Yoga by Nature

Wouldn't ya like to do this???

Ever wondered why weekend yoga retreats seem to cost the same as four months' travelling in India? So did I.
I have taken on a little project of late, which is to devise a way that mere mortals can go on retreat without the prerequisites of having children at private school and an account at Harvey Nicks. Well lo and behold we gone ahead and done it. So it's not the Ritz - I will admit that - but for the average hard-working nature-lubbing yogi this is a five star gig.

  We are going to be at Springhead Trust in Dorset which is a graceful and peaceful 16th century Grade II listed building in fabulous gardens, all wrapped in quintessentially gorgeous English countryside with little wild flower bows on top. There will be large dorm (10 peeps) and small dorm (6 peeps) accommodation plus a twin and single option (which has now sold out in the first week of booking!).
 It seems that with a bit of canny reckoning you can bring someone along, give them up to 5 yoga classes, feed them delicious, nutritious food, serenade them with a talented Colombian sound practitioner all to the tune of £150. I lie not. That's the early bird price though, 'na? (All sold out too :() but there are spots left for £200 and upwards :).
 So why does the average yoga retreat cost your entire month's salary? Well it's all in the profits. Once you make it not for profit and cut out the middle persons - well, we are going to pay ourselves a titchy bit of course - then you can cut it right down. Thank heavens!
 I'll introduce the team - we have Marinella Benelli who will do the Ayurvedic Treatments and Sarah Webb who will be cooking the food. Also myself  - Morven Hamilton, teaching Hatha Yoga.
  We are thinking of collaborating with charities in the future and giving a percentage of our takings to charity each time we run a retreat, and ideas in the pipeline about using profits from higher-end ventures to fund more charitable romps for the less economically-abled. I'd like to hear from anyone who has experience with this already.
Watch this space! And this one: Yoga by Nature (and this one - you can book here!:  http://www.bristolcommunityyoga.co.uk/)

Yogathon for Penny Brohn Cancer Care

On the 3rd March, 6 yoga teachers gathered together and dedicated their yoga practice to thos ewith a cancer diagnosis and those who support them . We had a beautiful practice at Wilder Street Studios at Stokes Croft, Bristol - the sun was streaming through the windows and we were all guided into a deep experience of our practice by each others' presence and intention and by the beautiful space we were in.
For this event we raised over £100 for Penny Brohn, and helped to raise awareness of yogaThrive, which is a programme for those on the cancer journey that I teach at Penny Brohn.
 Down the road near Bath at Universal Yoga, Camerton they raised over £800 by gathering teachers and students together to do 108 Sun Salutations. Brilliant effort, guys and very inspiring  - I am thinking about what we can do next year to help in a similar way.
  As for the 108 - why 108? well I have heard that the numbers 1, 0 and 8 signify something, nothing and everything, respoectively. However I feel that is a bit of a ropey explanation for the 108. I'm more inclined to go with this explanation that I found on Wiki: The distance of Sun from Earth divided by diameter of Sun and distance of Moon from Earth divided by diameter of Moon is approximately equal to 108. It is claimed that the great sires of Vedanta knew this relationship and thus 108 is a very important number in Vedantic chantings.

 Anyway, I digress. Enjoy the photos which were kindly taken by Ade Taylor - check out more of his ace photos here: http://www.adetaylor.co.uk/photography-gallery/.
Find out more about me at www.bristolcommunityyoga.co.uk 

Yoga Nidra - Yoga Therapy

I have just published the fourth of Yoga Nidra podcasts that I have been recording over the past months. The latest one has a long visualisation rather than the rapid visualisation of other posts. Listen to the podcast here. Yoga Nidra leads us into deep relaxation and also into the realms of the subconscious where we can begin to clear out layers of built up "samskaras" or ingrained habits/ thought patterns which are believed to follow us from past lives.
Yoga Nidra is a form of yoga therapy and at its simplest level it can help us to relax and unwind, aiding regeneration of the body, optimum functioning of the organs and the nervous system and promoting healthy sleep. At its deeper levels it is believed to be a jumping off point to astral projection and is certainly a stepping stone into lucid dreaming.
I guide you through rotation of consciousness to various points in the body, then guide your breathing, then lead you into a visualisation.
I highly recommend regular practice of Yoga Nidra  - do yourself a big favour and do it! Visit me on Bristol Community Yoga  FB page or www.bristolcommunityyoga.co.uk. See you in your lucid dreams... 

Talking About it Versus Doing It

Bristol Community Yoga Podcast is now up and running. After a few years of coveting, aping and stuttering I have got down some audio for you lucky blighters to listen to at home. Here I will be posting pics of some of the postures from the classes, just in case you need a little visual aid.
Watch this space...or the next one...

Walking without crutches: discovering need vs want

There is a very subtle interplay between the concepts of "need" and "want". Few of us manage to sustain the dynamic equilibrium between the ever fluctuating nature of our inner and outer environment, and the consumption of resources available to us to help us to adapt to these oscillations. For most, life is either an ever-continuing experiment with nature and reality – we sway too far in one direction and then rapidly swing back again, then move gently closer to the centre, only to just miss it and go veering off in the other direction – or it is a passive resignation to convention and less than optimal health: we stop trying.

Last week I undertook a detox programme which demanded that I not eat food for over a week. My diet was supplemented by a lemonade high in vitamins, minerals, carbs and spices to ease the digestive tract. Due to my pitta (fire) nature I am not the type to miss a meal and tend to become anxious and disorientated if this should occur. I could not have conceived of going for twenty four hours without at least juice or vegetables to quench my voracious appetite.

However, it was largely due to my pitta nature that I chose to take on the challenge of forgoing everything for an extended period. I was surprised at how easy it was to not eat. Once I had made the shift in my mind that food no longer applied to me I was very happy to sip my lemonade and was even relieved at being unburdened of the task of choosing whether, what and how much to eat, how to cook it and all those hundreds of tiny decisions that one makes just over food during the course of a day.

By the second day of my fast, the most notable thing that occurred to me was that when I felt hungry I didn’t necessarily want to eat, and that when I wanted to eat I didn’t necessarily feel hungry. By taking away the fuel of my psychological attachment, I was, for the first time in my life, directly experiencing the difference between need and want. I began first of all looking at my wants, which did not appear as cravings so much as glimmers or reflexes that were barely conscious. I perceived how these reflexes surfaced when I was tired, or at certain key points of the day when I would normally nibble on something for a treat. The most interesting thing for me was that I took refuge in the restraint. What I found more satisfying than indulging a want was the realisation that I did not need it.

A want is a symptom of a lack – an emotional boil which bursts at the surface of consciousness, and can manifest itself in any number of ways, usually as a projection on to the physical world. It may be a desire for chocolate, for attention or for a partner or a child to love, but it is always accompanied by a preceding and subsequent chain of corresponding emotions that may begin with anxiety, metamorphose into self-pity or greed, transform into guilt and then seep back into anxiety and dissatisfaction – and take on many guises and intensities in between. The one thing all of these emotions have in common is that they are all born of fear. Fear that there is not enough.

Taking part in this lila or play, is part of being human and it extends to all parts of the human’s relational realm. By removing one large part of my relational existence I was able to become more attuned to my wants, but more importantly I discovered the self-empowerment that comes with relinquishing them and becoming sensitive to that which I need. I realized that I had everything that I needed and with that balance restored I experienced a new, purer kind of energy. For one week I listened especially carefully to my body and responded by resting at the appropriate times and giving myself the right amount of sleep.

By day seven of my cleanse I sensed that my body had completed the detoxification that it needed and I was ready to recommence eating but with more mindfulness and more intimate knowledge of the delicate balance of my bodimind. I am also more comfortable witha hunger pang and less apt to enter into irritable dialogue with it. Overall I feel my edges more clearly defined – by that I mean that the process which informs my body is no longer chaotic like a the uncontrolled scribbling of a child, but deft, balanced and clear more like a practised etching. I feel more clarity of being.

The axiom to which we always return in Hatha yoga, is that we are perfect and complete just as we are. We need add nothing, nor take anything away as we are naturally ebbing, flowing tides of consciousness. Through these glimpses of limitless abundance, we hope to learn the way to freedom – without crutches.

Although I completed my experiment unharmed and feeling wonderful, I would not recommend the Master Cleanse nor would I repeat the experience. There are other, less harsh ways to cleanse and feel wonderful!

What's water?

I am currently reading a book by Haruki Murakami, whom I love for his exploration and merging of inner and outer landscapes which seem to blur at their borders. He is a narrator of the mystical human condition and the desire-shaped universe in which we live. In his book The Wind-up Bird Chronicle, one of his characters states to another," It is not a question of better or worse. The point is, not to resist the flow. You go up when you're supposed to go up, down when you're supposed to go down. When you're supposed to go up, find the highest tower and climb to the top. When you're supposed to go down, find the deepest well and go down. When there's no flow, stay still."



In our world there is a certain amount of engineering that takes place in our minds from an early age, creating a spreadsheet of conditioning which imprints itself on our psyche and draws us to categorise that which we perceive into pairs of opposites: smiling in a photo is good, refraining from smiling in a photo is bad; getting up early is good, getting up late is bad; and there are infinitely more pairs of opposties than good and bad: light, heavy; big, small: courage, cowardice etc but ultimately we can categorise each item and idea as either good or bad. We regularly assess our adherence to these guidelines, scoring ourselves highly or low, depending on how many of our choices and outcomes fall into the "good" column. It is in this way we gauge whether or not we are "good" people or "bad" people. Most of us score as "could do better", with scores varying greatly according to the individual's self-esteem and hormonal state, which may rely on an infinite number of external factors.



This spreadsheet, to which we refer unconsciously when we make our tens of thousands of choices each day (when we decide which is the right way to brush one's teeth, the correct time to wash one's towel, the appropriate response to a friend's good news, the right thing to eat for breakfast), is of course of some use. It is the spreadsheet of culture and the blueprint for ease of communication between members of the same culture. There is one inherent problem in this spreadsheet however, and that is that every culture in every country is different and that every culture has several subcultures including the subculture each individual member of the culture. The data in one of these spreadsheets is never wholly compatible with another.



Murakami also observes the danger of generalities in his book, taking the unorthodox standpoint that the closer one gets to examining things, the more generalised they become. Therefore on observing and explaining the minute details of a situation or object, one's analytical instinct is to apply one's findings across the board. By abstracting, generalising and engineering our social formulae we have imprisoned ourselves in a rigid scaffolding of culture in which there are limited boundaries that inhibit organic growth, and which insidiously alienates those with a different blueprint - bearing in mind that there are 6 billion slightly different blueprints on the planet, that results in a hefty helping of alienation.



In our need for a paradigm or let's call it an external compass, we have sacrificed individual needs and supressed our internal messages. Having lost the skill to listen to our bodies and our intuitions, we have squeezed ourselves into the little boxes on the spreadsheet. We are unable to truly accept our natural instincts and we move with less grace and freedom in the world. We do not flow. However, there is nothing inherently bad (or good) about thinking everything must either be bad or good; this instinct for compartmentalising is an element of human nature and is essential for us to function healthily in the world but we must recognise that these categories are merely guidelines and represent stepping stones to a state which lies beyond pairs of opposites and value judgments.

In the Tantric practice of Hatha yoga, the body-mind is used as a tool to enter and experience the Self in its true nature. Nothing is added or taken away and what is ultimately found is the Self which has always existed in its perfect state beyond time, space and hair-straighteners. What makes it so difficult for the modern Western human being to realise the Self is the linear perceptions ingrained into each of us from birth. The modern yogi must strive to unlearn linear time and the notions of success through progressive accumulation which accompany it. A simple equation of this erroneous judgment would be more=better, making it counter-intuitive for us to absorb fully the axiom that we are complete and perfect just as we are. We are able to cognitively understand and accept that love is all around, that money can't buy me love, that the best things in life are free and countless other jingles we blithely mutter and hum in everyday life. Very few people, however, manage to untether themselves from the underlying conviction that we must race towards the end of our lives, amassing as many things as possible and ticking off the boxes of marriage, children, mortgage, divorce etc whilst barely considering whether possessing these things would even result in happiness.

My teacher Chetana Panwar describes yoga as "the unification of the web of dualities", which succinctly depicts the departure from wholeness that we experience when we enter the world and learn its paradoxical nature, followed by the return to wholeness experienced when we consciously realise the merging of all of our divided perceptions and the dissolution of our sense of separateness. When we stop fighting what is and enter the flow, we embrace life and suddenly wake up to the infinite abundance which carries us and supports us throughout our life. Paramahansa Yogananda writes of a yogi who listens to a young disciple remark on his renunciation of riches and comforts in order to seek God. The yogi, Bhaduri Mahasaya laughingly retorts "I have left a few paltry rupees, a few petty pleasures, for a cosmic empire of endless bliss. How then have I denied myself anything?". We adamantly believe that having more things will make us happy when it is proven to us time after time throughout life that this is not the case. Why then, do we insist on resorting to inane acquisition?

Another teacher of mine, Hillary Rubin, told a story in one of her classes about two fish who were swimming in the sea. Another fish swam by and said "The water's cool today!" and the younger fish turned to the older and said "What's water?". I love this story for its touching demonstration of our innocent ignorance of the infinite power, force and energy and mindblowing complexity/ simplicity of the manifest world. We are consciousness, we are surrounded by consciousness; nothing is ever added or taken away.

Precious Gems of Yoga

Each time I study with a new teacher I see my yoga differently, so I see life differently. Yesterday my new teacher described the core of one's yoga practice as like a diamond, with so many different facets each reflecting a different light, or a different aspect of the manifest self. Each facet reflects to us what we need to work on or with and so the diamond of our practice lights the way to deeper realisations.
I read once, and I'm afraid I cannot attribute this analogy to an author - it may be Paramahansa Yogananda, that the yogi is like a diamond: pure, clear and filled with light which reflects from every surface, but in essence hard and strong with impenetrable will - where love is the will.
In my practice, which still evolves rapidly after 14 years, I am truly absorbing that which I have always taught to my students. I am learning to back off. Finally. Rationally it has of course been very easy for me to understand the precept of respecting one's body, respecting one's limits and working at a pace suited to the body's needs. As a classic overachiever it is difficult for me to recognise my limits and to be sensitive to the ever so fine line between pushing boundaries and pushing one's sacro-iliac joint out of alignment.
I am a true Pitta (Ayurvedic fire type) in nature and over some years of being conscious of the idiosynchrocies of Pitta and of noting the patterns of cause and effect of environment, sustenance and activity on my constitution, I am nearing a satisfactory strategy to balance aggravated Pitta. However, my biggest sticking point in yoga practice has been my determination to work, and the pleasure and fun I take from bending, stretching and balancing my body. A dangerous combination.
My new teacher is taking me back right to the beginning. With my back injury, that is where I belong. I am a beginner - just because I can straighten my legs in a forward bend it doesn't mean have to. The absorption of this information is like Ben and Jerry's for my being; I have been telling myself to respect my limits for years and numerous teachers of hundreds of led classes have been telling "the class" that for years, yet it took one teacher to sit down next to me and say it to me, yes me, not anyone else in the room! I don't have to straighten my legs or touch the floor in triangle pose or have the longest base in warrior 1.

Yes, what a relief. Now I can finally feel my yoga more deeply, communicate more freely with my body, listen more peacefully to the rhythm of my life and the life which pulses vibrantly around me. I have uncovered a little more of the path I have been seeking yet could not reveal. Every yoga practice of my life has been a revelation, another facet of the diamond. With deep, deep gratitude I begin the next chapter in the story of the diamond, which will take me incrementally closer to the truth; the smooth, spherical crystal of truth at the heart of the Ben and Jerry's.