Life lessons from managing a fireplace

Tags

ambitions, beginners luck, brrrr factor, goals, hearth fire management, internal fires, passions, Small Pieces of Wood Game, timing, wispy kindling, wood fires

While I was away this last week, I was responsible for my own heating in a way city dwellers like me rarely need to worry about: the lighting and maintenance of a hearth fire.

No electric or gas or central heating is to be found up here; since this place is not on the grid. Electricity is generated by solar and wind power and stored in batteries, so needs to be managed carefully. If you want to keep warm, you’ve gotta move your body or light a fire. A wood fire.

Yes, yes I know… blah blah environment, burning wood, pollution etc. But that’s how it’s done in the country.

Certainly, this far from the first fire I’ve ever had to light. But it sure is the first time I’ve had to do it every day, all day and night. To keep away the brrrr factor.

Starting a fire has an aspect of beginners luck – it’s real easy as long as you follow the basics.

But keeping a fire going, and knowing when to throw on the next biggest piece, and how to bank them overnight? Not so easy after the beginner’s luck wears off. Especially when you’re new to the role of Fire Sentinel.

So here are some lessons I learnt this week from lighting and maintaining the heat:

• Always follow the basics: start with wispy kindling, then smaller pieces, then mid-size ones, and then finally you can throw that darn log on the fire.
• Fire starters are handy: a little ultra-flammable stuff that can give you a kick-start.
• The brightest fires are the ones that have enough air to breathe. If you try to add too much fuel, too early, you’ll smother it.
• There’s an axe outside near the woodpile. Use it. It’ll help build core strength and you’ll get a little warmer just by cutting up wood, too.
• Sometimes you’ll run out of the right sized pieces of wood. Don’t try to cheat and just go up a size: you’ll end up with a fire that goes out on you and you’ll have to start again. Which is a pain in the ass.
• Never turn your back on the fire for too long. You can’t rely on just the way the fire sounds or feels. It’s really important to do visual spot checks, for all kinds of reasons.
• Don’t get stuck in the Small Pieces of Wood Game. It’s possible to get into a loop of:
  Kindling > Sticks > Small pieces of wood
  Then not get the timing right for throwing on a larger piece, and so your fire goes out again. And again.
• When you’re trying to build your fire, the timing is never 100% clear. Sometimes you’ve just gotta wing it. Throw on a log, not another same-size piece. See what happens.
• You don’t wanna burn too bright or fast, coz that can make you uncomfortable. Mix your fuel types – some of the logs that burn longer vs the ones that burn hotter.

And… perhaps this is somewhat of a twee analogy but…

Fires are a bit like people: our passions, goals and ambitions.

Timing is important, and air and space and the right sized piece of fuel at the right time.

But most of all – vigilance; stamina; repetitive actions; appropriate levels of manual labour; and ongoing observation of where your fire is at.

These are how we keep our own internal fires burning.

Yeah I know. Too much time alone in the bush with only birds and ‘roos for company, eh?

~ Svasti

Soul food and photos – a #reverb10 compilation

Tags

#reverb10, beginners luck, Depression, foodie, Healing, images, obsession, Photos, Poached Egg Maestro, poached eggs, PTSD, self-portrait, Soul food, Yoga

Soul Food. What did you eat this year that you will never forget? What went into your mouth & touched your soul?
~ December 26 prompt

I confess: I’m not a foodie. I WISH I felt the passion for food and pouring over cookbooks that many of my friends do. But no. For me, food is mostly functional and when I’m enjoying a meal, it’s not the food I remember so much as the company.

However, there is a dish that’s inspired me this year: the humble and beautiful poached egg.

Eggs served on avocado, kale and spinach & topped with cracked pepper

Don’t you just think there’s something so wholesome and wonderful about them? I do. The way they look, all imperfectly wrapped up in a swoosh of egg white. The perky-to-runny yolks (depending on preference). The many elegant ways of serving them – my current favourite is toasted English muffins spread with cream cheese, whole grain mustard and rocket leaves and topped with the eggs, cracked pepper and shaved parmesan. Yum!

The inception of my poached egg obsession was the very special day CK and I planned for Shiv’s birthday in Sydney on 1^st January. Part of our plan was to make a picnic brunch, including the aforementioned eggs. Neither CK or I had much experience with them, but luckily I had chef-like friends who did!

So I watched keenly as one of my very good friends made our breakfast and days later at CK’s apartment in her tiny kitchenette, I was in the driver’s seat. The newly appointed Poached Egg Maestro! And call it beginners luck, but somehow that first batch worked out perfectly.

That’s when the real work began though: it’s all about the technique and being able to reproduce excellent poached googs on a moment’s notice.

So for many months of 2010, I’d make them for myself every weekend.

And here’s what I learned:

How to make awesome poached eggs

The first thing you need to know about making proper poached eggs is to use a deep frypan or a shallow saucepan. Add a dash of vinegar to the water and let it boil. Once it’s boiled, turn the heat down to a simmer so it’s not splashing hot water around violently while you try to slide your eggs in!

While you waited for your water to boil, you’ve already cracked open each egg into an individual cup (or do them one at a time and use the same cup). Use a spoon to make a whirlpool in the water and once you’ve got a good little funnel going, empty the egg into the middle.

It’ll swirl around for a bit before it gets down to the business of cooking. The artistry of poached eggs is in this part: how long you cook them for. The longer they poach, the less runny the yolk will be. But getting it right, understanding the way the yolk looks in its little white overcoat is something you can only learn through experience. By experimenting again and again.

Scoop your eggs out with a slotted spoon and (evil of all evils, I know) use paper towel to blot excess water off them. I’ve tried just letting them drain but it doesn’t work as well, unfortunately.

Arrange them to suit your tastes and serve!

::

Photo – a present to yourself. Sift through all the photos of you from the past year. Choose one that best captures you; either who you are, or who you strive to be. Find the shot of you that is worth a thousand words. Share the image, who shot it, where, and what it best reveals about you.
~ December 25 prompt

Can’t say I’m much for photos of myself. Never have been, actually. While I’m not sure if I’d be classified as having body dysmorphic disorder, the description sure sounds a lot like me.

The truth is that I’ve never been able to see myself clearly in the mirror or in photos. All I notice are my faults and it’s a rare day that I actually like a photo that I’m in (I am getting better with that however). So I’ve tended to avoid them in general.

It’s a thing that goes back to the years of my brother’s daily abuses. I’ve managed to work through most of the stuff he used to say and do, but not the stuff about how I look. The topic even came up unbidden in my last kinesiology appointment… it’s still alive and kicking.

My aversion to photos got an awful lot worse when I developed PTSD and depression – no prizes for working out why. Suffice to say there’s not a heck of a lot of photos of me from 2005-2010.

I know. It’s on my list of ‘stuff’ to deal with and my methods are yoga, meditation and kinesiology. Another thing I try to do is notice when I do think I look nice. I’ll eyeball myself in the mirror and say: Hey, I look really cute today! I know that might sound kind of vain, but if you’ve lived in my shoes then you’ll understand the necessity.

So this photo (a self-portrait with my iPhone) is very typical of my attitude to how I look and to having photos taken. Can I be in the shadows, please? Can we avoid looking too closely at my features? All of those things make me uncomfortable.

And that’s probably why I like yoga so much, too. Because it helps me see myself as a whole being –  inside and out – rather than just an external image to fret over…

That said, there’s this other photo I took of myself a couple of weeks ago. As a self-birthday present, I’d just been to the hairdressers for the first time in over three months and with a new cut and colour, I was feeling pretty good about the way I looked. Which is rare.

Looking at my eyes in that photo, I can see a lot has changed. I’ve accepted an awful lot more. I no longer look as sad or desperate, and there’s a softness to my expression. It’s a mark of change, and it’s also a mark of turning thirty-nine. It’s the first photo I’ve seen of myself in a long time that I’ve liked.

And I’d show it you you but the thing is as a rule I don’t put identifying photos of myself up on this blog, sorry! :D

~Svasti

Gettin’ in the groove

Tags

beginners luck, Big Scary Idea, chanting, Depression, fraud, groove, Heart, in the zone, Meditation, pranayama, PTSD, teacher training, Yoga, Yoga In Daily Life, Yoga teacher, yoga teacher groove

Anahata Om Mani Padme Hum - by Gabriela Pomplova

Had quite the magnificent day yesterday. Can you guess why? Well, in part it’s down to some glorious sunshine-y Spring weather and then, uhhh, I’ve been talking an awful lot about yoga lately, haven’t I?

*grins*

Might’ve also mentioned in a recent post that I’ve been having a little trouble fully getting into yoga teacher mode.

Honestly, it’s been quite confronting for me to step up to the front of the room. The practice classes we did in teacher training were very helpful, and then teaching the volunteer classes has considerably increased my comfort level.

BUT it’s important for me to remember that really, this time last year I was still struggling with depression. I’d rather narrowly overcome to desire to end my own life (this is despite being in yoga teacher training!) and it was only around February 2009 that I’d found a release from the torment of PTSD.

Thing is, that some of those patterns of behaviour stuck around even as I started to feel much better. And they’ve been quite difficult to kick. Because I’ve spent the last five or so years trying to make myself small (tough job when you’re as tall as I am!) and invisible. I’ve grown accustomed to not making eye contact, and avoided drawing attention to myself. It’s how I got through all those years of mind-bendingly awful times. It still feels safe to try to be small and unnoticed, you see.

BUT…

As yoga teacher training progressed, it dawned on me (doh!) that I’d have to stand up at the front of the room, having all eyes on me and talk people through a yoga class. I also realised I’d have to make eye contact and possibly even physical contact with people I didn’t know!

So my very first attempts at leading a yoga class were hilarious (in retrospect). My voice wobbled all over the place. I couldn’t think of what to say to help transition someone from one asana to the next.

I felt like a fraud.

Who did I think I was, trying to be a yoga teacher? Such a Big Scary Idea!

The feeling of being a fraud has stayed with me, even though there’s plenty of evidence to the contrary. Sure, I organised my volunteer classes – and believe me it took a LOT of effort to make ‘em happen.

But I found myself skimping on preparation time! It was as if I was scared of what it might mean if I was very organised and well-rehearsed. Kinda like I was setting myself up to fail (allowing me to continue to believe I am indeed a fraud!).

Funny thing happened though – somehow I pulled off those under-prepared classes anyway! I still seemed to know what to do and what to say. Of course, because I hadn’t done proper preparation, I told myself that I was still faking it. Perhaps, I’d whisper to myself, I’d just had beginners luck?

Friday night I was terrified as I prepared my lesson plan for Saturday’s class. I started on it late, procrastinating. Which meant I stayed up late to finesse it, making sure I knew exactly what I was doing.

Why all the preparation this time, huh? I was VERY excited to be teaching at Yoga in Daily Life – which is a traditional-style yoga school, akin to my own training. There’s no issue with adding in chanting, meditation or pranayama… that’s just how the school does things anyway (little skip of joy from me!).

There was a small but respectable turn out of five people – one of whom had seen a tweet I’d sent out about the class and came along based on that (cool, eh?).

And there were a few moments in the class where I noticed something… a change in myself. But was it really even a change? It’s hard to say. However, the second I paid attention to it, I almost panicked and lost the yoga teacher groove it seems I’d entered. So I had to relax and let go again… just let it all unfold and stop thinking too much. Just do. Just like with asana.

What happened as a result was this: Some of my students had conditions or injuries they confided in me about. Another asked me a question about the “popping” noise of the joints, which I fluidly replied to. My instructions for asana were smooth, confident sounding and well… a little inspired at times (where DO some of those words come from, eh?). I timed the class very well, and also added five minutes extra on the end to fit in a little more sitting.

The class went VERY, VERY WELL!

As we finished and I chatted to the students, I was amazed as they thanked me for the class. You see, I’m still at the point in my teaching where I feel like thanking them for turning up! Hehehe!

And as I was packing and locking up (after a little impromptu private practice in the empty studio), I found myself both grinning and leaking tears.

I then spent most of the day feeling all joyous and smiley and just… in the zone. What zone is that, anyway??

Well. I think I’ve worked it out… as I taught, my mind wasn’t in charge of the words I was saying… instead, they were flowing from the heart!

This must be something experienced yoga teachers get used to, but I think it was really the very first time for me today. Or at least, the first time I really noticed it and let the flow just do its thing.

I feel so very blessed.

And today I’m going to visit my sweet little nieces. Have a fabulous day everyone!

~Svasti xo