
A Sutra a Day: I-24 Home and Hearth
How happy am I to be home again from our week away up north? Completely!
I’ve loved the connections with dear friends and a whole new crop of yoga students. […]
Several years ago I decided that it was about time that I read the Yoga Sutra of Patanjali. I was well into my fourth decade as a yoga practitioner and somehow I’d managed to skirt any serious study of the Old Sage.
I thought that Yoga Suits Her would suit a sort of online self-study forum for me and my readers as well.
Each night for 9 months I sat down at my computer and worked my way through all 196 sutra. I relied on the wise interpretations of teachers, such as by Georg Feurerstein, B.K.S. Iyengar and T.K.V. Desikachar. But more importantly, I wove in my everyday experiences to make the sutra relevant to me and others.
It was a sort of dusting off of the old text, and hopefully ‘with all due respect.’
Here they are!
How happy am I to be home again from our week away up north? Completely!
I’ve loved the connections with dear friends and a whole new crop of yoga students. […]
Today my early morning practice was appropriately pitched to the weather – surya namaskar – salutes to the sun. It was beautifully warming to do 20 or so salutes, with a mixture of standing poses thrown in halfway through.
Dynamic practice is suitable for these chilly, shall I say miserably wet, days. […]
One of the more controversial statements I’ve made when instructing yoga teacher trainees is that it takes at least twelve years to become a good teacher. One of those statements I heard from a senior teacher when I was a junior.
Is it true? I don’t know really. I didn’t feel completely comfortable in my skin teaching yoga for about twenty-five years. I still get completely anxious before big teaching gigs, as in not being able to sleep the night before.
First a teacher has to find her own voice to be good. It’s not lost or misplaced. […]
I’ve been looking forward all day to a visit from delightful Sydney friends who are staying with us for four days.
We are very well set up for company, with 2 guest suites of rooms and another guest bedroom in the Yoga Shed. It means they can be comfortable and private when they want, and us, too.
We gathered around the fireplace on their arrival for snacks and a glass of red wine, shared a meal of homemade soup and fresh bread, and enjoyed lively conversation.
Then, we adjourned to the t.v. […]
The calves have started popping out of Farmer Scott’s beef cows on the property next door to us. I haven’t actually seen any births but the numbers of these labrador-sized creatures are increasing each day. […]
If you ever drop in for a visit to us on Mitchells Island, I might take you sightseeing to Wingham Brush.
Never heard of it? It’s a small miracle of remnant rainforest in the sleepy riverside town of Wingham. The iconic Aussie poet, Les Murray, has written a poem to the native, furry inhabitants of Wingham Brush called “The Flying Fox Dreaming”. […]
When I have guests to stay at our home, I invite them to do practice with me first thing in the morning in the Yoga Shed. People who have had no prior experience with yoga have reported that they take it up after a few of these sessions, and I attribute that partly to the inspiration of the yoga room. I’ve seen even those who used to do yoga and, for whatever reason, have stopped, get a taste for it again after practising in the Yoga Shed.
A yoga studio can be a storehouse of good energy. […]
I am klutzy when it comes to getting around on a computer. It doesn’t come naturally to me. However, maybe like you, I find myself spending an increasing amount of time in front of this screen and keyboard.
On some level I know that I choose to be doing this, but probably at least once a day, I get annoyed with this machine.
Today I spat the dummy. For other than Aussie readers, this is a term that implies overreacting to a situation in an angry or frustrated manner. That’s a pretty accurate description of my disposition. […]
Sometimes I feel left behind. Someone will ask me if I know so-and-so yoga teacher and more often than not these days I have to say ‘no’. It doesn’t help if I say, ‘Well, I know the old yoga teachers.”
Some of the newer kids on the block are actually quite famous and I should know their names. […]
Do you have a favourite quote? I was asked to fill one in on a directory profile today. I find my memory is sort of leaky and I can’t remember many adages or aphorisms. However, this one from the Ramayana has always stuck with me as a something to aim for :
When I don’t know who I am I serve you. […]
Source: abeautifulrippleeffect.com via Twyla on Pinterest
A few weeks ago I was having a great deal of trouble falling asleep. Nervous about teaching 9 sessions in two days to a completely new group of students, I needed sleep, but it eluded me.
One of the yogic techniques I tried was echo breathing. I’d read about this type of breathing in B.K.S. Iyengar’s Light on Life. Here’s how Mr. Iyengar describes how to do it and what it achieves:
“Exhale slowly and fully. Pause. Then exhale again. There is always a slight residue left in the lungs. […]
Over the years, I’ve done several 10-day vipassana meditation courses. I can recommend them very highly for the fact that they are conducted in silence, and usually in a quiet rural setting.
The downside of hanging out in a silent environment is that for me the noisiness of my mind (citta vrtti) becomes amplified. Eventually, my mind will get quiet but sometimes not without a struggle.
I remember the vipassana facilitator in the nightly dharma talks discussing what happens when we slow down, and, at the same time, outside stimuli are severely reduced. […]