Happy New Year and Green Smoothie Recipe - by Vonetta

Campo Pequeno

Happy New Year one and all. I just finished my first practice session in a few days. Over the winter so far, I have been travelling and moving and teaching and studying and being a Mother. My yoga practice often has to fit into my life and 2014 indeed was very busy, productive and outstanding. It is a little daunting to consider making it all happen again in 2015, but I am also reminded that my life will not fit without practice and it is on to the mat I go.

My setting has changed, I am now in a tiny little flat in Lisbon.  

For the last seven years at Vale de Moses my gaze while practicing looking forward out of the shala has always landed on a tiny little pine tree. From where I like to stand, this tree appears to be growing at the end of a fire path. When I first started practicing in Portugal this tree was pretty little. Like me, it has survived being in total isolation, aloneness, strong winds, blazing heat, electric storms and even a huge forest fire in 2012. I remember the first morning practice after the fire, I looked up ready to say goodbye to the little tree to find the fire had been put out by the brave firemen just above it. That morning when I came to practice Vrksasana I felt a communion with the little tree. It had survived and would therefore be nourished by the scary events that had taken place, depositing nutrient laden potash all around it.

This morning I am seeing the tree but only in my mind's eye. My real view now is an elegant yellow Lisbon apartment building. I am unable to sprawl around the shala and I am not receiving strong and satisfying adjustments as I would do in a studio. I have simply rolled out my mat and a delicious solitary practice can begin, time and space, after months of teaching, working, travelling, moving and mothering.  I am actually landing and there is no better place to land than on my own on my mat.  

This morning I am surprised by how light and happy my body feels even though certain more athletic postures feel awkward. I know that after a few days of dedicated practice more lightness, or freedom or whatever may come, but I am not concerned. The aloneness that this personal practice provides is needed right now.  

Tomorrow, I will be back to the studio, Casa Vinyasa in Lisbon (not unfortunately on this beach nor this mat in Barbados!), allowing my body to be artfully adjusted in postures, a benefit that I would not be without. I am sure this morning's gleeful leaping around the mat while it has personality, must lack technique. However today is a personality day and I am having fun. I am falling in love with lengthening and broadening again.

When I am struggling with accepting any phase in my life, then this little practice time helps me to just feel better after, or at the very least, less bothered. Practice is, after all, a tried and tested method of delighting in the now.

In a few months I will be back to retreat teaching and the joys of seeing known faces and new ones, of hearing their stories of the Winter face to face rather than on FB. My days will be filled with sweet smelling oils, pungent herbs and Qi balancing magic wands (acupuncture needles). Beautiful bodies of all sizes and descriptions will be nourished by the excellent Vale de Moses team and volunteers.  

Like my Yoga practice, the pleasures of retreat life have been tried and tested and I am relieved to have this in my future. Yoga practice with our other teachers coming this year will begin and there will be sharing and learning and a light competitive frolicking and I am looking forward to such long and generous summer days. However, right now it is good just to roll out my mat and be there.

The joy of yoga has to be being alone in your flat with your tunes, enjoying the immediate gratification of touching your toes.  

Ah, all that is left to mention is my Green Smoothie fetish. My favourite smoothie at the moment.  Created by Dr. Fuhrman and inspired by Victoria Boutenko's Green Smoothie Revolution and introduced to me by my Natural Physician Course. The course gives me the mental challenge I need while I wait for my loved ones: Andy from his work preparing the valley and cottages in the mountains for the Yoga Season ahead; Josh finishing school in Castelo Branco and Eloise finishing a day of art school in Lisbon. The juice gives me that zip that lasts throughout the day and will also help get rid of some of the Christmas loving.  

It's a lot of fun working on the course, I am constantly running little benign experiments on myself and it is worth it as I know the experiences I am having through this course will improve what we offer at Vale de Moses and in Barbados over many years to come. This juice was apparently drunk by Pop icon Peter Max every morning since 1998.  It is a deluxe Super Green juice that gives me the stamina to keep at it. If you would like to try the juice and do not have all of the ingredients, don't worry about it just substitute and omit. I often have to. 

The treat of a great juicer such as Hurom 700 GY or a Vitamix may be just the thing for you to get this 2015 off to a bouncy start.  

Vonetta 

Dr. Fuhrmanʼs Green Longevity Drink

Makes 4 cups 

1 large head romaine lettuce 

1 1/2 cups spinach 

2 sprigs parsley 

1 cup broccoli florets 

2 leaves mustard greens or turnip greens 

3 collard leaves 

1/2 cup watercress 

1/8 tsp. oregano 

1/2 avocado 

1 banana, peeled 

3 large strawberries 

1 cup frozen or fresh blueberries 

1/2 papaya or mango 

1 1/2  tsp. flax seeds 

1 1/2  tsp. sunflower seeds 

1 1/2  tsp. sesame seeds

I hope 2015 is a Yogi Year.

Maybe in the stillness....

I love winter. The wind, the rain, the cold that drives us inside. Still stacks to do outside to get ready for spring, but when the weather howls, the fires get lit to roaring and we retreat inwards to the warmth of the hearth and stove; metaphorically and physically. Probably meta-physically too in some way. That's why I love it so. Every winter we've spent here since 2008, I've relished the time to read, to reflect, to plan, to ponder, to dream. To retreat.

Vonnie favours the sunshine of the summer, for she, after all, is a tropical island girl and genetically designed for a daily shower of free vitamin supplements that never cease to rain from the ever shining Barbados sun.  I suspect our future winters might be spent in other warmer climes, bless, but for this one, we're here, in Portugal, in the mountains, on our own, and it’s raining. Inside we remain. ;)

In this reflective season, something dawned on me. Over the course of 2013 an unexpected pattern had begun to emerge, on Facebook no less. Every week it seemed I was seeing another new profile or cover photo emerge on our guests FB pages (as they commented and shared each others holiday snaps), shots taken here on their stay at Vale de Moses. 

It was flattering to think people would choose our place as a beautiful setting to display their virtual identity on the cloud. Face after face of happy, bright souls with dreamy sunsets and misty valley vistas. All looking like they were feeling pretty lovely about life, bordering on content.

I realised it's on places like retreats and healthy holidays we often feel quite lovely. About everything. Relaxed, nourished, minds clear, bodies given an MOT and service, all far from the maddening crowds. The least worried. The most meditative. The most still. Even though every day our bodies are paradoxically more active than normal, practicing yoga, walking in forests, swimming in rivers, surfing, whatever. We feel the most active and yet the most still.

Maybe in that stillness of retreat, we get to know ourselves a bit better. 

And perhaps we actually like ourselves a little better than the stressed out version of ourselves we left back at home.

One thing is certain to me, everyone definitely shines after a week on retreat. “You’re positively glowing, darling”. So maybe it's only natural that photos taken at those moments are the ones we choose to share with the FB universe. Because we feel more like ourselves. And to make our friends jealous too no doubt!

Thanks to our guests who have let me share their selfies and Vale de Moses photos with you today. Each one of these photos today on the blog are from their FB covers or profiles and aren't they all beautiful! 

That's it really. To say it’s winter. Which you knew. And that Facebook is revealing patterns in our own human social behaviour and projection of virtual self image. Again, you knew. And that going on a retreat is really really good for you. If you've not gone on one before, and you are able to do so this year, then

"Retreat, retreat, retreat!"

Choose any one of hundreds of wonderful retreat spaces all over the world. Any one of them. Just go. Especially if you're not feeling particularly like the best you have ever felt. Book a retreat as soon as you can. If it's with us, we very much look forward to meeting you and showing you around this stunning part of Portugal.

Also in this last week we've had an enormous response to our Karma Volunteer recruitment, so successful in fact that looks like we're fully staffed already! If you'd like to be contacted in case anyone of our volunteers have to cancel, and at the same time be considered first for our 2015 teams, please still do apply for our Reserve team this year. 

Finally, finally, you might like to read the interview Vonnie had last week with the delightful Tameera Kemp who runs Light Stays Retreats in Australia. Great site.

Wishing you lots of warmth and cosyness wherever you maybe be wintering.

Memphis

Swimming in Rivers and Puppy Love!

We're having a scorcher folks! It's hot. Regularly up into the 40's and sizzling. So glad we were able to put in a couple of natural river pools this year. Has really helped all of us cool down in the late intense heat of the afternoons. We live on the edge of wilderness in the forests of central Portugal and as such we experience the elements of planet earth a tad more intensely than we used to in our old London life.

When the wind blows, the wood in the forest roars and dances. When the rain falls, the rivers' waters rage white. When you fall on a stone, you know the immovability of earth. As well as it's healing properties when we bathe in mud by the river. Now in summer, the fire from the sun in the sky sure does heat you up and everything around you. Thank God we're in the mountains so the evenings and mornings are fresh, enough for a jumper. And grateful that our houses here are bermed deep into the rock, so keep deliciously cool.

While the team are keeping cool inside, our guests are obviously making the most of the weather. This is one of the new irrigation tanks just completed below our guest house. It is fed directly from the river and rejoins it straight after.

The best thing about the tank isn't the squeals of delight we hear wafting up from the valley as people take a plunge into the refreshing cold, but the knowledge that all the big terraces below this tank can now be irrigated plentifully in the years to come. Big relief.

Water levels in this heat are running low as you can imagine, so everyone has kindly been careful with their water usage, quick showers, no running taps etc etc. As a back up we also just hooked up 3 outdoor showers that are run from an old Moorish water mine and heated on the way down by the sun. Means the showers are fresh in the mornings and evenings, but perfect shower temperature between 11am to 9pm.

For those who love a bigger swim we go to this magnificent natural river swimming pool called a Praia Fluvial, in Oleiros now and again, and once a week we all go to the River Zêzere for a decadent mud bath in the isolated wilds.

Mud baths are such a rejuvenating and elementally connecting thing to do, as any of our guests will attest. Always followed up with refreshments at the local cafés in Abitureira to meet the locals and chat under the shade of grapes, orange and olive trees. The kindness and advice of our neighbours here has often sustained us over the years. A precious anthropological experience that we can't let folk leave Oleiros without sampling. One of their highlights of the week.



Other news is we finally got the tipi up. Josh, Olly and I went into the forest a few weeks ago to cut some tall straight young Eucalyptus trees, de barked them immediately and dried them. Olly and Ernst put it up ready for its first guest, the wonderful Holly, a couple of weeks ago. There's also a 4 man tent next to it. Both have handmade Portuguese futons on frames and glammed up a little inside. Most cosy and already useful additional this year for those who ignored our fully booked sign on the website and enquired if we had somewhere to stay anyway!

Josh and Eloise are spending August, before they return to school mid September, visiting their grandparents in Barbados. This is Eli's new FB shot just to rub it in. While Vonetta and I are working through the heat of the summer, they are chilling with cocktails by tropical beaches. I'm wondering if these roles reverse anytime in the next few years. Where we put our feet up and they work to keep us in a manner to which we are still yet to be accustomed to! I suspect not so much!

So apart from swimming in rivers, in mud, in lovely guests, and the kids in the Caribbean sea, we're also swimming in puppies. It was Vonetta's 40th back in July and Eloise baked one outstanding cake to celebrate the occasion. Seriously peeps, these photos don't do it justice. Simply divine taste and texture, ingeniously sculpted and perfectly iced. I can still taste it. What a baker!

Fitting for the grandeur of the moment. Particularly as the day had already started with cries of "THE PUPPIES ARE HERE!!" screeching through the dawn over the valleys at 7.15am as Safira our dog began giving birth to 6 gorgeous little blind and wet heirs to the Moses dynasty.

We're thinking of keeping a couple of them and are currently talking to a few lovely peeps about whether they would like to take care of 4. One of the 2 black girls and three of the 4 boys. I'll leave you with a few pictures of Puppies below, cure enough to warm the hardest hearts. They are socialised beyond belief thanks to everyone who's stayed here and taken advantage of regular one on one puppy love therapy sessions as often as they could.

There's a lot of love around Vale de Moses this summer. Bursting at the seams with it. :)  We even had honeymooners Emily and James from Lisbon with us too (twas a grand excuse for more cake!). Plus a happy birthday sung in 6 different languages to Avril from Ireland. Surely this is the season to be jolly? Tra la la la la La la la la!

Only a few more retreats left this season. Still one or two spaces left in September and October. Reserve your place on Vale de Moses and we'll be seeing you later in the Autumn. And if you want to be first to be notified when our 2014 retreats are online, do like our FB page. Barbados retreats next Easter too. New schedule and dates should be up online in a month or so.

Peace and all good things to you. Wherever you are, we hope you're having a wonderful time.

Memphis

"And they call it, puppy love...."

First week

2 weeks old

Always sleeping in piles

Man and Dog!

Known as Cosmo or Ice

Ice leaving his cage

This is Burrow

Safira: Stamina and Patience

Too sweet!

Eloise in Puppy heaven

Josh and MiniMoses

Regal and proud already!

Eat, play, poo and sleep!