A Sutra a Day: II-13 – Life’s Lessons

A Sutra a Day: II-13 – Life’s Lessons

Source: piccsy.com via Marianne on Pinterest

 
I should have had a little birthday party for “Yoga Suits Her” last week, as I completed my 700th blog post. Woo-hoo! I can hardly believe it myself that I have been this regular for so long. There was even an earlier incarnation in my blogging career called “The Ville” where I cut my teeth.
I want to share what I’ve learned through my writing and especially in this latest endeavour of Yoga Sutra study.

It’s okay to write vulnerably. […]

A Sutra a Day: II-12 – Watering the Garden

A Sutra a Day: II-12 – Watering the Garden

 

I was a volunteer at a HAI residential workshop on the weekend and my role was coordinator of the team who did various tasks to lessen the load on the facilitators; basically we worked to make the whole seminar go smoothly.
I guess you could say that these workshops fall into the category of personal development. The almost always involve the participants having breakthroughs and breakdowns, and sometimes the production team does, too. This makes the smooth running of the event unpredictably rocky. […]

A Sutra a Day: II-12 – Watering the Garden

A Sutra a Day: II-11 – Retreating to Go Forward

 

I wonder at what point in history the word ‘retreat’ started to be associated with yoga holidays?
My little computer dictionary widget thing-o says that a retreat is a quiet or secluded place in which one can rest and relax; or, a period of seclusion for the purposes of prayer and meditation.
Maybe the kind of retreats that have us basking in warm climes, availing ourselves of spa treatments, and shopping for exotic items at half-price should simply be called pleasurable yoga vacations.
Don’t get me wrong; I’m definitely not a wowser. […]

A Sutra a Day: II-10 – Sleeping Angels

Source: native-in-nature.tumblr.com via Lindsay on Pinterest

 
On Friday Daniel and I are going to the Central Coast to help produce a workshop sponsored by the Human Awareness Institute. We love these workshops called Love, Intimacy and Sexuality because they serve to bring out the best in the participants – in terms of both their humanity and divinity.
It’s often the case that people don’t recognise their own divinity. […]

A Sutra A Day: II:9 – Good for Any Age!

Source: mindbodygreen.com via Kay on Pinterest

 
I’ve been featured in an article in the August/September Australian Yoga Journal that’s entitled “Yoga at Any Age”. The gist of the article is that yoga has a myriad of gifts to offer and the value of them increases with age.
My particular input into the article emphasises that the hip arthritis I dealt with over the years propelled me into more reflective yoga practices. […]

A Sutra a Day: II-12 – Watering the Garden

A Sutra a Day: II-8 – Avoidance or Self-Mastery?

 

There are the poses we love, those that we feel neutral about, and the ones we wish hadn’t been written into the textbook.
Some people adore going upside-down, others who tolerate inversions, and those who get a crick in the neck with even the thought of head-down-bum-up.
People come to my classes for the first time expecting a workout and find a class that is more pensive and prop-oriented which is sometimes disappointing for them. […]

A Sutra A Day: II-7 Attraction, Attachment & Desire

A Sutra A Day: II-7 Attraction, Attachment & Desire

I’ll let you in on a secret. I love dogs. For the first half of my life, I always had dogs as pets, sometimes litters of them. I can hardly walk past a dog on the street or on the beach without stopping to have a little pat and hello.

Now I live on four acres in the country and I don’t have a dog, not because I don’t want one, but because I travel often and I don’t think it’s fair to a canine to leave him in the kennel. […]

A Sutra a Day: II-12 – Watering the Garden

A Sutra A Day: II-6 Show Us Your I.D.

 

Recently I’ve been contacted through my presence on the internet by some classmates from grammar school and high school. This is good, as these connections sort of fell away, but not because I intended them to.
These reunions got me thinking about who I was at these different stages in my life and my family situation at the time. I feel like I’ve become an entirely different person, not just grown-up, but someone who has reconciled with past issues and healed emotional wounds.
Of course this is just a subjective experience. […]

A Sutra a Day: II-4 – Plant Now, Harvest Later

Source: flickr.com via Katherine on Pinterest

 
Did you enjoy a gloriously sunny winter day today? I did. It called to me to get into the garden and weed and plant.
I’m a metropolitan girl from places like Chicago, New York and Sydney. Gardening is not my first language. What does that matter, though,  when Nature calls?
There’s rocket, lettuce and dill in the dirt now. I’ve checked the weather report and it will be cold over the next few days but not frosty. […]

A Sutra a Day: II-12 – Watering the Garden

A Sutra a Day: II-3 – The Field of Good Deeds

If you’re a yoga teacher, have your yoga classes been suffering the winter blahs. It’s common during the Australian winter that class sizes can decrease and even become minuscule.
In one of the sessions I teach, the numbers attending have dropped right off for a variety of reasons: school holidays, winter flues and colds, sprained ankles or broken arms, work conflicts – all the usual stuff.
I think I’m way beyond taking this lack of students personally. […]

A Sutra a Day: II-2 – Mental Soother

A Sutra a Day: II-2 – Mental Soother

Source: crystalized-bliss.tumblr.com via Tina on Pinterest

 
One of the main things that gets me out to the Yoga Shed early each morning is the fact that doing practice helps soothe my mind.
The mental benefits of practice never interested me in the beginning. I thought yoga was going to help with weight loss and build muscles. And, I admit, the show-off in me liked the fact that even from my first class, I could do some advanced poses.
Soothing the eddies of the mind – citta vrtti nirodha – seems much more important as I’ve gotten older. […]