Dear Yogis,

For all of you feeling heavy, foggy, tired and “lacklustre”, our new stock of Turkey Tail is in.  Light, fluffy wonderful.  I am a total devotee. What I have noticed is that I don’t need as much sleep, am totally “in the moment” and my dreams have hit a new high.  I always dream in colour, with sounds and “smellavision”, the total immersion, but now they are even more memorable.  I just feel good.  There is only one downside – I do too much.   It’s the Turkey Tail.  Only quarter to half a teaspoon every day will get you there.  I started researching TT because it was getting good press overseas from people on chemo.  If you want to learn more,  go to TedTalks, Professor Stament speaking on this  subject (he has a hat made of a mushroom and it looks good).  Let me know if you are interested in receiving Turkey Tail.   Email me.  yogafirst2@bigpond.com

GRATITUDE

I was listening to Hillsong this morning.  Sometimes they have great speakers/preachers, but sometimes they have the “yell and sell” guys.  Those people who think that trendy sneakers and a fake smile will save mankind.  They don’t understand the message of Jesus, and they pass on that misunderstanding LOUD and long.

This morning the preacher was talking on the theme “GOD RESTORES”.  Yes, God restores, but he doesn’t restore unless you understand where you are, unless you express gratitude knowing that wherever you are in your life it is perfect.  God doesn’t make mistakes – SHE DOESN’T HAVE TIME.

By the way, the word God is just a word.  God is an energy that thank goodness I don’t understand, but know is real.  If I understood it then I wouldn’t believe in “it”.  It wouldn’t be BIG ENOUGH.

The Hillsong preacher spoke about Exodus as if God automatically restored the “Land of Milk and Honey” to his people.  He did not.  They had to wander in the wilderness for forty years until they gave up blaming and whining (even Moses lost patience), and then he gave the land to their children and not to them because they didn’t deserve it.

The Hillsong Preacher spoke about Job as if Job had been attacked by Satan, and  it was Satan which took everything off him.  He didn’t.  It was a Bible story about a battle between good and bad, God vs Satan.  The usual Battlefield – Life.  God knew that no matter what he did, Job would remain faithful.  At the end of his tribulations God gave him back double what he lost – but he had to go FAITHFULLY through his troubles, even when EVERYTHING was taken from him.  In reward for his faithfulness, God gave him double back – plus 10 extra children and another 140 years of life.  Imagine the grandchildren, great grandchildren from this issue.

By the way, his friends who had tried to push him off course, and the wife who said “curse God and die” because she was attached to the social standing and wealth which were taken away,  never received restoration.  In the Gita story about the Battlefield God (Krishna) says that devotion to Him is the only way to understand the battle – and to achieve peace.. and spiritual restoration.

No matter what your religion, spiritual practice, or even if you have none, YOU WILL EXPERIENCE THE BATTLEFIELD.  It is called LIFE. (we start our Gita Study on Sunday the 10th January – have your paper and pencil ready..and your zoom ID organised).

We are now in 2021.  Last year 2020 was a difficult year for most.  It certainly was different, unusual for me.  I had to learn a whole lot of survival skills and hunker down into even more meditation/prayer times.  I made it through with new skills, and a new understanding about both God and myself.  Thank you to yoga, my yoga family, and my meditation practice (and ZOOM!).  

Don’t be reluctant to change, and don’t expect those around you to understand.  Go with your heart, it is the only compass you have.

I have said before, and here it is again…  The great gift of God is that we get to re-create our life in every moment by choosing goodness.  Sin is only one thing –  the failure to choose goodness.  God says, I am here in every moment because I have always been here in every moment.

I WILL SEE YOU ON THE MAT

NAMASTE.  JAHNE

 

Dear Yogis,

HAPPY NEW YEAR GANG.  I HOPE YOU ARE READY FOR A NEW AND SURPRISING TIME.  We are in the “quickening”.

We have turned a page.  If you didn’t notice it is 2021, and the sun is shining after days of dreary here.  I hope that you have got great plans, and one of the biggies is to follow through on your plans for the year ahead.  Your New Year Resolutions.  Don’t just think about them.  Act on them.

For myself, I am painting more and doing a series of “Secret Memory Boxes” plus I am going to be teaching you how to make them for yourself….  I am making one for my mother – I didn’t love or understand her when she was alive and this little box will contain love tokens for her now, plus a little box for the sons I lost.  I can have sentimental, personal memories in the little box sitting unobtrusively on my bookshelf looking like a book.  I have called them “PRECIOUS GIFTS”.

NEW BEGINNINGS:

I was wondering what I would call these works, and then (whilst I was in the shower) I thought about Sri Prabhupada, The man who started the Krishna movement.  He left India when he was 70 with $20 in his pocket, the clothes he stood up in, and a small suitcase with his manuscripts and a typewriter.  Why?  Because God told him to teach in America.  Imagine that.  He couldn’t afford the voyage so more or less hitched a ride on a cargo ship that took weeks to get from India to New York, added to that he had a small heart attack on the way (and you think you have it tough!).

He was taken to the Bowery, the backwater in New York inhabited by the outcasts of society.  A small dark man in a monks robe  and an army great coat he was given, and a suitcase.  That is all  He had no friends and relied on God’s help.  For shelter, he was taken to a small shop which had been gutted long before he arrived on the doorstep (I am sure you can imagine it, you’ve seen the TV shows) and only the grafitti’d shell left.  The walls and roof were intact, it did have windows and a door,   and that is where Prabhupada started his Ministry.

Only one thing was left from the previous occupants – the sign above the door – which read “PRECIOUS GIFTS”.  

There was no internet, no mobile phones, and he relied on God.  He sat there in his tiny empty space, sleeping where he sat,  writing, meditating and chanting.  People came and so began a movement which now stretches across the globe.

I like to have an inspirational story to help me when things get difficult, (which they always do before the sun shines), on the basis that if we allow our spirit to shine, all will be clear.  You know you are on the right track when you lose interest in looking behind you.  You are then on track for a new beginning.

HERE IS MY THOUGHT FOR TODAY:

THINK ABOUT AN EGG…
“If an egg is broken from the outside, life ends.
If an egg is broken from the inside, life begins”

 

HAPPY (FRUITFUL) NEW YEAR..

SEE YOU ON THE MAT – NAMASTE  JAHNE

 

 

Dear Yogis,

Here we are (or here I am), in what feels like “The Great Covid Pause”.  I didn’t need another holiday – I needed more and more of you. I only have another 10 days to go and we can start back!….

Throughout the whole experience, since March last year, I have been learning more and more about what I can do, and more importantly, what I need to do.  Not “need to” from a monetary point of view, but having faith in my creative drivers. In this mind, I have even taken the TAROT a step further, and made a SECRET TAROT BOOK (in the photos and on etsy – the tarot, pendulum and charts all fit into a secret compartment in the book ).   I have learned if I don’t create art I am not happy, and I feel only partly here.  Living the creative life (yoga,  art or whatever you do, whatever your art form), as you will know, requires faith.  Faith that you are going in the right direction, and the only way we can know is by checking in with our inner compass – our heart. Are you happy?

FAITH IS NOT THE SAME AS BELIEF.  Belief is about accepting certain statements are true.  You probably believe that 1+1=2, that elephants are bigger than insects, and that water is wet.  You think these things are true, but you don’t think they are true on the basis of faith.  Faith is about trusting in God, and believing IN something and not believing THAT something is right.

Although faith is not the same thing as belief,  it might consist of having certain beliefs, being willing to accept the things that are revealed to us by “God”, in the same way you might accept the claims of a close friend because you trust their knowledge and experience.  St.Paul in Hebrews 11:1 calls faith “the evidence of things unseen”.

I am a fan of THE MATRIX.  In this tale, Hamann the councillor refuses to accept Lock’s narrow minded dismissal of oracles, prophesies and such.  Lock cries out to Hamann  “I believe we need every ship we have to survive this attack, why did you allow the Nebuchadnezzar to leave?!”

“Because,” says Hamann “I believe our survival depends on more than how many ships we have”

As Thomas Aquinas says in Summa Theologica “The act of faith is firmly attached to something, and in this respect the person of faith is in the same state of mind as one who has knowledge or understanding.  Yet the believer’s knowledge is not completed by a clear vision, and in this respect he is like one having a doubt, a suspicion, or an opinion” (2a.2ae.2.1).

For your future wellbeing and abundance, are you banking on “how many ships you have”.  Are you going in the direction of your head, or your heart?

 

WALK FORWARD IN FAITH.

NAMASTE.  JAHNE