A Date To Remember : My Week At Ku Retreats

The offer was on the table.  Aware that I was fortunate enough to have a week to spare on the island, my friends Dominika and Miguel suggested I spend it with them at their retreat. I promised my dog I'd come and visit her every day, packed a couple of books and a toothbrush and was on my way. 

I was to collect one of their guests en route. We emerged unscathed from the maelstrom that is Ibiza airport in August, the roads growing quieter and narrower until we were winding upwards through dark pine forests whose smell pervaded the car through the open window. Arriving late at night meant we were welcomed by the sweetest silence, moonlight shimmering on the surface of the swimming pool and we sought out our rooms to rest our weary heads.

Days began early, refreshingly so it turns out. The next morning Dominika and Miguel were on hand to welcome us with huge warm smiles.  An hour or so of gently guided yoga in a tree-lined clearing a few minutes' walk from the house got everything off to the best possible start. Breakfast by the pool - delicious millet porridge topped with assorted seeds, berries and preserves - adequately saw us through the morning.

Our hosts had carefully devised a timetable of sorts for the week to come, each day focusing on different aspects of wellbeing but they were keen to emphasise that all their guests were to feel no pressure, tojust make the most of their time on the retreat in the ways they felt best.

Over the course of three sessions throughout the week, Dominika devoted an hour or so to each guest, offering the opportunity to broach anything that each person felt comfortable with, never pushing but astutely guiding.  She was most interested in initial reasons for coming to their retreat in the first place and in helping you find ways to seek out positive solutions to help try and overcome any obstructions that we may be facing in our lives. She suggested for example that time spent putting pen (or paintbrush) to paper might help to externalise hidden thoughts and feelings. I found it incredibly useful and was impressed by her degree of observation and ultimately how much she seemed to care.  

Lunchtimes were spent around a beautiful huge dining table on a terrace overlooking the pine-filled valley. Bowls and dishes of the most delicious food I've had for a very long time were set before us and we tucked in.  What was amazing was that it was all macrobiotic, a dietary discipline I was fairly unfamiliar with. Vague memories of friends of my parents serving it to me and my family in the distant 1970s lingered as I was pleasantly surprised that it could be so varied, rich with differing strata of flavours and incredibly healthy to boot, a real revelation.

After siesta Miguel put his considerable expertise to practice in a special massage session that took place in a secluded spot in the nearby woods, private enough for me to relax and let him work his magic to the sounds of birdsong and ever-present chorus of cicadas.

Another yoga session then on to dinner. One evening we celebrated a guest's birthday with a dessert of dates filled with cashew cream and coated in raw chocolate and bee pollen, the sort of food you might read about in Herodotus or the Arabian Nights.  

My fellow guests were happier to relax by the pool or explore the rest of the island rather than go hiking or kayaking so those were saved for another set of guests.  I had accompanied Miguel one afternoon earlier in the season on a kayak trip around the legendary mini island of Es Vedra and have never experienced anything like it. Just us, the sea and sky and pleasantly sore arms for a day or two.

In more ways than one, it makes no difference when you arrive at Can Pino. You may have flown in from Munich or Milan in the dead of night, at a point in your life when you desperately need respite from a career that you love or a chance to contemplate ways to veer off afresh. Young in years or just at heart, in the end what you're looking for are the time and space to think, and a little loving guidance.  

Spelt : Saying Nuts To The Modern Age

Spelt is known, perhaps unflatteringly as one of the 'ancient' wheat grains. We are inclined to believe that what was good for our ancestors must surely be good for us.  They had no internet to list it's ten best health benefits, or daytime TV cookery programmes going all leftfield and suggesting we try this obscure new fad.  It hadn't yet become a 'wonder food'.  For them, experience and circumstance meant that it was central to their diet and a vital part of their lives.

It's current 'obscurity' says more about the evolution of agriculture than any shortcomings as a nutritional food source. In some ways spelt could be said to be a symbol of the pre-Industrial Age.  From archaeological findings it first makes it's appearance around 7,000 years ago in the south Caucasus region, the land between the Caspian and Black Seas and continued to spread in popularity as far as Great Britain.  For centuries it was the food of the peasantry, being hardy and easy to cultivate, adaptability being key in a rapidly changing world.

Here and there it crops up in our literature.  In around 30BC the Roman poet Horace mentions it in his tale of the town mouse and country mouse. While the former feasts on more refined dishes his less urbane host restricts himself to simple grains of spelt. 

Most interestingly for us at Ku, it appears again in the writings of a remarkable 12th century Benedictine abbess called Hildegard von Bingen. Living in Germany around the time of the Crusades, she was also a philosopher, composer of stunningly beautiful liturgical music and a prolific writer. Aside from theology she wrote extensively on science and medicine.

She was a strong believer in the holistic approach, that the whole person must be treated including the importance of diet. Writing about spelt she focused on it's special nutritional and digestive properties. Among other things, she observed that it provides 'good flesh...good blood and confers a cheerful disposition'. She also noted that it was relatively easy to digest and '...is better tolerated by the body than any other grain.'

These observations genuinely have some validity.  Take racehorses.  They are fed spelt to improve their performance by building up and strengthening muscle tissue it is highly water-soluble so the body can absorb it easily.  It also contains high levels of B vitamins, phenylalaline and tryptophane, all of which contribute to the enhancement of mood. 

Spelt was only later supplanted by wheat as the go-to grain as it was seen to be much more suited to mass-cultivation, being more easily grown and cheaply harvested. The debate continues about the nutritional values of spelt versus wheat, but the fact remains that variations in structure makes spelt the more easily digested than common wheat and more friendly to our bodies. For adherents of the macrobiotic diet spelt adds variety of taste if nothing else.  It's nutty flavour can be used in a multitude of ways.

As George Harrison once sang all things must pass but luckily for us spelt is still cultivated, it's time isn't up just yet.  It has proved popular with organic farmers as it requires minimal fertilisers.  Incredibly it is now referred to as a 'speciality' or 'relict' crop, something which may have bemused our ancestors.

Of Cornflakes And Emperors

Touch has a memory

~ Keats

Any good dictionary contains a multitude of little stories.  Take the word serendipity.  First coined in 1754 in a letter written by Horace Walpole after coming across a Persian fairy tale called The Three Princes of Serendip (the Urdu name for Sri Lanka) in which the heroes make a series of lucky discoveries. 

Other words emerge out of each other, branching off to give fresh meaning.  Deriving from old German the word whole gave rise to health which in turn has obvious affinities with heal, all important words.  Sometimes it feels essential that such words are in existence.  Having no negative connotations to speak of, they suggest respite, taking place away from life's treadmill, when time becomes incredibly precious. 

Healing has an end, a purpose and that is to become whole once again.  Human touch plays a vital role in this process of healing.  It reminds us like nothing else that we are rooted here and now on this Earth, in no other possible place or time. Such deep connectivity is one of the reasons massage has been used as a healing method for millennia. 

The Chinese first documented their findings in the Huang-di Nei'Jing (see our previous blog) which contains thirty different chapters on massage.  It has long been favoured by people at all levels of society.  Julius Caesar was said to have received daily sessions of "pinching" to treat his neuralgia and epilepsy.  Perhaps more bizarrely, in 1929 the inventor of the cornflake Dr John Harvey Kellogg published a book about massage and today people still cite him as one of the pioneers in that field.  Freud was supposed to have used massage to help patients suffering from hysteria and his friend and colleague Carl Jung once said that "often the hands will solve a mystery that the intellect has struggled with in vain".

These are just a few random examples but they hint at how massage and the power of touch have been so valued down the centuries by givers and receivers alike.   You then only have to consider how central social grooming is for species of primates for example to see how close physical contact reinforces vital bonds.  It has the capacity to show you that something or someone else cares and you're not on your own.  And it is left to Keats to encapsulate the whole mystery in just four words.

The Velocity Of Ideas

Sometimes connections may be obscure and tentative but have undeniable echoes all the same. They can also seem to unwittingly travel along parallel lines.   

Take the island of Kos in the Dodecanese, lying just four kilometres off the Turkish coast.  Once home to a thriving Jewish community, it also has a 230 year old mosque that's still in use today.  None of which is unusual for a part of the world that not only nudges the eastern fringes of Europe but once lay along ancient Hellenic trade routes, with links to the Orient and beyond.

Kos also has an ace up it's sleeve, to put it very mildly.  Just along from the mosque stands a tree which according to legend marks the spot where Hippocrates first taught the art of medicine a mere 2,500 years ago.  This culturally rich island could therefore claim to be the birthplace of Western medicine.  Quite an assertion and one that is widely accepted.

Hippocrates' pupils documented his numerous teachings in what is now known as the Hippocratic Corpus.  It shows that, among other things, he was the first person to assert that diseases had natural causes and were not due to any supernatural forces. They resulted from our environment, diet etc. not from the disfavour of gods, an incredibly 'modern' perspective.

What is also fascinating and something that invites endless conjecture is that at roughly the same time and 10,000 kilometres to the east, Chinese physicians were busy documenting their own findings. One of the major texts that resulted from this activity was called Huang-di Nei'Jing or The Yellow Emperor's Inner Canon.

Similar in some ways to the Corpus, it describes a series of conversations between the mythical Emperor and some of his ministers.  It is presented in two parts: the Suwen which forms the comprehensive basis of traditional Chinese medicine, and the Lingshu which specifically focuses on acupuncture.

One other undeniable similarity that it shares with the Corpus is the fact that it too rejects the influence of spirits and the use of magic in medical practice which had hitherto been de rigueur.

There are surely reasons for such changes in direction.  No-one knows categorically why medical practitioners at that time and in different parts of the globe were starting to turn their backs on superstition as a source of diagnosis.  It may be coincidental that these new-found beliefs were concurrently being taken in the same field, but people travelled for trade on a vast scale and ideas will have moved around with them.

As always, the headspring of such profoundly innovative new ways of thinking will ultimately remain a mystery.  It can't however be discounted that once the idea took flight it sent shockwaves across the world.

T'ai Chi : The Snake And The Bird

Truth and fiction are odd companions.  One can masquerade as the other, adding spice and playing with perceptions, invigorating the apocryphal.  Origins obscured by the passage of time can be prone to the artistry of myth-makers and Eastern traditions have more than their fair share of legends, valid or not.

Camus said that "fiction is the lie through which we tell the truth" and what beautiful 'lies' or stories they can turn out to be.  The story behind t'ai chi ch'uan is simple but profound.  Like anything of such significance the facts are endlessly disputed but it's poetic imagery is everlasting.

Roughly eight hundred years ago in China there is supposed to have lived a Shaolin monk named Zhang Sanfeng, seven feet tall with the posture of a pine tree, spear-shaped whiskers and capable of covering up to 350 miles in a day. Some say he was a wizard, a transcendent immortal being.

As a young man he yearned to live a more solitary and spiritual life so he left his monastery in the Wudang Mountains and took up residence in a small isolated hut-like dwelling. He submitted himself to inner contemplation, exploring the mystical union with nature as befitted a devotee of Taoist philosophy.

One day whilst sitting at his window he heard a raucous noise in his garden and saw a snake and a bird in the midst of a terrible struggle.  He  observed how each one behaved, the snake remaining still, avoiding the bird's grappling claws while choosing it's moments to strike and the bird dancing about defending itself adeptly with it's wings.

He was profoundly affected by what he had seen and that night in a dream was visited by the Jade Emperor himself who revealed to him the secrets of the Tao. On waking the following morning Zhang leaped out of bed newly inspired.  Prompted by what he had learned the day before he chose to dedicate the rest of his life to the formulation of a new 'internal' martial art form.  The two main Truths that he expounded could arguably have derived from witnessing the two animals respond to their confrontation, forming a basic rationale : "yielding overcomes aggression" and "softness overcomes hardness".

It is obviously unknown how much of this story is authentic or whether such a man as Zhang Sanfeng existed. But the principles that emerged over subsequent centuries contain an enduring power and mean as much to the modern practitioner of t'ai chi as they did to any mythical creator and that is truly invaluable. 

Hatha Yoga : Tales From The Bottom Of The Sea

It started with a fish.  Or so the story goes.

The hatha yoga that we practice at Ku has a fascinating genesis.  Being so old there are numerous variations but there is a basic narrative.

Hatha yoga is generally believed to emanate from the Hindu god Shiva.  The Shiva Samhita, one of the fundamental hatha texts written roughly 400-500 years ago, is a compendium of yogic lore, effectively an address by Shiva to his wife Parvati.

This may be how the fish enters the story.  Legend has it that one day a man was out fishing on the shores of the Bay of Bengal in north-eastern India.  Suddenly he hooked a huge fish which dragged him under the waves and swallowed him whole, the man's good karma luckily keeping him alive and intact in the belly of the fish.

Around the same time, Shiva decided it was time to share the secrets of hatha yoga with Parvati.  To avoid being overheard he made a house at the bottom of the sea so they could talk undisturbed.  However after the lesson had begun Parvati dozed off un-noticed and while he talked and she slept, the fish containing the fisherman had swum up to the house and the man was furtively listening in.

Every time Shiva asked his wife if she understood what he was saying, the newly-enlightened fisherman replied truthfully "yes I do".  Shiva assumed it was Parvati and carried on to the end of his lesson.  Finally she awoke and when they realised that a stranger had been eavesdropping Shiva used his yogic vision to see the man inside the fish.  He accepted that the man now irreversibly held the secrets of hatha yoga and so ordered him as a new disciple to remain inside the fish for twelve years and practice what he had learnt.

Finally after years of solitary contemplation the fish he had been inhabiting was caught by some fishermen.  Thinking that such a heavy catch must contain gold and silver they quickly cut it open and the man jumped out.  Given the name Matsyendra or "lord of the fish" he came to be worshipped as a siddha, one who has achieved spiritual realization and possesses supernatural power.  He is also now recognised as the human progenitor of hatha yoga.

Ibiza : Land Of The Dwarf God

Just another Ibiza 'character' you think. That near-naked far-out looking man over in the corner with the beard and belly clutching a snake and waving what appears to be a sword over his head. Too much sun, sangria and herds of tourists tipping him over the edge. But appearances can often be misleading.  

He's been here longer than any of us, even those other near-naked far-out looking men who insist that they first came here as part of Hendrix's trippy entourage and never left.  His name is Bes, first worshipped by the ancient Egyptians as protector of households, mothers and children, snake-killer and general evil-spirit repellant.  He also came to symbolize the good things in life: music, dance and sexual pleasure. It has been said that tattoos of his image could be seen on the thighs of dancers and musicians in Egypt well over 3000 years ago. The Phoenicians then adopted him later as their own and with unintentional prescience brought these beliefs with them when they came to alight on the shores of the Balearics.  

Working the Mediterranean trade routes and building their fortune through, among other things, their monopoly of a highly-prized purple dye extracted from carnivorous sea snails ('Tyrian purple'), they are said to have settled here around the middle of the 7th century BC. They valued these islands for their strategic location and raw materials and seeing that this one was uninhabited chose to stay.

As legend has it, they quickly noticed a distinct absence here of any species of venomous snake.  To their Punic minds this meant only one thing. Not only had they clearly been eradicated by the hand of their beloved snake-botherer Bes but they believed this must in fact be his own home island.  

So in honour of this they named it Iboshim, the original etymology of 'Ibiza'.  The raves here today must be prosaic echoes of the wingdings held by those original Bes-besotted devotees. An island and a legend was born.