I hope you escape any illnesses this year, but just in case you don’t, keep looking for the breaks in the cloud cover that let the sun in.
And, I’m sure you’ll appreciate your accidental good health so much more when the lurgy fog lifts.
Camping
Nourishing Yoga: Retreat to Go Forward
I’ve started to realise how important it is, vital even, to get away and see the world. To shake off the cobwebs and get far away from the perfect flat white you order at your favourite cafe.There’s a great opportunity coming up this winter for all you yoga teachers and trainees to give yourself a complete break. You can retreat to the little hamlet of Stroud, NSW.
Yoga on the Road: Heading to the Outback
It’s nearly autumn in Australia. Here on the East Coast we’ve experienced the hottest summer in many a year. Fortunately, the weather has become cooler recently, but still exceedingly humid.No matter what the weather is like this time of year, Australians are beginning to dream about setting off in their vans for northern coasts, inland lakes and The Outback.
Discover the Power of Everyday Rituals
My ritual morning cuppa
There’s a certain morning ritual that I have performed ever since I was 16 years old. This is the age when coffee and I started our long and friendly relationship.
I enrolled in a summer high school class which started at 7am. Everyone knows that teenagers are not biologically designed for early mornings. I was in shock when that first alarm went off. Making and drinking a cuppa soon became the ritual that got me going each day. […]
A Gratitude Practice: Give Thanks for Everyday Things
Objectify: degrade to the status of a mere object.
I don’t know why mere objects aren’t shown more respect. And why is it that objectifying is considered a pejorative word?
Think of all the things that we use daily that make life easier or more pleasurable and yet we take these objects for granted.
I had cause to reflect on the importance of certain objects on our recent camping trip. […]
Icons of Australia: 'Cute Koalas'
As part of my Aussie love affair, I finally had a chance to meet cute koalas face-to-face and up-close-and-personal. Here are a couple of examples of my encounters with koalas in the wild.
Yoga and Life Lesson: Be Flexible
I thought I was was a reasonably flexible person. And I don’t just mean being able to fold up in Uttanasana like a Swiss Army knife. I mean mental/emotional flexibility. I used to be quite glib in my yoga teaching: ‘work on your suppleness and this will make you mentally limber.’
The Big Aussie Rocks: Uluru and Kata Tjuta
Big doesn’t adequately describe Uluru’s size. Three hundred forty eight metres high with a circumference of 9.4 km. And, that’s just what is showing; it’s not generally known that most of Uluru”s bulk lies underground.
Looking for Beauty: Coober Pedy and the Breakaways
To say nothing is out there is incorrect; to say the desert is stingy with everything except space and light, stone and earth is closer to the truth. – from Blue Highways By William Least Heat-Moon, American travel writer.
Outback Yogini: Camping Couture
Pack your favourite (old) things. You’ll be wearing them a lot more than you do in your ordinary life, but it’s like having brought your friends with you.
Take things that don’t show dirt! Im wearing a lot more greys than I normally do but I can always accessorise with colour. Because I’m wearing greys, every
Pack clothes that can cope with being washed over and over in a commercial machine. After a while, my denim skirt and jeans have become as comfy as loungewear.
2016: An Astonishing Array of Desert Flowers
We didn’t plan it. Actually, we’ve done remarkably little planning on this our 4-month odyssey around the eastern half of Australia.
But we lucked out!
Apparently the central and southern desert regions of the Northern Territory have had more than their fair share of rain this year–i.e., the whole year’s precipitation to date.
So almost everywhere you look there are sprays and bouquets and even meadows of flowers. […]
Ultimate Nature and the Ultimate Camping Pack-Up
Our camping trip through gorgeous gorges and ranges of the Northern Territory has been more beautiful than I ever expected. The Katherine Gorge area and south to Mataranka and Bitter Springs, from big landscapes to small, rejuvenating springs for bathing, these were stunning. But Alice Springs and the MacDonnell Ranges, and Kings Canyon, and now Uluru, they all should be on everyone’s bucket list–the ultimate nature experience.
What is an Outback Australia A-Log?
I’ve been on the road for nearly two months, camping in towns and way out of towns. I’ve stayed in enough places that I (capable of many senior moments) was losing track of where and when.
What This Yogini Has Learned About Camping
Yogini in steep learning curveI have a persona that I rather enjoy presenting to the world–that of being a skilful Yogini. I admit this fact in order to be completely transparent. I know that yoga is meant to help you divest of guises and the ego, but there it is.Now that I’m away from my yoga studio and teaching, that comfortable role has fallen away. I’m faced with this new role, that of a camping traveller.I’m in a big learning curve. Every morning I wake up in unfamiliar surroundings, totally at the effect of weather. […]