The Mystic Caravan

 I enrolled myself in a quite intensive business course for online entreprenuers earlier this year, and it gave me some powerful prompts to think deeply about who I am, what I'm really passionate about, and how that translates across in how I work in the world.  It's been a really interesting time for me.

I really find I relish those sorts of opportunities to delve into the things I love, a sort of coming back round full circle, into remembering where I started out from and re-exploring those things I have always been drawn to...going back to them again for inspiration... Eastern philosophy and mysticism and Yogic teachings.

I've let myself get swept away into the Summertime and the long languid sunshiny days I adore so much. The weather here in England has been utter perfection and it has been a welcome time of rest and allowing everything to slow right down here. Isn't it funny, when you allow yourself to really slow down, things that need to heal can bubble up to the surface to be seen, heard & felt fully? 

I read 'Autobiography of a Yogi' (by Paramahansa Yogananda) and several books on journeys to India and found one thing leading to another without me having to do anything much at all, other than following my intuition, listening closely to my inner guidance and seeing where I was being led... then following it along the thread like beads on a string. 

The past few months have seen me attending a Kundalini Yoga class that was running as part of the two-week-long summer festival, and reinvigorated in my mantra meditation practice. It's all been so very positive. 

Some of you may know that I trained as a Hatha Yoga teacher through Satyananda Ashram (Bihar School of Yoga) back in 2000 and got so much from it, and then began teaching my first classes ....but I have to say the Kundalini practice was something else. I think I have quite unwittingly stumbled upon my ideal blend of asana and spiritual practice within this incredible Yogic system. I absolutely love chanting the mantras. I find them surprisingly powerful.

[photo of a magazine page - Spirit & Destiny magazine 2014]

                                   
I sought out a Transcendental Meditation (TM) teacher back in January 2011 and had my initiation ceremony (and my mantra given to me) that February.  I had heard about the remarkable results people were getting with healing PTSD and thought it would allow me a welcome respite from some very turbulent years. It did. It still is the most powerful form of meditation I have yet come across. 

My TM teacher is this wonderful woman who was at the same meeting in London's Caxton Hall as Pattie Harrison (George Harrison's first wife) who then introduced George and the other Beatles to the Maharishi and Transcendental Meditation back in 1967.  Her stories of that time delighted me. About Deepak Chopra and the seven states of consciousness. It was all very fascinating.

[photo of a magazine page - article 'All You Need Is Love - the spirituality of the Beatles' - Kindred Spirit magazine 2014] 

So here I am, full circle (once again) -- circles within circles -- of evolvement and deeper understanding each time around...and it is certainly appearing in my art in various ways. I'm happily on the Mystic Caravan.

....And now the Autumn is slowly creeping back in and I find myself knuckling back down to work...and the inner work is always on-going! 
Blessings of beauty,
Catherine Athena xo