Browsing Tag

consciously culinary

Guest Posts, Inspiration, Travels

The Traveler of Here by Caspar Poyck.

July 19, 2012

The traveler of here.

~ Guest Post by Caspar Poyck C. Ht.

Tuscan sunset

One of my very dearest friends in the whole world; Jennifer Pastiloff is in Italy for another one of her amazing Manifestation Yoga Retreats. 

Before her travels started she wrote a blog about kindness that inspired me to write this.

I love exploring and traveling into hearts, minds and into life itself.

When I came to the U.S. from The Netherlands at age 21, I took trains and busses and hitch-hiked to California from New York without much of a plan. From 2003-2005 I traveled a big part of our physical world and have gone on many 1-3 month trips before and since.

On these trips through Central America, Africa, Asia, the Middle East and Europe there have been many moments with people who picked me up and gave me rides. New friends who showed me secret spots, who translated for me and had conversations in hand-signals and facial expressions. People took me in for lodging and for food.

These “strangers” showed me “their world”, I was wide-eyed and grateful, at times we sang and we danced together. Kindness was always there in abundance !

When traveling, my eyes and ears, my mind and heart are wide open to experiencing the world and the people around me.

I expect nothing yet I expect everything !

High expectation to have great experiences, yet no expectation as to what they should be has me say “yes” to almost everything.

This creates potential and manifestation; this creates pleasure and learning.

Our mind has an amazing filter: our senses take in more than we can consciously process so only small amounts of what “the system” perceives comes into our awareness.

HOW this filter is set up is how we see our world!

The world is a reflection of ourselves.

Remember when you bought your most recent car? Remember how in the first few weeks you saw that same model everywhere? There weren’t more of them on the road; your filter was just tuned into seeing them more.

Are you a parent ? Do you remember how when you or your spouse were pregnant it seemed like everywhere you looked there were pregnant women? Same thing.

This is what happens on a trip. The filter is set-up to see the new, the good, the beautiful, the playful, the interesting, the delicious and the kind.

Thus we see and experience them more.

 

I can bring this into my day-to-day life as well. The place I call home is a destination that many people dream of one day visiting on their “vacation of a lifetime” !

 

I LIVE IN A PLACE I COULD EXPERIENCE AS A TRAVEL DESTINATION if I set up my filter to look at it that way!

 

When I choose to I look at the things around me with (literally) wide eyes and feel a sense of wonder. I check out buildings, people and their body-language, trees and flowers, etc., and I remember when I just got here and the city was new and how it filled me with interest, hope, excitement and joy.

 

I can experience that kindness here at home as well !

One of the ways it came to me this week was in the form of the stranger who gave me a $20 bill so my daughter could camp next to hers.

(I erroneously thought my back-country pass covered that campground and appropriately they don’t “take plastic” in the woods).

 

 

We can’t all be in Italy with Jennifer this week, but WE CAN choose how we filter the vacation destination we live in.

 

Meditation, prayer and affirmations are all exercises to entrain our conscious mind to perceive the world as it’s best for us.

 

Make this playful “Traveler of Here Meditation” your practice of the week.

 

Spend 10 minutes every morning looking at things around you as if you’re a child, as if you’re on vacation, as if it’s all new to you.

 

Really exaggerate it !

 

Look at the world with your eyes a little strained open and your brow pulled up. Do it with a smile on your face. See new things and things anew.

 

Have you seen the frescoes at the top of the buildings downtown ? How about the way that biker is humming to himself as he zips by ? The woman’s original shoes in line at Peet’s Coffee ?

 

Feel like a traveler while you’re here; in a greater spiritual sense you already are anyway.

 

Feel the pleasure and gratitude of knowing that wherever your home is, if you didn’t already live there you would be the traveler there right now!

 

To the people around you, you are the kind stranger I ran into so many times all over the world. We are the same people !

 

Tomorrow I will smile at people as a kind stranger on my travels and will look at my world again as the “traveler of here.” Meet me on the road ! Let’s tell stories, eat a meal together and look at our world in wonderment.

 

 

To Jennifer, my sister: have an amazing trip, take it all in with wide eyes and share in the kindness as you always do.

 

Happy travels to you all,

Caspar

The above post was written while I was in Italy last week leading my retreat. As many of you know I got very very ill and my internet service was spotty but this delicious post was worth the wait. Caspar and I will be together again hosting a retreat Oct 19-21, 2012 in Ojai, California. You can even take a cooking class with him. Click here to sign up.

Connect with Caspar here.

 

Eating/Food, Guest Posts

The Mind Body Connection…Is It Real ? By Caspar Poyck

December 8, 2011

Happy Thurday my Dear Manifesters! The fact that Manifestation Station has a guest post by the Renaissance Man himself makes me giddy with delight. Caspar Poyck is truly one of the great Renaissance men of our time. He is an artist, through and through. I first met him on a retreat I attended a few years back where he was the chef. Immediately I decided that I would lead my own retreats there ( 2 years later and I have done 6 up there in Ojai and none without Caspar.) I would not DREAM of hosting a Manifestation Retreat without this guy. When you read the following post you will see why he is such a fixture at my retreats. He hosts cooking classes during my retreats and the laughter that comes from the kitchen literally makes the house shake. Plus, he is easy on the eyes and is an amazing musician. Seriously? Yes, seriously. 

 

The Mind Body Connection…Is It Real ? by Caspar Poyck

What do you think ?

It seems to be in children’s nature to know it until nurture tells them otherwise. Shamanistic traditions, Ayurveda, Chinese medicine, etc. know it. Yoga is built on its foundation.

Harvard Medical School, through Mass General, runs the Benson-Henry Institute for Mind Body Medicine and many other leading medical schools are getting more active in this field.

Is it mysticism or science ? What is this about and what does it look like ? —–

Let’s talk, for instance, about a silent killer of our time and disease of prosperity:

Stress !

It is now commonly recognized by even the staunchest medical doctors that stress is tied to suppressed immune response, the healing of damaged tissue, inflammation, heart disease, osteoporosis, type 2 diabetes, autoimmune disease and allergies (including, but not limited to food allergies), etc. How does this happen ?

Some of the body’s changes caused by experiences in the mind like stress, fear and anxiety are:

Tightness of muscles

Shallow breath

Increased heart-rate

Higher blood pressure

Reduced immune response

Secretion of stress hormones incl. Cortisol

Impaired digestion

Impaired elimination Etc.

Stress is supposed to be a temporary state, but how many of us experience stress perpetually ? Imagine the long-term effects of a body under those conditions listed!

Yoga, meditation, prayer, Tai Chi, hypnosis et.al. are very effective in reducing these symptoms by calming our mind, reducing stress and exercising the body.This is why I founded “Consciously Culinary” and “What Makes You Eat?”

As a wholefood-organic chef, son of yoga teachers and licensed hypnotherapist specializing in the connections between the body and mind I came to realize that

HOW we eat may be more important than WHAT we eat !

Am I saying that WHAT we eat is not important ?

Of course not.

What I AM saying is that once we have developed a more aware relationship with food for some and one free of preconceived ideas, free of guilt or trauma, free of obsession for others, then making healthy choices about WHAT to eat will come automatically !

You don’t need the preaching of a food-guru, the study of an impressive diet or a guilt- trip to tell you that a plump, organic heirloom tomato is better than a mealy, pink GMO tomato.

Diets, systems of thinking about food and nutritional fads often have interesting things to consider, new knowledge to reflect on and valuable insights to check in with. They can also lead to obsession (orthorexia nervosa), guilt and judgment.

It is through conscious sensing, keeping a diary, happy cooking and fun-filled eating that we can find which elements of these teachings work for us and which don’t.

We are each unique individuals who go through lots of phases in our lives. A young “you” needed different food than the “you” of today, a happy “you” needs different fuels than a depressed “you”, in summer time you don’t need the same vitamins and amount of calories than in winter, etc.

Is it possible to have one diet that is the answer for everyone for every time ? If so, there would be one definitive book on the subject, instead of a new one every 6 months to rise to the top of the bestsellers lists.

Through some honest introspection and a love for the sensual experience, you will automatically be drawn to better food and become your own guru.

Instead of treating food and eating like a dogmatic religion, Consciously Culinary is a path: the Tao of cooking and eating if you will.

Next time:

Ever heard of Emotional Eating ? Comfort Food ? When checking in we need to know we’re not reading from our emotional appetite, but from our body’s appetite and needs. What Makes You Eat ?

—–

Caspar Poyck C.Ht. offers catering for retreats by some of the most widely recognized names in yoga and self-development.

He also teaches private and group classes, leads corporate teambuilding events, delivers talks and offers cooking classes and therapy sessions for stress release, anxiety control and allergy management.

To set up a session or to organize a talk, Caspar can be reached at: caspar@whatmakesyoueat.com Ph. +1.805.760.7730 www.whatmakesyoueat.com

Just a head’s up folks. The Manifestation Retreat sells out very quickly. In September we had 42.