visualisation This time last year (early spring 2015) I asked yoga student Sue to take some pictures in her amazing productive garden, Great Barrier Island NZ. It was dawning on me: yoga + growing food = Viveka Gardens. A very literal visualisation that got the ball rolling. This spring I was given a visualisation exercise, Imagine yourself 5 years from now. Everything in your life has gone incredibly well and you have accomplished all of your goals. Think big but stay real and write from a present tense perspective… Welcome everybody, I’m so very very happy you could all come this weekend to share the Spring equinox celebrations at Viveka Gardens. It’s Saturday 20th March 2021 and later, close to midnight, we can share in ceremony the special energy of transition, poised as days and nights are of equal length, and then go forward into spring and summer energy. As ever, It’ll be a busy summer of growing and digging deep, connection, joy and community. I love what we do here. Around us the birds are full of song, tender foliage and buds are emerging, the spring bulbs and primroses show us Lakshmi – abundance and beauty – already, and under the ground the soil life is warming and respiring. Can you smell it? This earth smell that tells us spring is here. That’s what Viveka Gardens is about: the hidden life, fed and nurtured, manifesting fruitfulness (and vegetable-ness!), interconnection of existence and the sweet perfume of being in the flow with Mother Nature. This weekend five years ago I packed up the contents of my London flat. Adil, Robin, Sammy and Rob lent their arms, backs and hearts to this in a spirit of friendship, love and selfless service. And since then, so many others have offered their efforts in the same spirit in the turnover of giving, receiving, learning and growing. So lovely to have so many of you here now! I hope you feel the love. I spent an ‘ashrama’ of life in the flat in Clapham, south London, moving in when pregnant with George (love you, Georgie), both he and Rosie (love you too) born and raised there, a life of work and projects. The end of one cycle and the beginning of another. I observed then the transition point after the full flow upstream the previous part of my life, a poised moment of the tide turning, the water turbulent and confused. Then this second part of my life rushing out, as the Thames does to the join the sea, offered rose petals bobbing only indication of the implacable flow. It’s certainly been full on! Lots of work and still going towards joining the ocean…not yet! A long way to go and a lot more rose petals – work, food, learning – to be offered! The rhythms of nature, ebb and flow, new life and dying, dying and new life: at Viveka Gardens we enjoy these rhythms on different cycles. We tap into the Siva spirit of destruction for endings at the right time – just as the fruit ripens and comes away from the vine – and enjoin Shakti for new life and growth. Every day I give thanks to the dusk and the dawn, the phase of the moon and the height of the sun. Every week we harvest, and with each sowing the heart swells at germination. The Celtic cross and the sun phases give us the opportunity to mark the wheel of the year. We ask Durga, the Divine Mother, to bring us up properly, slaying ego and disconnection, and Saraswati, accessor of higher awareness, to refine our understanding of the true nature of things. We also give thanks to Swami Sivananda and Swami Vishnudevananda who showed us the practices and philosophy that enable us to relax on all levels and so allow in spirit. Other teachers bring tools for exploring and raising our consciousness – yoga nidra, dance, singing, nature connection and more – and I acknowledge the wealth of enquiry and practice of seekers everywhere through the ages who have fought to go beyond the mundane and to learn from suffering. I hope and pray that Viveka Gardens provide as good a space as possible for such work. Personally, I am greatly touched by how many individuals contribute to the VG vision. It’s a lot of fun though not always easy at all. I love this land and how it grows and becomes a being in it’s own right. Thank you one and all. Let us raise a toast with this excellent elderflower cordial Kathy made last early summer. Enjoy the sweetness! To Viveka Gardens! Currently studying and practising the art of creative visualisation…