Nature

Good Yoga Practice: Time Out for Renewal

Good Yoga Practice: Time Out for Renewal

One of the beautiful things about living in the country and being ‘semi-retired’ is that I have ample time to connect with people.
Sitting down with a cuppa to chat with a friend and not having time constraints – the conversation can go in unexpected directions. Instead of handling business or talking about what one of you needs from the other, you can just let content emerge organically, if you will.
Tomorrow I’m flying to South Australia, then to magnificent Kangaroo Island, to meet up with six dear women friends. […]

Should We Be Left to Our Devices?

Should We Be Left to Our Devices?

How  much is life passing us by because of our love affair with screens and devices? Probably more than we want to know, and it’s a question that Google can’t actually answer.
The classic cartoon above, created by Micheal Leunig with great prescience, sums up the situation. And it was published even before iPads and such were a glimmer in Apple’s eye.
Here’s an interesting statistic from this week’s SMH Good Weekend Magazine: On average a US household includes five internet-connected devices (smartphones, tablets, TVs, etc.). […]

Here Today, Maybe Not Tomorrow

Here Today, Maybe Not Tomorrow

I’m getting far too good at stopping and smelling the roses. That’s the price I pay to be semi-retired, living in the country. What does semi mean anyway?
I took a small detour on my way to yoga practice this morning to admire and photograph the heavy mists hanging all around our property.

And then, I found myself attracted to the tibouchina that was just bloomin’ its heart out.

Of course, the brugmansia stopped me in my tracks, too.

Finally, just when I thought I was going to get into the Yoga Shed, the butcher bird caught my attention. […]

How Did I Get Here?

How Did I Get Here?

 
I had some time this morning – quite a lot of it, actually – to wander around Bondi Junction, my old stomping grounds. Here’s a photo of the entrance to the Australian School of Yoga on Oxford Street.
I was mentally winding back the clock  to 1979 when I had my first experience of Iyengar Yoga taught by this man:

 
It’s fair to say that Martyn Jackson, Iyengar Yoga and the time I spent at the Australian School of Yoga changed the course of my life. […]

The Big Wet

The Big Wet

“If, from time to time, you give up expectation, you will be able to perceive what it is you are getting.”
― Idries Shah, Reflections
Australia is a crazy place to reside climate-wise. We live between drought and flood, cyclone and dust storms, biting arctic winds in the extreme south and near-equatorial heat in the far north.
Our household on Mitchells Island has been under a heavy blanket of rain over the last few days. […]

Don’t Blink – You Might Miss It

Don’t Blink – You Might Miss It

Sometimes you have to wake yourself up so that you realise you are living your Dream.
When I lived in fast-paced Sydney, I was too busy to get out into Nature because of running a city yoga centre. I desperately wanted to be living at the beach, to walk on it every day, to be surprised by what washed up from the surf or down from the river.
Here I am and there are truly wondrous sights at our mid-north coast beaches.
Today at low tide at Old Bar, there were these boys and their construction. […]

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-50 – There’s Freedom in Letting Go

Source: lovelavieboheme.tumblr.com via Melissa on Pinterest

 
We had a little party today chez Scotts Road, Mitchells Island. It was a celebration of Rick’s and my birthdays and Mike and Judy’s homecoming, all rolled into one.
I looked around at all the attendees and felt an overwhelming sense of love and affection for the people we’ve gathered around us in the 3 years of living in the country. […]

A Sutra a Day: III-47 – Uncommon Senses

A Sutra a Day: III-47 – Uncommon Senses

I live in a part of the world where a “sense feast” is presented to me every day. And since I am semi-retired, I mostly have time to linger over this repast.
I wake up to the sweet bell-like song of eastern rosellas and look across green meadows to see cattle grazing. These summer mornings are humid and languorous, with earthy odours rising from the vegetable patches. […]

A Sutra a Day: III-27 & 28 – Moon, Stars and Yoga

   In a city environment, you have to work hard to connect with Nature. For instance, I tried to stay in tune with the cycles of the moon when I lived in Sydney, but living in such a dense environment, I often found it hard to get even a glimpse of the sky. As a Nature exercise, I would try to observe the moon’s cycles and plan my yoga classes to fit in with the full moon, the new moon, and in-between moons. […]

A Sutra a Day: III-26 – Sun Worship

A Sutra a Day: III-26 – Sun Worship

 What is it about the sun? It is the centre of our solar system, of course. But the sun is a big deal in so many cultures, systems, and media: mythology, religion, romance,music, literature, and art. In the Hindu tradition, the sun, surya, is one of the gods. Sun gods feature in ancient pantheons in Greece, Rome, Mexico, Peru, Egypt, and Persia, and countless more. Human beings will complement someone’s child, saying they have a sunny disposition. […]

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. […]

A Sutra a Day: III-11 – Retreat to Evolve

A Sutra a Day: III-11 – Retreat to Evolve

A friend recently asked if it was a hard transition for me to move away from the city, stop full time work and live in semi-retirement.
How could it be hard; this is meant to be living The Dream, isn’t it? Peace and quiet, a beautiful natural setting, unstructured time….
However, for me to have gone from full-time employment and the cultural stimulation of Sydney to rural life and fewer income-generating opportunities has indeed involved some gears grinding.
I have no regrets, though, except for the geographic distance from friends. […]

A Sutra a Day: III-3 – Yoga and Global Warming

 I’ve been watching an amazing television series called ‘Frozen Planet’, narrated by the incomparable David Attenborough. The series in the main presents stunning film of areas that are considered the last frontiers of our planet – the Arctic and Antarctica. Wildlife and marine life are shown in all the glory of their natural habitats; as inhospitable as these climes seem to us, they are where these creatures have survived for hundreds of years. […]

A Sutra a Day: III-2 – Country Meditations

A Sutra a Day: III-2 – Country Meditations

 I adore living in the country. There are always surprises. Things that you have never seen before. Just at this moment there’s a big galah in our bird feeder which is shaped like a wire cage and way too small for the creature to get into the seed at the bottom. Nevertheless, he’s trying, and a rather funny-looking bird seems even odder with half of him in and half out. Earlier today, I walked down to our wetland which is rapidly drying out as the La Nina pattern swings to El Nino. […]

A Sutra a Day: II-55 – Let Your Senses Open Your Heart

A Sutra a Day: II-55 – Let Your Senses Open Your Heart

Have you ever been to the beach and taken the opportunity to ’empty out’? That’s what I call it – an exercise in Being, walking along without buying into all the comments that your mind creates, with none of the labelling you do of various phenomena you encounter.
It’s not as easy as it would seem to quiet our senses and mind.
At Mitchells Island Beach yesterday, the first internal conversation my mind came up with was, ‘Gee, I forgot it’s school holidays. Look at how many people are here. […]

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