Dear Yogis,

A time to inspire.  Do you have plans for tomorrow, for the rest of the week? You may want to throw them out the window if you had an idea of what was around the corner.   Do you have confusions, procrastinations?  This is a time when massive transformation is possible – all that is needed is the desire to transform….

Mother’s day is just a hop way, and here is something you can give to yourself or to your mum.  A THREE QUESTIONS TAROT READING.  Go to www.jahnehopewilliams.net  download the voucher, and then we can do the reading by email..  I use the tarot, plus pendulum,  and the Tea Leaves if there is a medical question involved (I have found the tea leaves work very specifically with me in this regard).  The reading will take about an hour, although if spirit screams the answer at me, it may be one sentence!!  I have had that happen and it is very startling and very effective. The recipient of the one sentence message was most appreciative and excited, although I felt a bit difficult delivering it.

 

If you go to the web address above, you will also find two inspirational posters.  One “ON BEING HUMAN”.  If any of you have paid attention to Yoga teacher Training you will have read this with me before.  I found it pasted to the wall of an Amsterdam toilet, and as I couldn’t remove it,  it took some time to write it down using toilet paper and one of those smudgy pens.  People before me had tried to take it, and bits were missing, but over time I tracked it down… and here it is not on etsy or www.jahnehopewilliams.net

The small poster is RULE NUMBER 10 from the same poem. They are not really RULES, but words which will push you towards personal growth and self development.  A reminder for when you go in the wrong direction, or think in destructive ways.

REGARDING COVID.  Are you feeling flat this week?   Taking a bit extra time to get motivated? Feeling lazy?  According to “experts” (and you may want to stay away from them), this is how our personal curve could  happen (just in case you haven’t read the “COVID DIARY”),

Stage 1. Confusion and a feeling of abandonment (hence the panic buying)

Stage 2. Relaxing into the “holiday – time out, time off”.  We get out our to-do list and start working down it. Happy, happy, happy.

Stage 3. THIS IS WHERE SOME OF US ARE RIGHT NOW.   We want to get back to something “meaningful”, and away from the everyday monotony. WE ARE GETTING FRUSTRATED we think we are lazy, and we feel flat and apathetic after seven weeks of isolation.

So if you are feeling like this, it is perfectly natural, but it doesn’t mean that you have that extra slice of cake and settle back down on the couch.  It is time to give yourself “a good talking to” and find something you like to do that will help you to be interested.  Do that, and then do more.  This is a difficult part of the curve… and as any long distance runner knows, the race gets more difficult at the end.

Right now, at this minute, I am getting out into the garden.  Today I have been doing small projects, going on longish walks, collecting baby fish for my ponds, and switching routines around.  Still doing lots, but not getting in a rut.  Do you know the difference between a rut and grave?  Easy, just the depth.  Don’t let your rut get too deep.

Stay happy –  Stay healthy.

Namaste, Jahne

 

 

 

 

 

Dear Yogis,

There are many things we can do to change our days.  It is easy to feel down when you have spend days without your usual routines and yoga contact…  I know, I am human too.  

One of the things I like to do EVERY DAY is read spiritual and uplifting verses or stories in the morning.  That is why I read the Gita or the Bible or something familiar and inspiring every day.  To help you in this, I have made a poster out of one of the lovely, inspirational pieces I love to read.

This particular one I found on a toilet wall in Amsterdam. TRUE!  It took a while to write it down as all I had was loo paper and one of those roller pens which globs and smudges!.  The poem which actually I made a booklet out of early on and added my photographs is also on Etsy (“ON BEING HUMAN”), but to make it super easy, I have done it again in poster format.  I will put it up this afternoon (Friday), so look for it late today to early tomorrow (there is usually a glitch).  It is not as easy as you think to make ten small verses into something readable, and attractive enough  that you would want to put on a wall, but I think I am close.

“….RULE NUMBER EIGHT:  What you create in your life is up to you.  Life is like a movie.  You may feel like a bit player, but you have the opportunity to be the screen writer, the casting director, the Producer and or the Director.  It is your movie.  You have all the tools and resources you need”…………

 

It will help you through your day, and through your life.    Print it on lovely paper and frame it.  It will be in A4 format.  I will try and get it reproduced hard copy in A3 on lovely paper, and will let you know how I go, then you can buy it from me – but I would like you all to have it, so A4 Etsy is the easiest way to go.  Your newsagent is open so yours should be, just buy a few sheets of something lovely – Officeworks of course has the biggest immediately available stock, but I am not near one of this stores.    As usual, go to www.myyogabooks.etsy.com

Even the pieces of the whole you can see above will brighten your day, imagine the whole piece! It is fantastic.

Don’t forget, it is almost MOTHERS DAY.  Download a TAROT READING VOUCHER from ETSY, for her (or for yourself).  As they say, it is a gift “that keeps on giving”.   This could be the opportunity for transformation.

Keep smiling and happy, remember happiness is the path to health.

Namaste – JAHNE

 

Dear Yogis,

I hope that this time shut away has allowed us all to look closely at how we live, what we want and what we need.  

I have been encouraging you to go into the fields and forests for salads and herbs. To look at your gardens to understand what is there and what you can make.  To look into your wardrobe to box up what is not needed waiting until we can once again donate.

Years ago Vance Packard’s book The Waste Makers, made it abundantly clear that deliberate and calculated waste was built into our economy.  Light bulb manufacturers which reduced the life span of their globes, toothpaste manufacturers who made the hole in the tube bigger so we would use it faster and waste more and so on.   The advertising industry makes us want the new model before the old one is worn out, and like MAC make their new models almost unrepairable.  Wear and tear no longer dictates demand.  These are too slow.  In the 1920’s the car manufacturers started pushing the idea of new model of car every year – this hasn’t stopped.  We now have an endless choice of products that are virtually the same.. 177 brands of salad dressing, 249 brands of soap, and so on.

The dangerous result of this is the toxic pollutants which destroy the atmosphere.  This Covid break has allowed us to take the foot off the accelerator, and consider what we are doing, and see the result of just a small hiatus.  The people in India who for the first time can see the Himalayas.  How wonderful is that.  Clear skies over major cities, people out walking.  Big things and small things.

Dear Yogis, overconsumption is “the cancer eating away at our spiritual life”.  It cuts the heart from compassion and distances us from humanity.  It converts us into materialists, almost without us noticing – we think it is ‘natural” to want..

Yogis can make a unique contribution in this because we have a vital interest in the stewardship of the earth and economic justice for the poor.  We have a commitment to global citizenship that can help us to get beyond the claims of sole national interests.

HOW CAN YOU HELP?  1. Open yourself to Spirit to be used in a yoga way in the world   2. Become informed about our community and how we can help in big ways and small ways  3. Become advocates of the powerless  4. Support the relief agencies in our communities and in the world who are doing good work – they need our help. 5. Write letters and email our support to people who are helping and need to know we care  and 7. The Ministry of Meditation cannot be underestimated.

Most of these can be done at the kitchen table, in the home.  Just do it.  Once change makes all the difference.  As The Buddha said.  “Do what you can with what you have where you are”.  

 

Keep well and stay happy.

Namaste – Jahne