Happy New Year, shine into the New Year
Happy New Year everyone! I hope this year brings you much inner peace and happiness, no stories, no suffering, just a lovely open heart and compassion for the self and for the world as a whole.
It has been a lovely festive break for E and I, retreating down at Vazon on the West Coast house sitting for the folks while they bask in the sun in Australia with Ross.
We are enjoying our time hugely, lots of quiet times, lots of practice, lots of walking and swimming, although in the pool rather than the sea! We did manage a Christmas Day swim but gosh it was pretty challenging as the tide was low, the winds were high and the sea really choppy and uninviting. Consequently we decided to give the Boxing Day swim a miss and were a bit lazy about getting to the beach on New Year's Day.
So finally it has stopped raining, quite strange that this should coincide with the New Year so that we actually got some dry spells and sunshine yesterday- hoorah to walk in the sun yesterday!! What a joy after weeks of relentless rain showers. 2012 was really a very challenging year for so many and was renowned in the spiritual circles as being the year of change. I believe this was true for so many, change on many levels. We could see this in the world as a whole what with all the strange weather patterns and all this rain - a kind of flooding, destruction, the end of the world as we know it, perhaps even an indication of healing - only that often you have to let go for a healing to happen, tears being a good representation of this letting go, weeping it out, to make space for the new.
And now here we are 2013. I have a feeling that now we have had the destruction and the letting go, we now have the space to make this the year of creation and transformation. Time to manifest all the changes of 2012. Exciting times in my opinion, a lighter world with more conscious choices and maybe, just maybe a little more peace. I feel we often forget that peace has to begin within ourselves to have any impact in the world as a whole. If we are not peaceful inside then how can we expect the world to be peaceful...so as always we must start with ourselves, take responsibility for ourselves, learn to love ourselves a little more, be compassionate to the self, find and experience a sense of inner peace and accept that it is what it is, no need to keep battling to change things.
Pure intention helps. I am teaching a class this evening which will focus on the concept of intention rather than establishing New year's resolutions, which are bound to fail because they are based on "I will" and the ego, rather than "Thy will" and the Divine within and around us. More on this soon.
I did do myself a burning bowl ceremony on New year's Eve as I do every year. You write down all the things you want to let go of and not take into the New year, then you bin the list or burn it or throw it in the sea. then you write a letter to yourself for you to read on 31 December 2013 saying what has happened to you during the year, with feeling and awareness. Then you fold it up and channel some Reiki onto it before putting it away for the year and forgetting about it. You of course also get to read the one you wrote the year before and I must admit I was amazed by all the stuff on there that did actually manifest during 2012. Powerful stuff. Next year I feel I will run a group Burning Bowl Ceremony so that others can enjoy it too.
We managed to get to a class in London recently with this very inspiring teacher. It was quite by chance and a bit of a last minute thing and I was blown away by this guy's energy. I have not been so inspired from a Yoga class - Vinyasa Flow - since my dynamic days with Lance and John. For me this is such a joy, to attend a class where you are pushed to your limits, able to explore your boundaries and with all the vinyasas and twists, we were both buzzing with energy and inspiration afterwards. If there is nothing else I can share this year, then I hope to share that feeling with others. I must admit it did make me want to go on retreat and simply practice Yoga for a few weeks!!!
Anyhow with that in mind time to go practice and prepare myself for the day ahead.
With much love, gratitude and blessings, this is indeed a wonderful world.
xxxxxx