YBites

'Forget about enlightenment.
Sit down wherever you are
And listen to the wind singing in your veins.
Feel the love, the longing, the fear in your bones.
Open your heart to who you are, right now,
Not who you would like to be,
Not the saint you are striving to become,
But the being right here before you, inside you, around you.

A staggering one billion cards and six million trees are set to be thrown out this Christmas time. Play your (imporant) part in minimising waste. Here are our top tips for a Greener Christmas, partly based on advice by natural perfume company, Rich Hippie.

'Close your eyes gently. Let your body be at rest and your breathing be natural. Begin to listen to the play of sounds around you. Notice those that are loud or soft, far and near. Notice how sounds arise and vanish on their own, leaving no trace.

'Once the realization is accepted that even between the closest human beings infinite distances continue to exist, a wonderful living side by side can grow up, if they succeed in loving the distance between them which makes it possible for each to see the other whole against the sky.'

Rainer Maria Rilke, letters.