Butterfly of consciousness

Floating calmly in the sea of destiny

As soon as I got to the shore I spotted the butterfly floating in the sea, it looked so out of place being a creature of the earth and air. It's wings had become waterlogged and it was trapped just moving with the small waves lapping the shore. This was the butterfly's sea of destiny, I wondered was it aware of it's plight, scared, fearful that death was approaching or was it just resting there having sent a request for help to the universe and trusting it was soon to arrive?

I put my finger in the water by it's head and it slowly crawled onto it, up towards the sky where it belonged.  As I carried it away from the shore looking for a safe place where it could dry it's wings I felt the butterfly's survival to be the most important thing in the world in that moment. I saw myself in it's struggle, I thought about it's life so far and the challenges of surviving being an egg, a tiny caterpillar, a chrysalis and finally a butterfly, it had successfully passed through all these stages of it's journey to find itself floating in the sea with an uncertain future before I had rescued it.

Watching it open and close it's wings, crawling carefully up the stem of grass I'd placed it on I saw it's strength, fragility and beauty bound together in the great wonder of life. I felt connected with the butterfly's life force and became conscious of it being part of me and me being part of it, on an energetic level level there was no separation between us. I was saving myself through saving the butterfly.

When I left I hoped it would be ok, that it's wings would dry out so it could fly off for new adventures but I was also deeply aware that at some point it's journey would be over, it would complete the cycle of life we're all part of. I felt the butterfly in me, the fragility, the struggle and the power that are parts of all of us and the transformation we all go through during our life time, just like the butterfly.

Experiments in winter growing

As I will be residing in London for a couple of months I decided it was time to continue my adventures in growing your own so I sent off for some organic winter salad seeds to have a go at growing lettuce leaves http://www.seedsofitaly.com/catalogue/13. After some research I decided on lambs lettuce apparently a great choice for winter and can be grown under a cloche or sown as an edible green manure (multifunctional), Meraviglia D'inverno (winter marvel) from the italian mountains and Spinach Gigante D'inverno (giant winter spinach). My first attempt at planting seeds was disrupted by the resident squirrels who decided to dig up the pots as with winter coming I guess they were looking for nuts for their food store so I had to re-plant them and protect them with cloches. So far they have survived and some little shoots are coming through. I am excited at the prospect of having fresh salad leaves through the winter especially when the supermarkets charge quite a lot for a bag of salad leaves that's been exposed to argon gas to preserve it- yuk!

Lambs lettuce - leave the cloche open on sunny days to prevent it bolting

Micro Greens
Excited by the sight of little green seedlings coming through in the pots outside I thought I'd also give 'Micro greens' a go and make use of my south facing bedroom window. In recent times micro greens and baby leaf herbs have become very popular with chefs in up market restaurants. I've also noticed things like pea shoots and garlic chives appearing on supermarket shelves, again these are quite expensive to buy and seem easy enough to grow all year round. You just need a growing tray, some organic peat free compost, organic seeds, water and daylight.  The list of seeds you can use is pretty long, sorrel, chervil, basil, dill, pea shoots, mustard, nasturtium, watercress, rocket and all the oriental greens like mizuna, red mustard and pak choi to name just a few. So I bought a few different types http://www.tamarorganics.co.uk and created my own mix of seeds and planted them 3 days a go, they are already growing really well. I will keep you posted on their progress...

Organic seeds used as part of micro greens mix

Grow micro greens indoors all year round

Micro greens day 7 - nearly ready to eat! 

Findhorn experience week

It’s taken some time for my Findhorn experience http://www.findhorn.org/ to settle enough for me to get my thoughts in order so I can write about it. As mentioned in a previous blog what I had not anticipated about my travels was how physically and emotionally tiring it would be. ‘Change is as good as a rest’ so the saying goes but as I discovered for me too much change is not so good. One of the many realisations I’ve had on this trip is balancing my desire for adventure and new experiences with the need for familiar surroundings and people is important but to be fair I did know before I set out that giving up my personal space and becoming a nomad living out of a rucksack was going to bring some challenges, and so it did.

I’m only telling you this so you can understand my state of mind when I arrived in Findhorn because if I’d had a choice I would have postponed my trip as I was already feeling tired before I got there. However due to the fact I’d planned my trip so far ahead (again an old behavioural pattern of mine, planning from fear of the unknown) I had to go or loose quite a lot of money. The result of all this was when I got there and sat in the opening circle with my group and saw how busy the timetable for the week was I realised my energy levels had hit a wall. All I really wanted to do was go and lie down in a room on my own and sleep. I felt like my brain couldn’t cope with any more new information, it had reached saturation point. There is a lot of truth in the saying ‘ you can have too much of a good thing’ and Findhorn is a good thing most definitely. One of the few spiritual eco-communities in existence who have been walking the talk for the past 50 years, educating thousands of people from around the world about how to reconnect with their spirituality in an eco-conscious way, unfortunately I was just too tired to fully appreciate it. It was a shame because I’d really been looking forward to my time at Findhorn thinking it was going to be the ‘piece de resistance’ of my trip.

The caravan where community founders Eileen & Peter Caddy lived

Entrance to the universal hall for community gatherings

Looking after myself

I realised I’d been presented with an opportunity to choose a new way of dealing with this unexpected situation. In the past I would have pushed myself on and not listened to my inner voice telling me I needed some space to rest but events in recent years have shown me that way of being doesn’t serve me well. I decided the best thing was to speak to Paul one of our course ‘focalisers’ he was very understanding and supportive and told me that looking after myself was the most important thing and by doing that I was also looking after the interests of the group. I would have felt guilty in the past that I was letting others down or that I should be strong enough to keep going but after my breakdown two years ago I know that I need to heed the voice telling me to rest and that it’s ok to do that as if you don’t look after yourself you are not in a position to help others. 

Even after taking time out it was still a very intense week but a great opportunity to experience group spiritual practice, we did sacred dancing, meditation, taize singing, attuning to the intelligence of nature, lots of group sharing and what Findhorn call ‘Love in action’ which means working in the kitchen, garden or homecare giving you a taste of the day to day reality of what it takes to run a community. I did feel the whole week was aimed at complete beginners which I found a bit frustrating but they are very skilled at enabling a group of complete strangers to deeply connect with each other in the space of a week, an important skill to have in these times of separation. At the same time it can also create a space where people feel they have to try and connect with everyone when in reality they’re not feeling it, this can make it a bit of a strain too.

An offering of love

Garden of abundance

My original plan had been to go and stay at Newbold House, a nearby community of ex-Findhorn members after my experience week but on Thursday we were taken on a tour of The Park (Findhorn has two sites Cluny Hill and The Park) by Craig Gibsone our other focaliser and one of the founding members of the community. Craig is an artist, a potter and a permaculturist amongst other things who lives in one of the barrel houses a mini village of eco-homes made from old whiskey barrels. As part of the tour he showed us around his amazing permaculture garden that took co-creating with nature to a level I hadn’t seen before in any of the other gardens on my travels. It was a great demonstration of minimum effort for maximum yield. Craig calls plants that just turn up in his garden ‘Volunteers’ who play an important role in maintaining biodiversity. There were potatoes, Russian kale (a.k.a ragged jack), new zealand spinach, cabbages, broad beans, apples, horseradish, Jerusalem artichokes, blackcurrants, sweet cicely, lemon balm, purple sprouting broccoli and many perennial herbs and plants that I can’t remember but it showed how abundant nature can be and that it is possible to grow lots of food in even a small garden. Permaculture is about creating synergistic relationships between humans and nature and recognising that fulfilling natures ‘needs’ means fulfilling our own needs. There was a wonderful happy energy in the garden that was lovely to feel, it seemed as if the plants loved Craig as much as he loved them. Craig is the first spiritual permaculturist I’ve met and for me this is what had been missing from the places I had stayed before where I had experienced spirituality and permaculture but separately. I then discovered he was running a course the following week called Spiritual Practice-Permaculture and one of my new friends made the inspiring suggestion that I do that instead of going to Newbold so I signed up for it. Finishing my travels by integrating the two strands of spirituality and permaculture that had guided my journey seemed the right way to go and there was the added attraction of four other people from my experience week were also doing the course.  On the last night my group went down to the ‘red beastie’ bar in Forres town, apparently they ended up doing a circle dance in the middle of the pub and in the past I would have been downing the whisky with everyone else till 2am but I decided I needed to do the sensible thing and get an early night to get ready for the start of my new course the following day. A new leaf has definately been turned!

Luminous beauty

Foraging in Brighton and London

Last week I went visiting friends in Brighton, after 4 months away it felt great to be back. So far I've not been anywhere that feels more like home than Sussex does for me which is an interesting realisation. Maybe one of the outcomes of this journey will be I feel it's definately the right place for me to put down roots and I'm very open to that possibility. Whilst staying with my friend in Shoreham-by-sea we went foraging along the river Adur and harvested lots of juicy blackberries, elderberries, sloes, rosehips and some delicious apples from a tree amongst the blackthorns. Although we couldn't survive on this it is very empowering to be able to identify edible plants and make your own healthy organic produce with it. The plastic packaged food from the supermarket starts to look even more unappealing. A couple of days later I was staying with some other friends in Brighton who also like a good forage and on our way to the Firle fair we found more sloes, blackberries, elderberries and damsons. I've been thinking for a while now it would be great to make a map of where the best places for foraging are but not share it with everyone though for obvious reasons.

Drying rosehips for tea

Home produce
Back in London where I'm staying for a bit before my Findhorn trip I'm drying out the rosehips in the airing cupboard to make rosehip tea, I didn't have enough to make syrup but would like to try that next time. Having made sloe gin last year I thought it would be good to try sloe vodka (partly because it's a variation on a theme but mainly because vodka was in my parents drinks cabinet!) They have an apple tree in their garden that produced a bumper crop this year so after my mum made apple cheese, similar to the quince jelly (membrillo) the spanish eat with manchego cheese, we dug out the juicer and made some delicious fresh apple juice with the rest.

Kimchi and sloe vodka in progress

I also made some kimchi to use up the store of veg box cabbages that can start over running the fridge if you get them every week. Kimchi is a very popular pickle in Korea made from cabbage, carrots and radishes with a spicy mix of garlic, chilli pepper, ginger and onion that is not only delicious but has health benefits as it promotes healthy tummy bacteria. As it's now september and there are still lots of green tomatoes on the plants in my parents garden I also had a go at the method of ripening which involves putting them in a draw with either a ripe banana or apples that give off ethylene, a gas that ripens fruit and so far this seems to be working. Otherwise it will be time to make some green tomato chutney!

Green tomatoes ripening with apples in the drawer

Eat weeds
Whilst searching for foraging recipes I found this website with some alternative recipes to the usual ones you find http://www.eatweeds.co.uk/. It serves as a reminder that the plants most of us have come to know as 'weeds' can be made into tasty, nutritious organic meals and with more information coming to light about the health problems associated with food produced by industrial agriculture and the rise in food prices we really don't need much more encouragement to learn about how to benefit from this free food. All you need is the knowledge and adventurous taste buds to get you started!

Connecting with nature spirits

It’s been a while since my last post and in between then and now I went to the Bhakti chanting festival that I really enjoyed and have discovered chanting as another form of sound meditation. Then went back to Gaunts house to volunteer at the summer gathering to re-connect with my new friends and also met lots of other interesting folk. In between working in the information tent dealing with stressed workshop leaders and parents who’d lost their children I was able to attend a few workshops. Highlights for me where connecting with nature spirits, which I will be experiencing more of up at Findhorn in a couple of weeks time, healing relationships using inner child work and understanding dreams for spiritual intelligence. It was great to spend time and share experiences with like-minded souls who are on their own journeys.

Strawberry vinegar and other delights

But before all this happened I had another wwoofing placement at Harpsbridge House, a permaculture smallholding a few miles from Mablethorpe on the Lincolnshire coast where I learnt lots of top permaculture tips.  My hosts Nick and Sara Vowles have been living a sustainable lifestyle there for about 10 years guided by pemaculture ethics and principles. The hard work they’ve put into their home and way of life was reflected in their fantastically productive smallholding and their community work. It was great to spend time with people who have been doing it a lot longer than me and to hear about the ups and downs of their learning journey.  They were also very understanding when I had my tiredness meltdown (see previous post) and had to leave a bit earlier than I planned but despite that I had a great time there and really appreciated the warm welcome I received especially after my Old Hall experience.

It was a shame I was so tired because it’s only now on reflection that I see how much I learnt and how much effort Nick and Sara put into making their helpers stay such a positive experience. There was bread (chilli and coriander seed was the best), cheese and fruit vinegar making, jamming both eating the fruit kind and making music, interesting conversations about sustainability, helping out on a school community garden, bush craft skills, plant identification walks at the nearby nature reserve and I even got an opportunity to teach the permaculture design process for a PDC course Nicks been running this year for some local secondary school teachers who want to teach permaculture to their pupils, an important priority for the next generation.

Teaching the permaculture design process to secondary school teachers 

Experimenting is good 

The most inspiring aspect of my time in the garden was seeing Nick’s experimental approach to growing, a fan of polycultures rather than companion planting his philosophy is to work with nature as much as possible so if nature in her wisdom decides to grow a plant in the middle of a designed bed it will be left there unless it’s getting in the way of his intention. I really liked his experimental approach of just trying things out rather than worrying too much if it will work as even if it doesn’t you will learn a lot during the process. Triage weeding was another example of low maintenance gardening and is possible with a well mulched plot as you can be selective about removing plants that are in competition with the ones you desire to grow. Just choosing to pull out weeds that are about to go to seed ensures you don’t get loads more growing in a place you’d rather they weren’t in residence rather than the Gaunts House approach of five hours hoeing beds to remove all weeds, what a waste of people energy! There were many examples of the design principles and features in action including a shelterbelt around the plot to block the prevailing wind, an apple orchard with geese, a herb bed watered using ‘grey water’, polycultures, stacking, a wormery, water capture and pumping, chickens, geese, bees, mushroom growing, scything, rocket stove cooking and seed saving to name a few. Other things that spring to mind where leaving the cabbage roots in the ground so you can have cut and come again cabbage leaves, using grass as a mulch, the huge variety of delicious jams, pickles, chutneys and vinegars (including the aforementioned strawberry flavoured one) you can make with your produce, using wilted comfrey to feed slugs so they don’t attack your plants, planting phacelia under your blackcurrants to provide bee food and stop birds eating your currants. Most evenings we walked to the nature reserve,  a wild unspoilt coastline very similar to the north Norfolk coast I’ve visited many times but here it was even less inhabited apart from the grey seals that like to bob about close to the shore for us to wave at.

'Cut and come again' cabbage

Grass mulching the polytunnel

Singing to the seals

On my last visit to the beach for some reason I started singing to the seals, they didn’t sing back but one of them did hang around for quite a while and I felt like we shared a moment together before I walked back up the beach and he swam off into the depths of the vast ocean probably to tell his family about the strange warbling two legged creature it had seen on the beach that day… thanks to the Vowles family for a great time.

A beautiful 'sand tree forest' on the beach, the intelligence of nature is awe inspiring 

The importance of people care

I’ve been feeling a bit derailed from my new path over the last few weeks as I began to feel very tired and realised that arranging new volunteering placements every few weeks turned out to be a bit of a punishing schedule. Having to move every week or so and meet new people, learn new information and being on your best behaviour 24/7 eventually takes it toll. In my enthusiasm to create a new life for myself I’ve found it’s easy to fall into old habits of ignoring my need to have breaks. I had set out as the hare and forgotten the tortoise wins in the end. On any journey it is always best to rest from time to time so you can admire the view and most importantly check your bearings to makes sure you’re still heading in the right direction.

Apply self-regulation and accept feedback
Whilst at my last host home a feeling of fatigue hit me that I recognised from previous times of change in my life when I’d stepped out of my comfort zone, it’s not like busy day tiredness but a tiredness of the brain caused by it having to try and keep up with lots of new stuff. My hosts reminded me of the relevance of ‘people care’ one of the guiding ethics of permaculture and also ‘zone 00’ (Zones are a design tool to help you design human energy efficiency into your system) and ‘Zone 00’ represents you at the centre of any system. The 12 design principles devised by David Holmgren http://www.permaculture.org.uk/knowledge-base/principles also offer wisdom for self guidance and this was an opportunity to use design principle number 4. Apply self-regulation and accept feedback. The feedback of tiredness being the sign I needed to take a break!

Small and slow solutions 

In my hurry to find opportunities to get hands on experience and ‘fast track’ myself to a new way of life I had forgotten to apply principle number 9. Small and slow solutions to myself so I don’t repeat my old pattern of focusing all my energy on one area to the point of burning myself out as I have done previously. Even with the best intentions I still have to be careful not to repeat unhelpful patterns of behaviour by recognising the warning signs. This experience served as a reminder that permaculture is fundamentally a new way of thinking about how to be in the world by taking time to observe, trying solutions out and learning from them, a very different approach to the industrial growth mindset of ‘no time to waste’ I’d been conditioned to follow. It was good to recognise this attitude had started to creep in so I could stop, take a break and get my bearings before I set out on the road again. 

Old Hall

I just left Old Hall early (I was meant to stay for two weeks) because I wasn’t enjoying it there. When I arrived last Friday the residents were all really busy getting ready for a ‘friends and family’ summer party. They were so busy in fact they didn’t have time to introduce them selves to the new ‘wwoofer’ or show me around the place. It was not a great welcome and as a result I felt completely ungrounded, it made me miss the friends I made at Gaunts even more than I was already. Kate and Wolf also arrived on the same day to volunteer so I did have someone to talk to, we decided to give the community residents the benefit of the doubt and put their lack of effort with the newbies down to the fact they were busy with their party. As the weekend progressed I began wishing they had told me about their plan as I would have chosen to come on the Sunday, if you’ve ever been invited to a party where you don’t know anyone you’ll know how awkward it feels. I did meet one lovely woman who was a friend of a resident and we had a chat about her edible garden in Wales and energy healing. She was the one person in the whole week I felt a connection with unfortunately she was only staying for the weekend. She sent me the Celestine Prophecy to read which my ex-boyfriend had leant me some years before but I hadn’t been drawn to read it at that time. It’s a book that describes a process for spiritual evolution interwoven with a standard adventure story. I’m only half way through but I really like the way it describes our connection with nature on an energetic level and reflects some of the experiences I’ve been having.

Anyway back to Old Hall, I could spend time describing the history of the house and how it used to be a monastery that one of the nuns escaped from many years ago etc but I don’t want to focus on that. It is basically a farming community so if you want to see the geese, pigs, chickens and cows, the vegetable patches and orchards and learn how to make butter and cheese it is a great place for that. The food as you would expect is lovely, really excellent organic food that again I was reminded has sadly become something that only the privileged few have access to. They are nearly self sufficient in vegetables and meat and have 8 cows to milk twice a day and this requires a lot of work so many of the residents work part time to pay their way. It is also very expensive to buy into Old Hall as it’s run as a housing association and each of the units are priced in relation to the local housing market and Colchester is a desirable commuter belt so only those with capital need apply. Starting with the positive aspects of my experience I did get to try out some new things like throwing heavy bales of hay around to make a hay stack, churning cream to make butter and making cheese so that was good and as previously mentioned the food was great but the people I found with a few exceptions (Thank you to those who did make the effort) to be a very unfriendly bunch who didn’t seem to have even basic manners with people they invited into their community as volunteers and not surprisingly this really put me off. The person I had been emailing to arrange my visit who apparently was the ‘wwoof co-ordinator’ didn’t bother speaking to me until day 4 of my stay. I heard various excuses that they were so busy, that they didn’t know who was who because of the party weekend etc but for me there was something deeper going on here and unfortunately I think it was just a bad attitude towards wwoofers. For some reason at Old Hall volunteering your time to support people who are privileged to be able to have land in living self-sufficiently means you are seen as some kind of serf, an extra pair of hands to be squabbled over to help them do what they need to do. There didn’t seem to be any recognition that people wwoofing might be wanting to learn more about community living like the structure, group decision processes, finances and other aspects of running one or be scouting for potential places to join or even that they may have skills and experience to bring that the community might find useful. I was left with the feeling that they saw so many ‘wwoofers’ come through their door they couldn’t be bothered making the effort to get to know them as they were only staying for a short time. Although understandable this attitude is poor, volunteering is after all an energy exchange and it doesn’t work if the energy is given out and not received. The memory of a feeling of goodwill, a friendly smile and a heartfelt thank you last a lot longer than basic needs of bed and food being met. If we are to successfully move towards a self-sustaining society that is not completely reliant on people working purely for financial reward then these subtle qualities of human communication will become increasingly important. If you are lucky enough to have people choosing to offer their time to support your project then expressing gratitude is really important, however many people pass through your door. Right I’ve got that out my system and now I’m off to Norfolk to visit a friend for a week before I travel to my next place.

Making butter pats in the dairy

Kate up to her arms in curds and whey

Community Living

I’ve just finished my first experience of living ‘in community’ at Gaunts House near Wimborne and as with all the other places I have visited so far I found the expectations I had were different from the reality. ‘That’s life then’ I hear you say so from now on I’m trying not to have any expectations at all and be the detached observer as part of my mindfulness practice, this is easier said than done but something that I feel deserves perseverance.  Community after all is just a word used generally to describe groups of people living together but beneath that word you find many different forms of complex human systems powered by emotional dynamics that are not always acknowledged by the people involved.  My short stay was enough for me to see they can be places of great intensity where the combined emotions of the group are magnified so there can be difficult times to navigate but I think everyone’s experience of Gaunts is the right one for them with the inevitable challenges being opportunities for self-discovery and growth if you choose to see them in this way.  Having said all this my overall experience was very positive so much so that I decided to re-arrange my trip so I can go back to volunteer at their summer gathering in August.

Gaunts lawn with beautiful sky and tree views

Plant Dowsing

I didn’t get to do as much organic food growing at Gaunts as I was hoping as there was a bit too much ornamental type gardening for me, although it was lovely spending time in their victorian walled garden. However towards the end of my stay I met Barbara, a friend of a resident who wanted to start growing food in her garden and luckily for me was very interested in permaculture design. I spent an afternoon in her garden doing some observation, needs gathering and coming up with ideas for her design. Barbara is a reiki healer and so one of the ideas was that the garden could be used as a healing space as well as a food growing space and I really like the idea of multifunctional plants and trees that provide food but can also be used in healing therapies. She also taught me how to do pendulum dowsing and gave me a book about the different types of dowsing you can do so I’ve been practicing quite a lot. Apparently you can dowse plants to ask them what kind of soil they would like to be planted in, how much water they would like and whether they prefer a sunny or shady spot. I haven’t tried this yet but have dowsed plants and the pendulum always moves in a circle when it comes into contact with the plants energy field, proof that we live in an energetic universe not a clockwork one as many people believed for a few hundred years. Barbara took me to Wimborne church to see the 24 hour clock based on the Ptolemaic system with the earth at the centre. A great example of the self-importance of humans who at the time thought they were the centre of the universe before Copernicus discovered the earth moves around the sun although having this knowledge hasn’t changed the attitude of self-importance and feeling we have the right to put ourselves before all other species on the earth. 

Wimborne church clock with earth the at the centre of the universe

My fellow wwoofers Alan & John re-building the greenhouse

Gong Bath

Gaunts has a lot of meditation and yoga courses running through the year but during the time I was there a ten day Gong master course to teach people sound healing with gongs was happening. Sound healing is a therapeutic practice that uses sound frequencies to bring people to a state of harmony and health. The college of sound healing who run the course use the analogy of a piano to explain how it works saying if a part of our body is out of balance we can retune it like tuning a piano with sound. If a piano is out of tune do we rip out the offending key or piano wire? but this is what we do to the human body with surgery. You can find out more if you’re interested www.collegeofsoundhealing.co.uk. So every night the whole community where invited to a ‘gong bath’ in the theatre where we would all lie on the floor and be immersed in a soundscape created by gongs, Tibetan singing bowls, shruti boxes and other instruments for 45 minutes. I found my first one was very relaxing and I drifted in and out of consciousness but other times I felt hot, itchy and restless so it didn’t feel quite so pleasant, though I was assured by the gong experts this was a good response as it meant I was releasing emotions. I really liked the gong group as they were so friendly and inclusive especially a Greek man called George who was always smiling. It’s amazing how such a simple thing can have such a positive effect on people. We were also taught the universal greeting which I really liked and have learnt the words to. There are also hand gestures to accompany each phrase but I’m still learning them, it serves as a timely reminder that beyond religion, race, politics and gender we are all one.  

Universal greeting

I offer you peace

I offer you friendship

I offer you love

I hear your needs

I see your beauty

All wisdom flows from the highest source

I honour that wisdom in you

Let us work together

For you are my own true self

In Lakesh Ela Kin “ I am another you”

The best thing about Gaunts for me, apart from the beautiful countryside the house is set in, was meeting others on their spiritual path who have also been drawn to this peaceful place. The small community of people living there full time is supplemented by a steady flow of wwoofers, employed staff and people coming for the various healing and spiritual courses held there through out the year plus the famous summer gathering which is the highlight of their events calendar. I met an eclectic mix of interesting people including someone channelling spirits to create paintings, an astrologist, a puppeteer and a harpist. It felt very good to be with my own kind (aka creative types) again after years in the corporate creative wilderness. All of this contributes to creating a unique atmosphere where people feel free to explore beyond the boundaries of their day-to-day lives in the company of like-minded souls.

Flow of life

When you’re not in flow with life you are in resistance, being in the flow is following your heart, forcing yourself down a path means resisting the natural life flow that carries us forward. Giving your energy to something you have inner resistance to but feel you ‘should’ be doing because of some conditioned belief is like putting your energy into a black hole, a life sucking empty void that once it has you in it’s grip can be very difficult to pull yourself out of.  I let the systems push me and accepted other people’s goals but each time I achieved them there was always the next one to aim for, eventually I realised the illusory nature of this, it was empty and completely unfulfilling to me.

Life is not meant to be a never ending struggle, the struggle comes when you resist the events and circumstances of your life, once you reach a place of acceptance of all that has gone before and is happening now you find freedom and a sense of peace in your heart that trust in life can grow from. When we live in fear of life our natural inquisitiveness and desire to discover new experiences diminishes, we create a safe place that we feel in control where we think nothing painful can disturb us but this is an illusion because we can’t escape pain forever. Closing our heart because of past hurt means we just have the pain of loneliness and longing to cope with instead. By creating a comfort zone that we control the borders of we may succeed in keeping pain out temporarily but we also block opportunities for life to bring the unexpected good things that would enrich our life and bring joy in our efforts to avoid the ‘bad’.

Sunshine and shadows

It’s like wanting the sunshine without the shadow, that transient form that as long as the sun is shining is always with us. We cannot live wholly without overcoming fear of our shadow self and accepting the need to sit in it’s shade sometimes instead of always trying to be in the light of positive feelings in our safe comfort zone. Trusting in life means opening your heart to all experiences that flow through it, just accepting whatever comes without attaching any specific meaning allows you to expand your consciousness and to accept events that in the past you would continually interpret to reinforce self-limiting beliefs.

A natural consequence of letting go of the fear is that your heart opens so you are able to send love into the field of consciousness where it’s received by others and returned to you. It may come from a different place than where you sent it or in a different form than what you gave but you’re heart will always feel it when it comes from the heart of another.  

Somerset Sky

I haven’t posted for a while because I’ve been in the Gaunts house community more of which later but wanted to tell you about Vallis Veg in Somerset where I was 2 weeks ago. Chris and Cordelia own 18 acres of land with a market garden in the middle used to provide vegetables for their box scheme. This was my first experience of a commercial permaculture project and like all noble paths it’s a challenging one. Needless to say they’re not in it for the money but because they believe small holding farming is the best way to support sustainable communities. Chris has done a lot of research into energy inputs and yields of industrial farming and organic farming to show the value of permaculture and organic growing and if you’re interested you can find out more at www.vallisveg.co.uk. They have applied for temporary planning permission so they can live on the site as they feel this will help to their business grow and make it more resilient. Educational school visits where children learn about organic growing and running more Permaculture design courses are other aspects of their business they want to develop. They also have some small allotment plots that people living locally can use to grow their own.

Vallis Veg Market Garden

Phacelia as green manure

Market Garden
What they have achieved so far is very impressive given that neither of them had much experience before they started their business apart from some wwoofing in Canada and Vallis Veg is now a designated permaculture demonstration centre. Chris showed me around the many design features including shelterbelts, compost toilet, chicken coop, perennial plot, pig made pond, irrigation system, poly tunnels and many other familiar features. He’s been experimenting a lot with green manures that help soil retain moisture, protect it from erosion and add fertility when they are cut and mulched. I did a variety of jobs every day from tying tomatoes in the poly tunnel, making compost squares to plant seeds in, replanting wind damaged squashes to preparing beds with compost mulch and planting calabrese in them. On Thursdays they prepare the veg boxes for delivery and I picked 18.3 Kg of spinach to put in them, it took quite a while. Having seen the realities of running a market garden it’s not something I would want to do myself at this moment in time even though it is great they’re providing affordable organic vegetables to their local community. It’s a lot of hard work that isn’t made any easier by the current economic climate and the competition from supermarkets even though where taste and health is concerned there is no comparison with their lovely freshly picked organic produce.

Strawberries fresh from the patch

For me the sky is the most beautiful part of Somerset, it seems so big I felt I could reach up and touch the clouds. My other favourite thing was my host’s strawberry patch in their garden at home where I picked delicious strawberries from every morning, it reminded me of childhood strawberry picking outings where we ate as much as we collected whilst picking and my mums delicious strawberry jam spread on brown bread with butter…yum!  

Feniton

Last week I was volunteering with the Phil Foggitt in Feniton, a small village about an hour away from Totnes. I really appreciated the warm welcome I received as it can be a little daunting to stay in the home of people you don’t know but the way I’m choosing to approach this aspect of my journey is with well known quotation ‘strangers are friends you have yet to meet’ in mind.

Travelling around and staying with lots of different people is definitely a good way of stepping out of your comfort zone and practicing living with an open-mind and heart as this is an important part of what I wanted to gain from this experience.  Phil is what I would describe as a conscious eco-soul who has many years of organic gardening experience and setting up sustainable living projects such as Otter Rotters, a community recycling project that makes a number of recycled products including compost and mulch. We had some good chats about the challenges of trying to engage large organisations with new ideas and I admire the way he has carried on putting energy into trying to get projects started even though he's had many frustrations along the way. It’s not often I’ve met people who actually ‘walk the talk’ but Phil is one of them.  

I’m starting to appreciate the multitude of different approaches to Permaculture practice as opposed to learning the theory. Phil see’s it as a useful tool he employs when it suits him as opposed to taking it on board as a life philosophy. He does a lot of re-using and recycling local resources for mulching including cardboard from a photographic finishers, carpet tiles from an industrial estate and spent hops from the brewery he works for. He’s devised a clever way of using upturned palettes to make portable raised beds and created microclimates by building walls and painting them white to absorb light so lots of examples of design principles in action.  

'Eco Soul' Phil Foggitt

During the week I got to try out some new gardening skills including riddling compost, potting on seedlings, planting leeks, making a mulched bed, making bamboo cane supports for peas and beans and making bunches of herbs for drying. Phil has recently made some raised beds at the front of the house where he is creating a mini forest garden inspired by the work of Martin Crawford who runs the Agroforestry Research Trust mentioned in my last post. He’s planted lots of shade tolerant shrubs including Oregon grape, Goji berry and Ground Cover Raspberry to see how they get on. The front garden was also home to Womble the guinea pig who I never actually got to see but I like her name so she gets a mention :). I’m guessing she is thus named in homage to the famous recyclers of Wimbledon Common that were so ahead of their time. I feel a bit of nostalgic googling coming on...what a great song! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZcVMrJ1EVAQ

Planting Leeks

Riddling Compost

Garden Therapy

As well as helping out in Phil’s beautiful garden I also worked on a couple of other projects he’s involved with at Otter Brewery and Barnfield Farm. The latter is a care home for people with learning disabilities based in the picturesque village of Luppitt. I enjoyed this project the most because I’m very interested in the idea of therapeutic gardening although I think garden therapy could help everyone, not just people with learning difficulties. I feel like my time working in gardens and allotments has been very therapeutic for me, a combination of being outside in the fresh air, physical exercise, the mental satisfaction of completing whatever tasks need doing and the reward of eating fresh vegetables. I find there is something very rewarding in the simplicity of this, especially after years trying to tackle the confusing complexity of corporate structure and operations.

Phil & Jamie protect the cabbages

Cloud meditation

After a day in the garden sometimes I would lie on my bed and look at the clouds through the skylight window. As I watched the clouds float past like thoughts in my mind shapes would form, a face, animal or an object but they disappeared as quickly as they appeared, a reminder of the transient nature of thought and how much freer one is by not getting attached to them especially unhelpful ones. Recently I’ve been reading about sun gazing, an ancient method of healing that originated in India about 2600 years ago with the teaching of Lord Mahavir of Jain. It works because our eyes act as light receptors as we gaze at the sun, allowing our brain the light it needs to reset it self and integrate various hormones by energising the pineal gland. Of course looking directly at the sun can be dangerous but apparently gazing at white clouds has the same effect.

I feel a lot more energetic because I’m spending more time outside rather than stuck in an office under strip lights, perhaps this is partly to do with the positive effects of cloud gazing. Cloud meditation gives me a deep sense of well-being that radiates outwards from my soul as I connect with the eternal life force of the universe. It’s an ancient feeling that I believe is part of the collective unconscious of human experience beyond this lifetime..

Meditating on clouds

If you fancy trying a spot of cloud meditation here’s some music for you to listen to as you gaze at the clouds http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KL9HXNQmBIg&feature=BF&list=QL&index=5. Also check out The Cloud Appreciation Society they also have some relaxing cloud music http://cloudappreciationsociety.org/

Knowing beyond the mind

Whilst meditating on the clouds I found myself processing something that happened to me in evening of the retreat silent day. I had what I would describe as a conscious experience of knowing beyond the mind. I was sat on a bench in the retreat garden and felt my consciousness expand out from the confines of my body to connect with all life around me, the sounds of the tree’s rustling in the breeze, the birds, the insects buzzing, the plants growing, there was a sudden movement to my left outside of my field of vision but it wasn’t just my eyes that registered this, it was beyond the five senses somehow I knew it was a bird before my mind named it. Finding the words to describe this is not easy as words are just symbols we use to communicate feelings and experiences to others, it didn’t feel separate from me but part of my consciousness. I recognise this is a knowing of the soul and I trust it above all else...

Real Live Permaculture

Last week I had my first experience of volunteering in a permaculture garden in Totnes. I’m staying with friends of mine here for a few weeks so it was great to discover a wwoof host in the town just a few minutes walk away. For those of you who don’t know WWOOF it stands for world wide opportunities on organic farms and provides a service that enables people who want to volunteer to connect with individuals, small holdings, farms and communities who are practicing organic growing and sustainable living and are happy to provide food and accommodation to volunteers in return for their labours.

The garden I was working in has been developed by Cathy Ashley over 18 years and has seen many changes. At the moment the main features of the front garden are annual and perennial beds, fruit trees, fruit canes and a salad bed near the house.  The back garden has a sunny seating area, a pond, a duck bath, a potting shed and a lean to greenhouse using recycled aluminium windows is planned next to a larger shed used as a living space. It was also home to ducks ‘Mocha’ and ‘Tahini’ who do a very good job of eating slugs, providing delicious duck eggs and fertiliser in the form of duck poo. Over the years Cathy has tried and tested many different permaculture, biodynamic and organic growing methods and so has a lot of practical knowledge about what does and doesn’t work. It was a reminder that it’s one thing to read about the theory and another thing completely to put it into action. As E. F Schumcher said in ‘Small is beautiful’

“An ounce of practical experience is worth a ton of theory”

After 18 years Cathy has a ton of practical experience she was generous enough to share with me. It was both inspiring but also a little daunting for someone just starting out on their permaculture journey, however as I wrote in an earlier post ‘a journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step’ and it felt great to be getting some hands on experience of ‘real live' permaculture.

 Mocha the duck

Earlier in the week I spent some time sorting and bagging compost and after learning about soil ecology on my permaculture course from soil expert Alex Penn it was interesting to see how long it takes for things like egg shells, avocado skins and stones to break down. Apart from the worms, woodlice and beetles I could see wriggling about in the compost, there are also 1-16 million bacterial species per gram of soil making it an incredibly complex eco-system in it’s own right. Apparently a teaspoon of soil contains more diversity than the entire mammalian kingdom and has more inhabitants than there are human beings on earth- mind-boggling!  The fact that it takes 100-1000 years for 1 inch of top soil to be laid down means it really makes sense to have a compost bin in your garden if you are able as every little helps. Especially when you look at the rate of soil degradation world wide and the evidence that shows if we carry on our present agricultural practices it could all be gone within 200 years – a sobering thought when you consider the projected global population of 9 billion.

Soil health is our health
But rather than spending too much time focusing on the problem, Permaculture provides some practical solutions although the issue of how scaleable they are remains. However no till methods, mulching, composting and re-vegetation (eg: more plants less concrete) provide a way back to knowledge from a time when people didn’t have supermarkets to rely on for their daily sustenance. When you begin to think about supermarkets reliance on non-renewable energy it becomes a little easier to care about things like soil health and helping to create healthy soil by composting your green waste or if that’s not possible finding a community green waste service that can do it for you.


Two out of Three Sisters Guild

As I mentioned earlier the practical application of Permaculture is dependant on many factors and it’s part of the design process to look at whether they are limiting or can be resourcefully turned into a positive. This approach is at the heart of the design process and as someone who has spent much of my life being restricted by self-limiting beliefs is why it appeals to me so much. We decided to have a go at planting a three sisters guild and an apple guild using the resources we had already available in the garden.  Guilds are an excellent example of applying the beneficial connections principle as they mimic the natural co-operation of species in ecosystems based on their mutual interdependence. By grouping plants and animals together we can use their special qualities to benefit humans whilst creating habitat.

We did our own version of the popular Native American ‘Three Sisters’ guild of corns, beans and squash because we were using a pot made of tyres we only had room for two of the sisters namely the corn and the beans as the third sister squash, used to provide a living leaf mulch on the soil to retain moisture and suppress weeds would not fit in the planting space we had available. We also planted some of the apple guild plants around two of the apple tree’s after making raised beds around the trunks using bottles and old tiles. Apart from recycling and looking pretty, the other benefit of the bottles is the air inside them heats up and in turn heats up the soil. We planted peas for nitrogen fixing, comfrey for mulching in place and some daffodils in the outer ring to suppress grass competing with tree roots for nutrients. Cathy will add some plants that attract insects for pollination and act as pest control soon to complete the apple guild. I am really drawn to the idea of guilds as it embodies the idea of individual survival through co-operation that I think is so important for the human species now, rather than purely focusing on the dominant mind-set of competition. Of course in reality there is both co-operation and competition but somehow the competitiveness of species in an ecosystem is contained within the continuing co-operative evolution that has been happening for millions of years. By understanding the relationships within ecosystems there is a lot we can learn about how to improve our own relationships with each other and with nature.

Two of the three sisters, corn and beans are in this guild 

Cathy planting peas in the apple guild

In the Forest Garden
On Thursday Cathy had arranged for us to visit the Agroforestry Research Trust Forest Garden http://www.agroforestry.co.uk/ next to the Schumacher College.  Forest gardens are food production and land management systems based on woodland eco-systems but formed with trees (fruit and nut), bushes, shrubs, herbs and vegetables that provide a high yield of food using ‘low maintenance’ perennial plants.  Unlike monocultures in traditional agriculture, the concept of stacking (ie making use of vertical space) is used to create different layers of plants and increase strength and stability of the system through biodiversity. Although my plant identification skills leave a lot to be desired I was able to recognise current bushes and some herbs in amongst the many plants. One of the herbs I recognised was Lovage, reminiscent of parsley and celery in leaf shape and smell. It was used as herbal remedy for sore throats and upset stomach. The seeds, leaves and stems have a similar flavour to celery with a lemony twist and can be used in soups, salads and rice dishes. I like the look of this chilled pea and lovage soup, could make a nice change from gazpacho for a summer soup maybe?  

http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/food-and-drink/recipes/chilled-pea-and-lovage-soup-1748109.html

This has set me on a path of researching other perennial herbs no longer in common use so when I find some tasty sounding ones I will share them with you..

Lovely Lovage

On Retreat

I just got back from a six day Buddhist meditation retreat at The Barn near Totnes and I loved it!  Apparently it is quite unusual as retreats go as it is not completely silent, we had one day of silence in the middle of the week and it’s quite a small group, just 10 of us in the community including the 2 co-ordinators responsible for running it. Our daily schedule included morning chores, three 40 minute meditations, working in the gardens and taking turns cooking a vegetarian meal for the whole community. What I really appreciated about it was the opportunity to connect both with yourself during the silence and with other like-minded souls in the intimate but open space that is offered there, all this whilst surrounded by beautiful wild plants and flowers and the hum of bee’s buzzing between them. I found myself reflecting on relationships in nature and how we can learn from them.  

The flower always looks happy, never stressed or anxious but waits patiently and trusts the bee will arrive in it’s own time

Patience and trusting in life are two qualities we seem to have forgotten about or lost faith in during this time of technological rush and instant gratification. The retreat week was the first time in 14 years I didn’t use my mobile or email every day and I realised how much using these has impacted on my perception of life. Having access to so much knowledge and opportunity for anytime, anywhere communication obviously has great advantages but unless we use it in a mindful way there is a danger of becoming over dependent on it and finding it obscures our natural intuitive abilities that allow us to listen to our inner wisdom, so important for us to tune into on a regular basis.  

The Garden of the Mind

The retreat garden had lots of broad beans, peas and runner beans in need of some support structures so my main job was using branches from felled beech saplings to make sticks to support the peas. At first I approached this as a practical task but after a while I felt I was creating a natural sculpture that I named the Pea Forest.

Whilst weeding around the peas I started to think about how mindfulness is a way to become aware of any negative thoughts that might otherwise take root in our minds. If they are not ‘weeded’ regularly depression can take hold, often these ‘weeds’ grow insidiously and we don’t see them creeping up to take over the garden of our mind blocking our natural positivity. Meditation can help keep these thoughts in perspective to maintain a balance in the mind garden. However as any gardener knows it is impossible to completely remove all weeds and a lot of energy can be put into this task that comes from a resistant state of mind. Weeds are only named so because people decided they were undesirable based on existing ideas of how a garden (mind) should look. The plants we call weeds actually have many beneficial properties to both humans and the eco-systems they are part of. For example nettles can be food, medicine and fertilizer for humans, insects and other plants. In the same way if we accept the negative ‘weed’ thoughts as part of a healthy and diverse ecosystem of the mind rather than trying to remove them, we can see they provide fertile ground for inner reflection and deeper insights into life from which new positive growth can emerge.

From the dark soil of my mind grew compassion, self-love and self-acceptance, the most beautiful flowers of the heart.

I recommend a stay at The Barn Retreat to you all…

http://www.sharphamtrust.org/page.php?id=3

The Pea Forest 

Whitehawk community food project

Apples ready for pressing

After I finished the course I started looking for volunteering opportunities and luckily in Brighton there are quite a lot to choose from. I decided to try the Whitehawk community food project because they were using permaculture design along with organic and biodynamic techniques that I wanted to get some hands on experience of.  The first day I went it was beautiful and sunny, once I'd climbed the very steep Whitehawk hill I found a green oasis with a fantastic view of the sea. When I arrived I was immediately offered some freshly pressed apple juice, it tasted delicious and I realised the last time I'd had fresh apple juice was about 5 years ago when i'd bought a juicer whilst on a detox. It struck me as sad that most of the people in the 'supermarket generation' have never tasted really fresh food picked straight from the ground, plant or tree and for all the convenience of year round access to all types of fruit and vegetables we have sacrificed something really fundamental in our relationship with food, taste!

The guys who run the project have been doing it for about 10 years and are all really friendly and happy to share their extensive knowledge with whoever comes to volunteer. You also get a share of whatever produce is available in return for your efforts and for someone brought up on supermarket vegetables and salad there is something really special about picking your food fresh from the ground or plant and taking it home to eat it, it felt quite magical to me.

The chickens in their 'tractor'

Mesmerised by chickens
I was soon introduced to the chickens who play an important role in a permaculture design, often used on courses to illustrate the differences in inputs and yields between intensive farming and permaculture, the former being more energy intensive for yield return than the latter. One of the volunteer days I helped make a chicken tractor, this was a very simple version which was basically a portable fence. Chicken tractors are used to move the chickens around different parts of the plot to get them to scratch over and clear the soil of weeds and pests whilst fertilising it with their droppings and are a great example of beneficial connections, where the needs of one element in the system are met by another. I found the chickens quite mesmerising and spent ages just watching them do their thing all the while feeling aware of just how disconnected I had been from real life during the decade I had spent most days staring into a computer screen whilst designing the virtual world. I decided chickens were much more interesting.

Mutant squashes, the worms are in for a treat!  

Mutant squashes and other delights 
During my time at Whitehawk I tried my hand at many different things like clearing mutant squashes that were the result of an unplanned union between marrow and courgettes, planting green manure, transplanting strawberries, picking snails off brassicas to feed to the chickens, moving compost, helping re-build raised beds, apple pressing and catching chickens to put in the tractor. There is always something new to do and learn under the friendly guidance of the people running the project but one of the best things for me was that everyone is made to feel welcome regardless of situation or circumstance and treated as equals. The only hierarchy you have to contend with is the chickens pecking order, so different from the corporation which ironically treats people like battery hens!