health + environment

the everyday alchemy of cycling

I recently bought a new bicycle. Apparently it’s a road bike, but to me it’s a racer. That’s what they were called last time I had a bike anyway, way back in the 80′s. Back then I had a girl’s Raleigh Coco. An all terrain bike that saw me cycling no handed through suburbia, in the days before we all got too cool for bikes. So it’s been a good twenty years since I’ve owned a bicycle and judging by the ‘new’ one I’m riding now, it’s been a good twenty years since it’s been ridden too. I woke up one morning as the proud new owner of a bike I’d never seen, thanks to an overnight ebay swipe in which I won a vintage 1970′s Raleigh, for the bargain price of £77. Let me backpedal a little. My reason for having to buy a bicycle, after twenty years of not cycling, was that I’d just moved to central Bristol. My work’s a five minute drive away, but in rush hour that became 25 minutes. The five minute journey to my son’s school (in the opposite direction to work) became a twenty minute ordeal. So instead of a 45 minute commuter’s nightmare, we were going to go by bike. Ten minutes to school. Fifteen back to work. Time saved, money saved. Cycling was a no-brainer. Little did I know however, that my brain would soon have very little to do with it – I was about to fall in love.

Three months later and I’m still totally smitten. I’m having a whirlwind romance with a velocipede … and not just mine. The whole damn lot of them. I love my son’s bike. My workmates’ bikes. The whole kit and caboodle. I, am a cyclist. Please believe me when I say this is an extraordinary statement for me. Six months ago I scoffed at people who rode bikes for fun. I was baffled as to why people would choose to go on a cycling holiday. To me the words ‘cycling’ and ‘holiday’ categorically did not belong in the same sentence. Those people were mad. And yet, here I am just months after ‘having’ to buy a bike, with a cycling holiday to France under my padded lycra and new bar tape. I know. It’s astonishing. I’m mad. Or am I?

Actually I feel healthier than I have for a long time. The holiday was a complete revelation. Me and my semi-pro-cycling friend (to whom I owe the majority of my limited experience) drove to Plymouth, left the van in the car park and cycled onto the ferry. We were actually encouraged to jump the queues. No waiting in lines for us cyclists! The terminal staff in high-vis jackets – that you’d normally see through steamed-up car windows as they grimly waved you on board – became real human beings. They spoke. They smiled. I was ecstatic. I know it was only cycling onboard but to me it was the best experience I’d had getting onto a ferry. In fact the whole week was one ‘best experience’ after another. Ok, so there was one experience which I don’t ever want to repeat. Having spent the morning cycling south from Roscoff, we decided to hop on a train to the beaches and menhirs of South Brittany. We arrived late and in the dark. Buoyed by our first day’s adventures, we switched on our flashing LED lights and headed out of town to find the nearest campsite. ‘TOUTES DIRECTIONS’ said the sign. It said nothing about all directions leading to the motorway. By which point, we’d gone all the way down a one way slip road onto the hard shoulder. Turning back was not an option. I’ll admit that during those next 2.5k I prayed. Very Hard. The truck drivers were generous, giving us plenty of space. Somehow we made it safely to the next junction, pulled into the first garden we could find and pitched the tent. Not surprisingly, due to the amount of adrenalin I had still pumping round my system, I slept badly. But that really was the only hiccup. And best to get it out of the way on my first day’s cycling.

After that baptism of tarmac, the rest of the holiday was a wonderful adventure. It was sociable – people wanted to ask us where we’d been and where we were going. It was connected – I saw bees on flowers that I could actually smell as I passed them. Each day I grew stronger and started to see hills as fun instead of fearing them. I began to develop a sense of distance, understanding in my body (not just in my mind) that travel requires energy. Up until now I just had to put my foot down on the accelerator to get somewhere. Now I needed calories. I had a huge appetite and was blissfully enjoying being able to eat whatever I liked, whenever I liked, guilt free. In fact, since I’ve been cycling my eating habits have relaxed. Whereas I used to get bloated if I ate wheat, now I don’t. I would get tired if I ate too many carbs, now they don’t seem to affect me. And it’s not just my digestive health that’s improved either, my heart is stronger too. I suffered from daily palpitations, but since cycling regularly I’ve not had any. So when I said that cycling would become an affair of the heart, I meant it in more ways than one!

Cycling has become a way of life. A panacea for all ills. It’s ironic that our move from the rural countryside to the city has made us healthier – usually it’s the other way around. Our ‘commute’ involves wide cycle paths along the river, dotted with nods and smiles to the strangers we see each morning on their bikes, smiles that acknowledge our good fortune. We’re the lucky ones. We have bodies, bicycles and bells … and we’re going to use them.

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how to follow your heart : the first article I ever wrote

I wrote this article in 2007, and it changed my life. Before writing it, I’d never written anything other than songs, poems andsome sporadic journal ramblings. Yet it got published in Kindred Spirit. People then started writing to me saying how much the article had affected them, how they’d been inspired to take the training as a result of reading my article and how they’d experienced a similar yearning to the one I address in the article - it’s all very well being told to ‘just follow your heart’, but how exactly does one learn to do that? Happily, the Energy Awareness Training was the answer to my prayers. And, six years on, still is.

So I thought it needed to be here – the article that inspired me to become a professional writer, written on the day I realised I was an everyday alchemist – and the story behind the life I lead now!

_____________________________

A year and a half ago, in a field in East Sussex, I saw a man standing in meadow, dressed in white, up to his knees in wildflowers and in the middle of what looked like a dynamic energy practice. I’ve practiced yoga, t’ai chi and chi gong, but this was unlike anything I’d seen before. I watched him for a while, rhythmically moving his arms, coordinating movement with his breath, and I knew I had to find out what he was doing.

I approached him after he’d finished. We started talking and he began to tell me about the exercise he’d been doing. It was called ‘Falling Lightning’, and was just one of a number of practices he’d learnt on a course called the Energy Awareness Training. He went on to explain that when practised facing a particular direction, Falling Lightning would bring more energy into an area of his life. I was already a bit lost at this point, so happily he agreed to tell me more. So we sat in the meadow, with the sun shining high, and carried on our conversation.

He pulled out a pen and paper from his bag and drew an 8 pointed star. On each point he wrote a compass direction, and then for each direction wrote a corresponding energy. East was health, West was creativity, North was work & career and so on. He continued to explain that we all receive these eight energies, or ‘Life Ki’s’ from the specific directions, and how much of the energy we receive depends on the energies within us. By practising falling Lightning facing South West, he was beckoning more partnership ki, or energy, into his life.

This was a complete revelation to me. I had no idea these life energies existed as something flowing from somewhere, and not only did they exist, but they could be harnessed and used! I’d heard before that feng shui used the directions in the home to improve certain areas of the homeowners life, but never before heard someone explain how that could be possible.

Inside I was jumping up and down with excitement, and I knew that a new way of experiencing the world was about to dawn. I’d been shown a door, and I couldn’t wait to open it.

I asked him if he’d teach me the practice. He was reluctant, as it was only a small part of the weekend training he’d taken, and if I wanted to see the bigger picture I’d have to take the training myself. He explained that if I wanted more money, for example, and started practicing Falling Lightning facing southeast to beckon more wealth, then I would be acting on my desires, which may or may not be what I really need. If I took the training I’d learn how to sense which direction my energy, or spirit, needed me to face. In essence, I’d be handing over the steering wheel from my mind to my heart. Perhaps I would test positive on facing northwest, to bring more helpful people into my life, which could in turn, bring an opportunity to make more money (thus resolving a lack of wealth ki). I started to understand that it may not simply be a matter of getting more of what I want, but learning to identify what it is I really need.

Despite what he’d told me, I still didn’t want him to go without teaching me the exercise! He eventually gave in, on the condition that I’d call Stephen and Lynda in the Pyrenees who ran the Energy Awareness Training within the next few weeks. I agreed. Ten minutes later, I had a new practice, a scribbled on piece of paper… and his phone number! I thanked him for taking the time to sit with me a while and share his experiences, and we went our separate ways. I was later to find out that at the time I first saw him he had been doing Falling Lightning facing South West, beckoning more partnership ki into his life. It had worked, as we later became lovers!

Weeks passed, and each morning that summer I practiced Falling Lightning. I forgot my agreement to call about the training. That September, I went on a workshop in London, which promised a new way of healing long standing health issues. On the first morning, at registration, a beautiful elderly lady with long flowing grey hair made a bee line for me. I’d noticed her the moment she entered the room. We introduced ourselves, me, a 28 year old wanting to heal a hernia, and her, a 78 year old, wanting to heal a cancer. To say we hit it off is an understatement. It was like two best friends meeting again after years apart. Rather conveniently we were asked to pair up for the days programme, so we spent the rest of the day together.

Over lunch together, I noticed her doing something strange. When I asked if she needed me to get her bag from the cloakroom, she looked over at the queue, did something with her hand, paused briefly, and then said “No thanks!” I asked her what an earth she had done! She explained that she’d used an energetic test, to see if she needed anything from the cloakroom. And she didn’t! Once again, my curiosity exploded and I asked her to tell me more. All she was doing, she went on to say, was tuning into her energy to see if it went up or down when making a decision. She continued to explain that every choice we make, be it what to eat, who to see, where to go has an effect on our energy. It will either make our energy go up (ascend) or make it go down (descend). She went on to demonstrate with the miniature feast we had spread before us on the table. Forming a hand position (which from my yoga training I recognised as a mudra) while looking at the different foods, she turned to me and said “yes to bread, olives and houmous, no to the sprouts”. I felt the same excitement in me that I’d felt in the meadow some months before.

Here was someone showing me that there was a way to actually experience how my energy responds to something I’m about to do. I expressed my enthusiasm over her developed sense of awareness. I thought she must be ‘one of those people’ who are naturally able to sense and perceive energies. At that time, I was always wanting to make the ‘right’ decision but forever getting lost in my head in the process (some might say I was indecisive!). So naturally I was delighted to watch her make a choice based on her energy, and not on what she was thinking! That was a gift I wished I had. I told her how much I’d love to be able to do what she just did. “Well you can learn it darling!” she replied. “It’s this wonderful man in the Pyrenees, he comes over to the UK and gives the most amazing trainings. I’m in my seventies, and have been into these things for over 40 years, been on more workshops than I can remember, and he’s the best I’ve seen.”

Suddenly it dawned on me that I was hearing about the very same man I’d heard about in the meadow! I couldn’t believe I was hearing about him again! I told her about my experience early that summer, and asked her if he gave trainings in Brighton, which included a practice called Falling Lightning. With a huge smile on her face she said “Yes! There you go. You’ve heard it twice — now take the training!” Needless to say, the very next week, I called Stephen, and booked myself onto the next Living with Energy Awareness Training (LWEAT).

As I sit here at my desk, eighteen months on from my first LWEAT, I feel different. It’s been a subtle transformation, nothingradical has happened, yet I feel radically different. For over a year I’ve been making decisions based on my energetic needs instead of my wants. This hasn’t been easy to do. And I’ve battled time and time again over whether testing what to drink actually makes any difference. But it does, and the more I live being guided by my spirit instead of my head, the more I see the effect of my choices on my energy. For years whenever people told me to follow my heart it only served to fuel my internal longing to know exactly how one does that! I guess it was that longing that finally lead me to the LWEAT.

Learning to ‘test’ my energetic response to a decision is one of the things I learnt on the training. The more ascending choices I make, the more energy I have, and the brighter my life becomes. So even the smallest of decisions (like testing what colour top to wear this morning) can increase my awareness energy. A wonderful thing about making decisions based on my energetic needs is that it’s full of surprises. Once I was testing whether to go to see a movie with some friends. I’d been wanting to go for ages, and when I got a ‘no’ to going, I was annoyed. I decided to trust my test and stay at home. Low and behold, an hour later, I got a call from an old friend who was in the area, and who desperately needed help and somewhere to stay the night. I was delighted to hear from her, as I was living in deepest darkest Wales at the time. Had I gone to the cinema, I would have been unable to help her.

Three years ago I went to see a clairvoyant. He said he could see that in two years time I’d be training in something, but it didn’t involve certificates or qualifications. He said the best way to describe it was that I’d be developing my intuition to the degree that I’d be able to sense the small stuff, like whether or not it was the right time to hang out the nappies on the line. It seemed like an obscure thing to hear at the time, but exactly two years later, having forgotten all about the reading, I found myself on a weekend course learning to do just that! There I learnt how to make decisions based on my energy, and this gave me one of the most empowering gifts I’d ever been given – the power to make conscious choices.

Suddenly it was up to me.

There’s a lot more to energy awareness than testing my actions. Each day (almost!) I go for a Power Walk. This technique, also taught on the LWEAT, is a great way of releasing certain restrictive energies from my past. I can Power Walk to leave past sorrow behind, or anger, or past loves… to mention just some. And the lighter the load of the past becomes, the more energy I have to be in the present. Just this afternoon, as I stopped at the end of my drive to feel which way my energy was flowing (another learnt technique!), I noticed it was going in the opposite direction to where I wanted to go. I wanted to head to the river, but my energy was heading towards the shops. Reluctantly I followed it. I’ve not yet mastered the ability to always accept the spirit in my life with a smile! A few houses down the road my energy swung to the left, and there, on a fence post, was my favourite hat that I’d lost some days previously! I’d been searching high and low for it, and had I followed my head instead of my energy, I’d still be wondering where it was!

Now movies, nappies and hats may all seem like pretty minor events, but I’ve also had to make some big decisions using my energy awareness.

As I mentioned, I was living in Wales in 2005, and had broken up with my son’s father. To keep the peace and to keep things simple I decided to stay in Wales rather than return home to the south coast of England. Life was challenging for me, everything seemed like a struggle. As time went on and my awareness grew, I realised that once again I was following my head, and not my heart. A technique from the LWEAT enables me to experience how much energy I am receiving from the sky. Depending on what my needs are, certain ‘skies’ give me more energy than others. Put simply, some places are better for me than others. And, as I suspected, I was not receiving the energy I needed from the sky in Mid Wales. I tested, and found a ‘positive sky’ in Southampton. So I had a tough choice, stay in Wales and keep the family ‘together’, or move 5 hours away to suit my energetic needs. It wasn’t easy but pretty soon I felt like I had no choice. I was starting to see that if I really wanted to change, to be free of the fears that hold me back, then I’d have to follow my spirit. And as it turned out, moving to Southampton was the best move I made that year.

So what’s the point of all this? Why bother to test whether to have a coffee or a herbal tea? Why spend time testing what colour clothes to wear? Or what movie to see? Why does it matter? Personally, I recognised a long time ago that there were many aspects of myself that didn’t seem like me. I always felt there was a more real version, hiding under layers of other people’s beliefs. So I started my journey of discovery at 17. Many workshops, courses, and guru’s later, I still felt like I was facing the same issues again & again & again. I’d go on a course, it would gloss over the issue in question – fear, lack of self love e.t.c. – and I’d leave feeling fantastic. But the issues were still there. I didn’t feel like they were actually being transformed. The past 18 months have shown me, albeit with a lot of effort, that real change is possible. In order to go beyond my karmas, and enter into the realm of who I really am, I need all the awareness energy I can muster.

This is why the small stuff counts as much as the big stuff. Each ascending choice that we make has a positive impact on our future. And these choices generate an accumulation of energy that gives us the strength to face and transform our karmas into higher awareness.

It’s not a matter of worrying whether or not I’ve made the right decision, its about learning to recognise what it is that I need to do now. I feel like I’m only just beginning to truly see the alchemy in each moment. Doing only what I need to do from moment to moment turns my karmas into higher awareness, my lead into gold.

The Living With Energy Awareness Training is run twice a year in the UK by Stephen and Lynda Kane. Next dates 7/8 April 2012. For more information visit eat.energyawareness.org

My first book, The Everyday Alchemist’s Happiness Handbook, takes up the story of the following five years … using the techniques and skills learnt through living with energy awareness as a pathway to everyday happiness. Order your copy now on Amazon.

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By natalie 20 March, 2012 Filed Under: being here now, feng shui, health + environment Tagged With: decision making, energy awareness training, feng shui, kindred spirit, natalie fee, stephen kane

wifi and smart meters – a health risk we need to know about…

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(please sign the Downing St. petition by clicking on the image)

I’ve added a new page to my website. That’s how important this campaign is to me. Here’s a little taster of what it’s about and what you can do…

You’ve heard that mobile phones emit dangerous levels of radiation, but your phone isn’t the only source of microwave radiation most of us are being exposed to. Over the past few years there’s been a monumental increase in our exposure to microwaves from mobile phone masts (2G, 3G, UMTS), wireless DECT-phones, wireless DECT-baby monitors, wifi and now, smart meters.

Many of us have numerous wifi signals coming through our houses, and yet are relatively unaware of the health impact this can have on us — especially when it comes to children. (Over 14 peer-reviewed studies show that low-level electromagnetic radiation is harmful to health, and that children are the worst affected – as they absorb three times as much radiation due to their thinner skulls.)

Studies have also shown a direct link between the current rise of chronic disorders (Alzheimer, ADHD, fibromyalgia, CFS, insomnia, stress related disorders etc.) and the exponential rise in this form of radiation, known as ‘electrosmog’, during the past 10 years. More recently, thousands of professors, researchers and medical doctors have been warning politicians repeatedly that the current exposure to pulsed microwaves is a direct threat to public health and that new safety standards for Electromagnetic Frequency (EMF) exposures are needed.

New recommendations from the EU Parliamentary assembly clearly state that wifi should be removed from public places, especially schools, and many European countries have already started removing and banning wifi from public places.

As for smart meters, UK households are on the brink of a nationwide scheme to roll out these radiation-emitting monitors to each of our houses. In the US much controversy has been sparked, campaigns launched and actions taken by citizens who’ve been adversely affected since their installation. The harmful levels of radiation emitted by smart meters infiltrates your home, travels for a few miles in all directions and pierces through all non-metallic mediums. Although the smart meters fire off intermittently, they have a cumulative harmful effect on our health over time. Click here to read more and visit the new page…

Or just sign the petition here.