POLAIR NEWS – Autumn 2021
Colum Hayward writes:
Polair was quite quiet during lockdown and now bursts forth again with two new titles...
THE NATURE OF BREATHING is a new title by our prolific yoga author Jenny Beeken. We'd been trying for some while to encourage Jenny to upgrade her earlier book Don't Hold your Breath, but the big moment came sitting outside a café in South-West London, when Jenny got me to lean forward over the table and breathe in all the ways she goes on to describe in The Nature of Breathing. 'Feel connected with the Universe', she said, and I had one of those extraordinary, unforgettable moments when a serendipitous nudge from outside of oneself provokes a response which is absolute abandonment of the everyday world and an at-one-ment with all life.
It taught me, if I didn't know it already, that Jenny had something extraordinary to offer as a teacher. And she took me up on the challenge – and the result is The Nature of Breathing. She's been able to bring to it a lot of new insight about how we breathe, much of which simply wasn't available when Don’t Hold your Breath came out. And she also brings to it wonderful insights that came to her when on a retreat lasting almost a year at the Theravada Buddhist monastery, Cittaviveka, in Sussex.
Murray Nettle, who illustrated Jenny's previous book, kindly assented to do the anatomical drawings for this book, but there is also a wonderful set of photographs to accompany Jenny's text.
The other new Polair title is EDWARD BACH AND YOUR EVOLUTIONARY PURPOSE by Gaye Mack. Again it arises out of single conversation, although this time it was by email, since Gaye lives a long way away from me, in Barrington, Illinois. We have virtually sold out of her first book Igniting Soul Fire, and I wanted to know if her continuing studies, particularly her astrological studies, might make a new volume. She had just a moment's hesitation, and then it dawned on her how the philosophy behind Evolutionary Astrology could lead our understanding of Bach's flower remedies to a whole new level. And the result is Edward Bach and your Evolutionary Purpose.
It's a cracking good read even if you are familiar with Igniting Soul Fire and it makes a wonderful tool both for self-prescription of the remedies and for therapists.