Since turning vegan, there is one thing I have missed up until now: my Dad’s chicken casserole. I finally decided to take the recipe and replace the chicken with ‘This Isn’t Chicken’ chicken. At 22% protein it is a fantastic meat replacement, and the recipe including all natural ingredients fits in with my whole foods approach to cooking. No vegan junk here thank you. So here is a super simple yet effective stew, warming fro the winter and healthy too. Prep time 30min, cooking 1 hour serves 4
Either use one oven proof pot, suitable for frying, see pic, or use a large frying pan then transfer to a casserole dish
1 onion diced, fried in drizzle of oil
1 leek sliced, added to onion in oil
Mixed herbs nd oregano – 3tsps
1-2 carrots sliced in discs added to leek and onions
1-2 packets of fake chicken, add to pot and fry for 5minutes
1 dessert spoonful of flour sprinkled in pot, stir well coating ingredients
Make Half a litre of stock (use leftover veg water or stock cube+boiling water), add to pot and bring to the boil
Preheat oven to gas mark 4, put pot into oven and cook for 1hour
This moon is all about balancing the heart chakra, a classic yoga focus. If you;ve got things going on for you in your love life it will likely show up in your practice. Are you feeling hurt, or are you free to express your self? The body is a reflection of the mind, and what is happening in one space will be happening in the other. To a certain extent you can soothe the mind by soothing the body, that is the basic premise of yoga. Anyone who has been practicing for some time may use their practice as acounselling tool, to better understand how they are coping with the stresses of life. Hopefully no matter what you are going through, you can use the practice to self soothe, and as each day passes, you will experience more openness no matter what you are faced with off the mat.
The lesson around this chakr is Loving Kindness, perfect for incorporating a metta meditation, an uplifting, heart centred mantra or some gentle mindfulness techniques.
I have made time for some pawanmuktasana around the arms and shoulders, a forgotten area associated with the heart space. It is said the arms are an extension of the heart space, so the hands and arms need plenty of attention when you work on the heart chakra.
I have also been putting extra effort into the second chakra and opening up the hamstrong at every opportunity. Hanumanasana is the classic heart opening pose: the splitz, which couldn;t be more demandning on the hamstrings and hip flexors. It always struck me as strange that the heart be so deeply connected to the legs, but you can see for yourself if you practice one day with few lunges and standing forward bends, compared to another practice going deeper into these preparatory poses. All of a sudden the heart openers i.e. the back bends become more accessible.
The scientific reason for this is the connection of the hamstring to illiopsoas muscles, which connect the pelvis to the spine and forms part of the hip flexors. In myofascial terms this is the ‘superficial back line’ that stretches form the foot to the skull. The lower back cannot open without flexibility in the hamstrings and forward bends, including lunges and leg lifts, help with this. The greater the flexibility in the hamstrings, hip flexors, and legs, the more the lower back opens up and the freer the range of movement in the heart space.
My chosen peak pose for this moon is ‘broken bow’; upward bow with one leg extended. The idea of a broken bow symbolises that moment when the hunter stops hunting, allowing the animals to be free, a spontaneous opening of the heart! Broken Bow challenges the idea that opening our heart is under our control. Sometimes we have to let the world, or fate, offer a helping hand. It reminds me of the mantra Let go, let God!
Loving kindness takes many forms, and practicing universa love is one of the hardest lessons in a yoga practice. We can only evolve what loving kindness means and the boundaries it requires over time. By practicing opening the heart on the mat, we can be more ready when life asks it of us.
I wish there was a catchier name for this delicious dish, but good for Halloween! If you want to impress someone with just how satisfying and rich vegan cuisine can be, this could be the recipe you’ve been looking for. Made in exactly the same way as the beef classic, seitan bourguignon, uses seitan marinated in tamari sauce and ginger, a delicious high protein food from China and Japan. Cooking time 1hr 30min, serves 4
6 shallots diced
2 drizzles of oil
mixed herbs, oregano, bay leaf, salt and pepper
12 medium sized mushrooms chopped
jar of seitan marinated in tamari and ginger (or add plain seitan with Tamara sauce and chopped ginger)
spoonful of flour sprinkled so it coat everything
glass of red wine (non alcoholic red is fine too)
generous squirt of tomato puree
stock cube
Add the ingredients to a frying pan in the order listed above, gradually incorporating each item. Prepping and frying takes about 30min. Turn the oven on to gas mark 4, find a casserole dish and pour contents from the frying pan into the dish. Oven bake for 1 hour. Serve with rice, mash potato, or Yorkshire pudding
Another moon, another theme! As the third ego merges into the fourth chakra, the heart, we begin to see a magical combination. When loving kindness influences all our actions we are said to be liberated, or enlightened.
What is enlightenment? For me, it is freedom from pain thrugh a deeper appreciation of each moment. Contradicting the old adage, sometimes, what we don’t know can hurt us. For me, having greater insights into how my mind, and the minds of others worked, actually liberated me from quit a lot of suffering. Many yogis turn to the yamas and niyamas to guide their actions and to become an enlightened being (for a list see, Healing Ourselves to Healing the Planet). Ahimsa, the first of the yamas, is non harming. It sounds simple, don;t hurt people. But what if it’s more than that? What if it’s animals and the earth too? Over 80 billion animals are killed every year to supply us with meat, dairy, leather and other products. A vegan diet is the best thing you can do for the planet and all the creatures living here.
Tapas is the third niyama and it means austerity, or suffering. Often performing activists tasks is enlightenng because just by setting aside your valuable time to do something for others, you are creating the kind of heat, or tapas, within the body that purifies karmic seeds and creates enlightenment. A vegan diet means you are performing an act of kindness every time you eat. Performing acts of kindness creates a brdge between the ego and the heart chakra; they can give you pride in yourself as well as others, helping you to literally stand tall and love yourself that bit more.
When we meditate we are usually working the physical muscles that help us to sit up tall, our core, shoulders, chest and hips all get a work out by the lotus poses, which naturally open the body. The kundalini energy can pass from the base of the spine up through the sushumna through the points of the chakras. The connection between third and fourth is particularly potent, where the lower forms of the ego are said to meet the chakras of higher wisdom. If we do not know how to work the diaphragm when we breath then we will stop the flow of energy from the base of the spine, from rising up into the heart space. This month, I have combined twists with heart openers to bring a greater awareness to this area of the body and to tone the muscles around the diaphragm.
Not all connections between the third and fourth chakras are positive. In Eastern Body Western Mind, Judith Anodea reflects how conditional love from one’s parents, or indeed anyone, creates a situation where the third and fourth chakras are ‘at odds with each other’. If we are on the receiving end of conditional love, we find ourselves either able to love only bu surrendering our own will, or asserting our will with the expectation of rejection. We therefore need to go through a process of reintegration where we imagine a world in which both willpower and love are possible.
When the chakras are aligned we are able to achieve a state of enlightenment. When the third and fourth are connected, love informs our actions toward others and our own self is nourished by the love that we feel. Love isn’t something that is outside of us that we ca commoditise or use to control others, it permeates our being and nourishes us. So go ahead, love doing what you do.
Lots of fancy words in the title of this post, but what do they all mean? Tensegrity is a portmanteau (oo there’s another one – it means combination!) of tension and integrity. It’s what makes the body parts move in tandem with each other. The foot bone is connected to the leg bone, the leg bone is connected to the hip bone etc. Our bones are tied together with the muscles and connecting tissues, and its al l wrapped up in fascia, a gloopy sticky mucous found under the skin thathelps defend the body from harm.
When we practice yoga, we challenge the body to move smoothly from one pose to the next, or even from one breath to the next. The movement of the body, particulalry in vinyasa flow, relies on the different parts of the body working in a harmonious whole. Exted the hand and the arm moves, extend the arm and the shoulder moves, and so on.
The contraction of certain muscles, depending on which pose you are practicing, will be different. The muscles usually work in pairs while one set contracts, the other relaxes. Concentric contraction occurs when the body is moving, an the contracting muscle shortens. Eccentric contraction sees the muscle lengthen, even while its under pressure. Isometric contraction is where the muscle length does not change. This occurs in yoga when a posture is being held.
Rather than holding a weight, a yogi works with the natural weight of the body. Let’s imagine trikonasana. The torse is reaching forwards, the spine extending through the crown of the head. The arms are extended from the shoulders in opposite directions. Both arms and torso intially extend thrugh complementary concentric and eccentric contraction, but once in the pose, isometric contraction takes over. There is very little movement, apart from the breath, instead the main work of the muscles is holding the body in place. The torso is parallel to the ground, as gravity is working on the weight of the head and upper body, the waist is like a pivot between the legs and upper torso. Liekwise the arms are being held in place, extending outwards, upwards and downwards, slicing through gravity and relying on the tensegrity of the arm muscles to open the heart space. Isometric contraction means that the muscles are almost static in position, but they are working against gravity to stay in one place.
The transition into trikonasana feels much like dancing, and I think it is because of the tensegrity inherent in it. The legs are rooted into the ground, the front arm extends forward parallel to the floor, and the head follows. This is a perfect example of tensegrity at work. All the parts of the body follow the same narrow line, not wider than your foot width apart. Legs are active, which draws the abdomen in. The arms are active opening the chest. To finish it off the head turns to face upwards, and the gaze leads, drawing the head with it. Holding the pose, torso suspended in air, relies on half the muscles being isometrically contracted, and that is whre you can appreciate the tensegrity. The body is active, yet unmoving, working yet poised.
Looking for a low calorie, high nutrition soup, I designed this beauty, which is high in calcium, iron and protein. Prep time: 1hr, serves 6.
Onion (large)
garlic chopped (4 cloves)
Celery chopped (6 sticks
Mixed herbs, bay leaf (3 teaspoons)
Tinned tomatoes (2 cans)
Kale chopped (200g bag)
Butter beans (2 cans drained)
Hot water
I fried the onion, garlic and celery, added the herbs, salt and pepper, fried til translucent. Then I added the tomatoes, kale and hot water and Brought to the boil. After about half an hour, I added the beans and allowed to bubble for another half an hour.
This is everything you could want from a soup. Now that the autumn breezes are here, it’s a welcome soup to cosy up with. At only 250calories per serving you can add bread with no guilt and know that you are getting a third of your RDA of iron, calcium and protein munch munch munch
This moon I am working on the third chakra:the Ego, straight up. The solar chakra is home to the ego self, which drives us forward. Sometimes it does not know what to do; it reverses, or takes short cuts, avoiding what is being presented to us, determined to go down a path of our own choosing, instead of a path that is suggested by someone else. The ego doesn’t like doing what is told. How many times do you find yourself acting out against your best interest because you can’t stand doing what someone else has told you to do?! We all do it. Part of life’s lesson is to learn the tell tale signs that you, yes you, have taken a wrong turn and, instead of admitting that you are wrong, carry on blindly down the path to destruction. Hopefully the results aren’t too disastrous, but our pride can get us into all sorts of scrapes.
‘Take Back Your Power’ was a lesson taught to me by a yoga teacher some years ago, and I am still working with what it means. The meaning has resonated with me along the path as I find myself regaining control over certain aspects of my life, places were I have been out of control, acting like other people would prefer me to act instead of me putting my foot down. Instead of listening to others, balancing the ego can also be about standing on your own two feet, ignoring what others expect of you, and asserting your right to live your life how you choose to. This can mean hurting, or at least rejecting, the help of well meaning others.
What a difficult balance this is to strike! Free will is what makes life worth living, but as we search for approval and success in the eyes of others it can also be suffocating. Sometimes what we want to do is not what anyone else wants us to do.
‘The electron spins both ways’, this is my personal favourite lesson of third chakra work. No matter how much we want things to go one way they can equally be found to be going inthe other. Unlike molecular physics, we believe that we have a choice in how our lives work out, when we see two paths ahead, only one can come true. At least that’s how it looks. But thre’s always more to it, everything happens for a reason and they say every cloud… Also, just because one door has closed now doesn’t necessarily mean it will never reopen, you just never know.
The philosophy of yoga teaches us that ‘Thy will be done’ not ‘My Will be done’, challenging that part of us that wants to do things ‘my way’ every time. In a chakra of contradictions, where the ego and divine meet, how about surrendering to a higher power? The key to fidning happiness in the third chakra is to master the art of acting powerfully, while surrendering to what may be; it’s important to learn to assert oneself, but to renounce the fruits of one’s actions. There is control, but without attachment. There is power, but with humility. There is courage but with temperance. This is how we learn to take back our power.
Scrumptious creamy pasta with a zesty salad, quick to cook, serves 2
Drizzle oi oil
2-3 cloves garlic chopped or crushed
10 medium mushrooms quartered
Bag of spinach
Oatly creme fraiche (or other vegan substitute)
Spaghetti
Salad leaves
Lemon, oil, wholegrain mustard dressing (whisk together in small dish with a fork)
Salt and pepper
Add, enough oil to fry garlic and mushrooms to frying pan. Put on the spaghetti to boil. Add spinach to frying pan (as much as you can pile up) and allow it to wilt somewhat before stirring. Add creme fraiche once spinach is half way wilted and stir gradually. Once pasta is cooked add it to the frying pan and combine with sauce. Dress salad and serve.
A classic lentil soup, accented by the celery and tomato. You can play with different spices and herbs. Makes a batch of 8 portions – perfect for your lunch time protein hit, and freezes well
Bag of lentils (500g)
Onion 1 finely chopped
Carrots 2-3 diced
Celery – 1 bunch diced
Potatoes x 3 medium cubed
Can of chopped tomatoes
Spices of your choice e.g. cumin, garam masala, fenugreek: 4 teaspoons
Little oil, salt and pepper
Add oil and spices to a large boiling pan, add onion, carrots and potatoes to fry in spices. When veg is coated in oil and spice, add lentils and can of tomatoes. Cover with boiling water from the kettle. Bring to boil them simmer for 1-2hours until cooked through
This moon I am focussing on the intersection between the second and third chakras. Our watery, emotional relationship with the Other comes into contact with our fiery, self serving ego. This lesson is all about embodiment boundaries and is particularly worthwhile for anyone who has ever felt like a door mat, or a people pleaser. Last moon I considered that moment of reaching out to another, this moon I am asking the question, what happens when that moment comes into contact with my ego? The third chakra is all about me, my and mine. It is self serving, and, unchallenged, it will enact my will at the expense of others. Many people need to work on this chakra because they are used to getting what they want, ignoring others’ desires, hurting people’s feelings, using or manipulating ohers for their own gain. In some ways the third chakra is the quintessential yogic focus. If we talk about building self awareness, our ego is the most obvious thing we can see in ourselves, it is where we are selfish, defensive,and controlling.
When we look at the third and second chakra intersection we are inviting ourselves to correct and rebalance our boundaries with others. If you never ask for what you want, you will never get it, but likewise, if you are treating people badly, I guess that can bite you in the bottom in the long run too. Where are you on that spectrum? Do you demand what you want and expect to get it, or are you patient and quiet? There is no right or wrong way to be. What is right for one person is wrong for another. We practice yoga for peace of mind, and there are different ways to get it.
Mostly we seek peace in our relationships with others, and I am intersted in challenigng the notion that it is ok to let people walk all over you. If you feel like you have relationships where you are not heard, maybe its time to look for ways of expressing yourself more clearly. Take an assertiveness course, go to drama lessons, learn to sing. I chant every day as part of my yoga practice. It is a key indicator of how I’m feeling. To be honest, I have to be feeling pretty low, drained or distratced not to want to sing. If I know, thanks to my yoga practice that I am not feeling strong, then I can choose to put up stronger boundaries both of self care, and in how much I give to others.
Unless you are doing karma yoga, yoga isn’t all about giving to others. Through meditation and self study you can begin to notice when you are letting others take advantage of your energy, or good nature. Instead you can learn to resist being too generous with your spirit. People are generally much more grateful for something they have to fight for, so not giving yourself away is an art to be mastered. Over time, trial and error will help you gain ground in your relatinships with others. If you have a propensity to be a shrinking violet, use your self awareness and awareness of others to work up some grrr: say no, refuse to smile, be aloof once in a while. I’m not saying be unkind, but little adjustments made with yourself in mind, could just give you the space you need to be the person you want to be.
Sarasvati Flow 