Vegan nettle soup
Nettles are everywhere at the moment so I thought I’d make the most of their highly nutritious nature and make soup. Nettles are particularly high in iron, silica and potassium and have been used for centuries as a nourishing tonic for weakness and debility, convalescence and anaemia.
I drank a lot of nettle tea during both pregnancies as I was always low in iron, the same afterwards in the post-natal period, albeit I’d lost my taste for it by then - it is an acquired taste! I have some nettle leaves drying to be able to add to teas, but thought it was time to take the plunge to nettle soup, which I have only made once previously. It was surprisingly yummy! Even E enjoyed it, despite his earlier reservations about the potential lack of taste of it.
Nettles are amazing and they’re free and abundant, at least here on Guernsey. Through their stimulating action on the bladder and kidneys, nettles help to cleanse the body of toxins and wastes. Nettles relive fluid retention, bladder infections, and are an excellent remedy for arthritis and skin problems.
They have bene used to stem heavy periods, and can also bring on delayed periods. They are also used as a good restorative remedy during menopause. They can stimulate milk production during the post-natal period too.
In the respiratory systems, nettles can clear congestion, and relieve hay fever and asthma. In the digestive system, they help ease diarrhoea, wind, inflammation and ulceration.
Here’s an easy vegan nettle soup recipe:
Ingredients
2 cups (50g) of nettle leaves
olive oil
1 leek or onion
1-3 cloves of garlic
2 cups (300g) of potatoes
2tsp stock powder
2 cups (500ml) water
1 tbsp lime juice
Sprinkle of pumpkin seed
Method
Wear gloves to prepare your nettles, remove any thick stalks and wash the leaves well.
In a medium saucepan heat the olive oil and then add the chopped leek/onion and garlic.
Fry for a few minutes until translucent.
Then add the diced potato, water and stock powder and stir.
Cover the pan with a lid and simmer for 10 minutes or until the potato is soft.
When the potato is washed, add the nettle leaves and cook for a further minute util the leaves are wilted down.
Add the lime juice and blend the soup until smooth using a blender.
Serve with salt and pepper and a sprinkle of pumpkin seeds.
Enjoy!
x
Cleavers for Spring cleansing - a cold infusion
Cleavers are a common hedgerow weed that seems to be everywhere at the moment, at least in our garden! The children love to pick it to stick on each other, but actually it can be used to create a wonderful cleansing remedy, cleaning toxins from the system and reducing heat and inflammation.
It also has a diuretic effect, aiding elimination of wastes and it also acts to enhance the lymphatic system, promoting the lymphatic draining of toxins and waste via the urinary system. Cleavers are therefore excellent for fluid retention, skin problems (including eczema, psoriasis, acne, boils and abscesses), urinary infections, arthritis and gout.
Cleavers cool heat and inflammation in the body, hence the benefit for arthritis, but also inflammatory skin problems and digestive problems. It’s bitter properties stimulate liver function and enhance digestion and absorption - a miracle plant really!
A cooling drink make of cleavers was traditionally given every spring to “clear the blood” and is something I have tried this last few days, and it feels good!
Here’s what you do you to make an infusion:
Collect the cleavers and wash them. Pop in a good processor and finely chop.
Place one or two tablespoons of the finely chopped and fresh leaves in a glass/jar of room temperature water.
Allow the cleavers to infuse the water for 8-12 hours. Perhaps place in the fridge.
Drain the cleavers and drink the water, enjoy!
xx
15 years of Beinspired!
We celebrated 15 years of Beinspired last night with a Kirtan session courtesy of Katie and Adam. It has been my dream since 2007 to have a Kirtan leader on the island and the wait has been worthwhile. I love Kirtan and I am very grateful to Katie and Adam for fulfilling this dream.
I discovered Kirtan while helping out on a yoga teacher training course at Govinda Valley, a Hare Krishna retreat centre near Sydney in Australia. I had never chanted previously and I couldn’t believe the heart opening and energetically uplifting effect of the practice. It was without doubt one of the most memorable experiences of my life, I felt as if I had discovered a direct path to the divine and experienced a level of bliss and ecstasy that I hadn’t known was missing from my life, or accessible too, just by using my voice!
I’ve sought out Kirtan ever since, and have tried to share what I can of it on yoga retreats, by using background music and encouraging people to sing along. It’s not ever been quite as powerful, although there have been some memorable experiences both in Glastonbury, where there was definitely a Goddess attendance and on Herm, the Gayatri Mantra being the instigator - this is my favourite mantra, the oldest known to man, that really illuminates and changes things for those who chant or even listen to it.
When I knew Katie was travelling the East coast of Australia I recommended she visit a Hare Krishna retreat centre at Murwillumbah, which I have never visited but have a friend who was based there for a time. Katie duly visited and here she met her partner Adam, who is now based with her in Guernsey, and she also experienced Kirtan, which she loved to the extent that she began facilitating sessions. When she returned to Guernsey she invested in a harmonium and began leading Kirtan sessions on our Sark retreats.
Last night though was a whole difference experience because we chanted for 90 minutes and I’m pretty sure I wasn’t the only one buzzing with the energy at the end of the session, let alone feeling a deep connection to heart. It was a really uplifting and heart opening way to celebrate 15 years of Beinspired and especially with the added bonus of Sing’s homemade chocolate and the various gifts received, adding to the general energy - thank you everyone!
Beinspired has come a long way over the last 15 years, born one evening while talking with my Reiki Master about setting up yoga classes and offering Reiki treatments on the island and up popped the name and logo. I couldn’t have have appreciated in my wildest dreams that Beinspired would have taken me on the journey that it has over the years. At my first yoga class, no one turned up and I returned home despondent, crying on my dad’s shoulder and questioning my decision to teach.
It soon became apparent that I was not going to be able to survive on a holistic income and I returned part-time to the finance industry to help support me and afford me the opportunity to continue my travels and the endless trainings that I have undertaken off island over the years. I have not stopped studying and practising in all the time that I have been teaching - it is true that practice is everything.
While I was always resentful of my company secretarial qualification and the continuous draw to the finance industry, over the years I have become grateful for this. It has not only afforded the travel and training but has allowed me to develop the website and offer a plethora of free content - this all funded by my time attending board meetings and taking minutes, to say nothing of administering a wealth management company. I tried to leave it 3 times but each time I was called back, and each time my contract became increasingly flexible to the extent that I didn’t have a contract in the end.
I realise now that the powers that be were supporting me, and kept me engaged with the company to the point that it was, after 14 years, finally the right time for me to go it alone in the holistic world. It took that much time! Perhaps that’s helpful to know for those attempting to carve a life in the holistic world - it’s not always quite as straightforward as you might believe, there is often the need for compromise. Furthermore, this whole experience has helped me to finally appreciate that the spiritual resides in everything, that life is not black and white and that we need to get our prejudices out of the way if we are to see the bigger picture.
I do get asked from time to time for business advice. I don’t really have any! I did speak with Start-up Guernsey as it was known in the day, but I basically wrote a list of business intentions and personal intentions too, to which I channelled Reiki, before popping away in a drawer. I’ve gone back to it annually, because things change, including me, and Beinspired has taken on more of its own energy over that time, plus dreams have been realised so new dreams come in. I’m not sure I’d win a business award for that, because to be honest, I’ve just tried to keep aligning with heart and spirit, nothing else.
It’s taken a lot of hard work too, I’m not sure people appreciate that. Beinspired is my life, and I am continuously giving it energy, I don’t switch off, I thrive on working and practising, and trying to be in nature and of course with family as much as I can. I don’t sleep as much as I should, because I like to write in the quieter hours of the morning (I’m currently editing a manuscript I’ve written about my journey with depression), and I read in the evening, or explore nature and standing stones when the evenings are lighter.
I’m grateful for all the support that comes my way and especially for Katie, and before her, her sister Steph, who have transformed Beinspired in ways I couldn’t have done myself. I’m also eternally grateful to my parents who might not ‘get’ the whole spiritual/healing thing, or at least the extent to which I embrace it in my life, but have supported me nonetheless with all my endeavours. My dad even swept out the huge greenhouse for me once when rain put pay to an outdoor class on the grass! My mum even now prepares lunch for all the Reiki attunement sessions and then joins us while we eat.
There’s been lots of other support too. My brother Ross was instrumental in ensuring I got to my first yoga class, let alone helping with Beinspired in earlier years, teaching classes when he was on Guernsey. Vicki too, who has been a faithful friend throughout, helping me on the Herm retreats and covering classes for me, sometimes at the last minute, picking up when I went on unexpected and early maternity leave with Eben (and maternity leave with Elijah), she even had to finish off the retreat for me as I ended up being collected by the lifeboat with my waters breaking 6 weeks early during the middle of the retreat on a super full moon, typical huh!
Ewan of course has been unwavering in his support, he’s had little choice really, but I know there have been times when it has been tough, especially our first trip to India, running a retreat when the boys were only 1 and 3 years old - that was har work, because he was often having to entertain them for 5 hours or so a day on his own and I was still breastfeeding Eben (and still am!) which didn’t help. I dragged him back to India two years later when the boys were then 3 and 5, and that was still tricky because Eben kept running away from him and appearing in the yoga shala!
He’s managed on the many retreats in Glastonbury too, being the man on hand to help with students and ensuring they had logs in the yurts for their evening fires. Plus of course the endless hours of childcare while I’ve been teaching and attuning, often when the boys were babies, maintaining my sanity but probably at the expense of his own - Elijah cluster fed which made Monday evenings a traumatic event for Ewan as he awaited my return home to feed a screaming baby! Let alone the endless hours of my writing and turning often mad ideas into reality. I haven’t always gotten it right, putting other people’s needs ahead of my family’s needs, but he’s been supportive regardless. We’ve laughed and cried (well I’ve cried, Ewan’s mainly drunk more wine!).
My cousin Nick has provided amazing photography, so too his daughter Rosemary and of course Steph. Steph recorded many of the videos, no doubt bored to tears but she kept smiling regardless! There’s been so many others, teachers who have helped, friends who have given their endless support and spread the word, especially in the earlier days, those who run the retreat centres such as Emma in Goa with whom I am still friends, Devika in Nepal and her friend Cherry, and all the many students, wow!
There’s that saying isn’t there, about people coming into our life for a reason, a season or a lifetime and this is so true! There are some students who come and go, some who merely email for advice and then I never hear from again, sometimes not even a thank you (one learns detachment and being in service!) and those who have been with me from the very beginning. Our lives are all touched by one another in some way, especially when we usher Reiki into it. I’m grateful to everyone and to Her who collects us all together.
Who knows what the next 15 years will bring. Beinspired has its own energy and directs me, often challenging me to get out of my comfort zone. I have a few ideas too, so let’s see. For now, there’s definitely a calling to Sark and to share Reiki with the world. Yoga is going through its own transformation, the market saturated and sadly it has been reduced in many cases to nothing more than an exercise class. I live in hope that its philosophical and spiritual roots will find their way back through and yoga will no longer be seen as a middle class trendy thing to do.
I’m hoping that more will find their way to Ayurveda, simply because Ayurveda has helped me so much in my own life and continues to inform me in the way I attempt to eat and live. It demands a certain level of consciousness to begin but we are all getting there, the world is awakening, the term ‘chakra’ was unfamiliar to students when I first taught Reiki all those years ago but now it’s understood without any need for definition. With luck we’ll return to nature too, our own nature, as much as connecting with nature and all that this beautiful planet has to offer us, especially when we start respecting it.
I’m excited about the new baby, courtesy of Vicki, and about the other teachers who have started offering their heart and healing hands through Beinspired, both Jo and Katie. I’m also excited about the many Reiki practitioners starting to find their way, helping to spread more light to Planet Earth. This is what it’s always been about for me - reducing suffering, realising our potential (knowing the Self), raising consciousness and helping to heal humanity and Planet Earth in the process. Also trying to have some fun - sometimes we just need to lighten up and get out of our own way!
A huge big thank you to all of you who have supported me and Beinspired over the years - without you none of this would have been possible. A special thank you to Katie and Adam for facilitating the Kirtan yesterday evening -i t felt like the perfect way to celebrate these 15 years reminding me of the need for patience and that there is a timing to everything.
Love Emma x
We're on the wane!
Well that was one intense super full moon! I was giving Reiki when it peaked this lunchtime and I could literally feel the release. I lay on my mat an hour or so later and I could feel all the agitation and restlessness that the moon brought with it dropping away - it felt like I’d imagine it would feel coming out of a washing machine! Phew!
The moon brought some important messages with her. Family as a priority, is definitely a message worth remembering in this crazy busy world we currently live in. Letting go of all the stuff that we don’t need to hold onto, that also came through - open your hands and your heart to release. Tied into this was also the need to forgive.
I spent yesterday evening visiting the Goddess, sea swimming and hanging out at three ancient sacred sites. In one I felt very held and comforted and here gained the clarity for forgiveness and release of a pattern. The second had some amazing energy going on and if I can work out how to upload a video I will share. The third was both clearing and agitating all at the same time. It interested me how they all worked their magic in their own ways and all I had to do was honour the intuitive nudge and make an effort to turn up.
So let’s see what happens now. Eclipses have a habit of changing the things that need changing to orientate and re-orientate us to where we are meant to be, from the heart, not the will. In many respects they help us to let go of our need to control and just go with the flow, often the hardest thing of all.
So happy waning moon now. Hopefully your crystals are beautifully cleansed and your seeds planted. A new is awaiting once the dust settles!
xx
The vaccine division
The vaccine drama has stepped up a pace this last week, with increasing division as judgments fly around and persecution is rife.
I still hold true to my sentiment that it should be about freedom of choice as to what we put into our blood stream, not about what anyone else thinks and certainly not about being pro or anti.
We have to move on from this division in society, the us and them, the right and wrong, the black and white, and realise that there is always a middle ground and always another way - an open minded one at that.
In chapter 2 of the Yoga Sutras, verse 46 reads, “sthira sukham āsanam” which means that a yoga posture (āsana) must be firm and comfortable. Some āsanas will have more comfort and some more firmness, but they will have both. Verse 47 asks how this is achieved and the answer combines intelligent effort and appropriate effort. Like two sides of the same coin when the effort is appropriate, a release will happen. This applies as much to the breath as to what you are doing physically. Through this ‘right’ effort and release, there is a union, a coming together, a merging with the infinite.
Verse 48 asks what is to be gained from this practice. The answer is simple - dark/light, hot/cold, wet/dry, happy/sad, together/alone; we will no longer be disturbed by pairs of opposites, so we can endure change and variation much more clearly. It’s not that it won’t affect us, but that it won’t disturb us.
In the Bhagavad Gita, chapter 2, verse 38, Lord Krishna advises Arjuna to treat success and failure, profit and loss, unhappy occurrences and happy ones just the same. We are encouraged to flow, to do our duty, without worrying about the results. So it must be with life too. We must do what feels right for us and not be disturbed by our choices made if we are to experience the peace of mind we seek and release us from our suffering.
We each have a right to make a choice based on our own bodies and intuitive guidance and we should not feel that we have to defend this. There are always two sides to every story and always a middle ground. Fretting about what others think or defending the choices we have made only serves to diminish us and achieves nothing. It also sets us up for war - attack/defend, and the world needs greater harmony, not less.
When we are clear in our own heart and mind about the choices we are making and the path ahead then we will be less disturbed by anyone else - the yogi will be less disturbed (see above). A yoga practice at this time can be extremely helpful (at all times when I come to think about it!) to help strengthen us. The mind is a tricky thing, but yoga helps us to know more of it and stand strong within ourselves (standing up on our own two feet, able to see all sides).
If we feel we need the vaccine then we should have it, if we feel we don’t need the vaccine, then don’t have it, it’s very simple, we should not allow ourselves to be disturbed by others about it. Furthermore, those of us who attack would do well to question the reasons for this - are we trying to start a war? What right do we feel we have to judge others for their decision made? Perhaps we might delve into the root of this, whether it’s fear, a sense of righteousness, or because of our conditioned response to life (we do what everyone does without questioning it).
We should remember that karma has a habit of biting us in the bum when we least expect it - that which goes around comes around. There are always at least two sides to every story and innumerable lives lived and absolutely always another way, one of oneness and unity, if we allow it. We are ALL human after all.
Covid has ushered in huge change for us all. The way we have been living and abusing this planet has to change if we are to ensure the survival of humanity in years ahead. Yet there is this desperation to return to the ‘normal’ of the old world, to get travelling come what may, regardless of the impact on the environment.
It’s too late to go back to how things were and would we want to anyway? It’s difficult though and I say this as a now ex-traveller (I loved to travel and see the world) - that world has changed, travelling (certainly in the short term) will never be what it was and in many respects I’m pleased about that.
I’m weary of hearing of the number of people who have gotten the vaccine just because of travelling. As if somehow we missed the point to it all. Not the vaccine, I couldn't care less if you had the vaccine (in the nicest possible way!) What I mean is the desperation, as if our ability to travel demonstrates that we’re through the worst of it now, as if life has returned to some sort of order and normalcy - it’s become certain again.
There is no certainty in life, there never has been and never will be. Yet we are always trying to make it certain, buying into it, quite literally, as if having the latest technology will save us all, lining the pockets for the wealthy, selling out on our souls and on this beautiful planet as it is reaped of all its raw materials. The fact we call them raw materials is the give away - we sell out time and time again. We sell out on our health and wellbeing and we sell out on nature, we are continuously seeing ourselves as separate, buying into more of the illusion and literally buying, buying, buying.
We would do well to remember that despite the seeming chaos, the universe is always in perfect order, and more fool us for thinking otherwise. The trouble is that as our logical minds can’t figure it all out, we drop into fear easily when we lose sense of being in control of things. But we’re never in control, not really, not of the universe and its workings, the only thing we can control is the way we react to life as it unfolds, and ultimately, this is all about our minds.
Our mind needs to let go of thinking that life has to look a certain way. Sure, it’s difficult to let go of that which we love. I loved the freedom of getting on a plane and seeing other landscapes and cultures, but it came at a cost, not least to my bank balance but to the world at large. There has been a grieving as I have tried to come to terms with this new world of settling in one place, but heck, look at what a beautiful place it is, I live in paradise and yet its so easy to overlook it.
We all have the power to create the life of our dreams, to cultivate a positive perspective, to see through the view of illusion. Connecting with nature at large and with the moon can help with this. Nature talks to us, the moon talks to us, if we let it. My plants talk to me, stones talk to me too. People think I’m mad because it’s beyond their level of comprehension but its true. We live in a vibrating world of energy, communicating, we just need to get ourselves and our left brain logic resistance out of the way to appreciate it and tap into it.
There is so much more to us than we can ever realise in this lifetime. I’m keen to give it a try, but nonetheless I am aware of the depth of our conditioning that prevents us from accessing these deeper dimensions within ourselves, let alone out there in nature and the universe at large. Just because we don’t understand something or it’s beyond our realm of understanding, does not stop it being real, but we will often dismiss it anyway and accuse someone of being mad. But who is truly mad, the dreamer or those who don’t dream, the believer or those who don’t believe?
Again its not one or the other, but about unity and about settling more into the infinite, knowing more of the self, that doesn't feel the need to defend or attack as there is nothing to lose or win, just a whole heap of experience - the soul is frequently seeking opportunities to experience itself. There is always the need for discernment of course on the spiritual path, especially where new age spiritualism is concerned, the spiritual ego is tricky, but so is a closed mind.
I led a Reiki One attunement session today and with the moon waxing up now, it has become clearer that we have to pave a new way and we each have a role to play in that. I had hoped we might make it to Orkney this summer, or even Glastonbury, but I realise that I will merely be feeding the energy of hanging onto the past and the way life was lived. Sure, it’s messy when we enter a new way of being, because it is unclear how that will manifest itself into our reality, but we have faith to help us keep going with the flow, at least, once we’ve let go into the flow.
My new dowsing rods took me to a random stone in the middle of a complex of fields in rural St Andrew’s yesterday evening with the moon rising one side and the sun setting the other, and the message was clear. We must trust in the flow and in the intuitive guidance we receive. We have to hold strong to that regardless of what anyone else thinks or believes. We each have our own journey here on planet earth and we should honour that, knowing that we are all one ultimately.
There is no doubt that this super full moon eclipse (not that we’ll see the eclipse) is truly encouraging us to let go. Let go into the flow of the path that covid is taking us. The more we resist it, the greater our suffering will be. We should focus on cultivating greater faith and trust so that we don’t lose our energy and disempower ourselves. The universe always has our back even if we don’t realise it. The goddess too, if you are fortunate to have a relationship with Her. Let’s be the change we want to see in the world and let everyone else go on about their day in their way - think union, not division.
Happy waxing full moon, she’s an insightful one, go within!
xx