Dear Yogis…

Hooray we are (reliably) back.  I love writing the newsletters, and thankfully some of you like recieving them.  As I said…as we did with the old files, we will be going over the lists of subscribers and checking as far as we can who is responding, and at least reading… as much as we can tell.  The computer program helps.  When we culled the Teacher Training files after months of notifications that we would,  we got the most response months AFTERWARDS when people realised they weren’t any longer part of the team.  Don’t leave it that long this time.  Sometimes we have to start at the beginning…again.

BALANCE:  In yoga, meditation and life there must be balance.  In meditation, between relaxation and attention, between focus and analysis.  In the very old Tibetan Temples there was no electricity of course.  They were lit with butter lamps.  It was in this way hard to see that the walls were covered with paintings.  If you wanted to see the paintings you had to get close to the wall and then deal with the draughts which repeatedly blew out the flame.

It describes perfectly the state of meditation, the goal of which is to see past disturbances into the nature of reality.

Balance and stillness are not the same.  Finding balance means accepting and learning to live with change.  That’s the basis of adaptation.  Covid is teaching us this skill.

WHY WE MEDITATE. There are a number of reasons to meditate, just as there are a number of reasons to keep bees, or anything which is dependent on us.  We always need to ask good questions.  Perhaps reflecting on these questions – In doing this, am I making things better or worse? Are my efforts making things better or worse? Most importantly, am I serving others or just serving myself?   It is not always easy to get the correct answers to these questions, but asking them should be a priority.

“The lessons taught by a teacher with a positive motivation penetrate deepest into their students minds.  I know this from my own personal experience.  As a boy I was very lazy.  But when I was aware of the affection and concern of my tutors, their lessons would sink in more successfully than if one was hard or unfeeling on that day.

So far as the specifics of education are concerned, that is for the experts.  I will therefore confine myself to a few suggestions.  The first is to awaken young people’s consciousness to the importance of basic human values, it is better not to present society’s problems purely as an ethical or religious matter. 

It is important to emphasise that what is at stake is our continued survival”.  HH The fourteenth Dalai Lama 2006.

In my garden I am still dealing with the ravages of winter – not as bitter as it used to be, but very wet.  My Tibetan gongs like damp air, but I am looking forward to sunshine.  I have ordered my new bee colony which will arrive in September which is not long away now.  By that time I will have cleared away what remains of winter and everything will be ready for the bees in the spring.

Don’t forget to click our “classes”  on the home page of this site to see our zoom classes.  Teacher Training on the 2nd August will be zoomed.  So all you folk who have said how much they want to join us CAN.  We wait to see if you are ready for “spring”.

HAVE A GOOD DAY.

NAMASTE – JAHNE

Good morning Yogis,

I hope that we are back on air,  there was a hiccup, not with my writing, but with Mailchimps sending practices.  So, over the next couple of weeks, I am going to comb through the contacts we send the newsletters to, and if you never respond, if you haven’t clicked on it and read it (yes computers record this), I will take you off the list.  If I am left with just a few dedicated readers, well, it is what it is.  Buckle up guys.  It is a time of decision and weeding in this particular garden.

BEES:  Studying bees is like studying ourselves.  My palate never gets sick of the taste of honey, and because I love honey I have always admired the insects who magically make it.  I also am in awe of their community has often been the model for human society.  You can find references in Virgil, in Homer, in Plate Shakespeare, Marx and Tolstoy and of course our special friend Pliny the Elder.  His book, completed in AD77 …

Bees have a government. They pursue individual schemes but have collective leaders.  What is especially astonishing, they have manners more advanced than those of other animals, whether wild or tame.  Nature is great in  that from a tiny, ghost like creature she has made something incomparable.  What sinews or muscles can we compare with the enormously efficiency shown by bees?  What men in heavens name, can we set alongside these insects which are superior to men when it comes to reasoning? FOR THEY RECOGNISE ONLY WHAT IS IN THE COMMON INTEREST.

The inscriptions on many old beehives reads “NON NOBIS” meaning We work but not for ourselves”.  When in old drawings we see the old fashioned SKEP hive, it stands for some view of the goodness of work.  Sometimes this skep encourages us to reflect on the golden age of the past when work was simpler and slower.  However, in the bees world, there are no sickies, no holidays.  You are born, you work you die, no time off even to go to school..  No sooner had man admired the life of the bee and their tirelessness than he felt that he (or his wife) should emulate them in some way.

In Victorian times (as noted by Mrs. Beeton) the beehive was a symbol of industry.  It shows in one illustration that the world could be ordered.  A world in which different people did different tasks and no one envied the position of their neighbour.  A place for everyone and everyone in their place.  Like good supermarkets, industries, and families, a  good hive needs a balance of foragers and receivers.

At this time of covid there is much we can learn and receive from bees.  Honey has long been known as a medicine and strengthener of the bronchi. Muhhamed Ali the boxer took a mixture of vitamins and honey before his fights… and said that he “…danced like a butterfly, stung like a bee”.

Is there a beehive in your garden? Is honey part of your diet? Try my honey cough drops you will find the recipe on www.wildnweedy.blogspot.com.

Let me know you are there.  Don’t forget we will be zooming Teacher Training, The Tarot Training and Anatomy/Physiology lectures.  

NAMASTE.  JAHNE

 

 

 

Dear Yogis,

Turns out when we send out 10,000 newsletters per month mail chimp spits the dummy.  And it did.  I hadn’t realised how many subscribers we have… it is gratifying, thank you.  If you all sent me 50cents, I would be able to spend more time on the news, and more time with you.  There is an option for donation, maybe you could join it.  Buy me a up of coffee perhaps?  Thank you – skinny latte, short.

In his time of Covid and lock down a lot of us are not able to live as we usually do.  Our material needs may have been met to some extent by government money, however, our social needs are not met, and therefore have become increasingly important.  We can’t dismiss this.  One of the key aspects removed is COMPETITION.  We normally compete even if we are not consciously aware.   It is a natural biological aspect of our selves.  In the deep past those who competed more successfully had a better chance of survival.  Now we have a conflict, there is a threat to our survival, but our instinct to fight it has been curtailed.

In this time of covid, we can’t win, we can’t achieve, even our ability to meet a mate has been taken away, and the social status we may have at the workplace is removed.  If we realised that the frustrations we are feeling are part of our biological heritage we can see that this type of competition and material gain is no longer necessary in the same way.  However, we are what we are, and we have the DESIRE within us.  The Buddha told us that the only cause of suffering was attachment/desire.

We can change, and in this time of covid it is necessary to change.  We may have more time for simple pleasures and also for the pleasure of using our mind.  We can use the time we have been given in lock down to think, to experience an inner reality as well as the outer reality of material things, and by using the extra time we have to experience these things, our life becomes better for us.

The crucial step is the development of inner security perhaps through meditation. This will involve a reduction of anxiety which for some is a “new country”, a scary place.  We all possess self-regulating mechanism within the mind (and some wonderful chemicals which can activate ANADAMIDE being just one).  These will reduce our anxiety if we provide a suitable circumstance in which they can operate.  This can be achieved naturally through deep relaxation (Yoga Nidra) and by meditation.  In practicing these disciplines our anxiety is reduced, our defensive reactions lose their intensity, and the distortions in our personality reduces.

When we take this path we will have a greater understanding of the self, consequently feel more secure, and less disturbed by aspects of our personality.  In fact it could be said that we have in fact taken the first steps on the road to maturity.

HAVE A GREAT DAY.

NAMASTE.  JAHNE