Inspiration is everywhere

Thanks to the enormous level of support I have received for this blog over the last few months, I have decided to dive in the deep end of blogging and open this up as a platform for sharings on yoga, life and health. The new website is still being designed but I promise let you know as soon as it's live. Thank you again for your support and I look forward to sharing with you again soon.

Until then, I will be writing posts ready for it's launch. The exciting news is ... inspiration is everywhere!

Let today be THE DAY!

"Be honest, when was the last time you leaped out of bed, threw open the window and said, 'Thank god I'm alive! This is the most glorious day, and today I'm going to do something so fabulous it will change my entire life?" - Katharine Neville

Be grateful for your body

 An important reminder from the girls at 'Like Chocolate for Women'

I will be different tomorrow

I will grow 
I will become something new and grand
but no grander than i now am
Just as the sky will be different in a few hours
its present perfection and completeness
is not deficient, so am I presently perfect
and not deficient because
I will be different tomorrow

Wayne Dyer

Incredible Edibles from my Veranda Veggie Patch

“A garden is a grand teacher. It teaches patience and careful watchfulness; it teaches industry and thrift; above all it teaches entire trust.” – Gertrude Jekyll

It's been a while since I had my own garden but my love for growing and nurturing our green friends started early for me. As a 6-year old, moving to a new home, I negotiated with the family that yes, I would take the smallest bedroom on the condition that I could have some of the garden. That little meter square of dirt became my sanctuary. I would walk home from school each afternoon and tend to my garden while I waited for mum to return from work. I would tend to it all weekend, digging the dirt with a tiny shovel and letting my imagination run wild. I grew everything from azalias to zinneas and at one point it was a 'flower pressing factory' filled with violets and pansies ready for the flower press.  Those flowers then found their fate in my homemade recycled paper or in a vase in my bedroom.

My move to the beautiful Sunshine Coast (and the ever-increasing price of greens) has prompted me to rediscover my passion for the pastures. A couple of months ago, I created a veranda veggie garden using some old pots and poly boxes from the green grocer. I planted lettuce varieties, asian greens, green beans, kale, strawberries, tomatoes, celery, chillies and all of our most-used herbs. I love watering it every morning before work, it really does bring me back to earth and create space in my mind before I set off on my day. I love using that time each morning to see what's thriving and ready for our dinner table that night. Michael and I can't eat the lettuce fast enough to keep up with its growth spurts, our herbs are thriving and we've already put our favourite Ayurvedic Tomato Curry on the menu for next week when our tomatoes should be bursting red.

There's something pretty rewarding about growing your own veggies. It saves you money, is gratifying for the soul and you have complete control over what you are putting in your body. I recommend it to anyone, even better if you can enrol your child, niece or nephew or young neighbour and help them learn while having fun.

Here are the geen beans I picked from our small garden on the weekend. So fresh and delicious in our soup!

Here are some tips to get the best from your beans:

• The secret to maximising your production is to pick them often.  The more you pick, the more they will grow! 
• Beans are at their best when young and tender because the seeds inside haven't over-developed.
• If beans snap crisply, they are perfect for eating.  If they feel spongy when lightly squeezed in the middle, they may be too mature to enjoy so allow to dry out and save for seeds.
• To prolong your harvest, aim to pick and freeze beans on the same day.  First rinse in cool water, drain and then trim the ends and cut to your preferred length before blanching in boiling water for 3 minutes.  Plunge immediately into iced water to stop them cooking. After 3 minutes, drain and package into freezer bags, removing as much air as possible to avoid freezer burn.  If you follow these instructions, your beans will keep in the freezer for up to 6 months!

ENJOY!

Excerpt from 'a life of balance'.

"...The universe's only purpose is to enable us to embrace our magnificent true nature. All of creation vibrates with magnetism. We are in a continuous state of exaltation. To know this love is to become this love. We are not fish, bird, animal, human, microbe, and molecule. We are energy in a gross and subtle (embodied and cosmic) state at once. When we learn to tame and garner our forces, we become love. Love is not an emotion, it is our ultimate state of being."

Ayurveda: A Life of Balance; The complete guide to ayurvedic nutrition and body types with recipes. By Maya Tiwari.

Be in the moment

A beautiful reminder from lululemon.com

Who are you rootin' for?

Just over two years ago a very inspiring Yoga teacher from Chicago landed in Brisbane with a dream to share Anusara Yoga with the Australian community. I am forever grateful to have crossed paths with Julie and to continue to learn and grow with her.

If you are fortunate enough to have practiced with Julie, you will have heard her talk about 'rootin down'. 'Rooting what?' you say? I thought this was Yoga! Today, Julie's birthday, I'm dedicating my blog to Julie and to rootin' down. HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!

...


I invite you to remove your shoes and socks and find a piece of Earth to plant your feet. A sandy beach, the soft grass in your garden, the damp soil on the forest floor. Close your eyes. Stand tall with your feet hip width apart, toes pointing straight ahead and your knees tracking over your ankles. Your shoulders can melt away from the ears, the tips of the shoulder blades connecting with the back of your heart and your arms can rest by the side of your body.

Create a solid foundation through the feet by lifting and spreading the 10 toes one at a time. Press down through the big toe side of the ball of the foot, the inside of heel...the pinky toe side of the ball of the foot, the outside of the heel.


Each time you breathe in, allow the breath to travel from the centre of the chest out along the core lines. Just as a tree grows up through it's branches and down through its roots, feel the breath lengthen the spine up through the crown of the head and down through the tail bone and feet. Allow each exhalation to bring softness and surrender to the muscles, the skin and the organs.

Bring your awareness back to your feet, remembering that the tree is in constant interaction with the nutrient-giving earth.  Feel the breath as it travels down through the legs and through the four corners of your feet to connect with the Earth. Like the tree, our connection goes beyond the surface of the Earth.
Our inner ear senses down into the Earth's energetic centre, her Hara, to find balance.

Visualise tree roots shooting out from the soles of your feet and reaching deep into the Earth's centre. Where have your roots spread? Where do they get their nourishment? Perhaps your roots travel the 4000 miles into Mother Earth's molten core. What do you find there? Are there more roots searching for nourishment there? Which are yours and which belong to someone else? Using your inhalation to grow your roots, reach out and intertwine with another beautiful human being who is standing, exactly as you are, on the other side of our planet. Notice as your breaths synchronise. Grow your awareness to feel the pulsation of the Earth. Enjoy the synchronicity of breath. Tune in to Earth's deep breathing.

....

Trees of a similar kind are found in clusters. They stand together and grow together. Thank you Julie for creating a beautiful forest of Yogis - communicating, chanting and meditating under a gorgeous big tree.
xx Kirsty

Harmful effects of Garlic

My domestic-God partner (aka Michael) cooked us an amazing feast last night - delicious Chicken and Vegetable Tagine with some home made garlic bread on the side. With the sweet aroma of garlic butter filling the house, we jumped in early to devour the bread filled with garlic that was still raw. We could handle the bad breath but the other side effects plagued me all night and day and brought me to look through my old Ayurveda Cooking Class notes to find the article below. It turns out the garlic could be to blame for my restless and sleepless night, my dizziness and... well that's all the symptoms I will share with the public. Check out the article below for more info. on Garlic and it's effect on the body and brain.

Garlic - Toxic And A Brain Synchronization Destroyer  

Reiki Empowerment Seminars

30/4/2007

I have been telling people this for years,  all you need is a ECG of the brain to see the truth .. it totally desynchronizes the brain and cause us to loose our psychic mind ... yes our psychic mind, we are Human not slaves to the race of beings that control us ... this doesn't mean much to most ...

Garlic is not only repulsive to any one that eats it for hours ... but it makes us stupid slow and simple ... this is hard for most people to grasp,  do the ECG and do the experiment yourselves ... read this article on this and you will be amazed it does clean the blood but it also destroys the total  mind synchronization of the two hemispheres .. I was heart broken,  when I heard of this because I love the smell of garlic and onions ... but oh well ... once you find out they are a neuro poison then it makes al the sense in the world when you eat it ... what happens to you ! ... you smell awful and are totally repulsed by others . most are generally being nice not to tell you ... YOU STINK .. stay your distance !

it is also the best organic insect killer, too, is there a reason why no bug will eat garlic or any of the onion family...because it kills them.

The reason garlic is so toxic, the sulphone hydroxyl ion penetrates the blood brain barrier, just like DMSO, and is a specific poison for higher life forms and brain cells. We discovered this much to our horror, when I was the world's largest manufacturer of ethical EEG biofeedback equipment. We'd have people come back from lunch that looked clinically dead on the encephalograph, which we used to calibrate their progress. "Well, what happened?" " Well, I went to an Italian restaurant and there was some garlic in my salad dressing!"

So we had 'em sign things that they won't touch garlic before classes or we were wasting their time, and money and my time. I guess those of you who are pilots or have been in flight tests... I was in flight test engineering in Doc Hallan's group in the 1950's. The flight surgeon would come around every month and remind all of us: "Don't you dare touch any garlic 72 hours before you fly one of our airplanes, because it'll double or triple your reaction time. You're three times slower than you would be if you'd [not] had a few drops of garlic."

Well, we didn't know why for 20 years later, until I owned the Alpha-Metrics Corporation. We were building biofeedback equipment and found out that garlic totally desynchronizes your brain waves. So I funded a study at Stanford and, sure enough, they found that it's a poison. You can rub a clove of garlic on your foot - on the sole of your foot - and you can smell it shortly later on your wrists. So it penetrates the body. This is why DMSO smells a lot like garlic: that sulphone hydroxyl ion penetrates all the barriers including the corpus callosum in the brain. Any of you who are organic gardeners know that if you don't want to use DDT, garlic will kill anything in the way of insects. Now, most people have heard most of their lives that garlic is good for you, and we put those people in the same class of ignorance as the mothers who at the turn of the century would buy morphine sulphate in the drugstore and give it to their babies to put 'em to sleep. If you have any patients who have low-grade headaches or attention deficit [disorder], they can't quite focus on the computer in the afternoon, just do an experiment - you owe it to yourselves. Take those people off garlic and see how much better they get, very,very shortly. And then let them eat a little garlic after about three weeks. They'll say: "My God, I had no idea that this was the cause of our problems." And this includes the de-skunked garlic's, Kyolic, some of the other products. Very unpopular, but I've got to tell you the truth. (Source: From a lecture by Dr Robert [Bob] C. Beck, DSc., given at the Whole Life Expo, Seattle, WA, USA, in March 1996).

Bob Beck also found in his research on human brain function in the 1980's that garlic has a detrimental effect on the brain and researching this further he learned that many yoga groups and philosophical teachings caution against the use of garlic and onions as they are known to interfere with meditation practices. Some aware individuals have actually described themselves as experiencing brain fog after having garlic.

The Harmful Effects of Garlic

Garlic is toxic to humans because its sulphone hydroxyl ions penetrate the blood-brain barrier and are poisonous to brain cells.(1)    For precisely the same reason the garlic family of plants has been widely recognized as being harmful to dogs.(2)   As far back as the 1950s it was known that garlic reduced reaction time by two to three times when consumed by pilots taking flight tests. This is because the toxic effects of garlic desynchronize brain waves.

The Taoists realized thousands of years ago that plants of the alliaceous family were detrimental to humans.(3) They labeled this group of plants - onions, garlic, leeks, chives and spring onions - the 'five spicy-scented plants.' They noticed that onions are harmful to the lungs, garlic to the heart, leeks to the spleen, chives to the liver and spring onions to the kidneys. Hindus also avoid this group, which they have called the 'five pungent plants.'(4) As well as producing offensive breath and body odour, these plants induce aggravation, agitation, anxiety and aggression. Thus they are harmful physically, emotionally, mentally and spiritually.

Even when garlic is used as food in Chinese culture it is considered harmful to the stomach, liver and eyes, and a cause of dizziness and scattered energy when consumed in immoderate amounts.(5) Nor is garlic always seen as having entirely beneficial properties in Western cooking and medicine. It is widely accepted among health care professionals that, as well as killing harmful bacteria, garlic also destroys beneficial bacteria,(6) which are essential to the proper functioning of the digestive system. Furthermore, Ken Bergeron, in Professional Vegetarian Cooking, p. 16, writes: "garlic in the raw state can carry harmful (potentially fatal) botulism bacteria." Perhaps it is with an awareness of this that the Roman poet Horace wrote of garlic that it is "more harmful than hemlock."(7)

In the practice of Reiki, we have noticed that garlic and onions are some of the first toxic substances that are expelled from a person's system - along with tobacco, alcohol and pharmaceutical medications. This makes it apparent that alliaceous plants have a negative effect on the human body and should be avoided for health reasons. Homeopathic medicine comes to the same conclusion when it recognizes that red onion produces a dry cough, watery eyes, sneezing, runny nose and other familiar cold-related symptoms when consumed.(8)

You are my Sunshine

You are AMAZING!! Deepak Chopra "The Wonder of You"

FindYourMagic: Deepak Chopra "The Wonder of You"

Manifesto for Women in Business

Namaste

"Namaste'"
by Rajender Krishan

This simple word
uttered with a gesture of folded hands
is among the finest salutations,
humans have ever been able to vocalize.
It simply means:

I honor the place in you
In which the entire Universe dwells
That place of Love and Light
And of Truth and of Peace
When you are in that place in you
And I am in that place in me
We are One.

Kiss me

"I caught the happy virus last night. When I was out beneath the stars. It is remarkably contagious. So kiss me" Hafiz.

Everyone needs a vision (board)

This is the vision board I created in February 2011. It has since been updated and is way more inspiring with pictures of all the things I love. But I love this vision board with it's focus on my vision and hedgehog. A aspire to live into my vision and embrace my hedgehog each and everyday.

Food Glorious Food

Last month, I had the eye-opening pleasure of joining the team from Gwinganna Lifestyle retreats for an informative afternoon about food, digestion and stress. I had a long list of take-aways including:

- eat slower

- don't eat while stressed

- don't eat immediately before going to bed and so much more.

But my biggest of big takeaways was to only eat FOOD! Might sound obvious but how much of what we put in our mouth is actually food. Food is something that was living and something that will decompose. So here I am, on a mission to turn my degustation habits around. Gone are the days of a quick cheeseburger guzzled down while I drive home. Welcome... organic shopping, raw ingredients and enjoying the process of creating and eating delicious and nutritious meals.

This has been my favourite recipe discovery so far and it comes from wholefoods chef, Jude Blereau. It's super easy and EVERYONE I have made them from absolutely loves them. The best thing about using less refined flours is that it fills you up without that bloated, sickly feeling. ENJOY!

BERRY NICE PANCAKES

• 1 cup plain wholemeal flour (wheat, spelt, oat or barley)
• 2/3 cup milk – dairy, soy, rice or a mix of rice and coconut
• 1 ½ teaspoons baking powder – aluminium free
• 1 egg - lightly beaten
• 200gm blueberries (any berry is fine, though bigger ones like strawberries will need to be cut)
• butter, ghee or coconut oil for frying
• fresh fruit and maple syrup to serve

Combine the flour and the sifted baking powder in a bowl. Add the egg and a small amount of milk and mix well until smooth, before adding the remaining milk. Let the mixture sit for 5 minutes, allowing the flour to absorb the liquid. Add more milk if necessary. Add the fruit and stir gently.

Heat a teaspoon or so of butter, ghee or coconut oil in a frying pan. Pour a small amount (about 2 tablespoons) of the pancake mixture into the pan. As the batter hits the lightly sizzling fat, lift the pan and tip it on an angle, allowing the batter spread out, moving the angle to achieve a circle. Cook well on one side for 1 – 2 minutes. Bubbles should appear in the batter as it cooks, then turn it over. Cook on the other side for approximately 1 minute or until ready. If you find the pancake sticking, generally the frying pan was not hot enough.