Category Archives: Nature

Good Yoga Practice: Time Out for Renewal

Posted on May 8, 2013 | Leave a comment

girlfriends

One of the beautiful things about living in the country and being ‘semi-retired’ is that I have ample time to connect with people.

Sitting down with a cuppa to chat with a friend and not having time constraints – the conversation can go in unexpected directions. Instead of handling business or talking about what one of you needs from the other, you can just let content emerge organically, if you will.

Tomorrow I’m flying to South Australia, then to magnificent Kangaroo Island, to meet up with six dear women friends. We will have three uninterrupted days of telling our stories, bush walking, eating and drinking. We’ll probably do some morning yoga and meditation, also, but sleeping-in is encouraged.

Women can get so busy. I’m not saying men don’t rush around too, but women will often fill every waking moment of every day, with must-do stuff, and then end up having trouble sleeping.

So, I’m looking forward to our annual girlfriends’ reunion because each year I come home having had my mind soothed, body relaxed and heart filled.

If you are not yet semi- or fully retired as yet, and find that your busy life impacts your sleep, you may find this post helpful: Perchance to dream.

Pinterest image: Visit decipheringcait.blogspot.com.au

 

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Posted in Healing, Health, Nature, Yoga practice

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Should We Be Left to Our Devices?

Posted on April 28, 2013 | 2 Comments
Michael Leunig cartoon - tv vs sunset


tv vs sunset

How  much is life passing us by because of our love affair with screens and devices? Probably more than we want to know, and it’s a question that Google can’t actually answer.

The classic cartoon above, created by Micheal Leunig with great prescience, sums up the situation. And it was published even before iPads and such were a glimmer in Apple’s eye.

Here’s an interesting statistic from this week’s SMH Good Weekend Magazine: On average a US household includes five internet-connected devices (smartphones, tablets, TVs, etc.). Another number crunch – more than 80% of Australian homes are now connected to the internet.

I had my own demonstration of Leunig’s cartoon the other day when a group of friends and I met for drinks and nibbles on our neighbour’s old jetty. It was just past low tide on Scotts Creek, and we were taking in a dazzling sunset. Suddenly I saw a dolphin surface immediately off the pier. As she dived, I dove for my iPhone to grab a photo, and tumbled one leg into a whole in one of the jetty planks.

I watched, horrified, as my phone bounced along the pier right to the very edge. In those moments between dragging myself out of the hole and retrieving my phone, two dolphins swam downstream quietly unobserved.

I felt chagrined about my fall but not really hurt, relieved about my phone, and hopefully a little more prepared to be in direct contact with the spontaneous miracles of the natural world.

dolphins

 

 

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Posted in Humour, Nature, Wisdom

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Here Today, Maybe Not Tomorrow

Posted on March 26, 2013 | Leave a comment

I’m getting far too good at stopping and smelling the roses. That’s the price I pay to be semi-retired, living in the country. What does semi mean anyway?

I took a small detour on my way to yoga practice this morning to admire and photograph the heavy mists hanging all around our property.

Misty am

And then, I found myself attracted to the tibouchina that was just bloomin’ its heart out.

Tibouchina

Of course, the brugmansia stopped me in my tracks, too.

Brugmansia

Finally, just when I thought I was going to get into the Yoga Shed, the butcher bird caught my attention. I didn’t record him, but I found a youtube video for you to listen to:

Sometimes mindfulness happens in little soundbites, or, as Henri Cartier-Bresson said:

We… deal in things which are continuously vanishing, and when they have vanished there is no contrivance on earth can make them come back again.

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Posted in Nature, pleasure, Wisdom, Yoga practice

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How Did I Get Here?

Posted on March 19, 2013 | Leave a comment

Australian School of Yoga

 

I had some time this morning – quite a lot of it, actually – to wander around Bondi Junction, my old stomping grounds. Here’s a photo of the entrance to the Australian School of Yoga on Oxford Street.

I was mentally winding back the clock  to 1979 when I had my first experience of Iyengar Yoga taught by this man:

Martyn1980

 

It’s fair to say that Martyn Jackson, Iyengar Yoga and the time I spent at the Australian School of Yoga changed the course of my life. After doing a 6-month teacher training course with about 25 other trainees led by Martyn, I started teaching. And never stopped.

Budding Teacher Trainees, including Dianne Currie and Lee Farrant

Budding Teacher Trainees, including Dianne Currie and Lee Farrant (right and left)

Meandering around the Junction, eating breakfast at the whole foods cafe, I found myself looking out for the old crowd. I know some of them are still around the neighbourhood – Kay Parry, Carole Hart, Trevor Tangye, Anna Pryor – but, no, there was only the new crowd.

I saw the Ashtanga Vinyasa youngsters with well-defined chaturanga dandasana triceps leaving their Mysore-style class. And then, there were mums who had just dropped off their school kids, showing up for their hatha yoga work outs.

I used to travel to my classes on a bicycle, but the Junction garages are now full of  every make and model of luxury cars which are parked by valets. The Bondi Junction bus terminal, railway station and malls all still look down-at-the heel, but enter Westfield shopping centre, and you would think you were in Beverly Hills.

Yoga’s been good for me. As I get older, my tastes have become simpler. I really don’t want for anything materially. The training I got way back then set me up in a profession that shaped me for a lifestyle that is uncomplicated, wholesome and gratifying. It was really only natural for us to leave all the crowds and congestion behind and find our way to the peace and beauty of Mitchells Island.

And, for me to find a new crowd to teach….

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Posted in Health, Nature, Yoga teaching 

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Better Than a Yoga Relaxation: Beach-time

Posted on March 14, 2013 | Leave a comment

 

Our American friends who come to visit us cannot believe that Australian beaches can be so beautiful and so empty of crowds. Daniel and I took Donna to a couple of beaches over the last couple of days: Crowdy Head and Old Bar, both in the Manning Valley.

Despite its name, Crowdy Head National Park (above) and its beaches are mostly unpeopled, yet relatively close to population centres.

Ancient cliffs of Crowdy….

 

 

Crowdy Cliffs

 

New erosion of old Norfolk pines at Old Bar Beach, NSW.

Old Bar Norfolkjpg

 

Old Bar Pine

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Posted in Nature

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The Big Wet

Posted on March 3, 2013 | Leave a comment

“If, from time to time, you give up expectation, you will be able to perceive what it is you are getting.”
― Idries Shah, Reflections

Australia is a crazy place to reside climate-wise. We live between drought and flood, cyclone and dust storms, biting arctic winds in the extreme south and near-equatorial heat in the far north.

Our household on Mitchells Island has been under a heavy blanket of rain over the last few days. I cancelled the Patanjali study class yesterday because I thought the students might have trouble getting in and out, with water levels rising.

Our local waterfront cafe has been flooded, not as bad as the inundation of 2011, but still, it’s closed for business for the next while.

Our beach is covered once again with sticky foam and seaweed, plus driftwood, washed down from the Manning River.

Our closest town is experiencing moderate flooding from the same river and workers are out in force with truckloads of sandbags.

You might wonder how there can be any bright spot on the horizon with such dismal weather. Well, there are always surprises living in the country.

I woke this morning to the sound of bellowing cattle, so I grabbed my camera because I had an idea about what might be happening. The herd had gotten marooned on the wrong side of Farmer Scott’s pastures and were complaining loudly as they forded the flooded paddock.

Swimming Cows

Then, I spotted a shy pheasant coucal on the wet lawn and when it took off, I captured it in flight!

Pheasant Coucal

Finally, as I was leaving to get out of the wind and slashing rain, I spotted a lone white-faced grey heron….

White-faced Heron

Opening up to a weather pattern, not resisting it, can be seen as another yoga practice – simple mindfulness.

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Posted in Nature, pleasure, Yoga teaching 

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Don’t Blink – You Might Miss It

Posted on February 26, 2013 | Leave a comment

Sometimes you have to wake yourself up so that you realise you are living your Dream.

When I lived in fast-paced Sydney, I was too busy to get out into Nature because of running a city yoga centre. I desperately wanted to be living at the beach, to walk on it every day, to be surprised by what washed up from the surf or down from the river.

Here I am and there are truly wondrous sights at our mid-north coast beaches.

Today at low tide at Old Bar, there were these boys and their construction. The oldest one said, when asked what they were doing, ‘We just wanted to build something.’

IMG_1815

 

Of course, what they built is as delicate and ephemeral as a Buddhist sand mandala. It’ll be gone by high tide, right about now.

So, what is meditation if not catching a ride on a thermal? Here’s Alexa describing what it is for her:

Yoga is the easing of the fluctuations of the mind. It is not about eliminating the activities of the mind; it is rather about riding them like a wave.

I decide to paddle into a wave (like deciding to practice yoga) to see where the wave is moving to, in which way the face of the wave builds up and then to intuitively adjust the angle of my board, my focus, breath and body posture to playfully fuse with its energy. I decide to paddle with and into the wave to move forward, upward, downward, below and above. To live. It happens during the ride when I feel complete and in perfect union. When moments become timeless and eternal. Where everything is nothing, sorrows are joy, noise is silence and separation is union.

Source: tumblr.com via Nani K. on Pinterest

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Posted in city life, Nature, Yoga practice

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A Sutra a Day: IV-2 – A Theory of Yoga Evolution

Posted on December 28, 2012 | Leave a comment

 

Zukes

Zukes

Since we hit our antipodean warm weather in early December, our vegetable garden has gone berserk.

First there were the zucchinis, hidden from view under their giant leaves, which, unattended, ballooned into green torpedo-shapes. Then came the cherry tomatoes. Well, they are still coming, and coming, and our freezer is totally packed out with them. Lately, the cucumbers have been vying with the zukes for quantity and size. Potato production was more minimal than last year but the desiree variety definitely lives up to its name.

I’d like to take credit for being a great gardener but I think the veges have evolved on their own. We prepared the soil, watered when necessary, mixed in local pony poo and seasoned with well-cooked compost.

The maturation of vegetables apparently occurs according to some intrinsic plan, all truly organic.

Fundamental change is not brought about from the outside; it must be in the material. – Satyananda Paramahamsa, Four Chapters on Freedom

Jatyantaraparinamah prakrtypurat

Positive evolution is the result of one’s innermost nature.*

*The Essence of Yoga – Reflections on the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali, translation and commentary by Bernard Bouanchaud.

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Posted in gardening, Nature, Philosophy, Wisdom, Yoga Sutras of Patanjali

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A Sutra a Day: III-50 – There’s Freedom in Letting Go

Posted on December 2, 2012 | Leave a comment

 

We had a little party today chez Scotts Road, Mitchells Island. It was a celebration of Rick’s and my birthdays and Mike and Judy’s homecoming, all rolled into one.

I looked around at all the attendees and felt an overwhelming sense of love and affection for the people we’ve gathered around us in the 3 years of living in the country. Some are yoga students, some members of our choir or our book club, and others neighbours.

I still think fondly of my Sydney yoga students and keep in touch with some of them. I found it difficult to say good-by to this group, some of whom I’d known for decades, but I also knew it was time to change gears. I needed to look after my health. I wanted to fulfil a dream of living close to Nature. And, it was time for The New in my life.

Letting go of the city life and friends seemed like it was going to be a huge sacrifice on my part. They haven’t gone anywhere, though, and I’ve enriched and expanded my life because of being willing to move.

Holding on is believing that there’s only a past; letting go is knowing that there’s a future. – Daphne Rose Kingma

 

Tadvairagyadapi dosabijaksaye kaivalyam

Freedom, the last goal of yoga, is attained only when the desire to acquire extraordinary knowledge is rejected and the source of obstacles is completely controlled.*

*Patanjali’s Yogasutras, translation and commentary by T.K.V. Desikachar.

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Posted in community, Nature, Philosophy, Wisdom, Yoga Sutras of Patanjali, Yoga teaching 

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A Sutra a Day: III-48 – Uncommon Senses

Posted on November 28, 2012 | 1 Comment

I live in a part of the world where a “sense feast” is presented to me every day. And since I am semi-retired, I mostly have time to linger over this repast.

I wake up to the sweet bell-like song of eastern rosellas and look across green meadows to see cattle grazing. These summer mornings are humid and languorous, with earthy odours rising from the vegetable patches. Strawberries are just coming in, and if we’re lucky we’ll beat the king parrots to the harvest.

Have you ever wondered why you are taught to withdraw your senses in the yoga relaxation – Savasana? Surely, your senses are potential anchors for your attention, a tool to make you more mindful.

I like Richard C. Miller’s audio recordings and his approach to Yoga Nidra because he describes the yoga practice of Pratyahara as ‘the restoration of the senses and mind to their natural functioning’.

Instead of suggesting that we should subdue our senses, the Miller way encourages us to acknowledge and welcome sensations as they arise in every moment. Over and above just practising this in Yoga Nidra, we can extend this embracing of sensations into everyday life so as to be fully present in any situation.

I’m only learning how to do this late in life. When I remember to fully experience life, I can transcend difficult experiences and just be myself in the midst of any circumstances. This state of mind is incredibly freeing.

David Garrigues, direcctor of the Ashtanga Yoga School of Philadelphia, has said in his article Pratyahara: Withdrawing the Senses & Truly Enjoying Your Yoga  that:

 ‘…using your body and your breathing to change your relationship to the sensory information you receive helps you bring more mind, more psychology, more honesty and authenticity to your awareness and your self-reflection.’

Rather than escaping from sensations, being with them creates greater awareness and clarity.

Grahana svarupa asmita anvaya arthavattva samyamat indriyajayay

Through samyama upon the purpose of the conjunction of the process of knowing, the ego, and nature, there is mastery over the senses.*

*Light on the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali, B.K.S. Iyengar

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Posted in Nature, Philosophy, Wisdom, Yoga practice, Yoga Sutras of Patanjali

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