Smoke on the water

Smoke on the water?  Well...nearly.  Sort of.  Oh, okay, let's call it steam.  :-)

There are two pools at Schloss Pichlarn.  One is indoors and a very fine pool it is.

But then, if you walk down a few watery steps, you come to a barrier.  A pair of glass gates.  And you wait until they recognise your presence and then they open.

A cold gust of breeze slices your shoulders and so you sink down under the water surface and swim through and out, into a world of mist and sun and sky and mountain.

Today the sun was so bright that I had to shut my eyes and swim blind, face turned to the mountain slopes, still spotted with snow.

I am quite alone.  At least, if there are other people, they are ghosts. And it is so quiet here, so peaceful.  Just the odd flute of birdsong.  Just the sound of water slapping a slow rhythm of waves.

Yesterday the wind was playful - it blew the leaves into swooping dives.  I thought at first they were tiny birds or huge brown butterflies.  But no.  And a rainbow arced the dip between two peaks.

But today the leaves lie exhausted.  The trees are patient, still awaiting spring.  Still.  And I am still too.  Floating, drifting, face turned to the sun.  A chill warmth.

Do you strain?

'Do you strain?' asked Dr Schaffler as I sat in his consulting room at Schloss Pichlarn in Austria.

I frowned a little.  We had already debated my bowels and their various movements in huge detail and at great length and had established everything was fine and dandy.  But hey, this was a German doctor practising Ayurveda (the ancient Indian school of medicine) in Austria - and so I just figured I was getting a triple dose of stool searching.
'No, I'm very rarely constipated,' I said.
He laughed.  'No. I mean...do you...are you...always straining in your life.'
'Am I stressed?'  I thought about it.
'Yes, of course, sometimes.  I'm a freelance writer so either I have too much work and I worry about getting it all done, or I have too little and I worry about that instead.'

He gave me one of those looks that says 'you've just dodged the question' but he let it lie.  In fact, he made me lie on the couch and prodded and pulled and poked my abdomen.

Dr Schaffler is not happy with my abdomen.  Which is fine, because neither am I.
'It's weird,' he said.
There you go - official confirmation.

He explains how it's going this way when it should be going that way, and is fat here and thin there (which isn't good) and he tells me I need more yoga (well, yes, if only my yoga teacher hadn't upped and offed to India) and more breathing (proper breathing) and...  he gives me two sets of herbal preparations and advises I steer clear of bread for the time being.

Then he looks at me again and says.  'Grief.  Your pulses talk about grief.'
'They do?'
'They do.  And strain.  Not stress.'

And so I smiled vaguely and muttered about language barriers.  But then, a little later, as I was leaning against the edge of the outdoor pool looking up at a bright clear sky above snow-capped mountains, I realised I was clenching my jaw so tightly that my teeth were creaking.

Damnit, he's right.  I do strain.  I always strain.  Too darn hard.  At everything.  All the time.  I mean, for heaven's sake, I'm here in this gorgeous spa and I'm even straining to relax.  Ye gods.

And you?  Do you strain?  :-)

What's the etiquette on having a crap in front of someone?

I don’t like colonics. Never have.  Took my first one purely in the name of research because I figured I couldn’t slate something I’d never tried. 

‘You’ll love it,’ said my pal Sam. ‘You’ll feel great afterwards, all clean and glowing and energetic.’

So I duly went and had the crap taken out of me by somebody in Mayfair, if I recall, and it was deeply unpleasant and I felt like…well, crap afterwards.

But it’s an intrinsic part of the detox process here at Ti Sana so…when in Rome… (or rather when not far from Milan).  But still, I asked, why?  And Erica, who owns the place, said that it’s just the most effective way to irrigate the colon.  But, I said, why does the colon need irrigating in the first place?  Surely, if you eat the right stuff – enough fibre and so on – your colon will cleanse and irrigate itself quite happily alone.  And what about all the beneficial bacteria that you’re flushing away?  She replied that those get replaced.  Which always seems a bit bonkers to me – why take something away only to put it back?  And then again, the other thing that bothers me is the whole ‘squeaky clean’ aspect.  You know, a lot of people become addicted to colonics, enemas, wotnot – because they don’t like the idea of going round with a colon full of shit inside them.  But hey, that’s what we are, right?  That’s the divine joke, the great leveler.

We may be gorgeous as anything on the outside but inside, we’re all shit.  J

Anyhow.  Erica promised that their system was different.  That I’d love it.  Hey, it even had a nice name:  The Angel of Water.  And, who knows, maybe there's something in me that baulks at letting go, at letting it all...hang out. Maybe it's psychological shit.

So there we were, Lizzie and I, sitting in the medical spa reception, looking sideways at one another.

‘I’m really not sure about this,’ said Lizzie.

‘Me neither,’ said I.

'I've never had one before,' said Lizzie.

'Not even an enema?' She shook her head.  'A suppository?' She shook her head dolefully. 'I've never had anything stuck up my bum.'  

Before we could bolt, Virginia came out and said briskly, ‘Right then. You (pointing at me) don’t like colonics and you (pointing at Lizzie) have never had one.  So let’s go!’

We looked alarmed. ‘Together?’ We said, pretty much in tandem.

But no.  Turns out this is all very discrete.  You have your own room and your very own Angel of Water – a kind of giant couch-cum-lavatory.  ‘The rectal nozzle is completely new…look,’ said Virginia, unwrapping a plastic package and waving the thing around.  Well, there’s a relief…anyone for a second-hand rectal nozzle?  

She plugged it in.  No! Not to my arse!  To the relevant pipe on the machine.  Then she stuck some lube on the other end and said, 'All you have to do is sit yourself down and slide it in.’

The rest of the instructions kinda passed me by really so, when she left the room, I sort of fumbled around and hoped for the best.

To be honest, it was a bit like a gynae exam – feet not quite up in stirrups but not far off, with unspeakable things going on down below.  The water started and a few minutes passed.  Ow…ouch…ahhhh…eeee….aaaghhhhhhhhh.  Hellfire, this was torture. I felt like my guts were on fire.  Shit, shit, shit.  Except…

I pushed the panic button and Virginia appeared, all calm reassurance. ‘Everything okay?’

Of course not! I screamed – to myself (so British).  ‘Should it really hurt this much?’  I said, to Virginia, my face contorted.

‘Have you evacuated?’

‘No. Not yet.’

She smiled.  She SMILED, for pity's sake.  And told me to just ‘let it all go.’ 

Holy cow.  It’s the weirdest feeling; basically sitting on a couch having a crap every so often.  And, what’s more, you get to watch it cos they kindly position a mirror so you can see what’s coming out through the tube.  Ruddy hell, it was like human geology, going back through the strata.  I could shit you a rainbow – no kidding.  It was fascinating…to a point and then it just got a bit boring. Plinky plonk music and the permanent swish swish swish of the water.  The same old crap basically.

Virginia came in every so often to check on progress, constituting another point of etiquette one never thinks about in normal life.  Do you just carry on merrily crapping when someone’s in the same room?  Or do you politely pause?

Anyhow, eventually it was over and I removed my nozzle with great relief and had a shower.

‘You enjoyed it, yes?’ Virginia beamed.

‘Er…’  Let’s not push it, huh?

A bit later I met Lizzie and we swapped notes.  Yup, she liked it as little as I did.  Yes, she’d held it in every time Virginia came in (so it’s not just me, but maybe it’s just British?). No, she didn’t have multi-coloured crap, including day-glo green.  That was all mine.

So, there you have it.  The Angel of Water… fully explained…nothing held back. No bullshit. 

How do I feel?  Well, to be truthful, right now I feel like seven shades of...yeah, you got it.  But tomorrow?  I'll keep you posted.  

Ti Sana - Italian for "sort me out quick!"

Okay, so I have to confess (and I don't like confessing weaknesses), I’m still feeling rubbish.  Funny thing, loads of people lately have been saying to me, ‘Oh, you need to eat properly – you know, normal food.’ I suppose they mean as opposed to my usual funny diet of fruit, tofu and muesli (and lately not so much of the muesli).  But -  get this – I’ve only been feeling rubbish since I started ‘eating normally’ – ie proper meals (vegetarian still of course).  So maybe my body liked the light diet?  Or maybe I just need to be ill for a bit?  Who knows?

Anyhow…if I can just hang on a bit longer, I’m heading off at the end of the month to Ti Sana Detox Retreat, in Italy. Testing out their raw food detox for Natural Health magazine.  Oh yeah! 

And what do they promise?  ‘Bright eyes, a beaming complexion, a toned physique and a brand new positive outlook’ Bring it on, babes!  Cos, not to put too fine a point on it, I look like forty shades of shit right now. J

Actually I’m more than a little excited about this.  I love Italy (one of my bestest old friends is an Italian contessa) and this place gets great reviews.  Alongside a diet of organic raw foods and juices (with most of the ingredients home-grown), there’s a gym, a sauna, pool and steam plus plenty of exercise classes and I get scrubbed and massaged and generally fiddled around with… Okay, so I’m not quite so wild about the idea of the Angel of Water treatment (fancy Italian for colonics) but hey…I’m going with the flow. Basically I'm going to let them do with me what they will. 

Plus there’s a consultation with the spa doctor and a battery of tests.  And I like tests.  Hey, I even used to like exams.  So, all I gotta do is limp through the next week or so and then, I’m off, off and away…and the nice people at Ti Sana can sort me out. 

Where is it?  Oh yeah.  Forgot to mention it’s in an 18^th century village in Lombardy – the centre’s been created out of an old Italian noble’s house near the River Adda.  Not far from Milan, not that far from Lake Como…

Fancy coming? J

Wellbeing Escapes - a nifty UK company specialising in spa and wellbeing holidays are sorting it all out for me...Take a look at their website and drool...  

Mugged by cookbook - fudge v lassi

I’ve just been mugged by a book.  You ever had that happen to you?  You’re minding your own business, looking for something or other and then a book just shoves itself at you in a bossy manner.  In this case it was The Art of Ayurvedic Cooking and it was in the wrong place – tucked away amongst the I Ching tomes, rather than in the kitchen with the recipe books.  No wonder it was upset.  All those trigrams and the wrong culture too. 

Anyhow.  It was timely. The book had a point. My diet has gone to crap lately.  I’ve been living on muesli, grapefruit, beetroot, fudge and fruit pastilles.  Hardly a balanced regime.

And, you know, you are what you eat.  It’s an old adage but a true one and nowhere is it given more importance than in ayurveda, India’s ancient system of medicine.  In ayurveda food has been used as medicine for the last 5,000 years or so.  An ancient text puts it clearly:  ‘Nutrition is the vital element of all living forms.  Each person’s longevity, ingenuity, happiness, fulfilment, strength and intellect are dependent upon it.’

Eating the right food for your own particular mind-body type is seen as vital if you want to maintain good health and vitality.  If you do fall out of balance, diet is again the first port of call – with specific foods designed to coax your body back into wellbeing. 

I’ve studied ayurveda for donkey’s years – even wrote a book about it – Live Well – the ayurvedic way to health and inner bliss.  I think it’s out of print now but one of these days I’ll get round to putting it out on Kindle as it has some interesting stuff in it – I tried to simplify the whole complexity of ayurveda down into bite-size chunks.  Actually, there’s a few excerpts over at my ancient website – just click on Live Well on the sidebar and you’ll find some stuff, including how to determine your prakruti (your ayurvedic mind-body type).

Anyhow, talking of bite-size chunks, this cookbook…  It was given to me at The Parkschlösschen – one of my all-time favourite spas.  It’s a medical spa hotel in Germany, set on the banks of the Moselle, and their head chef Eckhard Fischer is a food magician.  Seriously, if you can go (it is quite pricey, but it’s worth it) then do.  I had a little *sigh* moment as I opened the book as one of my old day plans was tucked in there.  Advanced yoga; breath meditation; breakfast; pizzichilli (heavenly oil treatment); yoga…and that was just the morning...

Sadly, I can’t go right now but I’m going to start taking a bit more care over what I eat.  Soothe that vata dosha which is a bit flaky. 

Ayurvedic cuisine is quite different from other types of eating.  Pudding is always eaten first – firstly because fruits need more digestion and secondly because giving the body something sweet and unctuous gives a feeling of satiety so you aren’t tempted to overeat. 

Lunch is the largest meal of the day and often consists of several dishes – a dessert, soup, a salad, a main meal and finally lassi.  Evening meals are far smaller (and never eaten late as digestion becomes sluggish in the evening).  Usually a soup and salad would be sufficient. 

At Parkschlösschen you would first see an ayurvedic physician to determine your prakruti.  Meals would then be adjusted for your individual constitution (certain foods are believed to aggravate certain types of people).  However the recipes in the cookbook are designed to work for all doshas (some will suggest slight alterations depending on your dosha).  A few follow, with grateful thanks to Eckhard Fischer.  They are a bit fiddly (those darn superchefs) but worth it...

Cream of Passion fruit (serve before the main meal)

880g yoghurt (3.5% fat)
4-6 passion fruits
5 tbs icing sugar
Four ripe blackberries (to garnish)

Place the yoghurt in a clean muslin and allow it to drip overnight into a bowl) at room temperature.  Discard the liquid.

Halve the passion fruits and scrape out the flesh.  Strain the flesh through a sieve. 

Mix together with the yoghurt and sugar until a smooth cream.  Chill for an hour in the fridge then pipe into glasses and garnish with a blackberry.

Essence of red beetroot

(aha! beetroot!)
4 medium sized beetroots
2 shallots
1 large apple
1 star anise
½ cinnamon stick
1 tsp cloves
3 juniper berries
4 allspice berries
1tsp black peppercorns
1 tbs yellow mustard seeds
1 tsp green cardamom pods (whole)
½ tsp caraway seed
1 tsp fennel seed
1 bay leaf
100ml red wine vinegar
2tbs raw cane sugar or honey
Good pinch rock salt, ground
1 tbs balsamic vinegar
2 litres water
1 tbs tapioca starch
Coriander leaves (to garnish)

Peel the beetroots and grate coarsely.  Peel the shallots and chop coarsely.  Cut the apples into quarters.

Put all the ingredients, except for the balsamic vinegar and tapioca, into a saucepan and bring to the boil.  Allow the soup to simmer gently for at least three hours (uncovered) or until it is reduced by one third.  Strain and add balsamic vinegar to taste.  Mix the tapioca starch with a little water and add to thicken slightly.

Stuffed Hokkaido Squash with lamb’s lettuce salad

4 Hokkaido squashes (about ten cm diameter) (or other squash)
Sea salt, black pepper
2 oranges
8 slices bread
240g Gruyere cheese
4 sprigs fresh basil
2 red chilli peppers
100ml orange juice

For the salad

100g lamb’s lettuce (corn salad)
Sunflower seeds
1 red pepper (bell pepper)
2 tsp walnut oil
Rock salt and black pepper
1 shallot
1 tsp mustard
1 tbs aged balsamic vinegar
1 tsp sugar
 
Wash the squashes and cut a lid off each.  Remove the seeds, salt the squashes lightly on the inside and then place them upside down.

Grate the orange peel and put to one side.  Squeeze the juice and retain.

Dice the bread into small pieces and brown well in a flying pan (without any fat).

Dice the cheese.  Cut the chilli into fine strips and chop the basil. 

Combine all these and fill the squashes evenly with the mixture.

Put the lids back on the squashes, wrap them in foil and bake for an hour in the oven at 220C (435 F).

Meanwhile wash the salad and drain. 
Peel the pepper, finely dice and sauté the pepper and sunflower seeds in a little walnut oil, adding a little salt.
Dice the shallot finely, mix with the remaining walnut oil, balsamic vinegar, sugar and mustard.  Season with salt and pepper to taste.  Add the contents of the frying pan and mix thoroughly.
Remove the foil from the squashes and bake without their lids for a further ten minutes at around 250C (475F).
Arrange each squash on a large plate.  Arrange salad leaves to the side and drizzle the dressing over the top. 

Lassi

Lassi is a classic ayurvedic drink, generally drunk at the end of the meal.  It is also used as a refreshing drink between meals. 
Basic lassi is made by blending 1/3 litre plain yoghurt with 2/3 litre water for about 2-3 minutes. 
You can then add your choice of extra ingredients.

Fruit works well but should always be fully ripened, washed and briefly brought to the boil in a little water to obtain the best flavour.  Mango, strawberries, bananas, apricots, pears, peaches, cherries all work well (ideally choose fruit in season). 

You can also make lassi with herbs.  Basil, mint and chervil all work well.  Use a large bunch of fresh herbs and add a pinch each of salt and freshly ground black pepper.  Increase the mixing time to five minutes to ensure the herbs are mixed well.

Then again, you can make lassi with spices.  Try adding ½ teaspoon of ground green cardamom and one tablespoon of honey.  Or ¼ teaspoon of ginger powder, one pinch of cinnamon and one tablespoon of honey. 

Recipes © Neuer Umschauverlag/LutzJäkel

From The Art of Ayurvedic cooking – The Parkschlösschen Cuisine by Eckard Fischer (Neuer Umschau Buchverlag).  I can't find it on Amazon but, if you wanted to buy it, you could try contacting the spa to see if they still have any copies.

Buried secrets, floating water

St George monastery

I want to go back to the desert. A day simply wasn't enough. I yearn to visit the Greek Orthodox monasteries in the Judean Desert.  Some square and solid like forts (Theodosius, Mar Saba); others clutching cliffs.  Just look at Deir Quarantal; look at St George. 

There are real fortresses in the desert too.  Seven.  Always seven.  Scattered yet connected.  Herodium. Hyrcania. Machaerus (where John the Baptist was beheaded). Dok (on the Mount of Temptation). Alexandrion. Kypros. And, most famous of all, Masada.  Yes, yes, I know they’re scattered between three lands…ah, how I hate politics.

I want to go to Qumran, to see the caves where the Dead Sea Scrolls were found. What else lies hidden?  I wonder, I wonder.  I wondered this in Egypt too as I walked over sand and rock…what magic lies hidden under our feet; what lost knowledge; what secrets?  It takes so little time for things to become hidden.  Here on Exmoor if you leave something out for a season it will become covered in moss; it will quietly fade into the landscape.  Maybe that’s why I like deserts – it’s harder to hide, harder to become hidden.  In the desert you have to hide, actively.  You have to find caves. 

How many other secrets are there, caved in, forgotten, in and around Qumran?  All over the world?

The caves at Qumran

Qumran, possibly once a fort (I like forts, can you tell?), probably a place of Essenes, potentially the City of Salt.  The Essenes are interesting – some think their thought lies behind the Kabbalah, but it’s not certain. What is?  They believed in the immortality of the soul and they figured they would receive their souls back after death (so, hmm, where were those souls when they were alive?).  They purified themselves with water…

We went down to the water, to the sea.  The Dead Sea.  The Sea of Salt.  Actually a lake bordering Jordan to the east and Israel and the West Bank to the west.  It’s 423 metres (1,388 feet) below sea levels, the lowest place on the Earth’s surface.  8.6 percent saltier than the ocean.  Okay enough facts. 

Salt.  Salt purifies.  It’s been used down through the ages to preserve food and to purify water, to cleanse wounds, to keep away evil spirits.  Virtually every ancient tradition purifies bodies and souls with salt.  

It was a surreal experience.  The spa at Ein Gedi (simple, basic, really rather refreshing) was closing for the day so we had the beach to ourselves.  You have to wear shoes – the salt crustations are so sharp. You have to walk carefully, slowly, with consideration. The water feels thick, it slides over your skin as if considering it.  You lie back – carefully again – if you get the water in your eyes it stings like seven shades of hell; if you swallow it, you feel sick to the core.  And it holds you.  You lie, supported, in water, between the sky above and the earth below.  Suspended.  Purified.  Yeah, I want to go back.  :)

 

An afterword.

The Dead Sea is in trouble.  It’s been shrinking, quite rapidly, in recent decades. One metre every year. The spa we visited was originally built on the shoreline - now it's a tractor ride away.  Sinkholes are appearing along the western shore.  Israel and Jordan are working together to find a solution but it’s not simple. You can’t just import sea water from elsewhere as it would upset the delicate balance of the water. They hope to release water from the River Jordan and slowly lift the levels.

It’s an incredible place - the world's largest spa, you could say - and it’s up for inclusion in the new Seven Wonders of the World (ah, that magical seven again!).  I’m going to vote for it (the competition is tough but this place is just so, well, strange)…you could too…click here.