promotes a feeling of belonging, loving kindness, and forgiveness.  Living like this promotes a state of spiritual bliss that truly helps to prevent illness.  Wellness is trusting in the ability and desire of your bodymind to heal and improve itself given half a chance.  Take responsibility for your own health - and illness.  Delete phrases like, 2my doctor won't let me..." or, "My doctor says I have [name of condition], and there is really nothing I can do" from your speech and thought patterns.  Avoid unscientific beliefs about your need for medications and operations".

Honestly it an incredible book, she is an incredibly lady, what a journey.  What a great reminder as we reach the end of January and begin a new month soon.  All those new year resolutions a distant memory, time to live it rather than dream it, attention, intention, a new month ahead!

With gratitude to the moon,

With love xxx

Beautiful Guernsey

What a wonderful Sunday.  It didn't rain, it didn't snow, it was one of those crisp winter days with a tiny show from the sun (blink and you would have missed it!).  E and I went for a 3 hour walk through the lanes and along the cliffs.  We didn't see a single soul on the cliffs, how amazing is that!  It goes to prove that you can get time out in Guernsey, from the rest of the world that is.

It is all so beautiful on the cliffs, and if I had had my bathers with me I would have been tempted with a swim as the sea looked most inviting!!

I was reminded of course of the benefits of spending time in nature.  Of touching trees and feeling the earth beneath your feet, of smelling the fresh sea air and the cool breeze on your face.  It is so good for the soul and grounding for one's energy.  All too often, especially in winter, we stay cocooned inside by the fire or in the office, travelling from place to another by car, a little disconnected from the outside world except to comment on the weather.

Yoga can of course really make us feel alive at this time of year, balancing the inclination to lay low and sleep.  Sun salutations to warm and strengthen the body, standing poses to ground and lengthen, the list is endless with possibilities, I am very much enjoying taking time out and practicing with Katy Appleton, it helps to keep the spirit high when one is suffering a little from lack of sunshine and warm weather!!

Still the signs of Spring are there, daffodils and cherry blossom, primroses and even violets.  Exciting times ahead, the year of creation indeed, the energy for manifestation is strong, one has to be mindful what one wishes for!!  Full moon on Sunday, a powerful one too, so don't be alarmed if things feel a little heightened this week, it will pass, as everything does, just got to remember to breathe.

Anyhow time to go and spend time on my mat.

Have a wonderful week!!

Love and light and many smiles:-) x

And now it snows

It is snowing!  Wow, how lovely, everything looking so white and pure.  Sadly it is not going to last so we don't get that lovely quiet time without cars on the road and planes in the air.  My garden Buddha is looking rather serene however, and the cat came in all soggy and cold, just as well she has such a big fluffy coat.

E and I were in the UK this week and happened to be staying at a wonderful old manor with the second largest Cedar tree in England growing in its grounds.  Amazing!  I hugged the tree I admit, what an incredible specimen and what wonderful energy. We went for a wander, the lake was frozen, now that was quite a sight for being a Guernsey girl you don't get to see that very often, there was also this rather cool circle of trees, an amazing location for a Yoga session or a get together for earthy bods.  Sadly no sightings of deer.

Yoga classes have calmed a little this week, a combination of the cooler weather and the fact that life does tend to get in the way.  Those who have attended have continued to inspire me in so many ways.  With much gratitude.

The energy has definitely shifted this year and it is all rather exciting.  Things are manifesting quickly, it all depends on your state of mind.  I cannot even begin to tell you the power of thought.  The challenge being to catch your thoughts.  Yoga certainly helps to create space between thoughts, meditation helps one to witness and catch one's thoughts.  It is powerful stuff.

So keep listening to the heart, positive thoughts in mind and amazing things will happen, the angels shall provide.

Love and light,

xxxx

Winter again!

I talked too soon. Winter has arrived, confusing us all as much as nature with the cooler weather outside, let alone in the upstairs of the cottage, brrrrr!!!

We managed a swim, well more so a dip, in the sea yesterday. We went to Petit Bot but it was really low and there were people on the beach so we decided to head to Saints, which was wonderful, we had the whole beach to ourselves and whilst the tide was low, it was more inviting than at Petit Bot. This is a lovely beach, in the olden days it was really rather popular. We have a number of photos of my grandparents on this beach and recently we have been looking through E's old family album and again it features in these too. Funny how trends change, now people are put off by the lack of parking and the long walk up and down the hill!

So we had the new moon on Friday, a Capricorn one, full of potential. I am not sure about anyone else but I was certainly on edge until later that evening when it felt like the energy loosened considerably. It offered power to intentions, quite funny as this has been quite topical in my life recently. The key being to feel your intention and then to let it go from your mind, take out the ego, and just see what manifests in time. I was fortunate to receive Reiki that day and my gosh there was some energy.

However this is something I have noticed already this year. There has been a shift energetically. My Reiki Master and my Reiki friend has noticed it too. Plus I have seen reference to it in the spiritual field generally. We have transformed, are tranforming, becoming lighter. The numbers are Yoga this last ten days have been indicative of this really. We are looking for more, not in material terms for a change, but in terms of our experience of self and the world, we are waking up, becoming more conscious, making informed decisions about our health, our wellbeing and our life generally. It is about time. But of course everything has its own timing.

It is funny as my Yama (ethical principle) of the month is Aparigraha. This is the one, if kept, would have the most profound effect on our western, consumer driven and materialistic society. It is all about being non-possessive, non-accumulative and non-hoarding. It does not require that we get rid of our stuff, only that we let go of our attachment to stuff. And not just to stuff. It is all about acknowledging the things we grasp for, our grasping then, be that people, places, ideas, experience etc etc.

It is the idea that until we have such and such we will not be happy, rather than working from the basis that we are inherently happy and don't need to anything else to make us happy. We become aware of the things the things we truly need, getting rid of stuff we don't need and the stuff that weighs us down. It is all about the fact that clinging to something is a barrier on the path to enlightenment, to freedom then. So this will be a fun month ahead, acknowledging the grasping!!

Going back to our practice. A lady was new to Yoga one evening last week. It was a really busy night and quite warm in the room. The practice was what you wanted to make it with the option was there to make it strong and dynamic with lots of vinyasa. The lady took the vinyasa option and practiced really well. However after the class finished she felt really unwell, light headed and nauseous. Thankfully one of my friends, who is a nurse, was able to sit with her and calm her before she felt able to go home. This does happen. Especially if you have had a toxic time, as many have over the Christmas period. With all the heat and the twisting in the class, the toxins get squeezed out of the organs and can leave you feeling a little unwell, emotional too. It is a healing, but also a little scary if it happens the first time. Water, rest and a regular Yoga practice will help to support the body as it detoxifies and heals further.

So exciting times ahead. Especially if the snow makes it this far South. Awareness, awareness, awareness. Le us all keep practicing.

Om shanti, love and gratitude,

Spring is springing early?!

It is the 8th of January today and there has been a surprising "Spring" feel to the air this last few days.  In fact not only are the daffodils already blooming, but we have seen primroses and cherry blossom too.  It is so mild for this time of year that I am not surprised nature has been thrown off track a little.  Mind you, hoorah that we have had no rain these last few days, although I do believe a little may be on its way, clearing in time for the New Moon on Friday.

Evidently things are a little unsettled out there at the moment, relationships strained as people find their new footing in the new year.  I do not feel it so much myself, I am attempting to begin the year as I intend to continue, taking as much time out as possible to be quiet, to converse with nature (!), to write and, top priority, immerse myself in my Yoga practice both on and off the mat.

I do love intentions, they have so much power.  I am hoping that the New Year's class I taught last week encouraged those who attended to set their own intentions for the year ahead and let go of the willful nature of New Year's resolutions, which often just add to the "failure" mentality of our ego.  For more on this I have posted two articles on my website, one is a general article on the power of intention and another about the power of intention in action in my own life.

It has been refreshing to see so many people at Yoga over the last week, a lot of students practicing more than once a week, which is pretty huge in terms of the transformative capacity and also in terms of enhancing one's sense of general wellbeing and outlook on life.  E has been getting back into the flow of his Yoga practice, to help him heal his injured back again.  He was inspired a little by a teacher who taught a class we attended in TriYoga's Chelsea studio a few weeks ago.  This teacher has begun Yoga due to severe knee and back injuries and was blown away by his healing to the extent that he immersed himself in Yoga around the world and trained as a teacher, a good one too.

I must admit that it is rather special to be able to immerse oneself in Yoga for a dedicated period of time.  There was a 6 year period of my life where I was doing this rather regularly, a few months on Guernsey working and saving money and a few months off travelling and practicing Yoga every day.  Not so now, life changes and what we want from it changes too.  I shall always remember sitting beside another British traveller on a bus from Pokhara to Kathmandu and her commenting on the anchor tattoo she had on her arm, saying she had had this done because it was time to anchor down, but now she was going to get a kite, as it was time to lift up and be free again.  I have loved that analogy ever since.  Sometimes we need to anchor and sometimes we need to fly.  The challenge is knowing when one should move on from one to the other.  The wind is coming, should you anchor, or fly with it?!

The heart knows all.  The key is to be quiet enough to hear.  that is where Yoga helps, gets us out of the thinking mind, and if we are lucky, creates space between the thoughts for the light of the divine to shine.

Om shanti, shanti, shanti,

Emma x

Happy New Year, shine into the New Year

Happy New Year everyone!  I hope this year brings you much inner peace and happiness, no stories, no suffering, just a lovely open heart and compassion for the self and for the world as a whole.

It has been a lovely festive break for E and I, retreating down at Vazon on the West Coast house sitting for the folks while they bask in the sun in Australia with Ross.

We are enjoying our time hugely, lots of quiet times, lots of practice, lots of walking and swimming, although in the pool rather than the sea!  We did manage a Christmas Day swim but gosh it was pretty challenging as the tide was low, the winds were high and the sea really choppy and uninviting.  Consequently we decided to give the Boxing Day swim a miss and were a bit lazy about getting to the beach on New Year's Day.

So finally it has stopped raining, quite strange that this should coincide with the New Year so that we actually got some dry spells and sunshine yesterday- hoorah to walk in the sun yesterday!!  What a joy after weeks of relentless rain showers.  2012 was really a very challenging year for so many and was renowned in the spiritual circles as being the year of change.  I believe this was true for so many, change on many levels.  We could see this in the world as a whole what with all the strange weather patterns and all this rain - a kind of flooding, destruction, the end of the world as we know it, perhaps even an indication of healing - only that often you have to let go for a healing to happen, tears being a good representation of this letting go, weeping it out, to make space for the new.

And now here we are 2013.  I have a feeling that now we have had the destruction and the letting go, we now have the space to make this the year of creation and transformation.  Time to manifest all the changes of 2012.  Exciting times in my opinion, a lighter world with more conscious choices and maybe, just maybe a little more peace.  I feel we often forget that peace has to begin within ourselves to have any impact in the world as a whole.  If we are not peaceful inside then how can we expect the world to be peaceful...so as always we must start with ourselves, take responsibility for ourselves, learn to love ourselves a little more, be compassionate to the self, find and experience a sense of inner peace and accept that it is what it is, no need to keep battling to change things.

Pure intention helps.  I am teaching a class this evening which will focus on the concept of intention rather than establishing New year's resolutions, which are bound to fail because they are based on "I will" and the ego, rather than "Thy will" and the Divine within and around us.  More on this soon.

I did do myself a burning bowl ceremony on New year's Eve as I do every year.  You write down all the things you want to let go of and not take into the New year, then you bin the list or burn it or throw it in the sea.  then you write a letter to yourself for you to read on 31 December 2013 saying what has happened to you during the year, with feeling and awareness.  Then you fold it up and channel some Reiki onto it before putting it away for the year and forgetting about it.  You of course also get to read the one you wrote the year before and I must admit I was amazed by all the stuff on there that did actually manifest during 2012.  Powerful stuff.  Next year I feel I will run a group Burning Bowl Ceremony so that others can enjoy it too.

We managed to get to a class in London recently with this very inspiring teacher.  It was quite by chance and a bit of a last minute thing and I was blown away by this guy's energy.  I have not been so inspired from a Yoga class - Vinyasa Flow - since my dynamic days with Lance and John.  For me this is such a joy, to attend a class where you are pushed to your limits, able to explore your boundaries and with all the vinyasas and twists, we were both buzzing with energy and inspiration afterwards.  If there is nothing else I can share this year, then I hope to share that feeling with others.  I must admit it did make me want to go on retreat  and simply practice Yoga for a few weeks!!!

Anyhow with that in mind time to go practice and prepare myself for the day ahead.

With much love, gratitude and blessings, this is indeed a wonderful world.

xxxxxx