Life doesn’t stop for toilet breaks

Tags

Acupuncture, Ayurveda, Baraka, coconut water, cranio-sacral osteopathy, Hashimoto’s thyroiditis, Healing, jasmine, Kinesiology, kirtan, Yoga

Yes, I am getting better.

No, I really can’t tell you how or what or why. Only that it is, and more than anything I’ve ever done this healing work is Very Strange.

Mostly because the results aren’t ever what I expect them to be, even when I’ve got a good idea about some of the related particulars.

So I keep thinking – I really wanna write about that… – before the moment(s) pass and I know that somehow, even though it IS interesting, it just isn’t what I want to say.

So instead I say nothing, and like one of those pseudo-documentary movies (remember Baraka?) everything moves and there is beauty and sadness and incredibly distinct experiences and yet… I can’t seem to find the remote for this life, the one with the pause button that’ll give me a few more minutes to write what I see before the scene changes.

Life doesn’t really stop for toilet breaks, does it?

We’re working here, you know that, right? It’s a deconstruction zone but not the kind that leaves rubble and mayhem. What I’m getting instead are whiffs of jasmine and incense and easeful transitions in areas of my world that are wholly surprising.

To tell it straight might sound like one cliché after another, I think. It’d also be a great disservice to the entire process.

What’s working? Lots of things. But as I said, it’s been about throwing spaghetti for me. So is one thing working more than another? Probably. If I tried to guess though, I’m sure I’d be wrong. Like my approach, it’s possibly a bit of everything, and I’m good with that.

But to be clear(ish) it’s these things: kinesiology; Ayurveda; lots of yoga (of course); developing routine sleeping and eating habits; insane amounts of coconut water; cranio-sacral osteopathy (madly esoteric? why, yes!); acupuncture; kirtan (singing sacred words with joy bursting forth from my heart and tears rolling down my face).

That’s a bit of a montage, isn’t it? Yet, what’s going on is – MORE. So much more energy that I’ve felt a little bit crazy, since I haven’t felt this good in a very long time (and we’re not done yet!). More strength, more vigour, more happiness. And LESS: anxiety; mood swings; insomnia and other related madness.

Then, unexpected things happen.

But as it turns out, not actually as disconnected as it might initially seem. For example, a gradual release of long-held angst – for all sorts of reasons – towards my very own ma and pa.

All part of the healing work, and oddly amusing in its own way.

That’d be the next post, though. 😉

~ Svasti

False walls and exit doors

Tags

Ayurveda, black thoughts, catch 22, Depression, eclipsed new moon, Health, injury, mayhem, PTSD, Sadness, sociopaths, surrendering, thyroid

This is a different post than the one I’d planned to share. But I’m having a hard time finding a point in a lot of my writing right now. I’m struggling. I know these feelings aren’t permanent but all of my darkest thoughts are out to play and I’ve gotta tell you folks, it’s mayhem in Svasti-land.

Tore a calf muscle earlier this week. As if my life doesn’t have enough crap in it, I was trying to run for the train and without obvious cause I could no longer walk properly. Just a twang inside my right leg and look Ma, I’m Hop-a-long Svasti In Considerably Unpleasant Pain.

Been working with an Ayurvedic practitioner in recent times to work on a more holistic approach to healing my thyroid. Ayurveda is Indian traditional medicine and it’s amazing and powerful. Apparently my due to the many imbalances in my body right now, it’s not surprising that there’s dryness in my soft tissues. Which means things like this can happen more easily.

Great. Frickin GREAT.

Friday brought the eclipsed new moon, which I felt very keenly. Its energy brought certain truths to light that I’ve been trying to ignore as best as I could: as much as I love working in the digital industry, the people I have to work with sometimes are just killing me.

People being assholes who are more interested in stroking their ego than they are in being professional, courteous, efficient and respectful. In corporate life, there are more people like this than not. I suspect half of them are sociopaths, while the others I think are just sad, lonely people who don’t know any better than to lash out at their work mates.

But it’s more than that. I’m in this catch 22 of needing the money I’m earning in order to reach my goal of being debt-free as quickly as I can. Not to mention that right now I have a lot of health-related expenses – doctors, meds, vitamins and herbs, alternative medicine consultations and now massages (for that cranky right calf of mine).

Essentially, I need to get out of this line of work but I can’t afford to just yet.

So add all of these things up – my health, a mystery injury and admitting the truth of my career situation to myself… and I’ve been feeling a little crappy this weekend.

Not that I haven’t tried to buck myself up.

Yesterday I got another massage ostensibly for my calf, but in truth my entire body aches. Not just from the strain of limping and hobbling my way through the week, but because I still carry my old shoulder injury and untold amounts of tension from PTSD.

As a yogi, I’m pretty darn bendy but regardless of that and no matter how much yoga I do, my body retains some powerful clenching abilities. So it hurts – something that should feel good and nourishing to my body, it bloody hurts.

Post-massage and before my haircut appointment (my first since the Great Hair Debacle which I haven’t written about here) I had a meal at a fabulous new cafe, only three weeks old. It has this eclectic menu including the Asian-style jook I ordered. It was great, but what really won me over was the super-large tea pot (above) that my lemongrass and ginger tea arrived in.

So I was doing what I could to make the weekend enjoyable despite my limp and those truthful truths yammering away. My new haircut made me feel so much better about looking in the mirror for the first time in ages. Which is good.

But it wasn’t enough. Black thoughts have been welling up. They smell suspiciously like depression and I’ve noticed too, how everything is a little less bright. Colours aren’t as vivid and even though I know the way out, I can’t stop myself from wandering in a little deeper. Not just yet.

Because these thoughts, they want to be heard. Even if they are the voice of depression and loss and therefore, rather unbalanced. They go a little something like this:

Life isn’t like a fairy tale. There are no prescribed, audience approved happily ever afters. Some people get lucky and others don’t. That’s just the way it is and it seems like I’m one of those people who isn’t gonna get lucky. My sister has three children now, three! My three best girlfriends are all happily married. One of them is pregnant with her second child, the other with her first and the third is in the process of trying to get pregnant. One of these women I’ve always thought of as a little sister and yet here she is, surpassing me while my own life STILL stands still. I desperately want to let other people in, to date, to have a boyfriend, but at the same time I aint letting anyone in anytime soon. I try and try and try to get past it all, to heal, to move on. But just when I think I’m getting somewhere… SURPRISE. Here, have a chronic health problem. Here, lose the ability to walk properly. And for good measure, let’s throw in a couple of egotistical assholes at my workplace, too.

Still, I can’t find a permanent job and what’s worse, I don’t even want one. Not anymore. Not this line of work and having to deal with people who are less than honest and truthful with themselves and other people. This isn’t who I am but right now I don’t have a choice, do I? EVERY TIME I think I’m closer to my goals, the goalposts move. There is no end. No hope for me. No magical shift where suddenly my health is sorted and my metabolism starts working again, I drop that extra weight and finish paying off my debts. That’s an ending from one of those stupid chick flicks I hate so much and it’s just not real.

What’s real is what’s here. I try my best. I do service work. I do what I can for others and I take pleasure in the little things whenever I can. I do. But I don’t know what it’d feel like to be free anymore. As much as I love my nieces, I really wish I’d never moved back to Melbourne. But here I am, and I’m doing what I can to leave although sometimes it feels like I never will. Not ever.

Even though the saying goes you’re never given more than you can handle, I’m utterly sick to death of being given more to handle again and again while nothing seems to change.

I truthfully don’t know what to do next. If this was a war, I’d be surrendering to the other side right about now…

~Svasti

PTSD can cause real physical health problems

Tags

adrenal exhaustion, Anxiety, auto-immune, Ayurveda, Chronic stress, Depression, dis-ease, exhaustion, game on, gluten free, gluten intolerance, Healing, Health, himoto’s thyroiditis, hypothyroidism, leaky gut, PTSD, self-nurture, Spleen, thyroid, yang energy

It’s a little challenging sometimes to get the facts of life through this thick noggin of mine. For some reason, I’ve a tendency to not believe things are real.

So this whole: yes, my body is sicker than I was aware of thing is taking some getting used to. Of course I knew I was having bouts of exhaustion, but I hadn’t associated that with anything in particular. And thyroid issues it seems, are known to be difficult to diagnose because their symptoms often appear as other things – like depression and anxiety, for starters.

I’ve no way of knowing how long this has been going on, but based on my sketchy knowledge of Ayurveda I’d say it’s been a while. The organs and glands are not the first parts of the body to break down during dis-ease, but they’re also not the last.

What’s been really impressive has been the vast amount of information I’ve gathered from Twitter, including several excellent pieces of advice.

Three of the most important things I’ve learned in the last week are:

• Chronic stress can cause adrenal exhaustion, which in turn can trigger hypothyroidism and/or the auto-immune version of hypothyroidism, called Hashimoto’s thyroiditis.
• Generally associated with thyroidism is some level of gluten intolerance and/or leaky gut.
• There is PLENTY that a person can do other than take synthetic hormones to sort out this imbalance in the body.
  Here’s one woman’s story of what she did.

Bottom line #1: If you ever had any doubt about the body and mind being one and the same, seeing PTSD translate into a very real physical illness should be all the proof you require.

Bottom line #2: Never, ever, accept the standard western medical treatment without researching other options.

So far it’s been a wild learning curve and I know there’s plenty more to come.

Right now, I’m temporarily taking synthetic hormone medication for one month because it’s part of the protocol my current doctor wants me to follow. I’m not terribly happy about this! After that, I’ll have more blood tests to work out if I’ve got plain old hypothyroidism or Hashimoto’s.

In the meanwhile, I’m also taking a small army of supplements including:

• Olive leaf extract (which I’ve been taking for ages to support my immune system)
• Fish oil (another one I’ve been taking for ages – good for joints and cholesterol)
• L-Tyrosine – this made me feel SO. MUCH. BETTER. The almost ever-constant anxiety I was experiencing, that’d flare up without much cause is now gone. Yep, GONE. This is an amino acid and it’s referred to as “neuro-transmitter support”. It is incredible!
• Liquid iron (better for absorption, and doesn’t cause constipation like the tablet form. Also includes vitamin C in the blend) – related to adrenal exhaustion
• Magnesium – to support iron absorption
• Huge doses of B12 and vitamin D – which I am deficient in right now and this is also related to adrenal exhaustion

But that’s not all. I’m working with my acupuncture guy on my spleen/yang energy – which is also connected to the thyroid. He’s gonna give me some herbs and needles to see what can be done to support my body.

AND I’ve started – somewhat fitfully – eating gluten free. I can report that the first few days my body was having a little celebration at the change in my eating habits. I felt like it was literally singing to me!

But I’ve had to work out what’s okay and not okay to eat. Obviously things like bread are totally out (unless it’s gluten-free chia bread!), but other things I’d eat occasionally like dumplings, fries (cross-contamination issues), and even most potato chips are OUT. So is blue cheese (*cries*). My breakfast cereal, which I thought was okay as it was wheat-free, just isn’t. Barley and rye also have to go, you see.

The weird thing is that after even just a few days without gluten, then slipping up with stuff I wasn’t aware of… WOW, my belly hurts! That’d also be me just double checking to see if this thing is really REAL (thick noggin, remember?).

Interestingly, I noticed that I’d been having this sort of tight, bloated pain for a while. Only I hadn’t realised before now that this was a symptom of gluten intolerance. Amazing what we put up with, isn’t it?

So mostly I’m sticking to very simple meals – fish, organic chicken, rice, steamed veggies (drizzled with tahini – YUM!) and salads. Stuff like that. I’ve found a wonderful gluten free breakfast cereal and the previously mentioned chia bread. The other thing I’m meant to do is eat smaller meals more frequently.

Basically, I’m not taking any of this lying down (see bottom line #2). I’ve already got some leads on doctors that work more holistically when it comes to thyroid issues. So once I get my test results, I’ll probably switch doctors because I want someone who knows this stuff inside out and is prepared to go further than just giving me replacement hormones!

Food, exercise, proper rest, yoga and meditation – along with the appropriate supplements etc – all appear to be the way to go.

I’m also doing some work on my self-nurture abilities: today I had an awesome “me” day! Post-yoga class, I had myself a lovely time – getting my eyebrows waxed, a massage, going to a movie, buying some lovely fruit tea, a new light for my push bike, and wandering at a leisurely pace back towards my part of the world.

Game on, people. It’s game-freakin’-on.

~Svasti

Samskaras in samsara – part 2

Tags

Asana, Asatoma Sat Gamaya, Ayurveda, bandha, Brihadaranyaka Upanishad, dance, Deepak Chopra, duality, Karma, Krishna, Limitations, martial arts, Meditation, metaphysical, mula, non-dual reality, pranayama, psychoanalysis, Reality, Samsara, samskara, self-loathing, Shanti Path, Slim Calm Sexy, Swami Niranjananda Sawaswati, Tara Stiles, Wake up, Yoga, yogic philosophy, Yogis

I didn’t take this photo, but I’ve driven past this statue of Arjuna in Bali. It’s magnificent!

[Read part 1 first]

Okay, so enough with the psychoanalysis of our western self-loathing mind-set for a moment.

How about we go beyond the physical, to the metaphysical for a bit? Yeah?

Okay, so let’s take a tiny peek at some of the subtleties of yogic philosophy.

Note #1: I’m going to do my best to explain these rather complex concepts to you as passed down from my wonderful teachers. Of course, my understanding is still limited and imperfect but hey… I’ll give it a go. Also, there’s only so much I can pack into a single blog post!

Note #2: This is another long post. Try to hang in there!!

Samsara is considered to be this world of duality – the place where the universe can experience its Self as Other than its Self. ‘Nuff said about that for now…

And samskaras are deeply embedded patterns of energy within collective energy forms that manifest as individual human beings. “Pattern” being the key word here – a pattern comes from actions being repeated over and over again. And of course, the more often a pattern is repeated, the harder it is to change it. Kinda like a train running on the only tracks it’s got.

Samskara is a very peculiar thing. It is the library within a DNA molecule, containing everything that we have imbibed. One DNA molecule contains the total information of all of the libraries in the world combined. Samskaras are like that too. Samskaras are the inputs of volumes and volumes of books which we carry within us and which have been accumulating over millions of years. When these samskaras come to the surface of the mind, they are very powerful.
~From Yoga Darshan, Swami Niranjananda Sawaswati

A samskara then, is a thought or activity that’s become part of how the world appears to us. It can define our preferences, personality, understanding of other people and things. And with those definitions come limitations – what is subjectively true and what is not. However, limitations aren’t actually “bad”, not in the least.

In fact, they are key to our ability to exist in as humans where we all appear as separate entities, cut off from source/the universe/god etc. So, samskaras can be considered to be both useful (i.e. they comprise and make possible our limited view of the world) and problematic (when we can’t discriminate between our limited view and a wider view).

Still with me?

Limitations are a naturally occurring construct of this world and universe. They are part of how we function, our identity, why we have certain opinions and emotions and ideas. Our samskaras interact with karma (another much-maligned and misunderstood yogic concept) and form a filter through which we view “reality”. As we know, reality at this level is different for everyone, and far from the non-dual view the rishis and wisdom masters speak of. Hence, our diversity of opinions!

However, one of the true goals of yoga and serious yogis is to free ourselves from the limitations of the dual world, while simultaneously existing in both the dual and the non-dual. In fact, we can’t exist in the non-dual without duality, because then it wouldn’t be a non-dual reality – for the non-dual to be truly non-dual, it also has to encompass duality (hope that makes sense!).

Asatoma Sat Gamaya
Lead me from the unreal to the Real

Tamasoma Jyotir Gamaya
Lead me from the darkness to the Light

~Brihadaranyaka Upanishad

And so we yogis work to free ourselves from limited views through an intimate understanding of, and connection to our mind and body. The path to achieving this can include: asana, pranayama, mula, bandha, meditation, martial arts, dance, Ayurveda and so on. Usually, more than one of these methods is required to develop our mind-body awareness. Ultimately this MUST include long and deep hours of meditation (as opposed to say, fifteen minutes a day).

Freeing ourselves from limited views does not mean however, denying our anger or any other emotion. We need to go fully into the experience of being a human being in order to understand and liberate ourselves from the suffering of samsara. Because, how can you possibly be free of what you don’t understand?

As such, suppressing emotions or decrying other people’s anger as “un-yogic” is doing little more than keeping you stuck on those same train tracks, going around and around and around… and the more circuits of the train track you make, the harder it is to change. Get it?

It is tricky, because on the one hand we are here on this planet that exists in duality, and so we play by the rules of this world where interactions with people, our emotional states and experiences DO matter. But then, as we learn to drop into non-duality more and more (it comes in flashes or waves), we begin to see how much none of it really matters in the end. And things start to change as we begin to increasingly experience non-duality as our actual reality.

It can be both incredibly liberating and stupendously confusing at the same time…

And yet. We MUST learn to see the real from the unreal. This for me, is what makes the false and harmful messages about body image (burn that bra fat, minimise those wider-than-desired hips) so completely alarming.

Because it is being condoned not just by Tara Stiles (who, as a yogi with connections to Deepak Chopra should bloody well know better), but by so many other people involved in yoga.

The outcry in return seems to be all “don’t hate on Tara”, “don’t hate on anything we want to define as yoga” and “you people who are complaining are just simply un-yogic”.

BUT all of the folks in that camp – including Tara – are missing the glaringly obvious point here:

Yoga is about liberation from samskaras and the human condition of suffering. NOT about playing into and re-enforcing those patterns for ourselves and others. NOT about continuing to make people think there is something wrong about their physical appearance that needs to be fixed – this is a mass personal and cultural samskara and one that’s deeply embedded!!

This isn’t a personal attack on Tara or anyone else, but as my own Guru would say: WHERE IS YOUR MIND??

My criticism comes from asking: what kind of yogi supports messages that invoke deep-seated insecurities and self-esteem issues of others? From generating and confirming samskaras as real instead of limited thinking that one can learn to revoke?

This is not good work. And it is not yogic in the least. In fact, those in the yoga community who buy into this, saying that it’s all okay, are demonstrating minds that are still deeply embedded in their own samskaras, whatever they might be. Some things are NOT okay, especially coming from yogis.

Seriously, anyone who thinks Tara Stiles’ “Slim Calm Sexy” yoga is an okay way to market yoga to the uninitiated masses is not engaging in enough discernment or discriminate thinking. And those uninitiated masses? They probably spend most of their time feeling deeply unhappy and thinking self-loathing thoughts anyway, and don’t NEED anyone else to point it out to them!

Even as Tara et all are claiming “it doesn’t matter how people come to yoga” – and I’ll admit that’s generally true – in some ways it actually DOES. Because by pressing the self-esteem/physical appearance buttons you’re embedding those samskaras just a little more deeply than before and messing with someone’s appreciation of what yoga is all about. Who knows how much extra work – conscious and sub-consciously – will be involved in undoing all of that?

Basically, the Tara Stiles school of yoga marketing is unhealthy and unethical.

And as another teacher I’ve studied with would put it… WAKE UP!!

Or as I’d put it… WAKE (THE FUCK) UP!!

This is not a popularity contest where we have to be friends with everyone and accept everything that’s said about yoga, simply because we don’t want to hurt anyone’s feelings.

SO WAKE UP!!

Remember, Krishna was a warrior and he worked very hard to make Arjuna fight a battle. It’s not always about having the most friends, but about cutting through the crap and seeing clearly.

Lead me from the unreal to the freaking real, already!

~Svasti

Plans not resolutions

Tags

Ayurveda, dance, decorate, fitness, gardening, Health, Inspiration, joy, kirtan, New Year's plans, New Year's resolutions, Retreat, Thailand, Yoga

I went a little nutty last night. In part, I blame the fluey cold I’m slowly recovering from. But also, I blame that song that is apparently still haunting me on occasion. Haven’t heard it in ages, but yesterday at lunch I wandered into a supermarket to buy some pistachios and what do I hear? Yup. That dang song again! I’ve been hearing it for two or three years now, whenever big change is happening or about to happen. *looks around suspiciously*

I got home and had a sudden fit of de-clutterisation. Okay, that’s probably not even a word. But I’ve been living in my apartment for just over a year now and truth be told, I hadn’t really finished unpacking. My second room which is currently my practice room (I know it sounds fancy to have a room just for yoga and meditation, but it’s not exactly a very big room, okay?), has had crap piled up on the eastern wall pretty much since I moved in.

So I sorted the things I needed to throw out from the stuff I needed to find a place for. I was ruthless! There’s a couple of pieces of pseudo furniture in there, too: a small filing cabinet and my little sewing machine bench/table thingy. Plus a box of books and a whole bunch of other stuff I’ve simply neglected to assign to a cupboard or other storage spot. And I do have plenty of that, at least!

After several hours (where did the time go?) I had much less stuff in my practice room. The filing cabinet has been re-homed and I think once the books are gone, I might just have to deal with my sewing machine living in there. I’m cool with that… I’d also managed to free up some space (as yet unused) in the wardrobe in my bedroom and I even found more clothes and daypacks I don’t need that I can donate to charity. Somewhere along the line, I ended up with a lot of daypacks!

All of this has to do with one of my plans for 2010, so it’s good. Very good. I’m not trying to like, distract you here. Or myself. In fact, last night I was very focused. Not bad for a recovering sickie.

Anyway… like I said a couple of posts back, I don’t really like the word “resolution”. It’s too loaded and generally speaking, when people make New Year’s resolutions they often don’t last.

So instead, I like the idea of New Year’s plans. I figure if I can work out what I want to do, I can make a plan. And plans are things I can put it into action. Also, a “plan” sounds more like something I intend to do than a resolution.

And really, it’s kind of exciting because like many things for me right now, it’s the first time in years that I’ve even thought about making real plans for myself! Ending up in yoga teacher training last year was a bit of a happy accident – it’s not like I thought it through.

But this year… I feel like I might just have possibilities.

And so without further ado, I present my current list of plans. Some things will change for certain. They always do. But for now, this is what I’d like to make happen in 2010:

• Daily practice – yoga, meditation & pranayama. It’s time to build and explore.
• Continue with group personal training sessions for cardio fitness and being social.
• Build my jogging up so I can once again do 5km easily.
• Start teaching yoga classes and continue throughout the year. Current plans are to approach HR at my work and see if I can run a class in our boardroom. For starters.
• Continue studying Shadow Yoga (which might be the next YTT I take on). Next week, I’m doing an immersion: 5 mornings in a row of 6am classes. I can’t wait!
• Retreat in Thailand in October/November – It’s the final retreat in a seven year program we’ve been doing. Yup, seven years of spending 2-6 weeks a year in retreat. Except for last year, when we had a bye.
  Special note: this year is open to non-students. We just started doing that last year. If you’re interested, let me know and I can send you some information.
• Investigate all different kinds of yoga – I want to experience as many different styles and teachers as I can! There’s always my Guru and everything learn with him. I love Hatha and Shadow Yoga, but I want more! So I’m going to visit a range of studios to see how other teachers do it, and what else might resonate for me. To kick things off, in February I’m going to the Mark Whitwall weekend that Nadine Fawell is organizing.
• Get an MRI for my shoulder – that dang bike accident is still bothering me and one of my friends in Sydney very sensibly suggested I get an MRI. I simply don’t think of those things…
• Find a local Ayurveda doctor – I’ve tried a couple down in Melbourne but haven’t found one that I really like. Yet.
• Lose weight – seriously all the yoga, cycling and personal training I’ve been doing has not helped me lose weight. I tend to think it’s a side effect of depression and I know if I keep up the consistency, it will happen. But for now, umm… still working on that.
• Learn to cook better – I don’t have a great attitude about cooking just for myself. And I don’t think of myself as a good cook. Those things have to change. I’m thinking of cooking courses, and simply inviting more people over for dinner. I have cookbooks and perhaps if I create situations where I need to cook for others, it’ll start flowing a little easier for me?
• Travel before or after retreat – maybe see more of Thailand or go to Laos or Cambodia?
• Date/find a boyfriend – doesn’t have to be the love of my life, though that’d be nice! Just y’know… some practice would be good!
• Get real with money – It’s not something I’ve been great at, but I’m on a saving/cost-cutting adventure where possible. Less eating out, less erroneous spending. More saving money so I don’t end up broke the other side of retreat.
• Get more joy in my life every day – finding more ways to invoke happiness for myself. The following points are all directly related to this! Not that some of the above mentioned aren’t. Especially yoga, of course.
• Stay involved with the kirtan group – I love what’s happening there.
• More involvement with the writing group – I haven’t been to another writing group meet up since the first one. Shyness is part of it. So was having almost every weekend taken up by yoga teacher training!
• Do a bike maintenance course – learn how to do more than just fix a flat tyre for myself!
• Course to learn to write a novel – I feel like I need some structure and support there.
• Do some dance classes and/or head out to some salsa nights – I love to dance but it’s been a long time since dance was a regular part of my life. That soooo has to change!
• Decorate my house MORE – including framing some prints that’ve been waiting for EVER, re-staining my bedroom furniture, making some curtains, and decorating my practice/yoga room (hence the de-clutterisation, folks).
• Experiment with gardening – I’ve only ever grown a few herbs and this year I’d like to try growing some veggies. Cherry tomatoes, lettuce, snow peas etc. Nommy things to eat. 🙂

Yeah, so that’s sorta it for now at least. There’ll be edits, new additions, deletions and I’m sure, things I haven’t even considered yet. But it does feel good to be starting the year with some idea of what I’d like to do with myself…

~Svasti