Summer Sun
For many, holidays have passed and been replaced with the regular routines of life. Some routines we enjoy, while others do not light us up. Through it all you may consider:
To help myself continue to see and feel the joy in life, I have signed up for a 28 day meditation challenge.
I find my meditation builds my resilience, it helps me manage whatever comes my way, physical and mental. I am presently on holidays and life is easy making it the perfect time to have gratitude and to prepare for those times when there are more challenges.
This resilience that we build supports us in numerous ways. It can reduce the sensations of pain, it can relieve fear, assist in the management of stress and it has also been shown to reduce blood pressure and slow ageing. Pretty convincing eh.
You may consider trying this 28 day program as an introduction to meditation; as a reintroduction to a practice that has been lost or perhaps it could help you deepen your present practice. It is offered by the well known meditation teacher, Sharon Salzberg; the cost is minimal and the recordings are available until May.
You will find it at: https://www.sharonsalzberg.com/real-happiness-challenge
How am I Moving?
For the past couple of months I have been practicing Reformer Pilates. I have found it a good contrast to my walking, dancing, weights and yoga practices.
What am I Learning ?
These past weeks I have been learning new skills for creating yoga online. The following will soon be available:
Yoga for Building Better Bones.
Gentle Yoga incorporating: breath, meditation, movement and yoga nidra (savasana).
Ayurveda, Nutrition and Yoga Therapy consultation.
Where am I Travelling?
My summer holiday is Livingstone, Zambia. Some may say a long way from home. For me it is my second ‘home’ and as such it is a place I reconnect with self and others, a place I rest even among the excitement of all that is offered here.
Livingstone is at Victoria Falls, one of the 7 Wonders of the World and the final stop on the Yoga Safari, May 2024. Three places remain on this trip, with bookings closing soon.
If you have been thinking about joining us and have a few unanswered questions drop me an email or text message: clare@foodandbody.com.au
or 0478035415
There are a couple of places remaining on this 12 day travel to Zambia.
This is an opportunity to travel with a small group, blending the excitement and intrigue of Africa while finding some inner rest. Details are on the website or contact me to talk through how it may fit with other travel plans you have for the year. Zambia has good access to other African destinations and to Europe.
Why I Write About the Senses?
An awareness of our daily sensual experiences brings with it a slowing down. It enables us into experience this moment and as such we find a place of calm as we step away from the planning and regrets.
As Thomas Merton wrote in “No Man Is an Island”: “We do not live more fully merely by doing more, seeing more, tasting more and experiencing more than we ever have before. On the contrary, some of us need to discover that we will not begin to live more fully until we have the courage to do and see and taste and experience much less than usual.”
We slow down and use our awareness to see, taste and experience, to feel into these experiences. This is to be in the NOW, in the PRESENT. As the old saying says we ‘Smell the Roses’.
Sight - what am I seeing
These words from Bob Dylan have been the basis of my approach to 2024. It has not been a new years resolution, but rather a new way of being.
“And it dawned on me that I might have to change my inner thought patterns...that I would have to start believing in possibilities that I wouldn’t have allowed before, that I had been closing my creativity down to a very narrow, controllable scale...that things had become too familiar and I might have to disorient myself.”
— Bob Dylan
Taste - what I am eating?
Yabbies. Yes here in Zambia there are Australian yabbies.
They were imported and farmed and like is so many introduced species they ‘got away’ and are now an invasive pest in many of the rivers of Zambia. While they are enjoyed in many restaurant and homes their numbers are sadly not reducing.
Sound - what I am listening to?
In Zambia I am enlivened with the calls of the wild. I stay by the river and hear the frequent calls of the Fish Eagle, Hippos and Guinea Fowl, and often the Elephants too, as they come down for water and play.
Fish Eagle https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CNnuL3AhmHM
Smell - what I am smelling?
The aromas of summer are vast: freshly mown grass, BBQ, chlorine of the swimming pool and salt of the sea (in Tassie not Zambia :)), the earthy smell of the tomato plant as you pick produce; the perfume of roses and lavender and if out in the bush the rich fragrance of leatherwood. Enjoy them all.
Touch - what am I feeling?
The refreshing touch of water against the skin on these hot days.
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