Alternative Answers

This was my first retreat and I must say it was a magical experience both for myself and most of the

participants.  A slideshow of some of the pics is at the bottom of the post, but there were SO many good pictures, it was hard to choose! The images throughout the post sum up the event for me!

The theme of the event was ‘Living Food, Living Yoga’ and I was invited to teach by raw food chef Chris Jenkins aka Life Force Foods (thats him splashing in the picture…typical!)

The event was an all-living food event, which means no food was heated to above body temperature to ensure all enzymes and life force was still active for us when we eat it.

The food was complemented by my ‘Living Yoga - Yoga off the mat’ events which are my take on the yoga system, based on the 8-fold approach outlined in the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali.  Suffice it to say that just like the rest of my work, this is different to what other yoga teachers teach, and focusses on the Raja system (mental understanding and meditation) rather than the Hatha system (mainly postures) most people are used to.

These two event types were wrapped up in an Essene theme where we used the Essene approach to the elements for the daily structure - each day represented an element and the events are food were tailored to each.  Each day, participants were to allow the elements to help them heal and reconnect to ‘The Source’ and we thought we would have to virtually shove people outside considering the weather, but everyone went off on their own accord to have dips in the stream daily and reconnect with nature in other ways:  Chris and I were very impressed!

Throughout the event, the food was AMAZING.  We were all full, satisfied and energised throughout the event and, while it was challenging for some, everyones bodies displayed its happiness with the food with folks reporting little digestion problems and extra energy.  The food choice was suprising and Chris and Adam really pulled out the stops to show what can be done with Living Food, and we had curries, kebabs, puddings, cakes, pates and more.  The variety was impressive and the simplicity surprising.  I am now a firm Living Food advocate simply due to how great it makes one feel, and how much it improves energy and sensitivity.  I am not ready for a full migration yet, but am now working my way there and hope to be all-living-food within a few years.

This was much more successful and magical than any of us could have imagined, and the elements really did

play an integral part in peoples experience.  Every single person reported so-called ‘coincidental’ episodes of traipsing across boggy fields to for their daily dip in the stream in cloudy weather, only to have the sun break through just as they got in the water, only to cloud over again when they emerged - and I’m really not exaggerating: everyone experienced this, sometimes more than once!

On the Water day it was raining so heavily it actually rained uphill! It was torrential, yet we got a slight break in the late afternoon which allowed us to go for a communal dip as a group and, despite the freezing weather, this was invigorating and enlivening beyond description!  It started to rain heavily again literally the minute we got back to the farmhouse. We took before and after pics of the dip and you can see the effects in them below!

On the air day, we got our only break in the weather (it was September in Wales!) and it was totally calm, which, compared to the preceding days was downright surprising, yet this allowed us to complete the programme for the air day which included breathing exercises and a free afternoon for personal walks and exploration.  We had also invited the group to take part in a fast in line with the elements, and all agreed, despite some having not done it before.  Everyone found this an amazing experience, because it really challenges us on our perceptions of habits and needs, gives the body time to heal, and has a profound effect on spiritual sensitivity.

Finally, on Spirit day, two of our participants had to leave early, but it was a day of celebration of life, a celebration of the Spirit in each of us, and everyones individuality came out to play in one way or another.

Heres a testimonial from one participant…”Hi Darren, I just wanted to thank you for a wonderful, inspiring, life changing week in beautiful Wales. It was truly awesome, I loved every minute of it. Your words, yoga, chanting and breathing techniques helped me on so many levels. I’ve returned home a stronger and more grounded person. Thanks for the giggles too, your inner child came out to play on spirit day and it was a hilarious just to be around you”

We are doing another of these events next May, so get in touch if you want to book a place!

Heres a slideshow of some more pics from the event:

This was my first Northern Green Gathering, but it certainly won’t be my last!  This sort of event is what festivals are all about.  Many these days are very music heavy, but without much in the personal development or creative areas, but this is where this mighty event steps in!

With a spectacular crafts and permaculture area, as well as a rich healing field/workshop zone, this event had it all - and with lesser-known bands, it had a real community feel and many artists had come from all over the world just to enjoy a ‘proper’ festival!

I was given ‘top bill’ of the Earth Spirit tent and ran 2 events each day, all of which were a good success with the little yurt filling up for some of them - especially the gender event!  That was very amusing with me and two other guys surrounded by as many as 13 or 14 women!  It takes a particular type of courage as a young man to talk to women of all ages about the subject of gender!  The fact that they all started somewhat wary, then settled down to contribute and participate fully shows somewhat the uniqueness of these events - and they all stayed to the end (except one, but then, theres always got to be one, eh?!  Not one person there did not relate to the model presented though, and all could see its impact in their life - because, like with much of my work, I’m not inventing models you then have to squash over reality to make it fit, instead I’m highlighting the structures that are already there!

Heres the gallery of some pics from the event and I highly recommend it next year if you are the festival-going type!  (and even if you are not!)

The Shamania festival 2008 was a truly muddy British festival!  But this didn’t dampen spirits and the event went full steam ahead as usual!  This was my second Shamania and this year I got relative ‘top billing’ with more events than anyone else.

I was scheduled to run 7 talks/workshop tasters over the 2 1/2 days and all but the last went ahead successfully.  I had to cancel the last one as I was losing my voice because they had put the talks tent about 20m from the hardcore techno tent, so as you can imagine, it was an interesting experience!

Despite the weather and the noise, the events had a growing turnout, starting with just a few on the early events and rising to as many as 15 or more as the weekend went on.

I love doing the Shamania events because they are local, and I love the small festivals as they have a much stronger community feel and lack the commercialism of some of the larger events..If Shamania is on again next year - so will I be!

I don’t have pictures of the events from this festival, but I do have some film footage, so some clips may appear in the near future!

Boy am I slow in updating…but better late than never!

The Kendal Learning to SEE Again event was a lovely success with Magnus and Sarah’s studio filled with SEE’ing hungry locals who wanted to see what it was all about.

This event is the one that involves more outdoors exercises than any other, and sadly, the Lake District weather did not make it fun for the participants, so we had only a brief excursion into the rainy streets of Kendal.

This didn’t seem to dampen spirits though, and folks had a good try at the techniques on offer.

Here are some pics the hosts were kind enough to take to share the day….and a few testimonials are below:

“I really enjoyed the workshop and will so love to attend more. Fantastic information. It is great to hear a person speak so passionately their knowledge.”

“I enjoyed the workshop and the techniques we learned. I got the sense that we use just learne a very small part of what Darren has to offer and look forwards to doing more.”

“I enjoyed your workshop very much. Trying to put into practice what you told us. Hope to see you in September!”