Archive for the ‘Enjoyment’ Category

A musical journey through the Zodiac

Friday, October 29th, 2010

John WadsworthLast night I went to the Min­erva Cen­tre for a Zodiac Jour­ney with singer Wendy Rule and astrologer John Wadsworth.

I met John a few years ago when he picked me up and Bris­tol Tem­ple Meads train sta­tion. He’s offered to life me to a work­shop we were both going on. He had just started The Alchem­i­cal Jour­ney, which sounds fas­ci­nat­ing and a won­der­ful life-changing expe­ri­ence . We crossed paths again once after and then a few weeks ago I popped into the Min­verva Cen­tre and there was John, sit­ting and hav­ing a cup of tea with the cen­tre owner Elizabeth.

He told me about this evening he had planned with a won­der­ful Aus­tralian singer song­writer Wendy Rule and it sounded beau­ti­ful so I went along not know­ing what to expect…which is always the best way :-)
Wendy RuleJohn intro­duced the 12 Zodiac sign  accom­pa­nied by masked per­form­ers, which help relate his words and cre­ated such a beau­ti­ful image of the zodiac. Wendy then played a song in which John had iden­ti­fied the energy of the cor­re­spond­ing Zodiac sign.

John’s intro­duc­tions to the Zod­i­cas were fun and and I could really get a sense of how they are linked with the time of the year and well as get a bet­ter idea of what they sym­bol­ise. Wendy also said a few words before the songs and the coro­na­tions or song and Zodiac was fascinating.

For exam­ple, the song John chose that rep­re­sents Libran (the scales) energy: When Wendy wrote it she said she took a lit­tle trip and couldn’t decided where she wanted to be at the sea or in a for­est and drove back and forth between them before she ditched her car whilst revers­ing and was forced to spend the time in the forest.

And John was right, Wedny’s singing and songs… just superb. What an amaz­ing voice and her songs are memorising.

Check out both John and his work and Wendy’s and her work here and here!

Oh, one more thing, Wendy  said some of her songs she writes to her self. She also said some­thing about writ­ing love let­ters to herself. Which I think is a great idea! I’m going to try that! If we can’t love our­selves first, we can’t love any­one else.

Bath Positive Living Group

Monday, July 19th, 2010

Bath Positive Living GroupEvery mon­day evening (except bank hol­i­days)
The Cof­fee Lounge
Man­vers Street Bap­tist Church.
7.00pm — 10pm
£5

There is no need to book. Just pop along when­ever there is a talk of inter­est. It’s a Lovely, friendly and relaxed atmos­phere, every­one is wel­come. Refresh­ments included.

For­mat for the evenings:
Wel­come and intro­duc­tion 7.30pm (tea and bis­cuits avail­able on arrival)
Topic of the evening 7.45pm
Social and (more) refresh­ments 9.00pm
For full details of all upcom­ing talks please visit positivelivinggroups.co.uk/BATH.html

Or visit the  inter­ac­tive online com­mu­nity ‘Pos­i­tive Liv­ing Groups Net­work’ at PLGN.co.uk

The Creative Feast

Wednesday, May 12th, 2010

Sat­ur­day 22nd May 2010
Rad­ford Mill Farm
8pm to Mid­night
£7/£5 concs
Con­tact Denise on 077233 29414

The cre­ative feast is a quar­terly open space bring­ing together an eclec­tic mix of orig­i­nal performances, scrumptious cakes, deli­cious drinks and good company! The gor­geous cre­ative gath­er­ing At  just out­side Bath is back!

Deli­cious morsels to delight, enchant and inspire. MUSIC, POETRY, DANCE, THEATRE, FILMFIRE.

Fea­tur­ing:

Mas­ter Mbira Player CHARTWELL DUTIRO, Omer Makessa, Alex Harvest, Denise Rowe, James Watts, Alex Michel­son & more!

For info or if you have some­thing you’d like to show con­tact Denise, 077233 29414 de8fish@yahoo.co.uk, www.tolokotolo.com

Body, mind, spirit groups in Bath

Thursday, May 6th, 2010

When: Thurs­day 20th May 2010
Where: Mil­som Room, Man­vers Street Bap­tist Church, Bath
Time: 7.30pm – 9.30pm
Cost: Donation

Look­ing for a heal­ing, health or spir­i­tual change?
Would you like to join a group or find a workshop?

The 2nd of the heal­ing groups evening. The first,  in April, was very suc­cess­ful. Many groups in Bath united to inform indi­vid­u­als and other groups of their exis­tence. If you’re look­ing for a group or a work­shop related to body. mind, spirit, then do come do this event.

An oppor­tu­nity for indi­vid­u­als, heal­ing and work­shop groups in Bath to come together for an evening of med­i­ta­tion, sounds, short talks and get­ting to know one another.

For­mat for the evening
– Wel­come
– Short talk/meditation/sound/chant (speak­ers wel­come)
– Group intro­duc­tions
– Tea, bis­cuits and chats

Con­tact Liza:    info@lizaharwood.com     07789 880 415
lizaharwood.com/events-bath-bristol

Down­load PDF


Raw food pot luck at The Love Lounge

Monday, March 22nd, 2010

I made it last night to the Pos­i­tive Liv­ing Bath’s Raw Food Pot Luck at the Love Lounge behind The Bell. This is a monthly event organ­ised by Ali­son, Jonathan and Ian.

I was sur­rounded by heart cen­tered peo­ple and deli­cious raw food treats. What a fab­u­lous way to end the weekend.

I’m not a raw fooder (I’m not even a veg­e­tar­ian) but I have dab­bled with raw food it a lit­tle and it was really great to get together with like­minded peo­ple and share our raw food recipes and experiments.

For any­one who is inter­ested in healthy eat­ing; be you non veg­gie, veg­gie, vegan or raw food, these evening will be just up your street.

Please see the pos­i­tive peo­ples web­site for more details:

http://www.positivelivingbath.co.uk/

I think I’d def­i­nitely going to have to make it to the raw choco­late party, April 30th

Joint healing group meeting, Bath, March 11th

Tuesday, March 2nd, 2010

Unity and Con­nec­tion.
The Mil­som Room, Man­vers St. Bap­tist Church, Bath
Thurs­day 11 March 2010, 7.30 — 9.30pm

Con­tact Kim Coles - 07749 921118 or kim@healwithin.co.uk

An oppor­tu­nity for all heal­ing groups in Bath to come together for an evening of med­i­ta­tion, sounds, talks and get­ting to know one another.

An oppor­tu­nity to get up and talk about your­self and your group. Speak­ers welcome.

An oppor­tu­nity for those who just want to find out what heal­ing is, and maybe join a group.
Basic for­mat for the evening

  • Greet­ing by Kim Coles
  • Ammaprema will give an open­ing gong performance
  • Shirley Smith will give a brief talk on spir­i­tual healing
  • Eliz­a­beth Grif­fin will lead a group recital
  • Claire Stevens will lead us into a guided visualisation
  • Then some speak­ers briefly talk about their group work: Liz Josey from Pos­i­tive Liv­ing Groups with Pos­i­tive Liv­ing Bath intro­duc­ing them­selves as they are launch­ing their group in April. Leora Sharp will intro­duce about Bath Prac­ti­tion­ers Group. Barry McGui­ness from Enlight­en­ment Intensives.

If there’s enough time, then oth­ers can intro­duce them­selves, but it‘s mostly about find­ing out what groups are avail­able, as there will be those who want to join a group, or those who feel inspired to start a group.

There may be a fin­ish­ing gong per­for­mance.
Bring a mat or blan­ket if you would like.
Drink­ing water provided.

I’ve just discovered these positive people in Bath

Tuesday, February 2nd, 2010

positivelivingbath A friend / mas­sage col­league of mine men­tioned she went to an amaz­ing Ash­tanga yoga class last week in Bris­tol, led by Nicole Aaron. I have sub­se­quently found out that Nicole will be doing some classes in Bath at The Love Lounge behind The Bell on Wal­cot Street. Events there are organ­ised by Pos­i­tive Liv­ing Bath. I met Ian a few months back at a Kun­dalini Yoga class in Larkhall and I’m really happy to see he and his team have got this good thing going.

They are doing great things…various types of Yoga classes, Raw Food get togeth­ers, a Tran­si­tion group and workshops.

I’m going to check them out as soon as I can!!

http://www.positivelivingbath.co.uk/

Sat Nam, Namaste, Shanti Shanti Shanti.

positivelivingbath

It makes me feel so goooood!

Friday, January 22nd, 2010

This song makes me feel so good (video and lyrics below). It’s only now that I’m blog­ging about it and watch­ing the video closely (and repeat­edly) that I realise its about about death…and there­fore life as well I guess.

I love the feath­ers, the fans, the land­scapes and the embrac­ing of dif­fer­ent cul­tures.  There are hints about our inner wis­dom (which I’m work­ing with right now) and “believ­ing”, love and adven­ture and good­ness that runs in all our veins. I love the way every time they say “Rem­i­nisc­ing other times of life” my brain wants to swap the words around and say “other life times”…which is quite fit­ting to the sub­ject matter.

I can lis­ten to it on repeat for a good while. It makes me feel really good.Does it do the same for you?

We can remem­ber swim­ming in December,
Head­ing for the city lights in 1975,
We share in each other,
Nearer than father,
The scent of a lemon drips from your eyes

We are the peo­ple that rule the world.
A force run­ning in every boy and girl,
All rejoic­ing in the world,
Take me now we can try.

We lived an adventure
Love in the Summer,
Fol­lowed the sun till night
Rem­i­nisc­ing other times of life,
For each every other
The feel­ing was stronger,
The shock hit eleven
Got lost in your eyes

I can’t do well when I think you’re gonna leave me,
But I know I try,
Are you gonna leave me now,
Can’t you be believ­ing now.

Can you remem­ber and humanise,
It was still where we’d energised,
Lie in the sand and visualise
Like its 75 again,

We are the peo­ple that rule the world.
A force run­ning in every boy and girl,
All rejoic­ing in the world,
Take me now we can try.

I can’t do well when I think you’re gonna leave me,
But I know I try,
Are you gonna leave me now,
Can’t you be believ­ing now.

I know every­thing about you,
You know every­thing about me,
Know every­thing about us.

Welcoming, understanding, accepting and transmuting our emotions

Monday, December 7th, 2009

guesthouseI’ve watched Deb­bie Ford’s,  The Shadow Effect DVD a few times now and she men­tions the poem below, which likens being human to a guest house with new emo­tions arriv­ing every day. I think this poem is a great one to have in our diaries so when we’re hav­ing a hard day, we can read it and remind our­selves to accept what is and that all from all hard times, good things arise.

I think this runs par­al­lel with what Eck­hart Tolle sug­gests in The Power of Now (Page 218); “Become and alchemist. Trans­mute base metal into gold, suffering into con­scious­ness, dis­as­ter into enlightenment.”

The Guest House

This being human is a guest house.
Every morn­ing a new arrival.

A joy, a depres­sion, a mean­ness,
some momen­tary aware­ness comes
as an unex­pected visitor.

Wel­come and enter­tain them all!
Even if they’re a crowd of sor­rows,
who vio­lently sweep your house
empty of its fur­ni­ture,
still, treat each guest hon­or­ably.
He may be clear­ing you out
for some new delight.

The dark thought, the shame, the mal­ice,
meet them at the door laugh­ing,
and invite them in.

Be grate­ful for who­ever comes,
because each has been sent
as a guide from beyond.

~ Rumi

(The Essen­tial Rumi, ver­sions by Cole­man Barks)

I’ve also been read­ing Deb­bie Ford’s The Dark Side of the Light Chasers and par­tic­i­pat­ing in a vir­tual book club with Liz Fos­ter, who has been work­ing closely with Deb­bie for some years now. I’m find­ing the book and the book club offers me a won­der­ful oppor­tu­nity to under­stand those ‘shad­ows’ that bring me down. Debbie’s words help us realise that each shadow is indeed a guide and a gift which, if we embrace enthu­si­as­ti­cally, we can use to for­give our­selves. So, we use it, instead of it using us.

Spinning sugar…not as easy as I thought

Saturday, November 7th, 2009

I was inspired by Mas­terChef Pro­fes­sional (well done Steve Groves, you’re bril­liant) to try spin some sugar. Turns out it’s pretty hard. Professionals always make things look easy!

My book told me to dip the pan in water before spin­ning but it seems to cool the syrup so quickly. Any chefs out there got any tips?

Also, it was pretty chal­leng­ing to fig­ure out how to avoid get­ting blobby bits.

sugar02

The ones below are my favourite. Espe­cially top left and cen­tre, as they are 3d swirls rather than just flat. I did that on the back of a spoon han­dle. A fat han­dle of course.

sugar03

Then I cre­ated a monster.

sugar01

And then a bowl on the back of a ladle.

sugar04

Which I promptly broke before I could even pho­to­graph it. Man­aged to fake it though.

sugar05

What I did fig­ure out is that they fin­ger­print eas­ily so you’ve got to han­dle them really care­fully. That help avoid break­ages too as I discovered.

They need to be han­dled even more gen­tly than some­one need­ing a gen­tle mas­sage that’s for sure.