The Prison Phoenix Trust

If your loss of freedom has begun to get to you and time hangs heavy, would you like to spend some of your time reading about us? We must be one of the few outfits you'll ever come across which believes that prison can be a golden opportunity.

Sound crazy? Maybe, but think how many people choose to go on retreat, to places just like prison, where in small bare rooms, isolated from family and friends, they have a chance to find out just who they really are.

Quite by chance, we found out that a lot of prisoners discovered all by themselves how to find the key to a better life. Through their own forced solitary confinement and meditation, they found themselves - often to their own amazement - in touch with the Sacred. It changed their ideas about themselves dramatically. Suddenly it seemed that prison could be a place of growth, instead of misery and fear, and a place to find their inner freedom, even behind locked doors.

So the Prison Phoenix Trust was founded to help people make use of this possible golden opportunity, by offering some disciplines which would stand them in good stead during their lives, both inside and on the outside.

The two most common things that prisoners say is that they are tense and stressed, and that they can't get their heads together. Luckily there are two tried and tested ancient techniques, yoga and meditation, which will heal precisely both these conditions. Along the way, a door to inner freedom can be opened as a bonus.

Most people do acknowledge that residing within themselves exists an inner power, even if it isn't admitted out loud. In the Orient, many people recognise and use this power as one of their greatest treasures. They allow it to work for them in order to lead happier, more peaceful lives.

A free book called We're All Doing Time by Bo Lozoff, will give you an instant insight into how to release the tension from your body through yoga, stretching exercises and classical breathing techniques. Then, when the body is relaxed and calm, Bo suggests some simple meditation practices which anyone can do and establish as a habit. In fact his book is all about building up a new habit - and you may know all about these at first hand. You can become a daily user of meditation! What other habit completely satisfies in the short and long term?

[ A French translation of Bo's book, 'Nous sommes tous dans une prison' , as well as a Spanish translation 'Todos estamos encarcelados', can be obtained by writing to: Association Lumière en Prison, case postale, CH-1110 Morges-1, Switzerland. ]

We have written a book as a guide to daily practice which is also free of charge, called Becoming Free Through Meditation and Yoga by Sister Elaine MacInnes and Sandy Chubb.

Even if you are banged up three or four in a cell, you can practise privately and anonymously. In prisons all over the country, men and women say the best part of their day is in the early morning when they set their watch alarms for dawn and they practise their meditation before anyone else awakes, just by sitting on a rolled up blanket on their beds.

We at The Prison Phoenix Trust, will be happy to send you free copies of We're All Doing Time and Becoming Free Through Meditation and Yoga, if you drop us a line with your name, number and prison address. Anytime you get into difficulties with your personal practice, we are happy to stay in touch by letter. We add your name to our mailing list - unless you say not to - and then you can receive four newsletters from us each year.

Some of you are in prisons where a yoga and meditation teacher already teaches and is a great support. We are in touch with most prison yoga and meditation teachers and feel very content if your own practice is encouraged with a weekly group. Some may not have the opportunity. You can either think about finding like-minded people to practise yoga and meditation with on your wing, if you are in a prison where it is allowed, or just continue to go it alone supported by us and our books and tapes (and anything else you can read which is relevant).

A full listing of the classes running now is available through this link as an Acrobat file.

Prisons are full of Buddhists, Christians, Hindus, Jews, Moslems and Rastas and many other followers, and they're also full of people who don't have any special beliefs. We're the same at the Trust, although we have an unshakeable belief in the gift of the Sacred. To us, all of you are precious. Just as you are. If you chuck this leaflet away now, and get on with the next thing in your life, good luck and God go with you. May you be well.

If you think you've reached rock bottom, or you want to use your time as a chance for change, adventure and growth, drop us a line. Together we'll set your footsteps on a journey which - at the very least - is full of surprise...

'We were talking in association when someone tried to provoke me. In the past I would have lost my temperand lashed out. Instead, I just stood there perfectly calm. In the end, the lad who was trying to goad me into a fight gave up. -My friend turned to me and said I am more at peace now than he has ever known me to be. I explained about the Trust and my exercises. He was surprised. He didn't think anything could cause such a change in a person - and especially in me!'

Glyn, at HMP The Mount

The PPT was set up as a registered charity in 1988 by Ann Wetherall under the name of the Prison Ashram Project, when she discovered that even prisoners can find freedom by using their breath, bodies and minds. The Trust is now in contact with more than 3000 people, in nearly every prison in the UK. Bo Lozoff has been running a similar organisation in the USA since 1979, now called the Human Kindness Foundation, and there are strong links between the two trusts. The PPT is funded by ordinary people on the outside.