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. […]
Illustration by Gretta Kool
By the time some of you read this post, you may already be in trouble. Did you remember that tomorrow is Valentine’s Day, and did you plan accordingly? Gifts of flowers, chocolates, sweet and sincere cards are expected by many people. Like all expectations, if you don’t meet them, you may be up a creek.
To put this love holiday in perspective, it’s an American import to Australia, much like Halloween. […]
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Have you run across the idea that your yoga mat can act as your therapist? I know on one level that sounds facetious, but think about it. You put yourself on your mat routinely and, each time you do, it’s an opportunity for you to watch your behaviour.
What are your responses as you practice. […]
Is wanting a bad thing? Should we be without desires? If we covet something we don’t have, aren’t we incomplete in some way?
For many years, my greatest longing was for a perfect relationship with a perfect man. You must know how badly that turned out! When I was able to be with a partner (Daniel) and accept him the way he was, things went better.
When I took up yoga, I was drawn to something in it – I couldn’t have told you what. Nevertheless, I kept being pulled forward. […]
Yesterday I kicked off the first of six sessions in which 9 students and I will look at least the philosophy of Patanjali. The format is a discussion in which we will tease out the aphorisms called the Yoga Sutras.
It’s a privilege to give our time to considering big questions, like what is yoga? We do yoga practices daily or once a week in classes, but we seldom give much thought to why we’re doing it.
In designing this course, I’ve been able to take a fresh look at Sutra I:2. […]
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Over the years I’ve developed a deep love and appreciation for yoga. Sometimes I joke and say that it’s the longest relationship I’ve ever had.
In the beginning I did yoga to help me lose weight after a pregnancy and to keep fit. I discovered I was good at doing the asanas so that gave me an ego boost and led me to do yoga teacher training. […]
In the early part of my life, I alternated between being a very good girl and a bit of a hell-raiser. I do have a few regrets, but I did manage to create some vivid memories along the way, as well as some great accomplishments.
I would say that the thing that tempered my tempestuous side was partly the discovery of yoga, but even more so becoming part of a wholesome community.
There has been a kind of evolution in my involvement with various communities. […]
From this Saturday when I begin running a 6-week course on Patanjali’s Yoga Sutra, I will be very much a beginning yoga teacher again.
The Sutra are a topic which I’ve never taught before so I am fraught with doubts about my ability to give the students the true value of the Old Sage’s teaching. […]
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A friend who is staying with us for a few days is a meditator of decades, going back to his early teachers, Muktananda and Osho (when he was Rajneesh). […]
Do you keep diaries? I did for many years. I filled up many of those blank page books; they were like my portable and private therapists, a written record of ruminations and attempts to sort feelings. I suppose you could say blogging is a modern day, more focussed way of diarising.
I came across one of my old books by accident today. (I burned a lot of the old diaries because I sorely needed to move on from past traumas.) This particular book is special. […]
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In studying today’s message from Patanjali (as below), it seemed to lend itself well to a phenomenon to which we all fall prey – even esteemed and supposedly detached scientists – so I decided to ask my husband in as a guest blogger to describe it. So here’s Daniel:
I found this definition of science on a website:
“Science is a way of understanding the world, not a mountain of facts. Before anyone can truly understand scientific information, they must know how science works. […]
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Do you get into intimate conversations where you want to communicate something significant or personal and find yourself frustrated that your words seem inadequate to what you want to communicate? I don’t mean you lack vocabulary or that you can’t find the right words. […]
Today is my husband and my nineteenth marriage anniversary. (The above photo accompanied our wedding invitations. We both had more hair then.)
Last year we forgot all about celebrating until the day before. Daniel saved the occasion by arranging a seaplane trip to Noah’s restaurant on the northern beaches. […]
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One of the hardest lessons I’ve had to learn is that my reality is real only for me. Assuming that others should agree with my world view, and perhaps even adopt it, has been the cause of suffering for me in the past.
When I started teaching yoga 30-plus years ago, I was gung-ho in my interpretation of the Iyengar method. I learned from a tough teacher and I tried to be one. […]
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Shortly before I went away on a several week break recently, I had an argument with one of my housemates. You know how it is when you’re rushing around getting ready to go, stressed by packing, and completing those pesky chores. I was not at all in the space of anticipatory delight.
I won’t bore you with the details of the dust-up; let’s just say there was a display of anger, hurt feelings and cross words. My lower self was clearly on display. […]
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I’ve set myself the goal of learning what can be known, novice as I am, of Patanjali’s Yoga Sutra.
Certain of these terse aphorisms make sense to me, but others I find are too obtuse. Nevertheless, I keep at it. […]
More often than not we are required to make quick decisions and then we move on and live with the choices we made. Life is usually being fired at us point blank and there’s not a lot of time to reflect even on the important stuff so as to arrive at our best options.
So it goes with impressions of people, also; isn’t it often the case that we sum up a person on first meeting, slot them in to a pigeonhole, and then there they stay.
It happens with yoga poses too. […]
I feel very happy this evening – Day 5 – of an early morning yoga intensive that I’ve been running this week in the Yoga Shed. Thank goodness it’s been scheduled for 7 am because by 8:30 the tin shed is starting to cook.
Tomorrow is the final session and we will do a restorative practice. […]
I wish, as a yoga teacher, I had more sway with my students in encouraging them to do their own practice. It’s not that I want them to disappear from the classes I teach. […]
Is it being too attached to still think about the departed, even after fifteen years?
My sister’s birthday has just past. She herself passed at the age of 51. I’m well on the other side of that age so I think of it as being young – too young to die.
Sue was her name. I miss her still. When we were together, which was not often as she lived in the States, I would teach her yoga. […]