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.
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.
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. […]
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. […]
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.
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.’
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.
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.
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.
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. […]
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.
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.
Am also encouraged by recent findings that the body may cease aging when one is past 91. The study (reported in a 2016 New Scientist) by Michael Rose (a professor of evolutionary biology), says that if you are lucky enough to live that long, you stop ageing. He notes that one’s health may not improve but it certainly does not get any worse. Whilst that advice is far not mainstream, population statistics do show that ageing seems to stop at 93 – and does not speed up again until we get a telegram from Queen Elizabeth (the Last) at 100.
Thus, if one makes it to 99, you are no more likely to die at any given point than someone of 93. (From 110 plus may be a different matter but I’ll let you know). …
In the absence of internet information, I decided to create my own holistic way of dealing with my upcoming surgery.
I started talking with my friends to share my journey. The simple fact that I was willing to be open and vulnerable helped eliminate any residual shame.
I started keeping a journal in which I could collect information on hysterectomies, and more importantly, write down questions and feelings as they arose. …
Yoga: Yes or No After Cataract Surgery?
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