Gardening

Recover from Gardening Labours with Yoga

Recover from Gardening Labours with Yoga

Like many of you, I do gardening. Which means I know firsthand how hard gardening is on the body. When my yoga students arrive at class with achy backs or sore shoulders or gardeners’ knees, I know it’s time to break out the poses that target these complaints.
Maintaining the yoga practice presented here will help us all sail through this Spring gardening season. 

Thankless vs. Thankful

Thankless vs. Thankful

We live on 4.5 acres of semi-rural land on Mitchells Island. Some of our property is tamed and most is not. Not that we haven’t been working on it on and off for the last nine years. It’s a big job trying to do bush regeneration.
Today, as I was cutting and poisoning lantana and blackberry bush, I was thinking how much more work there was to do compared with my current feeble efforts. […]

The Goodness of Gardens

The Goodness of Gardens

I went to Trent, the hairdresser, in town today, and he gave me a pretty ‘do’. In my old life as a city girl, my hairdresser would say, ‘I hope your husband is taking you some place special for dinner tonight.’
Instead of a glamorous outing, in my current incarnation as a country girl, I took myself and my new hairdo home to work in the garden. Specifically to muck around in the compost, a job that’s needed doing for some time. […]

Winter's Here: May As Well Put Out the Welcome Mat

Winter's Here: May As Well Put Out the Welcome Mat

It’s so much more satisfying to have the luxury of a whole weekend to spend with friends instead of trying to fit in a meal together in the city. City people should probably be having more sleep-overs.
I thought that, since Daniel and I didn’t have a winter holiday planned this year, we would be feeling the weight of the winter season – and a wet one at that. But no… […]

Make Every Day Count

Make Every Day Count

I came across a great post on The Elephant Journal entitled: “Exercise & Opportunity: Why You Should Throw Away Your Bucket List & Stop Wasting Your Life” by Jennifer S. White.
The author reminded me of two things that people of a certain age like me should consider – get plenty of exercise. The Victorian Government Better Health Channel says:
“Only 1 in 10 Australians over 50 exercises enough to gain any cardiovascular benefit. […]

Cutting Back Those Tiny Twinges

Cutting Back Those Tiny Twinges

 

 
Out of all the thousands of poses in the world, how do you know which of them to practice.
Or, if you’re a yoga teacher, how do you know what to teach?
Of course, it depends on many of variables, the most important one being, read your body. Another indicator is read the seasons.
At the moment we’ve been doing summer gardening – especially cutting back weeds and hauling full wheelbarrows of them for disposal. […]

Do You Do Yoga as Exercise?

Do You Do Yoga as Exercise?

I hear countless conversations, read articles and hear lectures about how yoga is not just a physical exercise system. We’ve all heard them. We’ve even said such things ourselves.
Still, it’s a hard habit to break, that is, considering yoga as a way to improve fitness, flexibility, and strength. Of course, those are great benefits that asana practice (postures) can provide.
However, it’s far easier for me to go into the Yoga Shed to do an asana practice  than sit down and do pranayama (yoga breathing) and meditation. Sometimes I even have to make myself do savasana. […]

A Sutra a Day: IV-29 – After Rain, Radiance

A Sutra a Day: IV-29 – After Rain, Radiance

 
Today is weather-perfection where we live on the magical mid-north coast… Mitchells Island, New South Wales.
I think you know what I mean by perfect conditions. (If you are snowed in in Vermont or Toronto, well, winter has it’s own beauty, doesn’t it?)
During the day today it’s been 24 degrees celsius, with a light breeze and mid-range humidity. Best of all, it rained last night, just enough so all the vegetation in our gardens spread its wings in the morning sunshine. […]

A Sutra a Day: IV-2 – A Theory of Yoga Evolution

A Sutra a Day: IV-2 – A Theory of Yoga Evolution

 

Since we hit our antipodean warm weather in early December, our vegetable garden has gone berserk.
First there were the zucchinis, hidden from view under their giant leaves, which, unattended, ballooned into green torpedo-shapes. Then came the cherry tomatoes. Well, they are still coming, and coming, and our freezer is totally packed out with them. Lately, the cucumbers have been vying with the zukes for quantity and size. […]

A Sutra a Day: III-15 – Vegie Dreaming

A Sutra a Day: III-15 – Vegie Dreaming

 

I’m a city girl, born and bred. But, I always dreamed about being able to grow my own foods in the country…one day.
I’m also a sort of a know-nothing about how to do this growing produce thing. Fortunately, I’ve had some pretty switched on people around me, notably Peter Nixon and my housemate Heather.
Peter has been trying to teach me to be a patient gardener, starting in a logical sequence with the all-important rich soil. He recommended we make our own soil through the no-dig method, easy-peasy, he seemed to say. […]

Today (a pause from Patanjali)

Today (a pause from Patanjali)

  I just have to tell you about what’s going on around our pretty little rural acreage. The place is jumping! It’s spring for real. There are races going on for best soil real estate as weeds and immature vegetables vie for space. Trees we planted last autumn are raising their small arms and flexing tiny leaves as sap is rising. I’m sure if I listen very carefully, I can hear growth spurts. […]

A Sutra a Day: II-4 – Plant Now, Harvest Later

Source: flickr.com via Katherine on Pinterest

 
Did you enjoy a gloriously sunny winter day today? I did. It called to me to get into the garden and weed and plant.
I’m a metropolitan girl from places like Chicago, New York and Sydney. Gardening is not my first language. What does that matter, though,  when Nature calls?
There’s rocket, lettuce and dill in the dirt now. I’ve checked the weather report and it will be cold over the next few days but not frosty. […]

A Sutra a Day: I-31 Peace in the Garden

A Sutra a Day: I-31 Peace in the Garden

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. […]

Breathe It In

Breathe It In

      Everywhere you look in the Manning Valley these days, you’ll see the signs of the most luscious growth of many seasons – the culmination of several years of good rains without overheating. The low rolling hills west of the Pacific Highway are full of luxuriant pastures with fat cows and horses. The rivers and streams are fully flowing and oyster farming has started up again. We bought our property on Mitchells Island during the drought. And then we watched our wetland dry out, our lawns growing brown, and most of the planting we did dying off. […]

Yoga & Yakka*

Yoga & Yakka*

Over the last two days, we’ve been working our bums off on our little rural spread on lush Mitchells Island. We’ve had fantastic professional help from Peter Nixon, Paradisus Garden Design and our local builder, Matt Peters. But we decided that, to save money, we would do some of the labouring work ourselves. I don’t know that this is necessarily a good idea. […]

"My Life is My Message"

"My Life is My Message"

I’ve never read a biography about Mahatma Gandhi, nor any of his many published works, so I’m hoping that the above quote is really accredited to him. Wrongful attribution is a problem these days, as evidenced by this message we often see on bumper stickers and gift shop coffee mugs:
Be the change you want to see in the world.
That expression, usually associated with the great man, is probably a paraphrase of words paraphrased in an interview with Gandhi’s son years ago.*
I digress though. […]

One Potato, Two Potato, Three Potato….

One Potato, Two Potato, Three Potato….

I was so excited today by the output of our potato patch that I wanted to write something about it on this blog. However I couldn’t think of any relationship between growing potatoes and yoga.
So now, we’re going to make a leap and talk about couch potatoes.
Some people are attracted to yoga because they are not particularly athletic. They believe that yoga is an activity that will give them a soft landing when they finally get off the couch and onto the mat.
Don’t be fooled, though. […]

Today

Today

Sometimes Nature is right in your face.
This morning at seven o’clock, the forest, meadows and garden were all saturated wet earth.
Visually lush green growing before your very eyes. Viscerally the atmosphere heavy, thickened , where you can only breath in so much richness before getting overwhelmed. […]

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