My yoga

Since my one month yoga holiday is soon reaching its end I want to talk a little about yoga. I could write about the philosophy behind yoga, or about the rules and guidelines, but you can probably find all that on some really good webpage if you're interested. Plus, it wouldn't really be yoga from my point of view, from my own experience. So I decided to write about what it all means to me, what is my yoga?

I'm quite new to yoga, and it's only during the past few weeks that I've begun doing my own practice, instead of a lead class. Mysore is the word used in Ashtanga for self-practice. This means that a teacher is present, but they only assist you where required, and give you new asanas (postures) when they see you are ready to go deeper into your practice. Before I started doing the mysore I went to lead classes, during the first 2 weeks here. This gave me a really good base, kind of a stand on which I could learn to balance. I learned the basic asanas and began to remember the sequence by heart. But it was not until I started the mysore that I learned what yoga could be, for me. During my first own practice I already realised that yoga will teach me more about my body than I could have known. It felt like I was only getting to know my body, from the start. I was so happy when I realised this, it felt like I suddenly started a new friendship, with my own body. Then on the second day I realised how stiff I was. I could feel blocks in my body, remnants of emotional traumas and behavioural patterns. I was disappointed at how strong these barriers inside me seemed to be, and I knew I had a long way to go to unlock them. But I also noticed how I had already begun the process of opening them. I felt emotions rise to the surface only from doing that physical practice. A huge relief came over me, it felt like I was releasing emotional strains that I didn't know I had. And simultaneously I feel that my whole body is gradually changing. I feel taller and stronger, and just more in touch with my body. I also feel a sort of calmness, especially right after each practice. That particular feeling could be enough of a reason to continue doing yoga when I go back home.

I know that this process is only in the very beginning, the experience is only starting. Realising this, I see a glimpse of what yoga can give me. It's incredible how they knew thousands of years ago exactly how I should use my body. I have no doubt that everyone can benefit from yoga.

I'll soon post an interview that I did with one of my teachers here, to give you an idea of what yoga is for someone who is much more experienced than me.

Shanti,

Emma

David Wolfe in town

So, Anna gave me a ticket to this event as a graduation present (although I haven't yet officially graduated). Off we went and it was simply super great. Not only Mr Wolf (whose middle name btw apparently is Avocado..), but also all the people present made the energy feel like a party full of happiness. It was fun and new and cool, and I learned a lot and got inspired to implement it all into my life. The whole point is really to activate the genius you already are, through eating the most amazing things on the planet and living the best way possible.

Here are some key points that found their way to my notebook during the course of the evening:

- Shoes disconnect us from the earth and therefore from the earth's life force, and as such walking bare footed in nature is the best way of grounding yourself and becoming re-connected.

- Growing stuff in your back garden (or wherever) connects you with the earth too.

- If you don't want to eat fish, eat what the fish eat, i.e plankton, to get all the great fishy nutrients you need.

- There are 3 types of Omega 3 oils which are all vital for our well-being: ALA (alpha-linolenic acid), EPA (epicosapentaeonic acid) and DHA (docosaheaenoic acid). ALA is found in chia-, flax-, and hemp seeds, and EPA and DHA in fish or fish food (algae, micro-plankton). These fats can be mixed with wild berries and raw chocolate to create a super source of nutrition. If omega 3s are mixed with saturated fat (such as coconut oil), the absorption is doubled.

- Mushrooms are great. They're the only biological organism that can survive the vacuum of outer space, and the whole atmosphere of our planet is covered in mushroom spores. The reishi mushroom is very nutritious, as is our very own chaga (=pakurikääpä) (which I'm drinking right now for breakfast). Chaga has been shown to prevent and heal cancer, amongst numerous other illnesses, and has been used in the northern hemisphere as a medicine for ages. Vitamin C makes mushrooms 3 times more powerful. A tip: pick rosehips in late summer, dry them in the sun or a drier, ground them to powder in a mortar, and use as vitamin C powder throughout the winter.

- Horsetail (=peltokorte=åkerfräken) is a great herb full of medicinal properties, that can be mixed with chaga tea for example, and is found growing everywhere around you.

- Chocolate (cacao) trees can be grown inside our houses, and are great house plants (I want one now).

- The only thing that should be imported to any place is cacao. We have everything else we need where we are born, such as berries and mushrooms.

- Be aware of your metabolism limits: use the trial and success method.

- People need different nutritional ratios: protein-fats-carbohydrates, found out yours (through the t&s method) and eat according to it.

- Stable blood sugar activates your genius and produces energy, while too much sugar makes you cuckoo.

- Trouble with digestion and absorption is linked with kidney problems, which is linked with low yin (life force) in Chinese medicine, which might all be linked with having a judgement about diet, such as being a vegan. Some people need animal fat (I personally think it's those people with blood group O). If you notice you have low yin but don't want to kill animals, eat butter or ghee (purified butter).

- Low hormone production means bad bones. It is not natural to get bad bones when you're middle-aged, this can be prevented. The best way is by grounding yourself. If oestrogen dominates progesterone in women it creates problems. This happens for example if you eat soy or ddt/dde. ----> ground yourself.

- For cleansing yourself of bad hormones and all the rest of the toxins absorbed from this crazy world, go to the sauna, eat raw food, drink raw juices, eat oils (because toxins are oil-soluble and are absorbed into us through oils, and therefore also come out of us through oils), and once again: ground yourself.

- All diseases - all limitations - are psychosomatic. It doesn't matter who taught them to you or from where you got them or the ideas of them, they are only created through the mind and are not real and you can rid yourself of them all.

And finally: my name is Emma and I'm a genius.




Emma

The Journey of a Lifetime

I've started this post about five times now, but I just cannot seem to be able to put into words the story about the most amazing and rewarding experience of my life.

As Emma said, she'd talked about doing the Catalyst and about Embercombe in general, and apparently she had planted a seed in my mind. After what now seems like a quite difficult year or two, it just hit me, that that was what I was going to do. It was never actually a conscious decision, it just was. Everything fell into place, as it often does when you do what is right.

After everything was done, I had signed up for the Journey and booked my flight tickets and settled everything with work, I wasn't feeling all too good about going. The closer it came, the more annoyed I became with "having to do this stupid thing" I'm laughing as I sit here writing this, Embercombe is one of the most welcoming and beutiful places on Earth, and I had nothing to be scared or nervous about.

What happened was that I spent five incredible days in the English countryside, learning so much about myself, and getting to know some 30 or 40 people who will always hold a very special place in my heart, found what may be the ground for my own place in the world, and started to live, to actually really live life. I don't want to tell you very much at all about what we actually did, because i sincerely hope that some of you will embark upon this most wonderful adventure at some point.

I want to end this post by expressing my sincere heartfelt thank you to all the people I crossed paths with during my stay at Embercombe, and I cannot wait to go back.

Anna

Inspiration of the week

As promised, my inspiration for this week is a lecture me and C attended a couple of weeks ago. It was given by Dr Prashant Kakoday who spoke about consciousness. As such, this is also a continuation of the post about the documentary concerning consciousness.

Dr Kakoday talked about health, and the relationship between the mind and the body. For example, if we use our bodies in a wrong posture, we get physical pain, but the same applies to the mind: if our mind is in the wrong posture, we get mental pain. He talked a lot about the concept of ownership and of using the words my and mine. Whenever we think we own something, it becomes a burden because we get attached to it. This can be anything, from the smallest objects to other people, and is very relevant in relationships. Imagine, if you want to own something, it immediately creates problems for you: you worry about it being stolen, you start comparing it with that of others, you become afraid to lose it, and when you see that someone else has a better one you want a new one. And the more you own, the more problems you face because you need to protect these things and keep them from getting stolen or lost. Also, you get hurt if someone comments on them negatively because you link them with yourself and thus take the comments personally. Wouldn't it be great to enjoy everything without all the problems? Kakoday explained that the same applies to our physical body. If we think of it as our possession or as the essence of what we are, problems arise. He said that we should consider our bodies as vehicles that we merely use in this life, and as such consider ourselves as guests here. We are here for a little while, during which we might use our bodies and enjoy all there is, but we cannot own anything because we are simply guests and we belong to something much larger. He drew a picture of this to make it more clear, of which I made my own example:

In this picture, you are the star. The black line is a division below which is this physical world and above which is everything else. The white line is your journey, showing how small and short this life is, and how all the things you consider yours in your life are simply things of this short visit, belonging only to a very limited physical world.

With this, Kakoday wanted to highlight that the more we consider ourselves as guests, and the more we remember that we are the star, unattached to everything here, the more the position of our minds turn towards a healthier one, making us happy and balanced. This shift in posture does not mean that we need to give up everything, it will all still be there for us to use, love, and enjoy, and we can still buy things, but without the attachment and without the problems. So where to start? When someone in the audience asked this question, Kakoday simply said: as often as possible, simply think that you are only a guest, you are the star in the picture. Use this pattern of thought in your daily life, and if you want to go deeper, begin a daily routine of meditation.

Emma

Embercombe

Anna has gone off here to do this. After I did the Catalyst programme in 2009 I've been trying to persuade everyone I know to go, and finally it has worked with Anna being the bravest one. It seems everyone's first reaction has been fright and flight, although there's nothing to be afraid of at Embercombe. On the contrary, it's probably the friendliest place on earth. Well anyway, I'll leave it to Anna for when she gets back to talk about her journey and about Embercombe. So be on the lookout for that, I sure can't wait.

Emma