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Dear Yogis,
We are experiencing some beautiful days, and I have been experiencing the most beautiful clients.  Clients who have helped me make sense of what I am doing. Clients with messages for my heart, and those who even consider what I need materially to continue – the angels among us.  If I told you, you just wouldn’t believe – extraordinary.  Thank you.
How are YOU making the most of your time with your creative self.

HOW DO HERBS AND PLANTS INSPIRE YOUR CREATIVE MOMENTS?  

I wonder about your routine – I certainly have one.  There are some basic questions I ask myself first such as “what is seasonally relevant”, and then “what is growing in my garden, or on my foraging walks today”.   Now winter is on the way, and the weather is damp with some cool days and some warm and wet days, the mushrooms are starting to appear.  Wild greens are  always coming up, and  I’ll think of some ways that I want to intentionally engage with them, paint them, or make a tincture or recipe.  I am painting wild (edible) mushrooms at the moment. And I am still dealing with a bumper plum harvest, lemons and limes.
Before I start creating at my favourite bench space, I always like to have a cup of herbal tea, take some kind of tincture, and light some incense to feel grounded (I make sure the cat is settled – I can’t work with her on the bench). I like to pick recipes based on the season. So right now, it’s coming on to winter and I’m drinking rooibos with vanilla.  A warming comforting tea.  I have a mushroom tincture (shilajit for energy) that I use often because it works for me, and Bach flower remedy I make myself to keep me concentrating and on track.   I’ll put some in my tea, put some on my wrists, and also put some in the paint water.
What you’re engaging with physically is also what you’re engaging with on the paper as you paint, so it’s nice to bring that tincture into the artwork itself.
When possible I will bring a sample of the herb I am working with indoors, and just stand it in the paint water as well. It is nice to connect the dots between the natural world and the creative, I just feel more inspired and creative when all the energies are linked.

DRAWING EXERCISE

We are moving from summer to winter – some days more quickly than others… the seasons are really shifting. I have a drawing exercise here for you so you can play along with me.
  1. Bring your drawing supplies – and a picnic rug –  on a walk (the walk I have been trying to get you on for a long time)…. Notice the plants and the plant energies around you.  Notice the new plants popping through, even the fungi.  Easter is a great time for mushrooms.   Don’t rush, breathe along with nature, and feel yourself “plugging in” to the earth energies.  Don’t just rely on your iPhone! It is not the same as doodling with a pencil and paper.
  2. Let a place call out for you.  It could be  bench, or a favourite rock, or just sitting on the grass (don’t forget a picnic rug).
  3. Start with a simple meditation, with every breath take in the energies around you, and imagine your drawing, or the beginning of the drawing.
  4. When you feel connected , just start a drawing or a doodle.  Anything – even words.  There is no right or wrong.  Just do what comes through to you, without introducing technology, (perhaps leaving that until you are back in your studio).

The schedule for this week.
ZOOM:Monday 6.30 Gita, Tuesday 7.30 Herbal Workshop, Friday 6.45 Free Tarot.
STUDIO:  Monday 1pm (full), Wednesday Restorative 1pm and Friday at gentle hatha and chair 1pm.

I LOOK FORWARD TO SEEING YOU ON THE MAT (OR THE PICNIC RUG)

NAMASTE – JAHNE

 

Dear Group,

We are putting in place our winter Schedule…

ZOOM: This will remain the same.  Mondays 6.30 Gita, Tuesdays 7.30 Herbal Workshop, Friday FREE tarot.
STUDIO: Changes. Monday 1pm (full), Wednesday Restorative 1 vacancy, Friday 1pm Hatha and Chair Yoga.

THE END OF THE MONTH LUNCH: Will now have to be on a Thursday – Yoga has sneaked into Friday.  Next Lunch.  Thursday 31st March at 12 noon at THE VICTORIA HOTEL in Woodend.

 

WHILST you have been relaxing and shopping at Coles, I have been using the produce that is dropping from the heavens into my lap.  And I have not stopped yet.  I have not stripped the psyllium, and I have more lemons.  In the cupboard, I have Nucello, Vin de Noix and apple cider vinegar fermenting and forming a “mother”.  I have two more jars of apple cider vinegar just begun, more fruit in various forms in the freezer and dried. Plus I dried two trays of tomatoes which went down to one large jar.

I have also put down a vinegar/lemon cleanser which has to ferment for two weeks.

WALNUTS?  Imagine a beautiful cracker with double brie, the creamy flesh of young walnuts stored in oil, topped with a home dried tomato.  Bliss.

I am ready for the winter, and there is so much to do.  Over the weekend I am going to pick some sorrel and turn it into powder.  As soon as pumpkin is cheaper, I will do the same with that for winter soups.  If you have too many zucchini I would love some please, even the whoppers that have gotten away from you unseen until harvest.

I would love to introduce you to the joys of foraging (my favourite apple trees is still waiting for me as seemingly no-one else cares).  Maybe the school holidays will present an opportunity for you?  If you are interested in coming on a walk and finishing in the kitchen please let me know – 4 sessions would be good. Email me – I could also zoom. yogafirst2@bigpond.com

THE HERBS AVAILABLE TO YOU

Turkey Tail Powder –  25g $30 including postage
Reishi Powder – 25g $30 including postage
Reishi Dried Herb Slices 25g $30 including postage (I put mine in a little red wine, honey, spices and ashwagandha to make a tonic wine).

*Herb tea for IBS and Bloating tummy (who doesn’t know that feeling?)
*Herb tea that has a reputation for helping with anaemia.
*Herb tea for sleeplessness.
and *Herbs for HEART HEALTH  (I use Hawthorn, and this is in the Herb tea).

HERB TEAS $53.50 a pack  of 6 including postage.  This will last about 10 days to 2 weeks depending on how often you dip them into your own teas, or water bottle. You can add honey or lemon to taste as you want to.  The little pouches as you can see I make and tag myself, as well as growing, drying and packing the herbs.  They are not like regular teas, you don’t jiggle them to make the water dark – these are herbal teas to have you feel better… one tea bag will last at least one day, with me two, jiggled into any tea or water you are drinking.  After they are finished, I drop them into my drinking water jug…I might have 4 or five in the jug at any one time.  No chemicals are water or lost.

Reishi’s alcohol-soluble triterpenes go a step further.  Scientists have discovered that alcohol extracts from Reishi mushrooms are “the only known source of a particular group of triterpenes, also known as ganodermic acids, which have been found to have direct cancer cell cytotoxicity on a wide variety of cancer cell lines”.

BACH FLOWER THERAPIES are available in the studio and via zoom, as is PAST LIFE TAROT.

My booklets will show you how to do all this for yourself.  There are no more lock-downs in sight, but if I can make time to get the pantry ready for winter, you can too.

 

 

“Opportunity; depends upon the use of same. Every experience and condition is a useful experience, and these are either made as stumbling-blocks or stepping-stones.”     Edgar Cayce reading 1424-2

I WILL SEE YOU ON THE MAT (MAYBE AT THE NEW TIME)

NAMASTE. JAHNE

 

 

 

Dear Yogis,

Where were you last nite at the herbalists workshop.  We learned everything walnuts (fermented in vodka, wine, as a savoury sauce, as a powder for ink and a tincture), remembering of course that walnuts contain a precious element – IODINE.  Fabulous against parasites and to rebalance the thyroid.  If you are recovering from radiation treatment then chances are you would have benefitted from knowing how you can use this wonderful ingredient, provided by nature.

To discover walnut wine and many other ferment recipes.. easy recipes you can make in no time from left over fruit or vegetables go to www.myyogabooks.etsy.com and click on “MAKING BOOZY HERBAL GINS, VODKAS AND WINES” and download this timely inexpensive Ebook.  

DON’T FORGET that walnuts (and acorns) are fabulous for making paint and ink.  Ink is the easiest.  I am making powders so that I can turn this powder into ink, or tincture or put in into food.  Maybe, as prices rise,(especially petrol), you may have to look around the garden to supply more of your needs.  I found when my kids were growing up they loved all the foraging and making we did.  To them it was a game, it was fun I enjoyed it, but I started because I wanted to save money by using what was around me….  I never stopped.

SCHEDULE THIS WEEK
ZOOM: Tarot 6.45pm (This is a free class)
STUDIO: Wednesday and Friday 5.30

Thought for the Week

“The dreamer, the visionary, those who attune themselves to the infinite, the more often they receive the more infinite power, for those attunements that will bring into being those as of the realities of the UNSEEN forces being as COORDINANT in their activity, as the night follows the day, the moon sheds its light from the activity of the giver of light, the sun.”
Edgar Cayce reading 262-8

 

I WILL SEE YOU ON THE MAT.

NAMASTE. JAHNE