Real food

For as long as I can remember I have been on a mad search for a diet to follow, a lifestyle to live by. Having dabbled into vegetarianism, food combining, blood type diet, anti candida diet, this diet, that detox, falling victim of even anorexia at some point, reading and researching about a myriad of food related topics, a few weeks ago I came to a saturation point and realised I was utterly confused and frustrated and had no idea what in the world I was supposed to be eating. Then I stumbled upon a Ted talk about healthy eating where the lady was emphasizing that the most important thing was to eat as much 'real food' as possible. It all started to make sense and I realised that somehow subconsciously that was the direction life had already started steering me in. For years I had dreamed of going to the Lantern community organic market to buy my weekly veggies. Four weeks ago and every week since then, that dream has become reality. Every Wednesday I enjoy a serene and beautiful 10 minute journey down Hurn lane to the Ringwood lantern community market stall where I fill my brand new wicker basket with the most beautiful produce coming from a not only organic garden, but biodynamic agriculture! The potatoes taste amazing with no bitter aftertaste from pesticides, the green beans just melt in your mouth after steaming and you can't help but find yourself in a state of euphoria that food can actually taste so good. At first what kept me away for a while was the myth that organic food has to be expensive, so let's just stick to the cheap supermarkets. How wrong could I be! I now fill my lovely little basket with mouth watering fruits and vegetables: kohlrabi, cucumber, tomatoes, chard, broccoli, courgettes, green beans potatoes, grapefruit, apples, bananas, lemons just to list the precious finds of my last expedition and a beautiful bouquet of freshly picked flowers all for £20. I didn't end up filling my trolley, as I would do in a supermarket with a heap of things I don't really need, but go home with food bursting with life force and nutritional value. I'm happiest when on top of this I get around to baking my own spelt loaf and have the patience to ferment my own sauerkraut, and already dreaming of jam making and experimenting with proper sourdough bread. Don't be fooled, I have an enormous appreciation for chocolate, biscuits and fish and chips, often too much so, but now that has become the exception and not the rule, the yin to balance out the yang. In terms of meat eating I have found that the balance showed itself in a small local family business that let their animals roam freely and use no pesticides, eggs from a local farm where the chickens do the same. I have found a local farm to buy honey and have started growing some herbs and watercress and hope to get digging a bit more next spring to have a proper little veggie patch and a much loved blueberry bush again. Although I don't really like to give advice anymore, if I were to I would just say that what my experience and search has brought me is the desire to connect with my food and it's sources as much as possible, the urge to eat as many fresh live plants as I can, but most of discovering the joy of guilt free eating and joyful loving preparation and blessing of everything I put on the table. Bon appetite :)

Life's little synchronicities...

A dear friend of mine shared this fascinating article with me titled 51 symptoms of spiritual awakening. This article inspired me to start writing down some of the intriguing synchronicities that have been occurring around me lately. A few months before I met my twin flame, (I'm convinced he is as I've never felt so on wavelength with anyone) I was looking after a very special elderly lady to whom I grew very attached, as I would be in to see her four times a day 6 days a week, having long long chats with her day in day out updating her on the never ending twists and turns of my life back then. I always used to say to her that I didn't need to watch any soaps, my own life felt like 5 soap operas jammed into one. So it happened that one day not too long before last Christmas, this lady, let's call her Maria, said to me 'if you don't find a decent man within 6 months time, you can smack me!' I laughed and this became our little inside joke, I would often ask her how long I had until I could smack her and so we carried on the banter for the rest of the time that I was fortunate enough to have her in my life. However, her condition soon worsened and within about one month she was moved to another care home to receive appropriate care and sadly, I lost track of her. I would often think of her though, as we had such a lovely connection and being the little 'witch' that she was according to her own words, a kind witch who seemed to have a very peculiar sixth sense on so many levels, she had also sparked a new side of my own spirituality. The days and weeks passed, come March 29 I walk into the site shop to pay my rent unknowingly, and walk out of that shop having met the love of my life. A few weeks later I receive a phone call from the office telling me that sadly 'Maria' had passed away on March 27. Furthermore, she had left a little gift for me for my birthday with her children. A few days later I went to pick up my little package and opened one of the little boxes in the bag. It was hiding a lovely pair of earrings, red, blue, white and black in colour. As I was walking the doggies that day it dawned upon me that Maria had passed away 2 days before that amazing encounter in the shop and she somehow left me a pair of earrings that had exactly the same colours as the dress I was wearing that special day. I couldn't help but smile to myself and thanked her for bringing Him into my life and felt her so close to me I was somehow sure that she had heard me...

Gratitude diary

It's been quite a few months since my last entry and so much has happened since then, so many blessings and beautiful events that I don't even know where to begin. Therefore, I feel the need to begin by starting a little gratitude diary, where I can express at least some of the of the joy that has been pouring into my life. The yoga mat above doesn't just show my favourite little spot to practise yoga under a beautiful tree, overlooking a magical field of waving grass, it is also symbolic of a place I've reached in myself, physically and spiritually, where I feel whole, where yoga in its fullest sense is taking place, a union of body mind and spirit . I wish to thank life for bringing a very special person into my life when I least expected it, and for four months of loving and laughing and nurturing and dreaming and trusting and feeling at peace and wanting nothing, just being together. Thank You... Thank you also for the cosiest home and garden I have ever had and for being able to share it with 3 wonderful creatures, 2 furry, one not so furry :) Thank you for the serenity that has slowly found its way into my life, gradually filling up every little corner of it, places I didn't even know existed... Last but not least, thank you for showing me the way to stay true to myself. Today I finally found the courage to speak my truth and stand up for myself in a very challenging situation at work, where I was spoken to in a very unkind way and the things that were said to me were hurtful and not even true as it turned out. I was judged for doing my work 'too slowly' among other things... For the first time in what feels like an eternity I decided I didn't deserve to be treated this way and spoke my truth. It felt so right and so empowering and I did it without blame or anger, with as much kindness and discretion as I possibly could. Shakespeare couldn't have been more spot on when he said: This above all: to thine own self be true, And it must follow, as the night the day, Thou canst not then be false to any man.

Wait for it...

Someday someone is going to look at you with a light in their eyes you've never seen. They'll look at you like you're everything they've been looking for all their lives. Wait for it.

The girl discovered this brief but ever more powerful message shortly before her descent into the valley... It was one of the reasons she chose to actually... One early spring night in the stillness she was reminded of this message in an encounter with the buzzard. He reminded her that he was not it... And just as gracefully as the winter frost had given way to the daffodils of spring, the buzzard took flight and made room in the girl's heart for that light that she had always been waiting for...

And just as the spider weaves her magnificent web, life was already writing the next chapter of her journey...

Lessons from the buzzard

His favourite bird was the buzzard he said... He would end up teaching her very valuable lessons about life, about love, about how to fight for what she believed in, and embracing her tears and vulnerability... He knew every bird in every tree and every tree in the forest. He would pick her flowers and take her places she had long wanted to explore. But of all the places, the one he knew best how to find was the now, the precious present moment. Coming from very different walks of life, seemingly headed towards opposite directions, when their flights crossed paths, the stillness in their encounters seemed to create never ending spaces and presence. Not knowing what tomorrow would bring made every moment a treasure. His feathers, the language he spoke unfamiliar to her eyes and ears and still, in those brief moments in the sky together, there was a feeling of arriving home together. He made her realise what a gift there was in the now and in honesty, and that all we could ever really promise each other was the fullest sense of being together right here right now, and there he was... And in those moments there were no other places in the world, just their sacred space, just their loving flight... She started learning how to let go of examining the past and building any expectation of the future, she let go of judging everything, of needing anything. All she kept was the gratitude towards every sunrise and the intention to appreciate what each one would bring into her life. Instead of wanting to fly thousands of miles in search of faraway peaks and the possibility of another eagle, he made her long for the simple things in life, like going strawberry picking with someone, like baking cookies in your pyjamas together, like admiring a sky filled with fireworks on bonfire night from her favourite place on the beach, like visiting the swans in the nearby lake and listening to the breeze in the trees or the gentle sound of the rain, like waking up with someone who was just as ready for life's everyday adventures as you are. Most of these things they never actually got to experience together, but he played a very strong part in creating the dream nevertheless...

From peak to haven

The first year was like one long spring, the flowers seemed to blossom all year round, the sun always seemed to be shining, the night sky forever clear and starry, it felt like autumn would never come... But it did, and autumn turned into winter and after a few autumns and winters, the girl waited in vain for spring to arrive again. It was as if everything had fallen into a winter slumber, the strawberry sky now cloudy and gray. The past had stolen their future. Too many things left unsaid, too many hurts unresolved, too many opportunities for joy unnoticed... And so many of the clouds covering their strawberry sky were not even their own, just remnants handed down to them from past generations, but in those cold cold nights it was impossible to see any of this clearly. They both tried so hard to paint the sky pink again, to tease the stars out and make the sun shine once more, but the clouds of guilt and disappointment and sadness were much too heavy to be blown away by the wind. The inevitable came one day; they both had to look down from the peak and start walking into the valley in opposite directions. The winds on the way down were bitter cold, the nights very dark and seemed to last forever and the memories of being on top of the world haunting every step of the journey, for a while... The girl found a haven in the middle of the woods, a tiny but warm and safe den, with trees and birds as guardians looking over her on those endless nights. And as the days passed those nights became shorter, the days longer and slowly, little by little she was able to look up at the sky and catch a glimpse of the sensation that the strawberry sky had given her many many winters ago. She would venture out day after day with her two four legged companions and explore her surroundings further and further until one day, a lovely hill overlooking the valley presented itself and begged her to climb up and sit under a tree that lived there. From that hill she was able to see all the wonders that her new found haven had brought into her life, her new neighbours, the robins and blackbirds, the magpies and crows, many two legged and four legged creatures who had all of a sudden entered her life and all added a drop of sunshine to her days. Sometimes on very special days she would spot a dear or two gliding across the heathlands and on very rare occasions a buzzard would present itself to her, gracefully soaring above the tall trees, or sometimes just gazing at her from a broken tree stump. In moments under the tree on the hill, the wind would whisper things to the girl, it would encourage her to rediscover her love of dancing, to revisit her passion for music and singing, to start writing down her adventures, to keep searching for joy and the Love that she had always been seeking in every place that brought happiness into her heart. Her dreams would also carry sacred messages telling her to reunite her body mind and spirit through the practice of yoga and to keep following the signs that were given to her. One day she met a wise old lady, who said to her that she should pay attention and that Love was going to enter her life while walking with her dogs one day. The prospect sounded exciting and filled her with hope, but after many seemingly lonely walks, with only the trees and the birds to converse with, the memory of what the lady had said started to fade... By this time the eagle in her was appearing more and more, guiding her on every step of her journey, reassuring her that she was on the right path, showing her ways to strengthen the wings that had suffered many blows in the storms from the recent past... One unknowing mid winters day, after many seemingly wrong turns on her wanderings, she ventured out yet again with her little friends to search for joy and something to admire in her surroundings, something to lighten up the January sky. On the road she stumbled across a bird of some kind. The eagle in her was definitely sending some kind of signal, but she found it difficult to decipher what the message was. All she could sense was that he was a bird of some sort and that somehow they might be flying towards the same destination for a while...