Pleasure

Sunday Sleep-in

I have an ingrained habit of doing yoga practice each morning, and I’m in the fortunate position of not needing an alarm to wake me. I just get out of bed, walk to the studio, and begin. I don’t ever take this privilege for granted.
This chilly Sunday morning, I chose to do what most people do, curl up under the doona, sleep in, get up, make a cup of tea, get back in bed, have a cuddle. […]

Out of Your Head

Out of Your Head

One of the really good reasons to get out of your head and into your body is that is where all your senses are. There are so many things in the world to appreciate through sense of smell, taste, hearing, sight and touch if only we’re awake in our senses to enjoy them.
Today I went to the beach for a walk, even though there was a mean westerly wind blowing and the chill factor was high. […]

Good Bearing

Good Bearing

One of the things yogis can congratulate themselves on is good posture. I’ve been singled out in crowds because of my straight back – a good signature for a yoga teacher….
No matter how hard you’ve worked your forward and backward bends, there comes a time when you have to work that much harder just because of advancing years. […]

The Locals

The Locals

Roll Call of Mitchells Island Birdlife:
The kookas are the first order of the day and wake me way earlier than I want, especially when one lands on our deck, right outside my window.
Still early in the morning, as I do my practice in the Yoga Shed, I can hear one lone owl in the pine forest.

Then, while I’m up-side down in headstand, I can see out the sliding glass doors to where a couple of families of king parrots are hanging right-side up around the bird feeder.
The maggies are out and about most of the day […]

Shed in Name Only

Shed in Name Only

Ten months ago I took my maiden flight into teaching yoga in the Yoga Shed. My wings were somewhat under-used as a result of having had double hip replacement surgery in Feb. 2010, followed by three months’ rehabilitation.
I didn’t know what to expect as my Yoga Shed advertising was typically minimalist.  So I was chuffed when some students came along (and are still coming).
The old Shed needed some rehabilitating too, and today you can see the results in these photos – our own version of “Grand Designs”. […]

Joy

Joy

I remember being surprised hearing from a friend who ran a bush regeneration business that we shouldn’t have to do big scale native planting to help bushland recover. We just needed to get rid of the nasties – opportunistic plants, trees, weeds. We had to get horses, sheep and cattle off the land to let it recover. The seeds and sprouts of beautiful natives that are being crowded out and trammelled simply need the right conditions to flourish again.
There’s a connection with yoga in the above view. […]

A Good Week, and It's Not Over

A Good Week, and It's Not Over

Many lovely things have happened to me this week. Just at this very moment, I can think of two:
1) Being given “The Irresistibly Brilliant Blog Award” by fellow blogster (terrible word) from “Composting A Life”, a great site for writers, philosophers and other humans – http://compostingalife.wordpress.com/
2) Being given a copy of The Radiance Sutras, a book comprising 112 meditations “for opening to the divine in everyday life”. […]

Something different (reprised)

This blog has been hijacked once again.  Sorry.

By popular demand…  well, more because it seemed like a good idea at the time… another odd video has been produced and uploaded to YouTube for your enjoyment (?).  It still doesn’t have much to do with Yoga, except that one of Australia’s best loved Yoginis appears in it and all of the performers admit to practicing Yoga.
Please let us know what you think.  Is this the start of a spectacular career or what?  If you like it please forward to everyone in your address book. […]

Fusion

Fusion

Lots of people ask me what the best thing is about having moved to the country. Maybe they are trying to build a case for doing the same?
Every time I get this question, I make it up. I don’t have a pat answer. I also don’t remember what I said the last time.
I know that sounds strange. It’s because describing what’s good about being here is almost beyond words. […]

Stay in Your Heart!

Stay in Your Heart!

May you all have a joyous New Year’s Eve as well as a happy, healthy, rewarding and fulfilling year ahead.

I wish you the very best of the best of whatever life offers you in 2011!

[…]

Dec. 25th in Oceana

Dec. 25th in Oceana

With a bit of cajoling and a bit of coercing, my housemates and Daniel have agreed to make “guest appearances” on my blog today. (Their views are coloured by their North American origins.)
Here’s what Daniel has to say:
DXmas
Rick  describes the antipodal sort of Christmas Day we’ve been experiencing for his Canadian family and friends:
RXmas
And, here’s Heather’s spin on this exquisite day we’ve been enjoying:
HXmas

As for me, today has been the quietest day of the year. […]

Rediscovering Yoga in a Rural Setting

Rediscovering Yoga in a Rural Setting

The above is the banner subtitle for “Yoga Suits Her”. I admit I have meandered from this theme occasionally, even writing from urban locales like Manhattan, San Francisco and Sydney. However, it is true that I have been on a journey of relocating my longtime yoga practice from city to country.
Hardly a day goes by when I don’t feel blessed to be in such a beautiful natural setting and to have the ease of practising yoga in a studio adjacent to our home.
I get distracted, though, sometimes. Like this morning. […]

Honest Work

Honest Work

Heather and I waived our early morning yoga session yesterday morning in favour of a recovery program in the garden.
That is, we were recovering from a very pleasant dinner at our neighbours’: champagne, appetisers, mains, sweets and that odd dessert wine that I believe is related to botox (called “noble rot wine”).
So, armed with mattock, shovels, trowels and mallet, Heather and I installed edging in the Hollingworth’s garden. Heather knew because she’d done this job in another part of our garden how hard it was going to be. […]

Six-six

Six-six

Who would have thought? I am 66 yrs. old today. Twenty-three years older than my father when he passed away, and thirteen years older than my mother when she passed on. It may be that their relatively young demises led me to seek out the youth-ifying benefits of yoga. I can’t say for sure.
The first enjoyable thing I did on this beautiful balmy, summery day was head for the Yoga Shed…not to do yoga but to do weights. […]

So Useful

So Useful

Are we meant to think of yoga as utilitarian?
Probably not, if you think of Classical Yoga, Patanjali’s yoga. He seems to recommend that we give ourselves to yoga to uncover our true selves.
That’s very different than me stumbling out to the Yoga Shed and doing yesterday’s Fatigue-fighting sequence so that I could feel energised afterwards. Or, as in this morning’s practice, doing abdominal strengthening yoga movements to tone my middle section. Which, unfortunately, following on the heels of The Amazing Meeting conference of last weekend,  has  increased slightly in girth  even as it lost muscularity. […]

Where Does the Time Go?

Where Does the Time Go?

I fear at times the answer to the sped-up-time question is “from not paying attention”, and after nearly 40 years of practising yoga, I certainly hope I can do better than that.
I bought a book for my husband a few years ago called, Why Does Time Speed Up With Age? I’m pretty sure he didn’t read it. Maybe he didn’t have time?
Still, it’s a question I ask myself regularly, as do others of my friends, who like me, are of a certain age. […]

A Lotus Springs From Muddy Water

A Lotus Springs From Muddy Water

Here’s a photo of me in Padmasana, Lotus Pose. It was taken when I could still do a pretty great one. If I do say so.
Today I surprised myself. First, I did Bharadavajasana II Twist, with one leg in Virasana and the other in half- lotus, not knowing if it was a direction that my prosthesis was willing to go. No worries. I did the other side. It was fine. So, I thought, what the heck, we’re going pretty good here…and voila, full lotus.
Really, I’m not goal-minded. […]

The Upside of Upside-Down

The Upside of Upside-Down

The scrutineer knocked off early and went fishing, hoping to catch some fish which would eventually become bloaters once cured with careful smoking. Unfortunately, not long after the fisherman dropped his killick, his little dinghy was scuppered by a passing ocean liner.*
Can you pick out the words from today’s Herald crossword puzzle?
Do you believe solving crosswords is aerobics for your brain? Can you merely grapple with the clues, even when you are ultimately defeated by them, and still ward off dementia? I know that my brain sure hurts when I wrestle unsuccessfully with cryptic cross word puzzles. […]

The Growing Season

The Growing Season

Ever since returning from the U.S. last week, I’ve been happily ensconced in the Yoga Shed each morning around 6:30. My body is remembering the grooves it used to slip into with ease before holidays and even before major surgery through up barriers to progress. I am very blessed by having this studio to play in, Heather to practice with and the amazing green vistas we look out on.
You can hear things growing this time of year. […]

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