Christmas 2016

I promised myself that I’d post something celebratory in this grey month. My Christmas presents for 2016 seemed a good place to start. Essentially, things that will last forever, pared down and beautiful, and keeping to the tradition of a few chosen categories … clothes, unguents, a single cooking utensil, something to do with yoga, and of course, books. Thus, as pictured, a Cocon Commerz Privatsachen dress (the ethos of the company written about beautifully here), a Dunhill sweater (an extremely lucky unworn ebay find), oodles of organic perfume, an Eric Ravilious calendar, lunch at the River Café (for the greyest of January days), a brush for face powder (of which I can count its use throughout the year on the fingers of one hand, but this brush might make me rethink), liquid Vitamin D (knowing the lack of sun to come in the next few months), a new Microplane to add to my collection and some of my favourite chocolate (but that has disappeared from the shot!).

Last, but definitely not least, the books... I’m often overwhelmed when I walk into bookshops and see piles of modern books stacked up. They seem to come out in a never-ending unthinking churn of production. Perhaps due to this, it’s easy to spot the ‘special ones’, the ones where it’s clear much love and labour has been devoted to the final product. Amongst those in the pile, I can’t recommend highly enough a new yoga book on the legacy of Vanda Scaravelli, Ducksoup’s cookbook, Rococo’s book on chocolate, and Luciano Giubbilei’s sumptuous gardening book, primarily focussing on his time spent at Great Dixter, a garden I’ve been taken to each year since I was knee high to a grasshopper…

Yoga Glow

It has taken until mid-February to truly feel that the year has started. There was a point in January when I wondered whether I would ever stop contemplating the year and actually start moving ahead and living it. The shift came and yoga started (or was it the other way around)? I had to laugh on hearing Kia Miller, via yogaglo, speak about how her yoga practice started with Raquel Welch. I was the same and came across Welch's accompanying yoga book when clearing up (yes, I am still New Year decluttering) the other day. It's amazing to think that my quiet and considered yoga practice started with the hot yoga sequence!

I read that in Iceland you exchange books and then take them to bed (with chocolate) to read on Christmas Eve. I thought this sounded so cosy and wonderful that I resolved to extend the tradition by doing the very same for as long as possible over the Christmas period. Let’s just say that Christmas 2015 was pretty blissful and I probably ate my way through a kilogram of festive chocolate coins whilst turning the pages of various books.

My other Christmas tradition is equally ‘small child’ like and consists of spreading out my Christmas wares to admire. The image shown is actually from Christmas 2014 and pretty much set the tone for last year: wholefood cooking and yoga (although I concede I thought more of yoga than actually practiced), organic perfumery and unguents, jade prayer beads and ethical clothing. My single concession to a ‘grown up’ Christmas came in the form of a bottle of EFA oil. It’s turned into a Christmas tradition.

2015 Christmas goodies to be featured soon…

Yoga and Raw Inspiration

I had to giggle when I read about Raw Rob on the Funky Raw website via Steve Charter’s advert for his forthcoming permaculture course because it chimed so accurately with how I feel about the numerous raw blogs that are less about experience than sales figures ...

‘Funky Raw Rob did his 2 week raw permaculture course Ecoforest in September 2002 – it was where he first experienced the raw life, and look what’s happened to him since then! He’s taken on Funky Raw from Ecoforest co-founder Tish, creating a much loved network that presents a different face of the raw/mainly raw movement, not catered for by the commercial ‘glammed up’ world of rampant raw egos ... I know they all mean well and are lovely people really ;)’.

Apart from the ever-amazing raw recipe blog that is Golubka and the pictorial blasts of raw energy via Kate Magic Wood, I don’t really follow any other raw (or raw-ish) blogs regularly. The lovely Neeta, Suki, Poppy and Shel would appear to have given up the blogging ghost, or post almost as often as I do ;), and I love them for living their lives away from the computer screen, but I’d yet (until now) stumbled across any replacements which truly resonated with me and the way I live my life (as simply and quietly as possible). The same can be said of the majority of yoga blogs ...

Thankfully, this past summer, just when I needed a direct hit of inspiration, a slew (well, three or four) websites and blogs were discovered which hit the spot marked ‘inspiration’. I can’t believe I didn’t know about Theresa’s (of Kitchen Buddy) blog until now, which reminds me in spirit of Momo’s lovely blog, another of my favourites, just a straightforwardly simple (but beautifully so) account of daily activities, with a healthy, organic and eco emphasis. Jules Febre’s blog is about so much more than yoga, as is the closer-to-home website of Jane Kersel who writes vividly about what yoga means to her (and who has inspired me to check out the work of Hal and Sidra Stone). Add to this merry crew, the thoughtful and reflective blog by Elizabeth Rossa, the director of Shriyoga (pictured), see for example, this entry. I love the ethos and simplicity of Rossa’s NYC yoga studio run out of two home lofts (owned by students who didn’t want to give up their yoga when Shriyoga vacated their previous studio in the neighbourhood). You just show up and put your money in the box – no sales drive, no yoga hype – just practicing in a beautiful space. I think that’s what I seek (and have found) in these new-to-me blogs. As Theresa has written ‘vegan living takes time, education and practice’ and to read and connect with other people’s experiences is an inspiring part of that ever-evolving process of ‘showing up’ and leading as mindful and healthy a life as possible ...

Studio photograph © Shriyoga in New York City.

Yoga (Poser)

This is one of my favourite passages on yoga (from Poser, p. 152): ‘People think yoga is boring. This is one of the big raps against it. And it is, if you’re not concentrating. If you fling yourself into the pose, and let your mind wander, and merely tolerate the experience, yoga is, in fact, extremely boring. But if you concentrate hard, boredom opens up and the pose becomes the most interesting thing on earth, in fact the only thing on earth. The more you practice dharana, the simpler the world gets’.

2011

I thought I'd start the year by sharing some of my favourite pictures of one of my favourite things - yoga! I have a complete aversion to rigid, instructional yoga pictures but these photographs are something else ... light, serene, joyful, ageless and in the moment ... everything yoga is to me. The model in the picture, Daphne Selfe, was eighty last year and full of good advice - forgo hair dye and wild parties in favour of fruit and veg (and yoga, of course)!

Self Healing, Yoga and Destiny

A rediscovery from my bookshelf, although more of a booklet than a book at only eighty pages, Self Healing, Yoga & Destiny.

From page 22: ‘When viewed by an outside observer, Hatha Yoga exercises appear to be purely physical; actually, however, their mental side is the more important ... Persons who practice yoga exercises without concentration will not succeed in controlling the forces they awaken through the exercises. They can attain physical results, healing, gaining or losing weight, or strengthening their muscles, but they will not attain the true goal of yoga. On the other hand, persons who exercise with concentration will come to recognise how the vital energies they arouse flow through the nervous system and ... physical energies are transformed into mental and vice versa. They will also understand that for each and every one of us our fate is nothing other than the projection of our Self into the external world and that we can hold in our own hand the steering wheel of our fate. How to recognise this and how to use the steering wheel properly is what we learn in the high school of yoga’.

Oh, and I'm totally loving Momo's blog at the mo' ...

Yoga Saves the Day...

I don’t really use this blog as an emotional sounding board, but I was sorely tempted to mid-week. Too much travelling, too much work, too much stress. I decided to b-r-e-a-t-h-e through it. Lo and behold the benefits started pouring in. I made a statement a while back that I’m not a fan of blogs that ‘push’ products. However, my first benefit of the b-r-e-a-t-h-e policy was to stumble upon Saree which is a few doors down from Uhuru, the health shop on the Cowley Road in Oxford. Selling ethical/organic/fairly traded clothes, shoes, accessories and household kit, it’s a friendly gem of a shop. I have been searching for a pair of draping, soft yoga pants for ages, and I found them here. The next day I managed to pick up some kelp noodles in London’s Chinatown, and then the working week ended last night with a blissful John Stirk yoga workshop. Things are good here ...

Books on Seats

Forget bums on seats, it’s books on seats that count in our house... If pictures speak louder than words then this latest collection (all given to me for Christmas) just about sums up my life: books on raw food, running, Buddhism, vintage clothes/dressmaking, yoga, and a peek into someone else’s life via a journal.

It’s an odd time of year, the days feel muddled to me, and I can’t wait for the clarity of the new year, but in the meantime, feast your eyes (if you haven’t already) on Poppy’s very beautiful raw cacao site!

Yoga Night

The evenings when I attend yoga classes generally follow a very distinct pattern. I arrive feeling a little rushed/irritable/tense/preoccupied and I leave feeling simultaneously invigorated and relaxed. However, the view on my walk to yoga was so damn sparkly the other night that I was instantaneously invigorated and relaxed before the class even started. It made a nice change. Yesterday night I attended a different studio for a John Stirk workshop. Yoga is for Girls describes the Stirk experience beautifully.