Nature doesn't hurry...

The sun is shining. The sap in the trees is rising. The mimosas are in full, gloriously-scented, yellow bloom. And the tiny daffodils are peeping out on the forest floor. Signs that Spring is emerging. Graças a Deus that we've had a winter of rain to fill up the water tables after last winter's 5 month drought. The appearance of Spring holds an even more poignant message for us this year.

The forest fires at the end of last summer charred a sizeable chunk of the surrounding landscape. Paradoxically, fire destroys and rejuvenates simultaneously. The contrast between the wee forest flowers breaking through the rich black pot ash is remarkable. I was heartened by Tameera at Light Stays Retreats for her Lau Tzu quote this week on FB. Good to be reminded....

"Nature doesn't hurry, 

yet everything is accomplished." 

Lau Tzu.

Big thanks to our wonderful volunteer Christian Steiger, who has been working tirelessly over the last month, helping us prepare the houses and the land for our yoga retreat season opening in a few weeks. Clearing up some of the fallen trees and debris of the winter storms, weeding the kitchen gardens ready for planting out this year's herbs and salads, rearranging and tidying spaces, deep Spring cleaning and to top it off playing around in the kitchen with me inventing new dishes for the retreats. Exploring the taste-scape of our pallets.  It's been a lot of fun and inspiring to have another chef to cook with.

Eloise turned 14 in January and Joshua 16 last week. They grow fast. And we observe them change once more, this time into adults, young, energetic and magnificent. Flapping their perfectly formed wings on the edge of the proverbial nest, eyeing that tantalizing horizon of destiny, wherever it may lie for them. The world is their oyster. 2 languages mastered and more coming, they'll be able to navigate their way through. They're not ready to leave just yet, but they're beginning to imagine what that might look like. Imagination and Vision. Such precious and powerful human attributes.

Now the winter rains seem to have passed, we'll be starting the improvements to the yoga platform next week in the sunshine. Strengthening the wooden pillars beneath the veranda with a metal structure that will double as a frame for the wisteria,  roses and jasmines to grow up through. We'll also be enclosing it from the fresh morning valley autumn breezes and the fierce summer sun. We'll keep you updated with a couple of vids to show work in progress. It'll be sad in someways to loose the openness of the practice space, but with more guests and children coming this year, that experience of floating above the forest is not as important as taking care that our guests are safe and don't fall to injury.

And while all that is happening we also have 4 families from the UK with us to explore the possibility of making the jump out to this part of the world. Nice to be able to provide a comfortable base from which they can travel off every day to hunt for similar abandoned hamlets in this beautiful, mountainous and relatively "undiscovered" central part of Portugal.

After these lovely families and their oh so very cute kids leave, my Mum and Dad are popping over for a fortnight from the UK before Easter and then we start our first retreat of the year. Which, Merci Papa, is already fully booked. Places on our retreats are booking so fast this year we can hardly believe it. We've had over 5000 likes for our Facebook page in 12 months. Staggering. Guests are coming in from all over the world - America, Australia, United Arab Emirates, Italy, India, the UK, Thailand and Norway. And that's just for the first 2 retreats of the year. Amazing.

We are really touched by how people have responded to our invitation to come spend a week with us in the forest. And by how many people are helping us in this little quest - Ellie and Rosy at Responsible Travel, Will at Yoga Travel, Filipe at Seegno, among many others. Thanks. We really do appreciate all you're doing for us.

Peace, love and Spring hope to you, whatever the weather outside your window today.

Memphis x

p.s. Respect is due to Josh for these photos on the blog, he took them for me this morning. Lad, you sure got an eye.

Yoga Retreats Portugal 2013

Thanks to the great team at Seegno for updating our Vale de Moses Yoga Retreat website ready for our 2013 season here in Portugal, including an online booking system. Top job guys. We really appreciate all the extra time you put in to make it work.

Cinco estrellas Seegno!

And thanks also goes out to the lovely Andi and Olly who have spent the last 3 weeks planting in half of the garden centre that we bought last month for our anniversary present. We'll show some pics of the grounds around the houses next week. It's lush.

Memphis

Os Bombeiros de Oleiros são Heróis

Last Saturday, September 1st, fire came to Vale de Moses. It is the only natural disaster we fear, but comforting it is to now know that of all the elements, fire is the only one man can do something about. We can work together to put it out. You can't stop the winds from blowing in a hurricane. Nor the water from sweeping a home away in a flood or tsunami, nor the lava falling from a volcano, nor snow from an avalanche, nor the ground in an earthquake. But water kills fire.

We owe our lives here to the brave and outstanding service of more than 200 firemen, drivers and pilots, who with their trucks, helicopters and planes, battled tirelessly for 6 or 7 hours to put out the fire that if left unchecked, would have consumed everything in its wake.


A special thanks to our friends Barbara and Emma from the Mount of Oaks, who drove 2 hours to be by our side and also to our incredible guests this week, who arrived on the same Saturday. Franzisca from Berlin, Frida and Malin from Sweden, Sara from CercaSul in Portugal, Shilla from Austria and Jessie from Belgium. Even in the face of such violent destruction and fear, you chose to remain and stay the week with us, on yoga retreat, to relax with us as we found peace after the inferno.

Vonetta and Eloise were out in town at the time, but the quick response by Chris, Anette and Joshua (he was first to call the Bombeiros / Fire Brigade) and Frida, Malin and Franzisca (we had all just finished lunch) meant we were able to soak the land around the Monastic Adega and save it from destruction, before we were called away to the top of the valley for our safety by the police. I was only wearing flip flops and shorts while dowsing the 5 metre high flames as Chris held the hoses off the ground to prevent them melting. The others rapidly filled up buckets and soaked everything they could reach. If our Yoga Helpers hadn't cleared the scrub around the Adega in June, and TK hadn't cut back all the grass in the orchards along the river with me in May, it would have been a very different story.

After only a couple of hours though, once we could see the fires would be tamed, we almost immediately began giving thanks. That no-one was harmed. That none of the 4 houses we have restored were touched. That we have such an army of volunteers in our local town and from other Bombeiros in towns over an hour's drive away, had dropped everything they were doing that day, and came immediately to our aid. That they stayed with us with their trucks for the next 2 nights keeping vigil over the land. That I slept outside with 4 fireman on our veranda!

We are also, ironically, thankful that we are now a little safer here. The fire cleaned the forest of all the brittle, dry, resin filled bush or "mato" on our neighbours land around our valley. It will be years before it can grow into the danger that it was. Now, perhaps even this Spring coming, we will see the forest begin to burst forth with life. The small lavenders and gorses will have the sunshine and space to flower in abundance. And enough pot ash to create a spectacular colour explosion we won't have yet seen here. That's something to really look forward to.

Sadly we lost our apple and pear orchards. But we hope they too will grow back again. Our neighbour José Matteus said the trees might return if we cut them at the base just above the graft. We'll see. We can always plant more.

So this week, we stared our deepest fear straight in the face. And marveled at the way our heroes in the Bombeiros and our community gathered and acted to save us. We will never forget. Truly we are blessed beyond words.

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.  Namasté.

Memphis

Active Hands Yoga Interview

A big thanks to Bettina Shzu from Berlin for her interview with Vonetta yesterday...

Do you ever dream about traveling around Europe for a few months without a schedule or a plan? Either alone or with your husband and kids?
Do you ever dream about quitting a life that doesn’t fit you and finding through serendipity an abandoned stone farmhouse near a pond surrounded by wooded mountains?
Do you ever dream of teaching yoga, growing your own food, drinking wine from your own grapes, and raising your kids in nature?
Do you ever dream about making your life and home a healing project?
Most people have some sort of dream like these. But they say—someday I’ll get around to that.
Today meet Vonetta. She’s living those dreams right now in Portugal as a yoga teacher and massage therapist at Vale de Moses.

Read the full interview here on Bettina´s Active Hands Yoga Blog.

Life on Yoga Retreat

Olá bom dia!

Just finished our Rainbows on your Eyelashes week and what a privilege it was to have our guests with us this week. Such lovely people. I feel I am in a lucky place cooking through the day in the farmhouse kitchens, watching people at various lengthy intervals, coming in and out of the house, up and down the stairs to the loft studio, to and from their yoga classes and treatments.

I get to see what they look like pre and post yoga. Before and after their massages.   Afore needles and beyond. If I had to succinctly describe the differences in the appearance and countenance of our guests between these 'fore and afters' it would be this: They walk in. Then float out.

It's so rewarding to see people who are already fairly relaxed after a few days living with good food, pure water and forest air, descend the stairs and come to the kitchen for a cup of tea, sparkly eyed with seemingly all tension gone from their faces. You should see it. You really should. It's quite a sight.

Although Eloise has just baked another mouth watering batch of healthy cupcakes (seriously my mouth is watering as I type) which I am about to devour in the courtyard, I have to say that life here living on a yoga retreat is not all full of blissed out chilled loveliness. In our weeks "off" we work hard in the forest and gardens and adding finishing touches to the restoration work of the cottages.

I'll leave you a couple of vids below we've just posted up to our "We Love Moses" Youtube channel where you can compare and contrast our weeks 'off' and our weeks with retreats; between work necessary round the farm with a moment for example on Wednesday when the physical, rather than metaphysical, rainbows were discovered on all proverbial eyelashes present.

As we say farewell to our guests this week heading back to distant lands and distant shores, just wanted to say to them specifically, in public as it were, in the immortal words of Louis Walsh that the newly formed Mosettes (Hannah, Sarah, Anja, Tashi and Louise) are undoubtedly "going to be the next big Girl Band". Great songwriting and seriously star performance in front of the courtyard  fire last night. We thank you for the music! Thank you.

In peace. In respect.

Memphis