Another workshop beckons, I will be teaching a weekend workshop in Manchester on the 30th of September and the 1st of October only the saturday workshop is open to the public as the sunday will be taken up with a booked/soldout workshop.
I will be teaching, Geomancy and Wizardry at this workshop.
You can find me at the Earth Clinic for this weekend, if you wish to join us, please contact the venue through their contact page.
http://yourearthclinic.com/
My new courses for mindfulness meditation and awareness are now available for booking on the Surrey County Council website HERE.
Starting in Camberley on 1st October 2016 and in Guildford on the 5th November 2016 as well as a meditation circle at the Guildford centre please follow the link to the Surrey County Council website and use the search box to find all the dates and courses that will be suitable for you.
http://www.surreycc.gov.uk/schools-and-learning/adult-learning
For those who have previously been on my Mindfulness courses you would be ideally suited to join the Meditation circle’s to continue your journey of mindfulness and awareness, we shall also begin to discuss and explore our spirituality through meditation.
There has long been a debate if the human energy meridians exist, traditional medicines recognise meridians, Nadirs or energy channels as identified by many ancient medical systems. Even in ancient Europe, when Otzi the ‘iceman’ was found in the Alps frozen for over 5000 years tattoo’s were found to correspond with acupuncture/meridian lines on the body and may have been used so that unskilled people could provide healing to him by following the tattoo marks.
Here is a link to an article reporting on scientists who have found some of the larger human meridians.
http://upliftconnect.com/science-proves-meridians-exist
When you understand that we have energy channels in the body, it becomes easier during certain meditation techniques to encourage energy (Chi, Prana) to flow.
The Vagus nerve is the largest nerve outside the spinal column, it connects from the brain to all the major organs and through them, the endocrine system. It has been noticed by medical studies that people’s health is strongly related to the way this nerve is active. The Vagus nerve has one section which seems to send communication down from the brain to the organs, and another section or column that communicates back to the brain. If this data/communication is active and busy it is a good sign that people are healthy and vis-versa, if the communication is below a certain level in either direction, it is an indicator that something is not right. Mindfulness meditation seems to encourage this communication traffic and contributes hugely to the health of the nerve and the body
To read more on the importance of this nerve and how meditation can help to bring benefits please follow the following links.
https://thelivingproofinstitute.com/what-happens-in-vagus/
https://helenpapas.wordpress.com/2012/11/27/activating-the-vagus-nerve/
There is a new meditation class starting this month in Guildford, Surrey, the class details are below:
The start date – 30th April 2016
End date – 21st May 2016
the class starts each Saturday at 10.30am and runs for two hours until 12.30
The class runs at the Guildford Adult Education centre for four weeks, for further information please contact me through the contact form on this website, or you can ring the Surrey County Council Adult Education booking phone number to acquire additional information.
please ring 0300 2001044 to book your place on this course.
Or visit the website and search for Meditation under adult Education.
http://www.surreycc.gov.uk/
It has often been said that if you learn habits especially good habits at a young age or before puberty then those habits stay with you for life. In Buddhist country’s mindfulness meditation is taught to children of primary school age and there is growing evidence that it enhances children’s learning in other subjects.
Below are two articles from the BBC on mindfulness meditation which I hope you find interesting.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-35688048 – can mindfulness improve children’s concentration?
and another BBC article, about how meditation can, or may be able to slow down the effects of ageing.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-35688048 – slowing down ageing with mindfulness meditation
As we strengthen our brain and our mind’s ability’s with regular meditation we find that our ability to do all sort’s mind exercise improve dramatically. A recent study using the fairly new technology of the Fmri scanners (functional magnetic resonance imaging) shows how the brain/mind will actually use different pasts of the brain when we start conjuring up thoughts, in fact we would use these different parts of our brain regardless if the story is real or made up.
If we make up a story in our mind’s and place it in the past, certain parts of the brain become engaged, if we take the same storyline and place it in the future we will use different parts of our mind and brain for this, and the same applies if we place that imaginary story in the present. This is called ‘Chronesthesia’ or commonly mental time travel, to read more on this interesting discovery, follow this link:
http://phys.org/news/2010-12-scientists-evidence-chronesthesia-mental.html
There is a great by-product of mindfulness meditation which is that we all become more contented because we remove a lot of emotional stress from our lives through the simple action of meditation.
Here is a link a to a great scientific study and article which claims to be able to recognise ‘happy body cell’s’
http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2015/02/what-a-happy-cell-looks-like/385000/
Over the last 15 years there has been a lot of studies and scientific investigation on the effect that meditation has the brain because this also strongly influences the way our mind works and how we perform. The studies have been carried out on both Mindfulness meditation as well as visualisation meditation (think Buddhist and Yoga meditations) although both meditations are ‘focused’ meditations in that the person actively guides or trains themselves in a technique of thinking by focusing on a task or multiple tasks. This is different than listening to relaxing music although some guided meditation CD’s can provide the instruction to do a focused meditation.
Below are some links which provide the results of those scientific studies and how meditation can change the physical structure of our brains.
Brain changes with mindfulness mediation click here
Seven changes to the brain with meditations click here
There is a slight different in focus on the type of meditations in Yoga and Mindfulness meditations but both are involved an active participation and both require 30 minutes or more per day to trigger the brain to begin growing and making the physical changes which result in the increases performances measured.
In my Meditation workshops we learn and practise the aspects of both Mindfulness and visualisation meditations for enhanced improvements to our well-being.
Fresh dates for mindfulness meditation class in Guildford can be found below as all the dates for the March class’s are now full. To book, please ring – 0300 200 1044
The mindfulness meditation course will be run at the Guildford adult education centre.
Summer Term
Saturday 23/4/2016 – One off taster/Intro session, 10.30am-12.30pm
Saturdays 30/4/2016 to 21/5/2016 – 4 week course, 10.30am-12.30pm
The taster/intro session is a stand alone meditation course where I teach the technique of breathing to calm the body and then the technique of clearing the ‘monkey mind’ which so many people get stuck on, we shall also start to discuss the principles of ‘awareness’ of which there are many and how to start implementing them in your life. This is a must if you intend to also do the weekly course as it would be unfair to make those who have completed to wait for you to catch up.
In the follow up weeks of the meditation class proper, we shall practise all these techniques, we will also consider the mind images that some people can get and their meanings. I will outline the differences between various Meditation techniques and we shall also practise walking or open eye meditation alongside our sitting meditations. Each class shall finish with a guided healing meditation. I will provide handout sheets for the guided meditations so that you can also begin to practise these at home yourself. All lessons will have time for a question and answer between our meditations as well so that we can all learn together.
Part of our meditation course will consist of guided visualisation meditation which has also been shown (when practised regular) to increase parts of the brain, such as the hippocampus, a region critical to dampening stress was also found enlarged after prolonged visualisation meditation by practitioners, as were the precuneus and the posterior cingulate cortex, areas key to our concept of self. You can read the full article in the Scientific America where studies of Yoga mediation practitioners HERE
I have been confirmed to provide a week long mindfulness meditation course at the One World Festival in Cannington, Somerset again for the first week in August this will also include some guided meditations as well. This will be the 11th year in the last 15 years I have been going to the One World Festival and I can’t sing it’s praise’s enough, if you can, get there 🙂
I will also try and arrange to provide some dowsing course’s while there so watch the One World Festival website for any changes.
This will be the third and final year at Cannington nr Bridgewater in Somerset the wellbeing festival for adults and children is held in the grounds of a private school and contains all the normal resources for sporty people as well as hundreds of unique workshops over the full week, you can follow the link below to see the flavour of course’s run on one day in 2015, the evening entertainment is also fab.
http://oneworldcamp.com/content/files/programme-edits-saturday.pdf
I am pleased to announce that Wayfinders wizards have been invited back to the Kidwelly Castle Medieval Festival in Wales and after such a fabulous show last year I can’t wait to go back to this beautiful setting and the lovely Welsh friends we met and went with.
Last year myself and master wizard Stanley provided Wizard Dragon card readings to what felt like half the people in Wales so popular were the Wizards at Kidwelly but what a fantastic setting. Wizards in a glorious medieval castle setting providing wisdom and guidance in a way that only wizards can do.