My son turns six in June – something generally agreed to be an exciting event, greeted with enthusiasm and joy (and, as parents, with utter awe that this person exists with a tinge of sadness that the stages he’s gone through are in the past now). It is a time for celebration; we tell people our birthdays and we enjoy marking them with cake and parties. Granted they might become a little less joyful if we are feeling resistance to aging, but they tend still to be a time we are cherished and celebrated.

In July it will be 5 years since my dad died and in February it was 4 years since my mum died. These dates loom very differently on my internal visual map of the 2022. While the anniversary of my son’s birth is a gentle peak, something with a very outward, yang energy, the anniversaries of my parents’ deaths are big craters with much more of an inward, yin energy.
I describe these as ‘craters’ which sounds very negative, but I don’t feel like that. The crater-ish-ness is symbolic of the desire to retreat and go down into the grief, it is also a reminder of what the period around the deaths felt like. These were dark holes of time that have left their mark forever. But they are not something I ever want to avoid.  They are there and my awareness of them is part of the landscape of my life now.

These anniversaries change year to year. The first couple of years they hit extremely hard and involved a lot of reliving. I relived the week following my dad’s sudden death when we were absorbing the shock, whereas my mums rapid decline the week preceding her death was something I went through almost hour by hour the first two anniversaries. Now they are more mellow and I can’t always predict how it will pass. I do know, though, that it is vital to give them space, to allow for time and feeling the days leading up to it and sometimes beyond.

I find it extraordinary how we interact with death in our society – or how we try and avoid interacting with death. There seems to be a sense that if we draw attention to anniversaries, it is reminding people of loss, of the pain of grief. But this loss and pain is always there, it doesn’t go away because we don’t talk about it or acknowledge it. For some people an anniversary might just feel like something that they need to get past, but for me it feels as vital as Christmas. It shapes the year, it helps me remember in a mind, body and spirit way that life is precious and fragile and cannot be taken for granted.

This week is ‘dying matters’ week which draws important attention to the circumstances and environment of how we die and encourages conversations around death. It is easy to avoid putting attention towards our own death or that of anyone we love, be that practical or emotional attention.

At the moment what matters to me about dying is that we remember it. That we remember it in our very act of living, that THIS is life, this is our existence, and it doesn’t go on forever. That we remember it in our relationships, that these people we rely on and share with and love so much will one day die. That thought that can be so crippling can also give us fire for living, an opportunity to savour who and what we have while we have it.

And mostly, still in my relatively early years of grief experience, it matters that we remember the deaths of those that we have lost. That we remember their impact on our lives, how they shaped us and affected us. That we remember who they were in their lives, what they did with their time on earth and who they touched while they were around. And, finally, that we remember what we went through in losing them, how that moment rerouted our life path and changed us forever. If we can let ourselves remember this and really feel it then, perhaps, we can let ourselves really grieve, let go and really live. 

Hi Everyone

My name is Mike (Mihály). I have just moved to the neighborhood and it feels great to be here.

I am a qualified Acupuncturist, Massage therapist, Qigong and Tai chi instructor.

However in practical terms I am here to help people self-reflect, with the purpose of easing their suffering so they can live their lives fully, healthily.

Now when I say Acupuncture, or Tai chi you may think: what does that have to do with any of that?

As an Acupuncturist and Massage therapist, I am there to identify patterns and to nudge your system a bit to leave behind anything that does not serve you, and to focus on the areas that needs your attention.

As a Tai chi and Qigong instructor it may seem that I am just teaching movements, forms, stretching whilst you are actually learning to identify tensions, forgotten painful areas and all those stored up stress and emotions that had no space to be expressed.

I am not here to fix you because you are not broken.
I am here just as a reminder that everything you need is already in your possessions. I believe that we all just need to thrive for clarity, so we can discern what we do not need, and what needs our attention.

If I had to choose one message:
Take a second for yourself. Check back in your physical and emotional body. Have a compassionate moment of silence. See what you need and take action accordingly. Because you deserve it. We all do.

Mike
Harmony Within Acupuncture

The London Landmarks Half Marathon was set up by Tommy’s charity to boost their fundraising efforts and provide a celebratory run following London’s landmarks with the strap-line, ‘The Grand. The Quirky. The Hidden’. It is such a fun event and this year the team have reached out to brilliant performers, volunteers and community groups around London to entertain and support runners along the route, making this year a true celebration of London’s culture and heritage. Tommy’s charity does important work in supporting mothers and babies, funding research into miscarriage, still birth, and premature birth, and provides pregnancy health information to parents.

I had the privilege of volunteering for post-event massage back in 2018 at the first ever LLHM event! Tommy’s did a wonderful job of organising a beautiful space for us to treat the runners and I still remember the brilliance of the day. The atmosphere in the room was absolutely buzzing; you could almost feel a physical energy to it. Congratulations never ceased and every time someone came up to me, no matter how exhausted they were, they had a smile on their face and such a sense of pride in what they had just achieved. Not one person was moaning or grumbling about any pain they were in, their achievement seemed to lift them above it.
 
Since then I have also volunteered at the London Marathon and more locally at the Windrush Aquathlon. At events I mainly treat through or around clothing as the treatment areas are not usually private. I can still gain great results from several techniques this way, using compressions, soft tissue release, and involving the runner actively using muscle energy techniques to help relax and lengthen muscles. It is quite a tiring day massaging runner after runner - at a busy event I probably get through about 20 or so people, each runner receiving 15-20 minutes of treatment.
 
All the massaging aside, the main thing that struck me on the day was the atmosphere and humility of everybody that I met. Even though these people were taking on a tough physical challenge, the positivity was contagious. It was clear that they felt supported, valued and proud in themselves and their achievements for the cause. Due to the nature of Tommy’s charity work, perhaps some of the people that I met had had an experience with miscarriage, still birth, or a premature birth in some aspect. By running the half marathon they were taking positive action and helping to support themselves and others. It truly inspired me.
 
Even though it was a long and tiring day, I went home ecstatic and full of inspiration from everybody I had met, runners and volunteers alike. Just knowing that I had helped some of those amazing people in some way gave me my own sense of pride and achievement.
 
If you ever get the chance to volunteer with a charity at a sporting event, DO IT. And if you’re running the LLHM or another race coming up soon (Brighton and Manchester I’m looking at you), then good luck! You have come this far and getting to the start line is 75% of the challenge. Massage can be very beneficial both pre and post event as well as helping you to maintain fitness and form throughout training. Come and see me at West Norwood Therapies on Wednesdays or Sundays, I’m here to help you be your best.

I have said it before and I’ll say it again – and again – Working With Women is Wonderful!! I did not intentionally set out to curate a team of women at West Norwood Therapies – I just set out to create a team that worked well together, that supported one another, that played their individual part in collaboration and contributing towards a healthy, happy and productive working environment. And it turns out this particular team of women does just that!

We are all professional and highly skilled in our fields and we all work well as independent, individual practitioners working one on one with clients. And then we come together and share, talk, laugh and support one another. During lockdown we had zoom calls almost every week and we all found this to be something akin to group therapy, a time we could check in and feel connected with one another.

For the first time we are planning an in-house ‘retreat’ this summer – a few days away together to enjoy one another’s company and strengthen our personal as well as professional bonds and treat one another to our therapies too.

Perhaps I’ve been lucky with this particular group of women, but given the women who have come and gone from WNT I know that the magic goes beyond our current small team. It is precious that we can mix the personal with professional, the emotional with the practical and offer one another a web of support where we feel secure and content in our work.

Here’s to all the Wonderful Women of the World. We love men too but today is all about the XXs so here I acknowledge Wonder where it rises 😊

I have always had an interest in cooking wholesome food for both enjoyment and health and am guided away from processed foods by choosing ingredients that ‘ran, swam, flew or grew’ in their most natural state. Like many people I have in recent years leant towards a more heavily plant-based diet with an emphasis on a wide variety of colourful fruit and veg, wholegrains and plant-based protein like lentils, pulses, beans and tofu. However, I do still eat fish and meat, buying far less but of higher quality, higher welfare - by trying to choose largely wild fish and meat that is free-range, grass fed, preferably organic - and using every last bit which brings me to the wonders of bone broth.
 
It has been revered for its potent nutritional and medicinal properties by various cultures across the globe for thousands of years from ancient Greece, throughout Africa and Asia, to the infamous recuperative ‘Jewish Penicillin’.  A South American proverb states ‘Bone Broth will resurrect the dead’. It had a reputation within Chinese Medicine stretching back over 2,500 years for its ability to support digestion and reproductive health – pre-conceptually for both men and women to support egg and sperm health, during pregnancy for mum and baby, and post birth to help mum rebuild her strength.
 
Bone broth is packed with easy to digest gelantinous protein and amino acids from the collagen in cartilage, and minerals such as magnesium, calcium, phosphorus and potassium from the bones, extracted by long slow cooking. Wide ranging potential health benefits include helping to support skin, bone and joint health, soothing gut issues like ulcerative colitis and leaky gut, supporting immune function, helping recovery from upper respiratory infections and it may also help to promote good sleep. The combination of skin, joint and sleep effects likely make it beneficial for women post menopause, a time when increasing protein and reducing carbs can be helpful.
 
We can get a bit caught up about what’s in food and what it is good for. Sometimes it is good just to let go of that and enjoy the wholesomeness because you know in another more intuitive way that it is nourishing. For me bone broth is one of those things. A warm soothing elixir!  It is delicious drunk on its own, makes a great base for soups and stews.
 
For convenience you can buy bone broth ready-made, conveniently packaged and delivered frozen direct from the farm to your door but it is far cheaper and satisfying to make your own.  It cooks for so long that it is more economical on fuel to cook up a big batch so I collect any chicken bones both raw and cooked in the freezer until I have a good supply, supplementing them with some chicken carcass bones from the butchers to fill a stock pot.
 
Chicken Bone Stock Recipe
 
This recipe uses chicken bones and cooks for 4-6 hours.  You could make a fish version substituting the chicken for fish heads and bones usually discarded by the fishmonger so very cheap – use about 1kg per litre of water - and simmer for one hour. Strain through muslin to remove all bones.

You’ll need a large stock pot with a tight fitting lid.
 
Ingredients:

• Good Quality Chicken bones (legs but especially wings and whole carcass are good, preferably organic). Equivalent of 4-5 carcasses.
• Spices for flavour: Your choice of whole peppercorns, fennel seeds, coriander seeds. About 1-2 tsp of each for a large stockpot.
• Vegetables and herbs for flavour: Your choice of celery, carrot, leeks, onion, garlic, parsley and coriander stalks, a few bay leaves and fresh ginger. Peelings and ends are fine.
• Cider vinegar. About 4 tablespoons for a large stock pot.

 
Method:
Optional: Before making the stock you can roast the bones for an hour in the oven until they are golden for a richer flavour.
 

• Place the bones in the stock pot.
• Add spices and vegetables. Veg can just be added for the final hour if you prefer.
• Cover with water (boiling from the kettle is quicker than heating on the hob).
• Add cider vinegar to help extract the minerals from the bones.
• Cover with a tight fitting lid and simmer gently for 4-10 hours (with the extractor fan on unless you like to live in a soup scented sauna!) checking and stirring every now and then to ensure it is still covered with water and not sticking.
• I cook it until the cartilage on the ends of the bones softens and dissolves which usually takes 4 – 5 hours but some people cook it for much longer which will extract more minerals from the bones.
• Strain off all the liquid, discard bones and veg and then reduce it to a manageable quantity.  For 5 carcasses I end up with about 1.5 litres of concentrated broth. You could concentrate is down even more and freeze in ice cube trays.
• Pour into portion sized pots (I use metal Indian thali bowls) and allow to cool. It should have a thick jelly consistency when cold. The fat will rise to the surface which you can then scrape off if you wish, I usually scrape off some but leave some for flavour. Freeze in a suitable container or bag and use as needed. As it is so concentrated you can dilute it as needed.

 
The effort will more than pay off for the ease with which you can prepare a tasty meal or quick warming drink that nourishes you deep to the bone.  Enjoy!

 
What do you have for breakfast? Do you even have breakfast? It’s often a meal that people skip or habitually go for something quick like a cold bowl of cereal or a couple of slices of toast on the go but when the temperatures drop there is nothing like a comforting bowl of porridge to start the day and get the warmth going from the inside. It is quick to prepare, will sustain you all morning and is a gift to your whole digestive system.
 
Try a water-based whole oat porridge, flavoured with a small spoonful of blood-nourishing molasses, and maybe some cinnamon and ground flax seeds.

• Use whole oats to get the benefit of their blood sugar controlling, cholesterol lowering and anti-inflammatory properties.
• Add the molasses at the end of cooking to prevent it sticking.
• If you are prone to feeling the cold then add a couple of generous pinches of cinnamon for extra warmth and flavour.  It is used in traditional Chinese Herbal medicine to aid digestion, warm the channels and improve circulation. Avoid it if your tendency is towards feeling the heat.
• Add in some ground flax seeds for extra Omega-3s.

 
Top with a sprinkling of pumpkin, sunflower and sesame seeds for extra goodness and a couple of spoonfuls of berries. I use frozen summer berries out of season and just warm them gently. For speed, and if you don’t mind a strangely coloured porridge just add them to the porridge towards the end of cooking. I like a splash of milk to finish it off when it’s in the bowl for that that combo of thick porridge and liquid milk. Delicious and nutritious!
 
If you skip breakfast you may find yourself going for less nourishing alternatives as your blood sugar drops. It can precipitate a vicious cycle of sugar spikes, drops and unhealthy snacking.  Starting the day with nourishing breakfast gets your eating habits off to a healthy start and one suggestion to prompt an appetite at breakfast time might be to replace supper with something very light late afternoon or early evening for a night or two, just to kick start a breakfast habit.
 
Finally, try to make time to sit and enjoy your meals, including breakfast. The digestive process begins when we look at the food, anticipate it and the digestive juices start to flow.  And we are more likely to chew our food well, another important part of the digestive process,if we are relaxed and not in a rush.  Good digestion is as much about how we eat as what we eat. 
 
Enjoy!

    The term ‘Sports Massage’ can sometimes be misleading if taken literally. It is of course a very useful, and often necessary, treatment for sports people, but it can also be beneficial for a whole host of different people. People working from home since the start of the pandemic might not have the best ergonomic set-up and as a result are experiencing neck or back pain. Take delivery drivers, who are sat in the same position all day, using the same restrictive movement patterns to drive. Think of the security guard, standing in a stationary position on their feet most of the day. All of these people and more are using their bodies in a way that will build muscle tension, increase areas of restriction within the soft tissues, and cause restrictions in ranges and ease of movement. Sports massage can help them!

Sports massage helps to resolve chronic pain, injuries, muscle aches and restricted range of movement. At some point in our life, we have or will experience one of the issues listed above. What is great about sports massage is that it uses a range of techniques to assess and treat a problem, rather than following a repeated routine of massage strokes. Each treatment is tailored to the individual and your therapist will spend some time talking to you and listening to your story before assessing you physically. I have treated countless individuals and even if the problem seems to be manifesting in the same way, every body is different and responds differently to treatment, so no two treatments are ever exactly the same.

Something that seems to put people off getting a sports massage is the reported pain that comes with it. Whilst some techniques can and will cause some degree of pain, it is never the goal of sports massage to cause pain. Your therapist should maintain good communication with you throughout the treatment in regards to pressure and pain, and make use of your breathing to help with relaxation in those more intense moments. I always give my clients a choice if I think that a certain technique is going to really help them but I know that it will be painful for them. I explain the technique beforehand and constantly check in during the application, giving them the choice to bow out at any point. Any deeper massage strokes are always applied very slowly, giving the tissues time to adapt and let me in without causing damage.

If somebody is new to sports massage or is feeling particularly sensitive, I use lighter techniques to work with more superficial soft tissue. Sometimes, a lighter more relaxing touch is exactly what the client needs and it is important to realise that massage is mostly affecting the neuromuscular system rather than effecting change physically. Stress is a major factor is some muscle tension, particularly if focused around the shoulders. The nervous system responds to stress by increasing muscle contraction in order to protect the body and prepare it for fight or flight. A relaxing and gentle approach can melt away the tension because the nervous system is responding to that touch and sending signals to ease off protective muscle tension.

A sports massage should leave you with a feeling of freedom within your body, feeling lighter and moving with more ease. You shouldn’t feel limited by discomfort in your daily activities. Those little everyday stresses on your body can develop into chronic problems if left to their own devices. Sports massage plays an important part in the recovery process, whether that’s from an intense training regime or from everyday stressors. Regular massage allows the body to function with less restriction and the hands on approach provides an important element of social touch, something that has been lacking since the start of the pandemic. If you haven’t before, give sports massage a go this year and see the difference it could make in your life.

Welcome to mid-January, the time when the anticipation and excitement of Christmas is over, the days are short and grey, we are often beginning a long ‘term’ of work or education and spring can feel a long way off. This year we are also 2 years into a pandemic that has brough uncertainty, fear, mistrust and pain in abundance. Whatever our personal experience of covid has been to date, the atmosphere around our country – indeed around the world – cannot fail to permeate our own individual world and we may be feeling the residue of this for a time yet.

We have things that can help us, however, and there is hope and peace to be found in amongst any bleakness. These are some things that can help when we feel short on optimism, energy or hope.

Rest. Our bodies need down time, they need to switch off and we can take a leaf out of nature’s book and hunker down in these winter months.

Walks in fresh air. Sometimes going outside is the last thing we feel like doing…but if we can make the step it can really help us feel more alive and at peace.

Music. Music can lift us or it can connect us to the difficult feelings we need to feel. We can create playlists for whatever we want – to dance to, to cry to, to sing along, to remember people and experiences.

Hugging. IF we’re lucky enough to have someone we love nearby then there is little more wonderful than a long embrace. If we are alone we can still hug ourselves – google ‘butterfly hug’ or look for our post from a year ago about this.

Creativity. Finding ways to express ourselves whether this is to release some dark emotion or create beauty from nothing, connecting to our creativity is connecting to life’s energy.

Meditation. Staying present, being here, everything as it is. Let go of struggle, effort and getting to know your mind and body more intimately, it’s so valuable.

Yoga. If you practice yoga regularly you might be familiar with the space, acceptance and support that yoga can bring.

Talking and sharing. When we feel bleak the most tempting thing can often be to shut down and hide away. And yet there is likely someone near to you feeling the same thing and the connection that can be gained by sharing your experience can be an incredibly warming feeling.

Space and solitude. Just as important as connection with others is connection with ourselves, stepping out of the busyness of life and finding some space to be with ourselves.

Take time out for things you enjoy. It can be tempting to throw yourself into the ‘shoulds’ and zone out the rest of the time, but if we can really let ourselves have the opportunity to find joy and fulfilment in something, whether it is going for a run, dancing in the kitchen or stroking the cat this is important stuff that we would do well to make central rather than peripheral in our lives.

Give up! Some days nothing will help and perhaps what is needed is just to retreat into the murky waters and let yourself do absolutely nothing whatsoever.

Therapies. Last but by no means least, go for a massage! Or for acupuncture, reflexology, reiki, sound therapies or any other therapy that feels good to you, gives you a space where you are looked after and cared for and leaves you feeling rested and revived.

So as we approach ‘blue Monday’ we can keep in mind there are some ideas that can be helpful when life feels less vibrant. And sometimes they can help us remember that spring is just around the corner.

For many people traditional acupuncture is a new experience and you may be uncertain about what is appropriate but if something is important to you then it will be relevant. Your individuality is at the heart of a holistic approach to diagnosis and treatment. Community is more important than ever as we grapple with the pandemic, climate change and social and racial injustices across the globe, and the achievements have been made by working collectively and co-operatively together, but when it comes to a treatment the focus is on your uniqueness as an individual.  

I liken the process of diagnosis to creating a portrait or landscape where finer details are gradually added to create clarity. Our first meeting, for now on Zoom, is a sketch. An opportunity for you to tell your own story of the main issues you’d like acupuncture to help you with, lots of questions from me, plenty of detail from you but broad brushstrokes nonetheless, providing a framework from which to begin. Over time as treatment progresses some elements will come more to the fore with greater focus, more colour and detail while others will recede into the background.  Our lives are not static and things change moment to moment, day to day and over time, it is a dynamic picture.

I remember well my first days in the student clinic in 1996, we’d learnt the theory, neat boxes, but applying that theory in the real world was a real challenge. I’d come from a background in science and IT, I liked clarity and order.  Those theoretical boxes overlapped and obscured one another.  It took time grappling with my own perspective to realise that it was more helpful for me to think in terms of creating a portrait, or with so many metaphors in Chinese medicine relating to weather and climate, possibly more like creating a landscape.

It is often by going into greater detail in one area that adds clarity to the whole picture.  One very clear example with regards to women’s health will be a detailed look at menstrual cycles where there are differences in underlying energetics at different times of the cycle.  Symptoms that show up at particular times in the cycle may reflect the same energetic patterns that affect other areas of your being, for example digestion, sleep or mood.  These are the patterns that relate to those neat theoretical boxes, which at first may not be distinct or easily discernable but which guide treatment.  It is the whole picture that is important.

More detail and sharper focus comes with each session – how you respond to treatment, through conversations and the personal interpretations you have of your experiences and what is important to you.  How we feel and our emotional landscape has a profound influence on our physical health, and vice versa, especially so when feelings are sustained over a long period of time. It often takes time and trust to feel comfortable opening up and for some this is just not their way, which is fine. We show ourselves on many levels, so the details emerge and embellish the portrait that is forming. Sometimes it is people’s idiosyncrasies that give a vital nugget of information adding detail to the portrait. Or they may say “I know it sounds odd and might not be relevant but it feels like…’ and then go on to describe a feeling or physical sensation in their own words that can be one of those light bulb moments for helping me in my understanding and adjusting my approach.

Individuality is also expressed in the how each person engages in their treatment, with some being more curious about the process and others more content with just going with the experience.  Lifestyle modifications, which can be a significant support to treatment, are very personal and for some dramatic changes in how they eat, exercise or find time for themselves might be welcome. Small sustainable nudges in the right direction that are achievable are often the way forward when change is more challenging. How treatment interfaces with Western Medicine is also guided by personal choice, which may be a wish to avoid or rely less on medication. In the realm of fertility it may be choosing if and when to engage in assisted reproductive techniques like IVF, or what investigations to have.  These are all very personal choices that accommodate our individuality.

A couple of courses I have undertaken over the past year have highlighted the importance of individuality and speaking for ourselves.  The first was a Mental Health First Aid course and the second on the role that cultural differences play in our experience, specifically with regard to women’s health and fertility.  The take home message from each was not to make assumptions and to recognise that each person is the expert on themselves.  Of course, that applies to everyone.

I would like to highlight that coming for treatment should be a very flexible process built around you and your needs.  Nothing is set in stone. I will offer suggestions and advice about treatment aligning your wishes with what I feel is likely to get the best results, for example frequency and timing of treatment and lifestyle modifications that are manageable. But you are the expert on you and you are my guide in that respect, progress is made by working together.

Here’s wishing everyone a very contented and healthy New Year.

The festive season is upon us as the year of 2021 is rapidly drawing to an end. Again a new covid variant threatens to upset and thwart carefully made plans of festivities. Remembering last years sudden disruption to celebrations and disappointments is perhaps not what we had in mind gearing up to Christmas. But being prompted to look back into the year we have just had is good in order to see where time has gone. Revisiting good moments reinforces the feelings of joy/wonder/love in life and fills our source of strength. Equally, acknowledging difficulties and hardship and persevering in this crazy unpredictable thing called life develops this source of strength. Reflection can also help in seeing what direction we are traveling and becomes an opportunity to adjust direction.
 
We need moments to rejoice, to experience abundance and generosity. Connect, congregate and break bread together. Nurturing our seeds of happiness. The true spirit of Christmas contains all that. The trouble is we easily slip into excess, stressing out and inadvertently creating the opposite. Too much of a good thing becomes a bad thing.
 
Reflecting on questions such as ‘where does it all come from?’ and ‘where does it all go?’ might bring connection to our impact on our planet and maybe bring more of a sense of being part of our environment. It might also be a bit uncomfortable.
 
This year we have become reminded what complex logistical network we live in and how fragile the chains of distributions are.
 
The mind boggles thinking of all the parts that comes together in order to create a simple plate of food. From pretty straight forward seeds that have been watered, nurtured into a plant and then harvested, to animals that have had their food grown and harvested to be feed them then their life taken and turned into cuts. The tools and cutlery we use was made somewhere by someone and ended up in our kitchen. Resources we use for cooking, cleverly arranged so we only switch on the hob. The person who shopped and cooked the food. You quickly create endless complex webs and chains of all that came together to create one meal. It is quite remarkable what we are capable of and how interconnected we are.

Before digging in to your plate of food, pause and give thought and thanks and gratitude towards all that had to come together for the meal to manifest. Some say grace before a meal and thank God. I was brought up in an atheist environment and particularly my father thought it ludicrous to thank God as it was his hard work that paid for the food. My mother who did the cooking and shopping probably wanted to be thanked for that. I think they missed the point. Saying grace is a way of thanking all that came together for the meal to be there, regardless of belief in God or not. Pausing and express gratitude before feasting heightens the sense of wonder and respect.
 
Where does it go? What do we leave behind?
 
Definitely less pleasant to think about but non the less necessary - the food becomes energy for our bodies and waste. The waste bit we generally don’t like to give that much thought to: go to the loo, flush, gone. But where does it go? (We have been reminded this year that more often then we like to think it gets dumped in our rivers). We have our rubbish collected as a part of our council tax payments so we pay to not have to worry about it and - when it works - it’s very efficient and convenient.
 
Currently there is an exhibition at the Design Museum in London titled Waste Age. It’s focus is on solutions. I have not yet seen it but read about it in this article. It sounds optimistic and interesting. Generally, I despair about the state of waste in the world and particularly attitude to littering in this country. (The writer and comedian David Sedaris explored this topic years ago and I will refrain from going into a rant, but it is very noticeable when returning here from abroad.)
 
I believe there is a natural desire in us to make a mark or leave a trace that we have existed. Cave paintings contain handprints likened to a signature. Carvings in stones and tree trunks leave a mark of our presence to posterity as graffiti paintings do. Monuments and graves are, to some extent, also markings that we have been here. Perhaps we fear being forgotten, that our life’s were insignificant and unremarkable and that feeling drives a need to mark our existence and create a memorial. But I doubt anybody likes the notion that we will be known in history as the era of waste so this flame of desire might not need more encouragement and instead some temperance.
 
I thought of wild camping. Not so much as a venture but the ethos of it. Leave no trace. You set up your camp discreetly, bring all you need with you and leave nothing behind. If you need a poo you carefully select a spot to not contaminate water, dig a hole and cover it. You don’t scare the ground with fires but take your stove and fuel with you. Visiting a place without engraving your presence on it.
 
“If you see the suffering in the world but you haven’t changed your way of living yet, it means the awakening isn’t strong enough” – Thich Nhat Hanh

When we live many together as we do, almost everywhere in the world we have found support for our existence by providing infrastructure for amenities. But we may have lost the connection to the impact this has on our Earth. By considering how interwoven we are and what impact we have we might be led to tread more lightly while still celebrating life and so begin to change the course from becoming the age of waste.

Some ideas for Christmas stocking fillers: litter-picker,  ticket to Design Museum, Thich Nhat Hahn book Zen and the Art of Saving the Planet.