Being a writer

A Whole Lot of Bloggin' Going On

A Whole Lot of Bloggin' Going On

Over five years ago, a friend said, “You should write a blog about what you are creating as your vision”, i.e. living in community. I took her advice.
Not knowing the first thing about creating a blog, about what content to put on it, or even what the heck I was doing it for, nevertheless I carried on…and on. “Yoga Suits Her and “The Ville” blogs probably comprise nearly 1,000 posts by now.
I used to be so shy about revealing myself that most of my early posts displayed only photos. […]

A Yogic Easter

A Yogic Easter

Easter is an autumnal holiday in the Southern Hemisphere, but in the north, Easter is the harbinger of spring. The name Easter is likely derived from the word for the goddess of spring.
Christian religions have taken the season where rebirth and renewal are in the spring air as the time for celebrating the resurrection of Jesus – and all that that event signifies about the redemption of human beings.
I’d say the necessity of redemption would not sit well with Patanjali. The notion implies a need for salvation from sin or evil. […]

Computer Blues

Computer Blues

The other day my computer crashed. I felt like a baby that had lost its dummy. My first thought was: do I have back-ups? I wasn’t sure, and that’s bad.
I wonder if other people get as mad at their computers as I do at mine when it won’t bend to my will. My thinking is that a computer is this labour-saving device that is supposed to make my life easier. And, most of the time it does. Then, just when I’ve been lulled into thinking we’re working as an efficient team, the machine does something completely  aberrant. […]

Inspiring Yourself

Inspiring Yourself

Now don’t get me wrong. I have become as dedicated to Facebook surfing as anyone of my vintage (well, maybe that’s not saying much). I enjoy the extraordinary photos, clever jokes, uplifting quotes, and mobilising for social activism that goes on in this milieu. I do.
But I also wonder from time to time, why it is that we are recycling stuff and not creating it newly ourselves. Even admitting that nothing really new under the sun exists, why such dependance on reusing others’ ideas and images. […]

On Boxing Day ’11 – A Yoga Innovation – YogaAnywhere Cards

On Boxing Day ’11 – A Yoga Innovation – YogaAnywhere Cards

As a transplant to Australia from the USA, it’s only just now that I finally understood what Boxing Day is about.
This post-Xmas holiday is heralding the much anticipated launch of our boxed sets of YogaAnywhere Cards.
We’re thrilled to let you know the cards are here now and available to purchase on our website: www.YogaAnywhere.net or on Facebook www.facebook.com/yogaanywherecards
I invite you to check the websites to read detailed information on what YogaAnywhere cards are all about.
Our poor overworked printer was only able to give us a small quantity of packs before the holiday break started, so you […]

Light On the Acharya's Book

Light On the Acharya's Book

In 1976 I was shown a book by my then yoga teacher that had photos of a man doing such extreme poses that they almost turned me off taking up this method. Indeed, it took me three years to get myself along to a class taught by a senior Iyengar teacher, and then I got hooked for many years.
I’m a very slow learner, and it’s taken me years to get back to reading B.K.S. Iyengar’s ground-breaking tome, Light on Yoga. […]

The Great Aussie Philosopher

The Great Aussie Philosopher

For inspiration, I have a copy of Patanjali’s Yoga Sutra by Chip Hartranft in the stack of books by the side of my bed. We all need a slug of encouragement from the written word from time to time. That’s why svadhyaya -self-study – is one of the indispensable niyama.
There have been philosophers from every part of the globe and from all ages. The Greeks had Socrates and Aristotle…Germans had Nietzsche…Americans Emerson and Thoreau. […]

"My Life is My Message"

"My Life is My Message"

I’ve never read a biography about Mahatma Gandhi, nor any of his many published works, so I’m hoping that the above quote is really accredited to him. Wrongful attribution is a problem these days, as evidenced by this message we often see on bumper stickers and gift shop coffee mugs:
Be the change you want to see in the world.
That expression, usually associated with the great man, is probably a paraphrase of words paraphrased in an interview with Gandhi’s son years ago.*
I digress though. […]

The Wide World of Yoga

When I started learning yoga in the early ’70’s, there were classes, books and television yoga, but very little else. There was no Lululemon for designer threads, no on-line teacher training and teleconferencing, no yoga expos, no kids’ yoga, no sticky mats, and yoga was definitely not a household word.
We hear so often these days it’s become ho-hum, that yoga is mainstream. […]

A Life Well Lived

A Life Well Lived

I was privileged today to read a eulogy that appeared in the NY Times, a sibling writing about her famous and influential brother, Steve Jobs.
The piece reminded me how precious life is, and death too. You know this very well if you have gently paced a relative in the process of dying. This is what we do with our elderly parents in aged care facilities, but also sometimes with someone younger, like Jobs was. […]

Hope for Yoga Teacher Trainees

Hope for Yoga Teacher Trainees

Brook McCarthy has written useful advice for yoga teachers in her recent e-newsletter. Basing her comments on the premise that are so many yoga teacher trainees being churned out of the many programs available, she suggests the market will be soon saturated and teachers will not be able to make a living out of just teaching. Her solution? Diversify. Take up writing and speaking. Become a teacher trainer or mentor. Or, “go hard and narrow”, as Brook describes it. […]

Squirming

Squirming

I’m sitting here thinking about what to write, and it’s not coming easily, after having taken the night off yesterday. I excused myself because of attending an out-of-town wedding. But I’m not going to let myself wiggle out of this tonight because this is one of my disciplines.
See, that’s how I’ve trained myself to be. Pick myself up and put myself down on my yoga mat or on my Fit Ball in front of the computer, day after day, and stay there until the job is done.
Well, that’s not enough, of course. […]

Insignificance

Insignificance

Playing with yoga poses in the presence of the giant California redwoods could have us looking rather insignificant.
Are we really?
Some rather famous people seem to have thought so.
“The massive bulk of the earth does indeed shrink to insignificance in comparison with the heavens”. Nicolaus Copernicus
“Everyone needs their memories. […]

WiFi Withdrawal

WiFi Withdrawal

I’ve noticed that the practice of yoga can become addictive for some, especially those personalities who have that little bit of a tendency to get obsessive about things.
That would be me.
When I discovered Iyengar yoga in 1979, I would sometimes attend a couple of classes a day, would attend classes every day, except Sunday, and did a teacher training course only five months after my first class.
I learned a lot. There’s a narrow line between passion and obsession. […]

From Clay Tablets to iPads

King Tut is getting around a lot these days via traveling exhibitions. I’m talking of course about Tutankhamen, the boy king of ancient Egypt.
I know a bit more about him from having seen his personal effects and mummified remains in an exhibition in Tucson the other day. The many artifacts on display were reproductions, including jewellry, chariots, weapons, oil lamps, and many statues representing icons and idols. Two of the statues portrayed scribes – individuals who plied a much respected profession in Tut’s time. […]

OM Sweet OM

OM Sweet OM

Oh, I know, the above title is so corny. Sorry. It’s just that I’m feeling anticipatory homesickness, if you can put those two things together. Today I leave beautiful Mitchells Island, northern hemisphere bound, and will be gone for about 4 and a half weeks. I’m looking forward to new experiences and seeing old friends and family in the U.S. and Canada. But, there is nothing like home, and I’m feeling wistful. Apart from the beauty of where I live – my home, yoga space and green vistas – there’s comfort, safety and the springboard into my vocation. […]

Tall Poppies

Tall Poppies

 I will never be a tall anything. One hundred sixty centimetres short, I’m not going to beat around the bush: in a forest of generations of increasingly tall people, I am a shrub.
I actually used to think that I would be able to increase my height through yoga. At least at 66 yrs. old, I haven’t lost any height.
Okay, we’re just having a little fun here, at my expense. […]

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