Good Friday (Semana Santa: Seville)

 

 

 

 

 

They wait above from hushed balconies and droop
the shameful Judas rag.
Below, crowds press and push, in watchful, silent group
through gathering sultry Seville gloom.

There comes a shuddering, shivering sigh
from a thousand Spanish throats in answer to the blood beat,
the pounding, martial blood beat of the rolling drums of death.

In dream-like file stride black cloaked masks of doom,
bare-footed penitents, flanked by deathly robes of white,
bearing flaming scarlet cross, the smell of burning in the air.
And the pounding, martial blood beat of the rolling drums of death.

Them ‘Maria, Sancta. Sancta Maria’ as borne aloft, she glides.
Painted tears of blood on her frozen painted face.
Poised and dainty dagger digging deep in waxen heart,
below her veil of fluttering lace.

Next, in glassy-sided bier enmassed with wreaths of red
the travesty of Love lies dead
On purple, velvet bed.
And my welling tears of agony, at the mockery
Spill down,
to the pounding, martial blood beat of the rolling drums of death.

Margaret Gill

©  Copyright 2013

Yoga Diary week 10 Moving your Stuck Energy

1. Relax using the awareness exercise throughout the body. 5 minutes
If you haven’t chosen your trigger yet do it now.
Could be:-warm hands, mouth relaxed, tongue heavy, or just …say “let go”
2.Stretch and say HA…A…A…A
3.Slow motion 3 x. on out breath say HEY..Hey..Hey.
4.Thymus thump.
5.Coffee grinding… release with grunts on out breath.
6.Cycling on back using arms and legs and loud laughter. 3 minutes at least.
7.Liver strengthening…. Send green gold energy to liver.
8.Cobra 3x release with loud hissing to clear lungs.
9.Punch with Tiger eyes. Say H..y..t..t.
10. Cloud hands until it becomes automatic. Here’s a quickie reminder.
Left knee forward.
L.Hand Wave……………………………..Right hand at base of mid line.
L.H. drop………………………………………..R.H goes up mid line
L.H wrap and twist…………………………..R.H Wave.
Twist back as L.H.goes up midline…………….R.H drop.
Good luck!
End with 7 Bhramari breaths.

Patterns on the shore

 

 

 

 

 

As patterns on the salty, wave-ridged shore
Repeat the same yet different swirl,
These photos stained in album aged and torn
Repeat, recall the faces long since dead.

How can they be same eyes, same quirk of brow
In one deceased in painful childbirth pangs
And one left single, thronged with myriad cares
And teeming children round?

My father, young and straight, clear eyed,
Not yet the shrivelled flesh and shoulders bowed.
Myself, in throbbing noon-tide flow
With hope and childhood friends among.

Remembering how, on his return I ran
Sweets bulging in his pockets just for me.
Long years wiped out of stumbling suffering man
Once straight of limb, child hoisted high on shoulder strong.

And now that child, less sure.
When washed into the sands of life
What bright reflected image will remain
For others to cling on?

Full tides recede, the cardboard image falls,
But patterned through new waves and unborn cells
The throbbing noontide spirit shines.

Margaret Gill

©  Copyright 2013

Yoga Diary (9): Directing your Inner Power.

“Our minds do influence the field and vice versa. New technology shows that energy fields radiate from our bodies into the environment. The heart generates electrical impulses that can be read by current technology up to ten feet away from the body, its electromagnetic field is 5000 times more powerful than that of the brain.” “Spontaneous Evolution”

1. Shoulders  rotation, massage and tapping along the arm meridians.
2. In Hero chant Ho ma Ho and twists each side.
3. Eye exercises following the thumb with arm stretched out straight ahead.  Figures eights.  Gazing in and upwards towards the third eye.
4. Breath of fire 3  rounds with root lock.
5. Nerve charging breath with kidney massage. 5 minutes.
6. Hip rolls with arms rocking round the chi wei field.  2 minutes.
7. Dragon breath  6 times with spinal chord breathing  2  minutes.
8. Churning the chi field through the 3 major centres. Bringing internal force into the body.  At least 7 times for each centre.
9. Bhramari breathing  as per the printed chart. 7 times.
10. Lion breath with eyes turned up to third eye.  3 rounds.
11. Lower back massage on quishy balls.
12. Relax. 5 minutes.

Om Shanti!.

Yoga Diary (8): Building your Inner Power.

(If you’re feeling under the weather you’ll be amazed how much this routine will energise you.)

1.Breath of Fire. 3x  Don’t forget to hold the root lock.

2.Hip rocking with arms circling to stir the chi field.

3. Yang Dragon dance. 2x. You can omit the down dog and twist back if you prefer.

4. Sun salutations 2 each side.

5. Rainbow breathing  2 each side.

6. Knocking on the door of life.   2 rounds.

7. Dragon Breath.   6x.

8.Warrior dance … both sides

9. Qi gong churning the inner forces ( Don’t worry we haven’t done this yet).

10. Cloud hands . ( stay on one side only until you’v e really got it.  Do 15 rounds to really build up the Chi wei field)

11. Lion. 3 x

12. Prahtyhara  ( withdrawal of senses… if you need to revise it  let me know)

12. Massage with squishy balls on lower back only.

13. Relax with qigong falling water meditation.  10 minutes.

Two faced Saint (St Agnes Isle)

 

 

 

 

 

A calm sea now, a gentle isle and fair,
named Agnes, lamb of God, saintly, pure.
Smooth are the sunlit backs of docile cows,
heady the tang of moorland ling and seaweed salt.

Beyond the cricket pitch, a preening gull
presides over newly towered church and quiet bay,
basking in virgin air, loving the light,
lulled by silky sounds of unctuous sea.

One face holy, exhaling quiet.
The other secret, inhaling death
where sedge gives way to salt-edged pools,
shadowed by wind-tortured stones.

There lie bleached skulls, jetsam
of a violent sea.
Close by the Western rocks glint greedily
like dragons’ teeth ringing Bishop Rock.

Those steel needles will gnash, slash and maul
when the sun’s fire damps down.
Will rend bowsprit, shrouds, and men
lured by that treacherous siren maid.

Margaret Gill

© Copyright 2013

Yoga Diary (7): Letting Go

Telling the Left brain to shut up!

“By acknowledging the power of invisible fields –even if we don’t understand them—we open up an entirely new field of enquiry. If we can realise that humanity is operating on a unified field we can make it a playing field, not a battle field.”  Bruce Lipton.

1. Progressive relaxation, relaxing all thoughts and unclenching all the major muscle bands in turn.   5 minutes.
2. Leg stretches and abdominal crunches. 2 minutes.
3. Gentle Cat asanas, rocking the spine from child pose to up dog. 6x.  Then Cat relax.
4. Cook’s Hook up. Both sides. 5 minutes.
5. Temporal tap. Using your own mantra or affirmation.  Three times and then half an hour later.
6. Nerve charging breath and kidney massage. 3 minutes.
7. Warrior Dance. Once each side.
8. Hip rock with figure eights. 2 minutes.
9. Punch with tiger eyes…to release tension from the liver.
10.  Practise Cloud Hands   until you can do it in a qigong  state of mind.
11. Lower back self- massage with squishy balls.
12. Breathing in calm  with Oh ..Ma..Ho. End with two rounds of 5 gates breathing.

Unified field. left brain, kidney massage,

Even now as we’re dying (Poem for Tibet)

 

 

 

 

 

 

Though you grind us like chaff in the wind,
Though you milk our veins, drink our blood,
Raze our temples, defile our altars with your jeers,
Kick, curse and stone our burning flesh,
Our spirit will shine through our immolations.
The flames that scorch us will turn to wave
Upon wave of peaceful inondations.

Though you scorn us, our plight
Will reach out, even now as we’re dying,
To those who will take up our fight
Beyond our tight ringed snow peaks,
Where our prayer flags are still flying,
Beyond to where their mountains are free.
They will hear the plea of our land-locked nation
Smothered in blood hatred, blanketed in silence,
While wires overhead crackle with information.

At last they will see our agony aflame, see our youth
Crushed and maimed, our sacred centres stained.
We die … that our land may be free,
Yet we do not blame. If we blame we would
Lose what is dear to our hearts, compassion.
May all people be free of our pain,
May all souls be blest by our sacrifice.
We die that all might
Understand.

Margaret Gill

© Copyright 2013