The Yoga with Eve Grzybowski Blog
I’ve been blogging for 15 years now. At first, I was quite nervous about publishing my thoughts. Because I was shy about writing, my old posts were almost exclusively photos of the view from our bedroom in our Tambourine Bay house.
Remarkably, my original Ville Blog still exists. Does anything on the internet ever go away? It ran from November 05, 2006 to January 12, 2010 and it’s still just where I left it. If you’d like to have a look, the address is http://thevilleblog.blogspot.com.au/.
These days, because there are way too many YSH posts to browse through-over 1200-I’ve put some major themes together in The Vault. I hope this makes it easier to find exactly what you want.
It’s Always Time for Mindfulness
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What do you think of when you think of the expression ‘defining moment’? A peak experience, or perhaps a monumental decision that might change the course of history?
A less common but equally justifiable view says that people are defined by many tiny moments occurring over time. In Nature writ large, this shows up as the drip-drip-drip of minerals in caverns where stalactites are created, or the inexorable motion of glaciers that eventually scours out vast lakes.
I think you know where I’m heading here. […]
Don’t Blink – You Might Miss It
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. […]
Blips in Mindfulness Hazardous to Your Health
Typing is a nine finger exercise tonight.
What lies beneath the bandage you don’t want to know. Okay, if you must know… the car door closing has made short work of my finger nail.
I haven’t cried while jumping up and down with desperate pain in a very long time. […]
"Where Care Lodges, Sleep Will Never Lie"*
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When I woke up in the dark today, and it was only 2:37am, I was hoping I would fall right back sleep. Instead I spent the next hour in the slipstream of my thoughts, not awake enough to still them and not sleepy enough to bypass them.
Finally, I did something I’ve never done before. […]
A Sutra a Day: The Prize – Holistic Yoga
Do you ever set off on a journey not knowing exactly where you’ll end up? Even when you embark on a what you think is a certain path, you still may not arrive at your imagined destination.
That can be a good outcome, a bad one, or simply what is.
When I started interacting with Patanjali on this blog – teasing out each of his tightly packed Sutra – I did it as an exercise in discipline. […]
A Sutra a Day: IV-34 – Here Ends the Sutra of Patanjali
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I’ve not been well today. A stomach complaint – severe cramping and slight nausea. Perhaps a dose of gastro or food poisoning? It could have been to do cleaning out a big mucky garden pot. Maybe something that is meant to live outside got inside me.
So here I am, all alone at home, while everyone in our household has gone to choir practice. I truly can’t remember having an evening alone for yonks. It’s exceptionally nice.
And, this is a special night too… […]
A Sutra a Day: IV-33 – Tiny Instants of Time Add Up
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For some reason, maybe because of teaching some workshops on ‘How to Work with Older Students’, I seem to be preoccupied with ageing. It may be because I am, er… getting on myself.
A newsletter landed in my email today from my friend and colleague Maggi, who was writing about ‘Age and Attitude’. She says,
‘I have a bad attitude to ageing. […]
A Sutra a Day: IV-32 – A Balancing Act
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Yoga philosophy has a handy way to categorise elements of the material world. In Sanskrit there are three forces called gunas: tamas, which exhibits qualities of darkness, inertia, or heaviness; rajas, which equates with raw energy, passion, dynamism; and, sattva, which is defined as Being, clarity, or spiritual essence.
Objects can be characterised according to the above scheme, and so can human moods and personalities.
Think about it. At times you’ve probably felt yourself in a heavy mood, like a dark cloud is hanging over you (tamasic). […]
A Sutra a Day: IV-31 – "All is Known and Nothing is Known"
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Have you ever heard of an exercise that’s done in personal development courses called “If you really knew me….”? It’s designed to create a greater depth of intimacy among the members of the group by sharing something of a personal nature. By opening up about a subject where there’s been fear or embarrassment attached to it, the speaker has an opportunity to let go and move on. […]
A Sutra a Day: IV-30 – You’re the One to Set You Free
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One of the students from my Patanjali study group has inspired me. He was talking about his week and how he struggled to free himself from making judgments about people. […]
A Sutra a Day: Patanjali’s Best
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The first time I went to the Iyengar Institute in Poona, India, I was a babe in the woods in so many ways. […]
A Sutra a Day: IV-29 – After Rain, Radiance
Today is weather-perfection where we live on the magical mid-north coast… Mitchells Island, New South Wales.
I think you know what I mean by perfect conditions. (If you are snowed in in Vermont or Toronto, well, winter has it’s own beauty, doesn’t it?)
During the day today it’s been 24 degrees celsius, with a light breeze and mid-range humidity. Best of all, it rained last night, just enough so all the vegetation in our gardens spread its wings in the morning sunshine. […]
A Sutra a Day: IV-28 – Valentine's Every Day
Illustration by Gretta Kool
By the time some of you read this post, you may already be in trouble. Did you remember that tomorrow is Valentine’s Day, and did you plan accordingly? Gifts of flowers, chocolates, sweet and sincere cards are expected by many people. Like all expectations, if you don’t meet them, you may be up a creek.
To put this love holiday in perspective, it’s an American import to Australia, much like Halloween. […]
A Sutra a Day: IV-27 – Those Pesky Psychic Grooves (grinding out the same old tune)
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Have you run across the idea that your yoga mat can act as your therapist? I know on one level that sounds facetious, but think about it. You put yourself on your mat routinely and, each time you do, it’s an opportunity for you to watch your behaviour.
What are your responses as you practice. […]
A Sutra a Day: IV-26 – The Force of Freedom
Is wanting a bad thing? Should we be without desires? If we covet something we don’t have, aren’t we incomplete in some way?
For many years, my greatest longing was for a perfect relationship with a perfect man. You must know how badly that turned out! When I was able to be with a partner (Daniel) and accept him the way he was, things went better.
When I took up yoga, I was drawn to something in it – I couldn’t have told you what. Nevertheless, I kept being pulled forward. […]
Dusting Off the Word According to Patanjali
Yesterday I kicked off the first of six sessions in which 9 students and I will look at least the philosophy of Patanjali. The format is a discussion in which we will tease out the aphorisms called the Yoga Sutras.
It’s a privilege to give our time to considering big questions, like what is yoga? We do yoga practices daily or once a week in classes, but we seldom give much thought to why we’re doing it.
In designing this course, I’ve been able to take a fresh look at Sutra I:2. […]
A Sutra a Day: IV-25 – Finding Your Way Home
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Over the years I’ve developed a deep love and appreciation for yoga. Sometimes I joke and say that it’s the longest relationship I’ve ever had.
In the beginning I did yoga to help me lose weight after a pregnancy and to keep fit. I discovered I was good at doing the asanas so that gave me an ego boost and led me to do yoga teacher training. […]
A Sutra a Day: IV-24 – The Best Part of Ourselves
In the early part of my life, I alternated between being a very good girl and a bit of a hell-raiser. I do have a few regrets, but I did manage to create some vivid memories along the way, as well as some great accomplishments.
I would say that the thing that tempered my tempestuous side was partly the discovery of yoga, but even more so becoming part of a wholesome community.
There has been a kind of evolution in my involvement with various communities. […]
A Sutra a Day: IV-23 – Tackling Patanjali
From this Saturday when I begin running a 6-week course on Patanjali’s Yoga Sutra, I will be very much a beginning yoga teacher again.
The Sutra are a topic which I’ve never taught before so I am fraught with doubts about my ability to give the students the true value of the Old Sage’s teaching. […]
A Sutra a Day: IV-22 – Inner/Outer Work
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A friend who is staying with us for a few days is a meditator of decades, going back to his early teachers, Muktananda and Osho (when he was Rajneesh). […]