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.
The Exciting Life of a Yoga Teacher on an Island
When we first bought our rural property, mid-north coast was in drought. Typically for Australia, that went on for a few years. Then, about the same time our builders broke ground for building our home, the drought broke too. How many “rain days” were there? Too many, but I still felt wistful enough about The Wet that I could still enjoy it.
La Nina settled in cozily for the long haul and at times she’s been a veritable pussy cat of a weather pattern. But not this week. […]
Sharing from The Shed
For any of you non-native Australian people out there, a Shed (with a capital “S”) is an Aussie institution. More often than not, it is the place that a bloke can get away from his missus and the kids for a bit of peace and mind.In my case, I’ve appropriated our tin shed for a yoga space which could get up the noses of certain men. […]
June 14, Mitchells Island
Here’s me at this very moment, writing my tonight’s post. Outside the Island is getting pelted with rain squalls. Inside, it’s toasty as as the baked dinner I cooked.
Speaking of being in the moment, a friend sent a link to a recently made YouTube video of Ram Dass (author of Be Here Now. If you’ve not made his acquaintance, you can find lots on the Internet.
Ram Dass had a massive stroke many years ago and now is only able to speak the very kernel of any message he wants to communicate. […]
Big Wet
I’ve got to put my foot down with our choir director so we stop singing the “Rain Song”. It’s a great melody, and the lyrics are cleverly syncopated and percussive, like rain drops.
We’ve been singing the song weekly. Much more than rain drops have been drawn to our part of the world, more of a deluge in the last while. […]
Home
“Home is where the heart is” is not a very good adage. Does it mean that you can’t leave home and still feel heartful?
I do know that my heart feels fuller when I’m here in our own little 4 acres on Mitchells Island. So, I was ecstatic to get home last night. Not the least to see my sweetheart.
The weather is inclement and probably will be for most of the week – rainy, chilly – but I don’t care.
I did two loads of laundry and a batch of handwash this morning. Such bliss. […]
Yoga = Belonging
Yoga equals union. Everyone who knows a little about yoga knows that is how yoga is defined.
Is there any relationship between yoga (union) and one’s sense of belonging? I think so.
I had a big epiphany a few months ago and the spin-off from it was that I felt like I belonged with people.
This may sound funny but prior to the Epiphany, I always felt like I was trying to belong. I’d done it for so long that I’d accepted trying as normal. […]
From Chilly, Cloudy Byron Bay
I came across this bit of writing in my email today and it struck a chord. We yogis try to be good, gooder, goodest through doing various practices, to varying degrees if success.
Natalia describes what happens:
” Often when we come off that mat, and head back into our daily lives, we miss the point. We do not fully realise that we have just spent the last hour and a half digging up our inner child and his/her hurts, or rekindling that old love affair, or revisiting that less-than-realised soul we called mum or dad. […]
The Older You Get…
…the less you know. I’m convinced of it. Ooops. Have I just said I know something?
I think two things happen as you mature and age: 1) you collect more conflicting information along the way, i.e., all those studies you read in the newspaper about the benefits/disadvantages of drinking coffee, alcohol, eating chocolate. One day, the suggestion is “go for it”, and the next it’s “stop”, “whoa”, “ya’ better watch out.”
No. […]
Gym or Hospital?
An inquiry from an old student got me thinking today about why people come along to do yoga. Or, I guess, even why people teach yoga.
Is it to get a workout and build stronger, more sinewy bodies? Or is it to fix up bodies broken by disease or injuries, and minds run over by stress?
It’s pertinent to hang out with the questions as I head off to teach in a yoga therapy course. Trainees will learn to take case histories, do client assessments, and design programs. […]
Here and There
One of the big draws to living in a beautiful setting in the county is just that: there is so much to sense, look out on and appreciate – distant purple hills, green fields, cocky cockatoos, big-bellied cows, water views, clean, crisp air….
Since moving to Mitchells Island, I’ve become less efficient and probably less productive, too. It’s taken me weeks to prepare for my teaching this coming week in Byron Bay. […]
Really Sad
More than 20 years ago, I was friends with a “de-frocked” Buddhist monk. Tim (not his real name) had been in a monastery in Burma for years and chose to leave the order to live as an ordinary person. […]
Now and Then
I was sad today to note the SMH obituary written the passing of Bob Gould, a colourful Sydney figure variously described as: founder of the anti-Vietnam movement in Australia, Trotskyite, bibliophile, historian, union agitator, anti-censorship battler, bohemian, polemicist, Irish Catholic.
I only made the acquaintance of this big bear of a man as a frequenter of the ramshackle Third World Bookshop in Goulburn St., a place where you could find imports from the U.S., stuff that couldn’t be found anywhere else in Sydney.
His death got me thinking about two people in my life who have terminal illnesses, one who […]
The Crack in Everything
Today’s blog is something new for me. I decided upon listening to one of my favourite Leonard Cohen songs yesterday that I would update one of the most popular posts that I’ve written. It gives a nod to the composer’s well-loved tune, “Anthem”, which has the refrain:
Forget your perfect offering
There is a crack in everything
That’s how the light gets in.
I’m of the opinion that the song’s sentiment is so popular because we humans don’t want to have work so hard at being perfect. […]
Twinges
Twinge sounds like such a harmless word when it’s applied to conscience, a little tweak, a tiny tickle. Perhaps so inconsequential that it can be overlooked or overridden.
Is it just me or somehow does a twinge seems more significant when it has to do with the body? My husband Daniel learned the hard way (meaning enduring many physiotherapist visits) that he needed to give due respect to any back twinges. A stab of pain works as an early warning system for what might turn out to be a storm of discomfort or even incapacitation. […]
Healthy Blood Pressure = Healthy Brain
The weekend Sydney Morning Herald, mostly bought so we can pit our brains against the quiz, also offered some fascinating anti-dementia news.
More than doing sudokus and cryptic crossword puzzles, we ought to be working on keeping our blood pressure as normal as possible.
High blood pressure contributes to vascular dementia that’s caused by having a stroke. But there is some evidence that keeping BP levels healthy can help prevent Alzheimers, too.
Where does yoga fit in? Obviously as a holistic form of exercise; it helps lower blood pressure and provides blood flow to the brain. […]
Riches
What am I doing on a Saturday night? Why I’m obviously writing a post. […]
Victim vs. Victor
One of the great philosophy books of all time has to be Patanjali’s Yoga Sutra. Not only is it a brilliant description of our psyches but it offers techniques for becoming free and even enlightened.
How do we become free? By stilling the movement of the mind. Or, as Patanjali put it in Sanskrit:
Yogah Citta-Vrtti-Nirodhah.
Like many, I had a difficult upbringing. I made a decision, perhaps when I was very young, to not succumb to being a victim. […]
Resistance
The weather forecast for our area tells me that it’ll be 9 degrees overnight, with wind gusts of 10 km/h and maybe some more showers. I find these sort of days and nights very unpleasant.
I “rug up” as much as any human being can, layers and layers of polytherms, muffler, beanie, socks, ugh boots, and more. But when we get those mean southwesterly winds blowing callously across the island, I just want to go to ground.
On some level, I know that the more I resist the onset of winter, the more stressful I make it for myself. […]
Bad Report Card
Most people under 40 years old would not have the word “periodontist” in their vocabulary. […]
Paid Forward
Back in Sydney, back at Simply Yoga tonight to be taken in a class by Jen Taylor. A class, as she described, taught with a restorative approach.
Such an amazing thing to be led through a class by someone whom I’ve taught for years and then mentored as a yoga teacher. In this evening’s session, I had an experience akin to being held lovingly in my own hands. […]