Saturday 31 August 2013

beach food


swathes of deliciously edible rock samphire at the beautiful beach Cala d'en Serra Ibiza,



 fun adventures climbing over rocks to a secret beach and up a woodland path to explore a deserted half built hotel and down again to the cafe,  there is so much natural beauty to discover in Ibiza that is so far from its loud reputation!


Thursday 29 August 2013

our local paradise ~ hemp

My son arrived with some hemp leaves he had freshly picked from his Dad's licensed hemp plot in Devon.  We dried them in the dehydrator to make delicious fresh hemp powder which I love to use in raw chocolate and smoothies.













There are many amazing benefits of hemp leaves.  It is a green like no other and tastes nice in smoothies and other treats where other green powders risk ruining the recipe...
"... an extraordinarily complex superfood, containing many of the essential nutrients in good ratios. It is rich in minerals, essential natural sugars ( glyconutrients), chlorophyll, silicon and light energy and energises the brain. It provides, amongst other nutrients, essential natural sugars and carbohydrates, invaluable to sports people. It also helps with melanin production in the skin and helps one absorb full spectrum light. It is low in THC (tetrahydrocannabinol). However it is still rich in other helpful cannabinoids, in particular CBD (cannabidiol). The high quantites of THC in highly bred strains of cannabis can bring on anxiety and paranoia. The original plant (to which all cannabis and hemp will tend if allowed to seed and regrow naturally) is well-balanced with the anti-psychotic cannabinoid, CBD. Hemp leaf is low in THC but has plenty of CBD so can be a very healing medicine food."
So easy to grow and apparently with one licence a lot of hemp can be grown.

This is my current favourite raw chocolate recipe using hemp leaf.  Though I say it myself, it is really delicious!

Superfood and fruit Chocolate

60g cacao butter
40g cacao paste
a few grains celtic sea salt
3 Tbsps raw honey
2 Tbsps maca powder (gelatinized maca works best)
3 Tbsps lucuma powder
1 Tbsp violet fig powder
1 Tbsp green fig powder
1 Tbsp strawberry powder
½ tsp vanilla powder
sprinkling cayenne powder
1 Tbsp hemp leaf powder
1 Tbsp purple corn flour
1 tsp he shou wu powder
sprinkling blue green algae

Melt cacao butter and paste over low heat and stir in salt and honey.
Stir the dried ingredients together well and mix into the melted paste and butter.  Pour into moulds to set.

Saturday 24 August 2013

our local paradise ~ blackberrying, edible garden, starlings


blackberrying

 

our edible garden

 

this pear tree was scorched in the hot sun of this summer and but it's leaves regrew!


Somerset starlings



Friday 23 August 2013

st ann's well buxton derbyshire


The source of this geothermal spring which serves up the most delicious warm water  is actually in the building "The Natural Baths" opposite. It is piped across. There are two types of spring water at the site, warm and cold, and there are about five springs in the area. The Celtic tribe, the Corieltauvi came here and honoured a Goddess known as Arnemetia at the site. The Goddess's name means "She Who Dwells Over the Sacred Grove" her name containing a variation of the Celtic word "nemeton" meaning sacred grove.  

Thursday 22 August 2013

ginkgo biloba

Just wandering down to our local village post office in the beautiful sunshine today I passed a gorgeous ginkgo tree, a  magical sight.














Ginkgo is thought to be  the oldest still-living tree species on earth   It can live for thousands of years and survive extreme conditions but also grows in a variety of climates. It is good for our happiness and longevity too. It improves circulation and oxygenation so is helpful to the body in many ways.  It improves blood flow to the brain, improves memory and mental alertness and has been used for a long time to improve the mind.  I add the dried herb to our tea regularly; it was wonderful to see those beautiful leaves wafting in the breeze and sunshine

Saturday 17 August 2013

water adventures and sacred places

St Nectan's Glen, Cornwall





St Pirans Well



Sancreed Holy Well



Sealife safari with dolphins


Boscawen-un


This stone circle can be difficult to find..here is the easy way:
Stop at the lay-by that's about a mile East of Crows-an-Wra on the Penzance - Lands End road, the main A30. Going from Crows-an-Wra, 1st there is a minor road turning to the right. Ignore it. 2nd, about 4/10ths of a mile further on, at the bottom of the hill, is a house or two on either side of the road. Ignore them. 3rd, about 2/10ths of a mile further on, at the top of the hill, there is a lay-by on the right, which is the South side of the road. There is a kissing gate with a notice. Now all you have to do is to follow the paths from there to the stones. It takes about 5-10 minutes. 



Wednesday 7 August 2013

the steady presence of the organic light

It is crucially important to understand that the experience of the radiant Wisdom Stone, the primary substance body of Sophia, has nothing to do with a divine spark. There is no inner light to behold: the Grail is out there, consubstantial with the body of the planet itself. It is objective and tangible, as physically real as the ozone layer or the 80 percent nitrogen content in the air. In the documentary on the Gospel of Judas, when the narrator explains that Gnostics had inner, intuitive knowledge of divine things, we are shown people sitting quietly and devoutly with their eyes closed, as if communing with something within, or gazing upon an inner light. This way of portraying Gnostic illumination is utterly misleading. No one sees the Grail by closing their eyes and letting imagination run wild; or if they do, they see an hallucination, a fallacious play of lights and colors, not the soft, steady presence of the Organic Light.

John Lamb Lash

Tuesday 6 August 2013

the beauty of Zennor

We visited Zennor on the western tip of Cornwall.

D H Lawrence spent some time here and said of Zennor: "At Zennor one sees the infinite Atlantic, all peacock-mingled colours, and the gorse in sunshine, Zennor is  a most beautiful place: a tiny granite village nestling under high shaggy moor-hills and a big sweep of lovely sea beyond, such a lovely sea, lovelier even than the Mediterranean...It's the best place I have been in I think"

I have to agree.








mermaid carving in Zennor church

seeing beauty not toxicity

Where we put our attention and how we use our imagination matters so much...As we access the ability to see the beauty of this planet,  our focus moves from toxicity to beauty, we dream more beautiful dreams and align our actions to those which create yet more beauty.  This is a fundamental shift into feeling and creative dreaming consciousness from which we can make our unique human contribution and bring even more colour to this stunningly beautiful Earth.  Health, rather than being seen in the context of disease, comes into the context of the sacred narrative of this planet and our getting back on track of our peak evolutionary potential.

Sunset at Zennor


Monday 5 August 2013

playing in the elements in cornwall

Incredible Tintagel Castle in north Cornwall:

edible rock samphire


 rocks, sea and wind...



 Triskele or Triple Spiral, Celtic symbol of land, sea and sky at Boscawen-un.