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.
Yearning
Here’s a quote I came across yesterday (apparently it’s the star that Julian Assange steers by). I like it very much and thought you might too:
If you want to build a ship, don’t drum up people to collect wood and don’t assign them tasks and work, but rather teach them to long for the endless immensity of the seas. […]
If we want it….
I’ve been blessed this year by having been included in a group of local people who like to sing. Since it’s The Season, we will be performing carols tomorrow evening at the Mitchells Island Hall. (If you’re in the neighbourhood, do drop in. There will be a bar-b-cue, too.)
We singers ran up against a problem with one of the songs in our repertoire because the Anglican Board who are organising the carolling took offence with it. […]
De-cluttering
Believe it or not, I do try to weave in a yoga theme in each of my posts. Sometimes this is such a weak or oblique attempt that I seem to never get around to even mentioning the Y word. You might well wonder what de-cluttering and yoga have to do with each other. I would say, quite a lot. For one thing, clutter accumulating around us, tends to clutter up our minds. It adds to the citta vrtti. We look at our messy desks (which I just did. […]
Smarty-pants
Recently I’ve been in the throes of a new writing project. I was swept along in the early days by enthusiasm and euphoria. But today I noticed that I have a mountain of work ahead of me, and I started to procrastinate and figuratively shuffle papers.
A decade and a half ago, I wrote on the topic of developing the discipline to do regular yoga practice. I glibly said things like it’s not really that hard to do; it’s just that your mind trips you up. […]
The Practice of Giving
It takes time to practice generosity, but being generous is the best use of our time. Thich Nhat Hanh
The giving season is fast approaching. Perhaps the only time in the year (apart from birthdays) when we rev up to give. […]
Six-six
Who would have thought? I am 66 yrs. old today. Twenty-three years older than my father when he passed away, and thirteen years older than my mother when she passed on. It may be that their relatively young demises led me to seek out the youth-ifying benefits of yoga. I can’t say for sure.
The first enjoyable thing I did on this beautiful balmy, summery day was head for the Yoga Shed…not to do yoga but to do weights. […]
So Useful
Are we meant to think of yoga as utilitarian?
Probably not, if you think of Classical Yoga, Patanjali’s yoga. He seems to recommend that we give ourselves to yoga to uncover our true selves.
That’s very different than me stumbling out to the Yoga Shed and doing yesterday’s Fatigue-fighting sequence so that I could feel energised afterwards. Or, as in this morning’s practice, doing abdominal strengthening yoga movements to tone my middle section. Which, unfortunately, following on the heels of The Amazing Meeting conference of last weekend, has increased slightly in girth even as it lost muscularity. […]
This Morning's Practice
I stumbled out to the Yoga Shed this morning having had fewer hours sleep than I wanted. The reason? I was up late racing to finish “Nomad”, this month’s selection of our book club, which was scheduled to meet this afternoon. I have to admit I didn’t finish the book in time. However, I highly recommend it, mainly because of the courage of the author, Ayaan Hirsi Ali. She’s a feminist, writer, lecturer and fearless critic of Islam. I will finish the book as a vote of support.
Fortunately I had a Fatigue-fighting Yoga Sequence up my sleeve. […]
Teach Yourself Yoga
In 1997 Simon and Schuster published a book I wrote called, “Teach Yourself Yoga”. It took me 5 months to write it, in between teaching classes. I was really chuffed that I could pull this off, being a first time book writer and all. I remember getting a note from my editor after I sent her the first chapter of the book and she wrote back saying, “You’ve hit the exact market we’re aiming for. Keep on keeping on.” I delivered the completed manuscript on the day it was due. […]
What do Yoga & Skepticism Have in Common?
I don’t know the answer to that question, so I’ll leave it on the table for now. Hoping for some contribution from out there, or maybe a flash of insight while I’m typing.
I will say, though, that I felt a little uncomfortable at the Skeptics Conference on the weekend that I might be exposed as a person who says they have experienced nadis, chakras, marmas, siddhis, and other sorts of yogic intangibles, even though I haven’t. […]
The Amazing Meeting
I’ve spent 2.5 days in the company of 600 or so skeptics. They came from all around the world and gathered together at the Masonic Centre in Sydney to hear inspiring and interesting presenters speak on topics ranging from “Evidence Based Medicine” to “The Spread of Creationist Teaching in Schools”.
Skeptics are fighting the good fight in Australia. One of them pictured below, in her retirement, decided to take on some of the woo-woo practitioners that she ran across when she was battling cancer in 2003. […]
Dr. Karl et al
Well, I have to admit that The Amazing Meeting did live up to its name in yesterday’s afternoon session. The grand daddy of all the skeptics, James Randi, was there. (Where’s there? The Grand Lodge of the Freemasons – The Masonic Centre in Castlereagh St., Sydney, of all places.)
Randi’s age is up there in the mid-80’s or so, and he’s got a story or two or twenty to tell about busting the woo-woo out of any unscientific or new age thinking/inventions going around. […]
Skeptics Unite
I don’t know why but I used to have “skeptical” as a pejorative expression, ie. think … dirty word.
I then met Daniel i 1991, and we eventually married. He is a self-proclaimed skeptic. I went to my first Skeptics Dinner way back then (an event for Association members and guests) and discovered another meaning for the word: critical thinking. […]
The Art of Adjustment
A couple of years ago now, I wrote a book which I was very proud of called “The Art of Adjustment”. I wrote it in collaboration with Monica Redondo who was mainly the designer and photographer. Jane Thomas is the beautiful model (pictured) in the images.
It would seem that the book has sadly been languishing on the web site where it is for sale – liveyogalife.com
I don’t know why this is. I guess I’m more a writer than a sales promoter. […]
Community in the Gardens
At the Yoga Aid event in the Botanical Gardens , Abi and Zoe, amazing performers, perfect the modern art of Acu Yoga.
[…]
Incineration
Last night I went to a celebration. A friend had just successfully completed a property settlement on the house she and her daughter live in, all part of the process of her husband becoming her “ex”.
She was staging a bonfire-lighting and had recommended to her guests that they bring along something that they would like to get rid of in the fire. Our neighbours just across Scotts Creek hauled over some old bamboo blinds that went up in flames pretty spectacularly. […]
Sequencing
I’ve spent part of this beautifully sunny (at last!) day writing out yoga sequences for a project* that will consume me for some time.
There’s an find art to designing a yoga sequence:
•First of all, a sequence needs to have a beginning, middle and end. […]
Spring Clean
With only two weeks to go before the end of spring, there’s still time to do your spring cleaning, that is, if you’re so inclined.
I was raised by a very squeaky-clean type of mother. My sister and I did a lot of the grunt work – basically taking our house apart – scouring, scrubbing, and sluicing it down, until there was a sheen and a shine on everything.
If you know me a little, then you could imagine that this sort of upbringing would make spring cleaning anathema to me. I’ve rebelled against it for years. Until now. […]
There goes the Sun!
Suddenly, in one morning, The Yoga Shed has become an even more virtuous place be.
Eight solar panels and one inverter were installed today, ironically between rain squalls. […]
Scoliosis and Yoga
Backbends that strengthen the back can be useful when introduced slowly and methodically