A Sutra a Day: IV-16 – Indulging Perspectives

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One of the hardest lessons I’ve had to learn is that my reality is real only for me. Assuming that others should agree with my world view, and perhaps even adopt it, has been the cause of suffering for me in the past.
When I started teaching yoga 30-plus years ago, I was gung-ho in my interpretation of the Iyengar method. I learned from a tough teacher and I tried to be one. […]

A Sutra a Day: IV-15 – Would You Rather be Right or Be in Love?

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Shortly before I went away on a several week break recently, I had an argument with one of my housemates. You know how it is when you’re rushing around getting ready to go, stressed by packing, and completing those pesky chores. I was not at all in the space of anticipatory delight.
I won’t bore you with the details of the dust-up; let’s just say there was a display of anger, hurt feelings and cross words. My lower self was clearly on display. […]

Yoga Connections

Yoga Connections

I’ve been on the road (and away from my Patanjali studies) for a a week now. It’ll be another week before I settle back into my routine – i.e. early morning practice. I’ve done a little asana practice along the way, in the bedrooms and living rooms where we’ve stayed. Not quite the same, though, as my friendly green tin shed at home.
However, I’ve had the delightful experience of re-uniting with old yoga students from 25 years ago who now live in the Kalang Valley (Helen’s painting is below). […]

Summer Ripe

Summer Ripe

Northern hemisphere peoples eat your heart out. Here on the Eastern seaboard of New South Wales, it’s the height of summer; and my present location – Bellingen – is especially in full bloom.
The produce shops are overflowing with stone fruit, grapes, melons, berries and sweet corn.
Streets are arrayed with bowers of crepe myrtles, hydrangeas, frangipanis, bougainvillea, grevilea, hibiscus.
People are drawn to pack up a picnic blanket and a few provisions and head for a park after work; or take a swimming costume and beach towel, and set out for the sea. […]

A Sutra a Day: IV-17 – The Object of Your Affection

Do You Compete in Yoga?

I think I’m getting there finally, gradually – that is, being non-competive, in my yoga and in my teaching.
It’s taken a few knocks on my head along the way: years of dealing with osteoarthritis and a couple of rounds of major surgery. […]

A Sutra a Day: IV-17 – The Object of Your Affection

Yoga teacher as Beginners

I’m sorry to say that last year I made myself miserable as I participated in a weeklong printmaking in Bellingen.
Of course I didn’t realise I was making myself unhappy. I believed it was circumstantial – meaning i thought it was the fault of someone or something else that my work wasn’t as good as others’.
This year I’m enrolled in the same course, same teacher, same place, but I decided I needed an attitude change. […]

A Very Wise Country! (and, a Patanjali pause)

A Very Wise Country! (and, a Patanjali pause)

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Australia as a country presents as laid-back, the home of a ‘no worries’ culture, and at no time more so than December-January.
It used to be the case that the whole place closed down from the time the kids got out of school (mid-Dec.) until they went back (early Feb.). […]

A Sutra a Day: IV-14 – What's Your Opinion Worth?

A Sutra a Day: IV-14 – What's Your Opinion Worth?

More often than not we are required to make quick decisions and then we move on and live with the choices we made. Life is usually being fired at us point blank and there’s not a lot of time to reflect even on the important stuff so as to arrive at our best options.
So it goes with impressions of people, also; isn’t it often the case that we sum up a person on first meeting, slot them in to a pigeonhole, and then there they stay.
It happens with yoga poses too. […]