THE CONDUIT COMPOSER

Friday 21 August 2015

Heart Yoga Studio




Well, my friends, I can whole heartedly recommend

Solitude, Stillness & Self 

as a complete tonic to the everyday 
stresses and strains of life!

So here's what you need to make it so ...



Oh & interspersed with wonderful day dream naps 


... so blankets will come in handy too




And off course, you need a great space to 'be'


I was very lucky indeed to be offered this space, Yoga Heart Studio in Mynydd Y Garreg, Carmarthenshire




 Owned by a beautiful soul,  Debbie Brooks



And in this space, all my questions dissipated


And I was left with this feeling ...



Good times are here
Love is the answer
I am enough




 I deserve to be loved in the ways I need




I made a collection of recordings while I was at Heart Yoga Studio which will be available to share soon. 


Monday 17 August 2015

Silence, Song & Solitude


Print from Whimsical Folk Art

I feel as though I am preparing to go on a visit to someone I know really well but haven't seen for ages. For the next 3 days I am spending solitude time at a Yoga Studio that a friend of mine has built in her field.



 It is a very beautifully still, quiet and yet warm space with a log burner and a wooden floor. It is her energy. She has a wonderful aura about her and I can feel that sense of smile in the space.


Each window is a moving canvass of the surrounding West Wales countryside and the blue cloud laden skies. Sheep meander in the next field intrigued by the human presence. Birds sing in the surrounding shrubs but I will not hear them inside the sound proof studio.

My intention is to 'be' with myself. To' be' with me. To give my undivided self to myself. 

I can not remember having ever arranged to do this. My time is always filled with promises I have made to others. But for the next 3 days, my promises are to myself, for this exploration of self, space and solitude.




I had thought I might take with me things to do, like writing or instruments to play, but for the first day, I have decided just to 'be' and not to 'do'.
I am so excited!!

What I find most interesting is that before my MA Drama, before my Sound Healing, before my Reiki I would have considered solitude in a Yoga Studio as 'wasting my time'. I might have tutted and rolled my eyes thinking about all the things I could tick off my list instead. I smile lovingly and knowingly at that old self now.

It has not been easy to make this time to 'be'. I am so utterly tempted to invite friends to gather with me, to share my time and space with others. But  I have learnt that love begins within me and tomorrow, it is that love that I will nurture.




Thursday 6 August 2015

Present in the Park


Whenever I am home, I take Maisy, our pooch, for a walk over the Park. She loves it. We walk the same way every time. We get to the hill, I let her off the lead, she runs down, sniffing the same places and taking the exact same route. We then go to the river, she runs in it laughing and jumping. I wait for her, we walk back.

I am not present in this place. I am walking Maisy. My joy is watching her joy. It is her walk that I am facilitating for her. It is not my walk. 

So today, I decided that I would go back to the park this afternoon on my own to explore the notion of presence and mantra.

To be present is to be deeply within the period of time happening now.

The first thing I did was enter the Park at the opposite end to usual to see it from a whole new perspective.

I then found a tree and sat underneath. I'm not sure why but I felt a bit embarrassed. No-one ever sits on the grass area, leave alone a middle aged woman singing mantra. Plus it was quite busy because it is the school holidays.

I decided it was not possible to be present in the now if I am frozen with embarrassment, and that actually, I had as much right to be sat under a tree singing mantra as the dog walkers racing around the path stretching the cricket field, as much right as the tennis players knocking their ball back and for in the tennis court and as much right as the novice canoeists navigating on the river.

I made sure I was sat and comfortable and then listened.

I could hear almost everyone that was in the park, all at the same time. In addition, I could hear leaves rustling, even though the distant trees appeared still. I could hear birds singing to each other and the river mumbling over the rocks on her journey.

I breathed in through my nose as deeply as I could and then sighed outwardly. I breathed in again and I noticed I could smell a new smell, someone's dinner cooking, a casserole or maybe lamb cawl.


I opened my eyes. The sky seemed more blue than I remembered before closing them, the clouds billowing, some white, some grey, undecided as to whether or not to drizzle.

I felt drawn to touch the earth. The mud and grass were slightly damp, like my skin after I have had a bath and towel dried, still holding the memory of the water that it had been soaked in.


I felt an overwhelming desire to smell the ground.

Out of the corner of my eye I caught a family in the distance with their  children and their dog, now staring at me. How could I sniff the earth with them watching me? Their dog was intrigued, he came running over. They started shouting very loudly for him to come back to them, but he was more interested in the woman sat under the tree. He sniffed me. I smiled at him, he tipped me a wink like he understood, and ran back to his humans. The parents took hold of him and their children and pulled them away.

Alone again, I bent over and smelt the earth. At first, I could only smell the familiar aroma of grass, but as I breathed in more deeply, I could smell the very earth itself. Instantly the smell made me smile inside and out.


I sat upright, closed my eyes and sang an ancient mantra in Sanskrit known to hold space. I wanted to hold this space within and around me forever.

I noticed where my voice was coming from, which chakra it was passing through, how it felt in every orifice of my body. I imagined it entering the Universe from my body and where it's vibrations were reverberating.

I sang for myself and for women that I love whom need love and light just now. I imagined my mantra reaching from my heart into theirs'.

And when I had finished, I opened my eyes. I felt myself sighing out loud. The world seemed still.



As I got up to leave, I felt sure that when Maisy and I come here tomorrow, it will no longer be a dog walk, it will be our walk.