Dear Members

By: Maria Serrano

Summer picnic in Regents Park

What a fantastic Autumn we have had this year. Only recently have the cold winds arrived, heralding the approach of the winter solstice and the ensuing celebrations as well as marking the ever-turning seasons and the passage of another year. We had a lovely day on Saturday 26th November with the Autumn Seminar and AGM at the LSE. The day started with a healing touch shiatsu sharing with me followed by a very reflective sampling of delicious foods designed to bring out the energetic effects and differing qualities of the five flavours facilitated by Anna Mackenzie. In a thought provoking presentation, David McCarthy explored how the quality of our food affects the quality of our judgement, impacting our lives as well as the health of the planet while Simon Brown reminded us that Macrobiotics offers an amazing philosophy of living that helps us to connect with an inner space of great peace, tranquillity and vitality. At lunch, we again very much enjoyed the delicious macrobiotic food prepared with love by Anna Freedman from Wholefood Harmony.

All in all, the MBA has had another eventful year with several informal meetings in London, a series of dinner parties with macrobiotic friends, an inaugural summer picnic in Regents Park, the Autumn seminar and AGM in November, two MBA Practitioner Accreditation assessments, two macrobiotic cooking classes (with two more to come in the new year), four online newsletters and the completion of the first phase of the website refurbishment. The improvements here are already proving worthwhile as our website’s ‘hit rate’ - from members and general public alike - has shot up and there has also been a marked increase in the volume of email enquiries received. With the dawning of the Age of Aquarius and the approach of the Year of the Dragon, I expect this interest in the macrobiotic way of life to increase steadily. Certainly, the benefits of a more natural way of living centred on sustainable, ethically traded, environmentally sound wholefood nutrition are becoming ever more apparent.

Let’s continue to help one another, and the planet, by doing everything we can to continue enlarging the global macrobiotic community.

All the very best for the upcoming solstice celebrations and best wishes for 2012

Wishing you a very good Autumn,

Maria Serrano (MBA Chair)