A storming way to start the New Year!

Happy New Year to everyone, I hope this year continues to bring much joy, peace, laughter, love and light!

Ewan and I celebrated the New Year in France with our friends Tessa and Carl, their children and a few of their friends on their farm in Normandy.

It was a wonderful way to end 2011 and begin 2012. Admittedly the ferry crossings were not their best, delayed on the way there so we didn't arrive into the farm until a couple of minutes before midnight (just in time to spend the last few minutes of Carl's birthday with him!) and delayed significantly on the way home so that we actually had a few unexpected hours in Jersey!

Still all good fun and an incredibly relaxing and laid back way to start what I hope will be a relaxing year ahead. While everyone went off to visit puppies on the morning of New Year's Eve, I was fortunate to enjoy an hour or so in the farmhouse on my own where it was just so beautifully quiet, practicing Yoga on my mat in front of wonderful views of the farm land and the rolling green landscape punctuated with trees in the distance. Bliss.



I meditated on those aspects of 2011 I wanted to leave behind as well as considering my intentions for the year ahead. I did my own Reiki burning bowl ceremony, improvised of course, the paper went up in the log burning fire rather than a bowl itself, but the intention and energy was still there and I look forward to manifesting those intetions during the New Year. They say this is the Year of reckoning after all.

Not that this means the end of the world per se, more so the end of the world as it is currently lived - a shift in attitude threfore, which will make life feel different, but not in a fearful way. I mean we have started to see this already with the whole financial crisis and our attitude to debt changing. Plus of course the fact so many of us are going back to basics, and not just us alternative hippy yogi types, but society generally. So many now grow their own veg and recycle in their homes, let alone have some consideration to how they spend their money these days. I guess it is simply a paradigm shift in our perception of life...I find it very exciting and shall be monitoring it closely over the year ahead.


So we celebrated New Year in the farmhouse, both the French New Year and the British one too! We had brought lobsters, crab and some Guernsey bread with us and Tessa had arranged a huge seafood platter plus her homemade goat's cheese with caviar and smoked salmon and then others brought food too, so it was one big fest washed down with lots of bubbles. Bliss!! I thoroughly enjoyed muyself, despite feeling a little tired the next day!!

New Year's Day and it was still raining. Talk about cleansing!! We managed a walk during a brief break from the rain and went to visit one of the river's near to where Tessa and Carl live - wow, it was certainly flowing with some power and actually the next day when we were driving back to St Malo, we noticed quite a bit of flooding around the river in Ducey. Seems like the heavens have opened the way into New Year.


We managed to fit in some reading time, which I love, a couple of inspiring Yoga magazines and this great book Carl has on Yoga so that I was able to be led by anopther during my New Year self practice. I am reading a Yoga therapy book in the Desikachar tradition, fascinating stuff, very inspiring, as I love to try new approaches to my practice but am limited somewhat in access to teachers living on an Island, so I am always delighted to find books which become my teacher.

So now here we are back at home and now of course the winds, blowing away all those cobwebs and blowing us into the New Year!!

So a huge thank you to Tessa, Carl, Evie and Ollie for having us to stay and also to Ewan for looking after me on those stormy seas.

Happy New Year, may it be full of love, light, magic and miracles for all of us this year.

xxxxI