I am now back from Bhakti Fest and I am most definitely feeling the lurve!

Day 1

Having arrived from LA on the Thursday we immediately felt the energy of Joshua Tree Retreat, a desert centre of yoga and spirituality.  With two Kirtan stages surrounded by some really wonderful food and trade stands, we were soon swept away by the blissful energy surrounding us.

I hadn't managed to sign up to any of the classes in advance, but luckily I was able to slip into the Govindas and Radha class (see govindasandradha.com).  A husband and wife team with the wife singing and playing the harmonium and her husband teaching.  We were led through a wonderfully slow and at times deeply sensual practice.  The Bhakti bhav created and experienced throughout the class culminated in us all dancing with joy to the most wonderful music.  It was really a delight.  

Whilst I was enjoying the above, my other half Alex was enjoying an interesting talk on the Beatles and Yoga by Phil Goldberg.  Goldberg discussed how the Beatles helped to introduce Yoga to the West and propagate the acceptance of mediation and Yogic teaching.  Pointing out also how they helped to legitimise the use of words such as mantra, giving an overview of their spiritual history.

In the early evening I decided to try out some of the wonderful therapies on offer at the Healing Sanctuary.  I experienced a really amazing Thai massage with Alok (see www.rockwaterhealingarts.com), who it turns out is also a Yoga instructor.  Alok expertly opened up my body by not only employing his Thai massage skills, but also with acroyoga.  I was brought into happy baby pose upside down which made me start to giggle uncontrollably- quite an experience!  While I was enjoying my treatment with Alok, my other half was under the spell of integrative body worker, otherwise known as the Body Magician- Maura Rassman (www.maurarassman.com).  I could not believe the transformation to a now extremely chilled and relaxed individual.  I feel that the treatments really helped us open our hearts to the Bhakti spirit.  

We reopened our eyes to twinkling lights in the darkness and Kirtan lacing its' way through the evening air.


Day 2

I rose early and walked to the main Bhakti village as the earth was waking to the light of the sun.  There was a very light coolness to the air at that hour rarely found in the desert any other time.  

I signed up for classes and headed straight to a session of shadow yoga taught by Scott Blossom.  Scott is not only a shadow yoga teacher, but also a traditional Chinese Medical practitioner and Ayurvedic consultant (www.doctorblossom.com).  Having never tried Shadow Yoga before, it was a true joy to be taught by Scott in his very easy going way.   Shadow Yoga focuses on working from the feet and shins especially into the marrow of the bones to bring true health to the body.  So lots of strong leg work!

On a raised shaded platform facing North out over the desert hills as the sun rose and a cool gentle breeze blew.  Scott beautifully moulded the students through our warm up and then with care and love we were taken through a gentle shadow Yoga sequence working with uddiyana Banda.   I was brought to a place of wonderful stillness, purity and joy.

With a brief break in between, I then ran off to the 9am class.  Saul david Raye  (www.sauldavidraye.com) accompanied by his band inspired us with his wisdom throughout the practise.  One phrase that really stood out for me was Saul's "Yoga is a moment to remind yourself who you are".  In this particular practise we worked on stimulating our kidneys, backbends and beautiful heart openers with dips into the martial arts tradition.  Our focus was brought to Mother Earth as we rode through the peaks and troughs of this energetic experience.  I really felt like this class was breaking barriers on the emotional and physical level.  My fingers were tingling and pulsating with life by the end of the class.

A well deserved breakfast smoothie and an early lunch were enjoyed  in the cool of the shade as we explored some of the stands.  I found a few really interesting companies and charities.  Om Shanti clothing was perhaps my biggest moment of weakness when I purchased six of their beautiful cotton tops, which I am now in love with- every time I wear them they remind me of the desert heat and joy emanating from it.  Flower of life essential blends had the most beautiful essential oils made from ancient recipes with names such as Goddess Bliss, by a wonderful lady who I got chatting to.  I indulged in a few of the oils for my personal meditation practise which I am hoping to deepen this year.

In the afternoon I was able to enjoy one of my beloved teachers Shiva Rea's class.  In the true Bhakti tradition we worked on the heart space.  Opening with a collective humming mandala with one hand on our hearts and the other on the closest persons' back.   This served to bring together the heart magnetic field.  We then opened the heart or anahata chakra with Kriyas to great music.  We were reminded that our "bodies are a vessel" that we need to cleanse before we can fully nourish and receive.  Working on a true Bhakti practise where every movement is healing as we excavated the heart and central channel.  Shiva always brings a sense of transforming heat and she did not disappoint.

On this particular evening I decided to go for something totally different to my usual choices and experience a Shamanic healing with Eric Majeski (www.innergeniushealing.com).  I found the whole treatment fascinating.  It involved an array of things, a bit of body work and muscle testing, then some blowing wind sounds for energy clearance.  Eric was very intuitive with his work and it really helped me to open up a few areas in my life, clearing a few questions that were perhaps holding me back.  The energy clearing and removing of resistance in the body was very effective, I truly felt as though a weight had been lifted.


In an extremely relaxed and slightly lighter, hazy state I finished my evening by chilling to the sounds of Deva Premal who sings some of the most beautiful tunes that I love to include indy classes.


Day 3

My final full day at Bhakti fest, it was all going so quickly!  
Again an early rise, as I had much to fit in.  I found myself in Scott Blossom's class again, the maestro of Shadow Yoga.  We opened the class with a beautiful chant to hanuman which this time was accompanied by a very cool little band which Scott had 'inherited' during the festival.  Shadow Yoga was brought deeper into my being through this practise.  I don't know if it was the music or my more relaxed state by having a bit more of an idea of what I was doing, but I felt deeply rooted in this movement as we dipped in and out of the Chi Qong tradition.  My deep thanks to Dr Blossom or Dr Squat as he is playfully known, I learnt much, both for my personal practise and to bring to my fellow student teachers back in London. I would definitely love to pursue this line further in the future.

Shiva's class was next and I was eager to allow my heart to feel more.  In London, at times I feel numb and believe this is simply because there is too much energy around us.  So this was really a way to bring my heart and body back into alignment and remind myself how good it feels.  Working in a mandala we looked at how love flows through Yoga by chanting and loosening the lower back which we then developed into beautiful flowing backbends.  Each movement was very organic, so I got far more out of my body than initially anticipated.   After the class I went back to my caravanserais and entered into a very deep healing sleep, I felt my body processing all the healing and openness that I had experienced in the last couple of days.  I woke up feeling amazing.

In the afternoon I explored my way to the breath work workshop hall, a purple carpeted and curtained hall, which seemed bizarrely cosy in the heat.  I wanted to hear two owners of iloveyoga.com Moses and Zeina talk of chanting and kundalini Yoga.  They were really interesting and both very young ( or at least looked it).  Their aim in holding the workshop was to give us tools that we could work with in the future.  They had been travelling in a van for the last year around the country to share their chants and energy as well as visiting hundreds of sacred sights.  I found them both charming and insightful.   The chants combined with kundalini yoga were really useful and I will be introducing some of them to my classes in the future.  The collective chanting lulled me into a beautiful floating state and stayed with me for the days that followed.  The gong bath always gives me so much joy ( see previous blog on gong bath), bringing me to a peak of almost vibrational fear as it is all dissolved into an overwhelming sense of relief.  It took me quite a while to bring myself back together after all of this.

However, I was able to get it together in order to be able to have a good chant and boogie with many other bhaktas and Krishna Das singing on the main stage.  I must admit, I thoroughly surprised Alex when I knew all the words to the first few songs.  Krishna Das is an amazing heart felt singer who I have been to see in London, it is always a joy to hear his voice and such an honour to be at Bhakti fest to do so.  On a total high I was able to make my way slowly to my bed.  On my final night in this desert paradise I took a moment to look up to the twinkling stars in a very clear sky.  I took in this incredible sense of space above and around me, the warm breeze blowing through my hair really brought home to me what a truly humbling and liberating experience this really was.

Bhakti Fest really is an amazing place and experience.  I could feel my body had prepared myself for this.  Blockages in my body were brought to the forefront building them up to an almost unbearable pitch, so that I was almost itchy inside.  The readying of the organs to dispel them here.  It was a truly amazing few days filled with some extremely emotional moments, but nevertheless incredible in whatever form they have taken.  I feel blessed to be able to experience so much.

I am extremely happy to say that I am off to California in a couple of weeks to go to Bhakti Fest at Joshua Tree.  The festival is going to be filled with a whole range of amazing teachers and music makers including my beloved teacher Shiva Rea.  I can't wait to experience the absolute Yogic joy of Joshua Tree, an amazing retreat in the desert where the festival is held.  I look forward to letting you know how I get on and sharing the bhakti joy with you all when I get back!


Blessings and light to you all,

Last week I had another amazing hot water bed massage with Ben Barnett.  I found it even better than the first one, which not only released my body and mind, but also helped me to make some really important decisions in my life.  Ben basically summarised in our first session all of the issues that I needed to address in my life to help me move forward and he was absolutely spot on!  This time it was even more intense in the sense that he was able to address confidence issues which he informed me were to do with my hips and neck. 

If you want to have progression in your life and feel absolutely amazing at the same time, then have a few sessions with Ben, he really is a true whole-istic therapist.  Take a look at my first blog on him a couple of months ago to get his details. 

Ben has also suggested he is happy to do a few sessions from my home in my therapy room, as I have a therapy bed, so I can always help arrange a treatment.

Last week I went to Putney to see a very lovely and interesting lady called Ebru.  Ebru works with access consciousness and carries out bars facilitating at her home.  If you are wondering what this is, I suggest you go to the website www.accessconsciousness.com, which will give you a lot more detail than I can.  However, my initial session with Ebru was really very interesting, I experienced a non-invasive hands on treatment.  Ebru worked with the 32 points on my head that correspond to different areas of my life.  She also gave me a really interesting insight into the philosophy of the whole access consciousness, using phrases such as 'how can it get much better can than this?'  as opposed to saying 'it is a nice day' which cuts off the energy of the nice day continuing and places it in the past.  

The treatment itself was incredibly relaxing and I felt really uplifted by it all.  I must admit, I dropped off into a haze and only came back to the world again when I moved my arm.  It felt like a mixture of Reiki and something different.  I noticed I was extremely thirsty and that my blood sugar had dropped after the treatment, Ebru had very thoughtfully supplied a vast quantity of water as well as salty and sweet treats.

I highly recommend going, please contact Ebru at ebruaccess@gmail.com   and enjoy! 

On Saturday I enjoyed the most wonderful, enlivening and heart warming workshop with the wonderful David Sye.  David really is a breath of fresh air in this very shallow world.  For me it was such a joy to be in the presence of someone who is so real and hilarious.  The workshop was full of laughter throughout the day.  

In the morning we commenced by working on cleansing the lungs by working with the bandhas (or locks) in the body, especially uddiyana bandha.  This was used to not only to cleanse our lungs, but also to clear our minds.  We also used Kaphalabhati or skull shining breath, where you pump the lower stomach forcing the air out.  David then took us into a heart opening sequence with the funky music from his ghetto blaster keeping us moving.  The way that we were introduced to the postures was done with so much love and humour, that many of us found that we were able to take ourselves to a new level of practice.  David emphasises that Yoga is not about working out, but about doing what your body feels and working with it in a spontaneous way every step of the practice.  

In the afternoon we worked through the more therapeutic sides of David's Yoga practice.  We worked through some really interesting meditational practices to help calm our lives and slow down the body, showing appreciation for what our bodies are and what they do.  David brought his vast knowledge of the Tibetan Yoga tradition to the workshop.  We concluded with a Sufi whirling dance to really get rid of any thoughts in the mind and to really bring ourselves into a state of bliss.


I would like to thank David and all the wonderful student/teacher/ friends who shared the day with me and helped to bring such an incredible energy into the space.  David, thank you for bringing new light to my practice and for giving me a new path.  I have indeed been inspired! 

Next week I will be attending the wonderful, fun and exuberant David Sye's workshop.  The first time I experienced David's Yoga which, is an incredibly fun experience, was at the Yoga Show last year, when he gave all of us a chocolate button to suck on as we did our practice.  David is considered to be the bad boy of Yoga by some, but I don't believe that to be the case at all, as he is able to bring a fluid spontaneity to the practice of Yoga which can sometimes be lost in very formulaic environments like the world we live in today.  Sye has divided his workshop into two sections 'Fun is the easy road to advanced postures (and consciousness)'  which I think shows his great sense of vitality, and then 'Meditations into the Heart of Love', which again shows the deeper intrinsic value in the practice.  David's general Yoga style is known as Yoga Beats, please do visit his website yogabeats.com or watch some of his fun youtube clips.  I will let you know how I get on and will hopefully have a photo or two from the experience.

I am very excited to say that from next week, I will be joining the team at Te, London.  They have taken over the studio that I was originally teaching at in Parsons Green, originally known as Manuka.  Te is a fitness boutique that takes on a highly tailored approach for its' clients and I am delighted to be joining them.  I will not only be teaching from their new Parsons Green studio on a Thursday night at 6.30pm, but also offering private sessions in their gorgeous studio through them.  Please take a look at their website and if you would like to book into a class please do so online.  

Last week I went for the most amazing massage ever!  I lay on this water bed while Ben Barnett massaged me from both the top and underneath.  The water bed allowed Ben to massage my back and my underneath body whilst I relaxed on my back, so there was no turning over during the treatment.  Although Ben is highly qualified in so many areas of massage including pre and post natal, he insisted on giving me his signature treatment.  The signature treatment was a massage meditation, so Ben talked me through my massage and really made me breath through any of the tougher bits.  I have to say there were no moments of grinding teeth, as the water bed allows your body to move in so many different ways.  The way Ben took me through the massage was incredibly intuitive, he would pin point exactly what the areas of tension in my body meant with regards to my life, without even asking any questions related to it.  Ben then highlighted the main points at the end of my treatment, which really were so spot on.  I left the treatment room feeling incredibly open and perhaps more importantly with a clearer idea of the direction of my life.  I had to go off and teach a group class afterwards and I am happy to say that Ben left me feeling refreshed and revitalised, full of good energy, so that I was able to proceed forward with my day.  

Yesterday Ben sent me a recording of my treatment, which again was another form of meditation.  The fact that the session was recorded allowed me to really relax and not have to try to remember what he had said.


I have been recommending Ben to all my clients, so please do get in contact with him and do mention my name if you do.  He is at Triyoga Chelsea on Thursdays and on New Burlington Street on Wednesdays.  I am not entirely sure of the rest of his movements, but I do know he also does freelance.  www.benbarnett.org
 or phone him on 07891339943.

On Friday I experienced the beauty and joy of Rivkah Parker's singing at the Mind, Body and Spirit fair. Rivkah is a highly accomplished Yoga teacher and I am honoured to have her in my life as one of my teachers.  Rivkah launched her new Kirtan and general music CD at the show, her performance was moving, uplifting and fun.  I purchased a CD for myself and would highly recommend getting hold of one from her www.liquidgoldyoga.com.  If you wish to sample her music, I suggest coming to one of her classes on a Friday night at Triyoga where she usually chants on her harmonium towards the end of the class.

I am very happy to say that I have finally organised my Reiki room in my home.  It really is a beautiful space with beautiful energy.  

While I play healing music that lulls you into a sense of calm, candles flicker in the background.  To commence with, I encourage the Reiki receiver to open their heart space, this is facilitated by a short meditation on all the chakras of the body (energy centres at different points in the body).  I then encourage the Reiki receiver who is at this point lying on the therapy bed to totally give in and just allow any feelings of relaxation to take over their body.

I love giving a Reiki session and I usually lose myself in the music, forgetting what time it is.  Reiki receivers will often find that they fall asleep and then wake up with a wonderful sense of well being.  This sense of calm and well being tends to continue for several days after.  I find Reiki really useful for people who are going through a lot of stress or trauma or just need some TLC.

Reiki sessions usually last for an hour and are in the region of £30.