An Update and a new beginning…

This is a new start. I left my flat in the beautiful Kew Gardens, my job after a successful year and finished a relationship which was at times wonderful but often tumultuous and energetically very draining for me.

I decided I needed a change. Some time out. A reset and also the opportunity to give back and offer my service.

So what have I been up to? Well, following on from The Hridaya TTC  I stayed in Mexico for a few months. We had the intention of starting something in the village of Tepoztlan. Things didn’t work out there and I returned to London virtually penniless and looking for a way to become unstuck.

The Hridaya teacher training course was an intensive 3 months of meditation, yoga, theory and community. I wrote about it on their blog here.

Passion, Power and Love

This change has been brewing within me for some time. Some inspiration arose in the Passion, Power and Love workshop I did over new year with Jan Day. The next year holds adventure, learning, sharing and practice.

The above picture is the vision board that I created during the Passion, Power and Love workshop. I created it as the climax of 3 days of deep connecting, both with others and with myself.  There is a lot of gratitude for the learning and dancing on the edge that happened at that time. I returned to work in London with a great deal of positivity and aliveness, even in the depths of winter.

The vision board allows me to look forwards and see great potential. Some of the exercises we did helped me to view memories with a fresh outlook.

 

Gong!

Having been inspired by receiving gong baths at various festivals over the last few years I decided to take a workshop to learn how to play. It was organised by Ali and led by Sheila Whittaker. The two days of training with around 15 gongs in a small space and 16 students created such a powerful energy and vibration. I had been suffering from recurring headaches for several weeks before and I noticed over the weekend the intensity getting stronger. At the end of the weekend we participated in an all-night gong puja. We settled ourselves in for the night and took turns playing the gongs for half an hour each from 9pm through to 7am. By the end of this night my headache was completely gone and didn’t come back even after returning to the office.

Glastonbury Retreat

I was delighted to share the experience of running a yoga retreat at the lovely ShekinAshram in Glastonbury with Ben.  We had eight students who came for two classes of yoga a day. We also had Kirtan with the amazing Tim Chalice, fire puja by the ashram staff and walks to Glastonbury Tor and Chalice Well.

Ben and I also experimented with a sound journey. Leading with the gong and incorporating harmonium, drums, rain stick and various other bits of percussion that were lying about we had a strong hour and a half of relaxation. I was completely gonged out by the end. I don’t know about the students. It’s something I’d like to do more of so will do more gong training work in the next year.

 

The Globe & Sangha

In a brief moment in London some of my Hridaya Sangha were going to Shakespeare’s Globe on the Southbank. I’m so glad I went along to an exuberant performance of Twelfth Night complete with bearded, sparkly, giant drag queens, “We are Family” and a lot of laughs.

Yoga show

I went to the yoga show a couple of times… I found an unfinished post about it so let me take you back there…

“This weekend I visited an exhibition in the beautiful surrounds of Alexandra Palace, perched atop a hill to the north of London and with a stunning vista around the capital.

The Yoga Show is kind of a strange event. The consumerisation of such an ancient art is always going to be slightly jarring. For a practice that is supposed to bring you deep inside to a place of stillness and connection with the universe, being around thousands of people, all pushing their own take on wellbeing, can be overwhelming.

I thoroughly enjoyed it though, from wandering through the stands trying organic chocolate, tasting teas and natural supplements to taking in workshops and chatting with vendors about yoga accessories.

I went partly due to being a member of Yoga Alliance, an organisation that attempts to provide a level of confidence among yogis that the schools they are studying with and the teachers that are spreading the word are of a certain standard. They had a large stall at the yoga show and Emma was helping them out with it during the day.

I went to a couple of their sessions for teachers – Refining Adjusting Skills (Part Three) with Brian Cooper and Master Class: Relax with Tara Stiles. Their classes were away from the main body of the yoga show in a separate room making for a more relaxing environment.

I’m not one for celeb yoga teachers but I had somehow heard of Tara. I wasn’t sure about walking into the hall with the Chemical Brothers booming from the stereo and Tara posing for selfies with the early birds but I was willing to see where she wanted to take us.

The class was towards the end of the day but I must admit I came out feeling thoroughly blissed out. She has obviously worked hard at delivering a sequence that is aligned with the music. (getting more “spiritual” as the class progressed). It was somewhat challenging without being pure gymnastics and we did a nice bit of alternate nostril breathing at the end. I did find she kind of mumbled through the instructions a bit. I felt she was trying to squeeze in more words than is really necessary. This lead to a few occasions where I was taken out of the flow by wondering – what was that? If the effect is all important though I came out on a different level so I take my hat off to her.

Brian has just released a book focusing on the anatomical side of yoga and his approach to alignment clearly comes from a deep understanding of the body and a training in Thai yoga massage.

This class was in much more of a workshop style with Brian and an assistant showing us a posture and a way to adjust before we paired up and tried the same on each other. There were some great ideas in here and although some of the suggestions were perhaps better suited to a “partner” style of class, since I think it would be difficult to go around the whole class applying some of the techniques It was good to learn from someone who clearly has a lot of knowledge and a very precise and focused teaching style, although with a sense of humour.”

 

Resonance Academy

I’ve been inspired by Nassim Haramein and his teachings of sacred geometry for some time and have mentioned it before. I signed up for the Resonance Academy delegate programme and have been studying off and on for the last year or so. I don’t always follow the science.  Quantum physics equations might as well be in Martian to me I’m afraid but it’s been interesting. I’m hoping to get through to Module 4 soon where apparently the juicy stuff resides!

 

Colourfest, sacred sound and volunteering

Colourfest continues to be one of my favourite festivals. I went there last year with some friends which was hugely enjoyable despite some stresses beforehand. This year I volunteered as a steward – the first of several yoga festivals I will be helping at this summer. (The next ones are the World Yoga Festival and Buddhafield) Volunteering was a different way to experience things and very enjoyable to be part of the team. By having a limited amount of time to enjoy what was on offer I actually made more of an effort to do things. Hanging out on the main gate and welcoming people was fun. We were on this gate the first morning before the gates officially opened and some people were really difficult.

“Sorry, we’re not open for another half an hour so you’ll just have to wait here for a few minutes”
“Well, why are there loads of cars and tents already in the field then?”
“… I mean, do you think the festival just appears by magic or what?”

My other interesting shift was on the Saturday night on Gate B. This was the tradesman’s entrance and exit from the festival. I was here alone and other than one person setting up lighting I had to redirect everybody back to the main entrance. It was quite peaceful. Then it got dark and I was lit by just three candles in the forest. Thankfully I had the site security guard coming to see how I was every so often. Ben and Jonathan took pity and joined to keep me company for half an hour as well.

Highlights of the festival itself were yoga classes with Swami Asokananda, one of which I followed with a shamanic journey and then a gong bath for the ultimate in chill. Kirtan with Sivani Mata, Elahn and Radhe and plenty others were also great. There were dance collaborations and some tantra workshops although I pretty much stuck with the sacred sound.

Krishna Das

Speaking of sacred sound I saw the amazing Krishna Das at the Union Chapel and it was one of the most incredible heart opening Kirtans. It is always a joy to do this practice but somehow he led the huge audience into raptures; I was full of bliss.

Yogific

Colourfest wasn’t my first yoga volunteering event this year actually, I helped at a couple of events for Yogific including the Yoga and Vegan food festival in my old stomping ground of Kingston. It was held in the Guildhall which is a lovely setting and was a huge success. There were lessons to be learnt, though. So many people came we ended up with a queue out the door as venue security restricted capacity. It was great to do some yoga, try delicious vegan food and have interesting conversations with people. I’m hoping to help them out later this year in India.

AOL and the Cote D’Azur

I went to a workshop called Awakening of Love which led to musings here… The next opportunity to do this workshop is in Devon from the 22nd to 24th Setember.

Some detail I cut out is here –

Simon Matthews is an unassuming group leader, he remains centred and is able to connect easily. His journey started in 2003 with the Hoffman Process but before this he was sceptical about any sort of therapeutic work. Taking part in the Path of Love in 2011 changed everything and within a year he had trained to lead sessions. His commitment and clear faith in the power of the work, as well as the assistants who hold space so beautifully, create a container that is safe and yet profoundly open.

Awakening of Love is a short introduction to the longer Path of Love workshop which has been running since 1995. Founders Rafia Morgan and Turiya Hanover came together to develop a system from their combined experiences in development and spiritual work.

These teachings stem from the work of controversial Indian sage Osho. He introduced a series of dynamic meditations and an open approach to working with sexual energy which is an influence on most modern teachings of “tantra”.

The workshop also connected me with someone who I went to visit in the South of France for a week. We had a lovely time cooking delicious healthy food from the local produce.  We hiked in the mountains surrounding the Cote D’Azur and swam in the sea.

Fresh melon and Kudzu pudding

Sage paradise

The invisible tourist

Cote D’Azur

Sea view

Village life

View from the fort

Mooji

Mooji is still a strong influence, we went to see him in London last summer and I had a lovely hug afterwards. Oh, and we were offered his kettle – truly blessed!

 

Meadows in the Mountains

Meadows in the Mountains was pitched as a hippy adventure in the Bulgarian mountains with a Burning Man vibe. It lived up to that although I wasn’t expecting it to be full of kids from Hackney getting wasted to techno. It was still a lovely experience.

Amazing views, stunning sunrises, and beautiful people made it the most visually arresting festival I’ve ever been to.

I managed to do one class of yoga nidra. It was more like a yoga class with a long relaxation. This was a really nice way to dip into a different energy at the festival. I needed to catch up on sleep as well.

We also spent some time in the delightful tea shop which was run by “goldilocks” who worked tirelessly to keep the place spic and span. Our awesome neighbours in the campsite were tango teachers from Argentina. They always seemed to be in the midst of some family crisis but were such a bastion of calm in the madness.

 

I saw the sun rise over the mountain twice. On Sunday night the mist rolled in and created a fantasy scene of islands of trees in the valley.

We found a drum’n’bass dub party in the yoga tent which went off like a bomb.

We spent a lot of time people watching. In a perfect flow scenes would emerge before us. The pirate ship became our domain for a while, the uneven slopes making the zombie children stagger and the sneezing guy fall over.

We arrived at the right time for food, and this was no mean feat. The soul food curry stall took 3 hours to prep and would be gone in 20 minutes. To arrive at the right second took some synchronicity. Otherwise the festival was fuelled by cheese on toast and Prosecco. People swigged from the bottle in a search for psychedelics which seemed to consume the site. I can’t say we saw much live music but the afro-beat collective were pretty great.

Sofia

On our return to Sofia Sev’s family welcomed us as Herman insisted on taking us out for a beer. We were somewhat reluctant due to tiredness and nursing a 5 day accumulated hangover. Herman’s nighttime city tour turned out to be a highlight, though.

Unbeknownst to us the centre of Sofia has some real sites. The “5 wings and 7 dicks” monument looking like something from the nightmarish vision of a video game. The thousand year old churches. Roman ruins that you can wander amongst, with a can, even in the middle of the night. The Church where Sev’s grandmother got married, with it’s golden domes. The huge statue of a king with piercing golden eyes. We ended up in a bar down a pitch black alley, a knock to be let in and all the lighting by candlelight. The only downside – we forgot to take a camera!

Austin Kleon

I’ve been inspired by the books and newsletter of Austin Kleon who is a Texas-based artist with great ideas about sparking creativity and how art is created through careful appropriation of existing sources. His “Steal Like an Artist” takes the view that all art comes from a combination of influencers and by digging deep into your favourite work you can find the inspiration to make something new and interesting.

 

Politics

So while all this has been going on and my world is turning, the outside is equally messy. Brexit was a moment for me, in turmoil in relationship at the time, where it didn’t seem that the shifting sands of politics could really have an impact and then…

Unprecedented in its wake up call to the progressive left who have been somewhat sleeping over the last 20 years, myself included in that, I hope the upheaval we are seeing will lead to a shift in the way we see our society and how it is constructed.

I voted remain for inclusivity, and the desire to work together with people from all cultures, religions and backgrounds to improve the lot of all of humanity. The petty jingoism and casual racism that seem to have emerged since, and with the Trump effect adding to this normalisation, are not just unacceptable from a moral point of view but also take us backwards when we should be striving forward for evolution.

The recent election showed the number of young people waking up to the recognition that they can influence. The rise of Jeremy Corbyn I hope means that there is a new paradigm emerging in British politics. The Grenfell tower tragedy brings into sharp contrast the differences between the rich and the poor. It cannot be long before the masses realise the lies of the right wing press and stand up against this Tory government. It’s time for an end to an austerity agenda which only benefits those who are already comfortable.

I hope we can rise above self-interest, gain those Bodhisattva ideals (that I’m reading and writing about currently) and shake the magic money tree (which certainly exists if you are an investment banker) to provide for all those in our society.

What Next?

So next I’m volunteering at the World Yoga Festival in Reading and Buddhafield. After these two I’ll be flying down to Lyon to help the renovation efforts at the new Hridaya France centre – Ramana Village

I have been published in a few other places since I last wrote here…

http://www.yogiapproved.com/?s=Ian+Marshall

http://www.hridaya-yoga.com/ready-for-a-meditation-retreat/

http://www.elephantjournal.com/2016/07/how-i-used-my-spiritual-practice-to-break-unhealthy-relationship-patterns/

https://goodmenproject.com/sex-relationships/men-in-tantra-what-they-are-missing-out-on-grmx/