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

Jill's tomato, vegetable and lentil soup

This is a super yummy soup that we enjoyed at the recent Reiki One Attunement Session, courtesy of my Mum.

Over to Mum...

I don't measure the ingredients exactly but I use 2 pans.  In one are just half an onion with chopped up tomatoes and in the other one is about the same volume of chopped vegetables.

So, ingredients:-

Pan 1

Assorted tomatoes - or whatever you have got, chopped very roughly.

1/2 large onion peeled and chopped.
A little olive, veg or sunflower oil

 Pan 2

Your choice of:-

Carrot

Parsnip

Courgette

Celery

Sweetcorn      All chopped to uniform size, about little finger nail size

Calabrese

Sweet potato

Butternut squash

Etc....

1/2 large onion chopped and about 1/2 cup red lentils. A little olive, veg or sunflower oil. Vegetable stock - either home made or powder/cube etc. Large sprig or sprigs thyme.

So, in pan one, fry onion in oil until just going translucent, then tip in all roughly chopped tomatoes and simmer covered until tomatoes are really well cooked (about 20 mins).

Meanwhile in pan 2 fry onion in oil until translucent then tip in all 'hard' vegetables and enough vegetable stock to cover.  Simmer for about 10 mins and then tip in rest of veg, red lentils and sprigs of thyme.  Simmer for another 10 mins ensuring still covered by enough liquid.

At end of 20 mins of tomatoes simmering in pan 1, take off heat and blitz with wand blender until smooth.  Tip in contents of pan 2 (remove sprigs of thyme) and stir well.  Season with salt/pepper to taste.

Enjoy!

Healing

It has been some time since I last posted...in fact funnily enough it was just after the Reiki One attunement and just as we were beginning our 21 day cleansing period.  Phew, this some cleansing period, I am feeling it more this time than I have ever done previously, probably not helped by the unsettling nature of the recent full moons, which have well and truly shaken things up and thrown light on the shadow side...there is no more escaping.

Funny how you can be so unintentionally unaware of the fact that you have outgrown the life you have been living, so that it no longer fits.  I mean you know something isn't quite right, but you do not realise what it is, until the moon and Reiki and yoga help to make it clear, let alone the angels who are trying to get your attention along the way.

So the words that have appeared in my life these last few weeks have been alignment - no surprise that my neck has been out of alignment at the same time that my outer life is out of alignment with my inner truth - and nurture, or the need to nurture. And with that the realisation that we can continue to live as we are living, but it will not bring us the feelings of happiness, peace and security that we  are seeking.  It is a bit like that wonderful quote, "if you always do what you have always done, then you will always get what you have always gotten".

The process of change, or transformation then, is never easy, and the best thing is to get yourself out of the way.  Only that you have such a vested interest in the process that this is easier said than done.  I like to think that it is an uncasing, that a part of you is no longer needed, the old stuff, a layer can come off, but the coming off is the hard bit, because we have a habit of wanting to hold on.

So I have dig deep and been very fortunate to support the journey with some reflexology, acupuncture, Ayurveda, Reiki and chiropractor work, let alone my daily yoga practice and a powerful Vedic chanting session with  a visiting yoga session.  Plus of course the ears of some good and trusted friends.

So life has been a bit of a challenge this last few weeks not helped with the seasonal virus circulating the family - funny how this happens in Autumn, a release of all that phlegm and helping the transition from summer to autumn.  Elijah is still not sleeping more than 2-3 hours at a time at night either, and the collective 11 months of sleep deprivation does finally feel very heavy on my eyes and indeed spirit...but I am reminded that this too will pass.

It all sounds a little down and out, but really life is full of so many blessings - this healing is a blessing, even though it does not feel it at the time.  But really this is the joy of Reiki, and indeed yoga, but Reiki especially this time, that it helps to bring us closer to our truth, to align our inner and outer worlds, to empower us to make changes so that that which no longer serves us drops off, and so we may grow a little stronger and committed to the path.  And there is a lot of learning in the process - of healing, cells, energy, mind and body. 

I am hoping that the more we can all hold to the truth and to the light, the more this will help to balance the imbalance of darkness and light in this world.  There is so much darkness in the news these days and usually I try to ignore it, put my head in the sand, but it has been difficult to ignore, that I find it distressing, which actually serves no use either.  So I figure all I can do is pray and practice and chant and open my heart and smile and share light where I can and try and make myself a better person so that this can be a better world to live in.  All we can do is try.  And when we fall down, pick ourselves up and try again...and again...and again.

On that note I am off to bed...sleep is indeed the greatest cure of all.

With much love and light

Emma x