Then an idea came to us. We could with great authority talk about the stages of yoga we’d traversed. These stages also represented our ageing process, starting as youth and now in our late 70’s. Once we landed on our workshop theme, the content evolved organically.
This was the first week of Corona Time when I was not teaching yoga. Not because of holidays or my being ill, but as a community service. I didn’t want to stop, but by talking it over with my dear husband, I arrived at, ‘this is the right thing to do.’
I wasn’t the first yoga studio to close, but I think I was a week ahead of most of the ones I know. I couldn’t quite stop, though. What’s the harm of a pop-up class on the beach? I did end up running a morning session on Sunday at Main Beach, Old Bar.
Julie and I have been looking at the trees and vegetation of Saltwater National Park for green signs of rebirth. They’ve been hard to find: tufts of grasses, epiphyte-like growths, occasional new leaves. The enormous heat generated by this fire seems to have nuclear-blasted the paperbarks and grass trees. Some are burnt-out trunks with branches intact, still standing. Others resemble resinated black statues.
I’m worried and ready to declare myself a Climate Yogini. I’m not sure exactly what that means at this stage. So far, it’s business as normal. We go about doing our laundry, planting vegetables, walking on the beach with very little threat that the weather will spoil our activities. But it seems to me that the times they are a-changin’, and not that slowly, and not just in Australia. You can google ‘global warming hotspots’ and you’ll see the areas that are most at risk.
If you haven’t been paying attention recently to news and social media, you’ve missed the millions of women getting out there, telling tragic stories of being sexually assaulted.
The’ve used the hashtag #MeToo on Facebook and Twitter to declare instances of sexual harassment and abuse. These allegations point to men in all areas of life: the entertainment industry, sciences, academia, and politics. Women are being taken seriously and supported in their allegations by men.
One of the things I love about playing tennis is the way I so frequently catch myself in the act of negative talking or thinking. Each ‘I’m so stupid’, or ‘How could I have missed that shot?’, or ‘Another double fault, #$@&%*!’ is an opportunity for rebooting the network. An opportunity to wake-up to the present moment. Without static, without the interference of derogatory dialogue.
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.
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.
Recently I learned (or learned for the 1,000th time) a Be Kind to Yourself lesson.If you’re like me, you don’t learn these vital life lessons easily. This is why long life can be a good thing. Because you can buy a little more time, and hopefully more wisdom.Recently I was on a two-day boat trip with nine other people. After the first day, one of the passengers got on my nerves. Seriously. A sailing boat doesn’t have much room for seclusion. […]
Like most people, I wear many hats. Hats relating to being a home manager, wife, yoga teacher, community volunteer, and so forth. Just today I became aware of a hat that I put on almost every day but have been overlooking. It’s time to lay claim to the title of yoga curator. You might well ask what I do as a yoga curator. Well, I spend part of my morning reading the news, perusing blog posts, googling yoga information, listening to podcasts, and communicating through Facebook. […]
I’ve been away for a couple of weeks, visiting family in the U.S. When I came back to Australia, I went on retreat for 8 days.I want to share with you a few things I learned on this hiatus. These are insights that I might even categorise as spiritual practice.Gifts From My FamilySpending time with my family is sometimes the toughest test of my life commitment to be kind and non-reactive. However, in the company of my family, when I reacted in a non-loving way, this is when I got to practice forgiving myself. […]
Enough Already!Extropical cyclones, low pressure troughs, East Coast lows, whatever you call them, they all have the potential for giving us the rain blues. On the eastern seaboard of Australia, and even inland, we’ve had record-breaking rainfalls this autumn. What’s a yogi to do to keep his or her spirits up? A specialised yoga practice, of course! You want to do a sequence to balance your energy and dispel any negative moods. When the humidity has been high for a period of time, it creates excess dampness. […]
When Luck Wears ThinI’ve heard the expression a few times this week, ‘Aren’t we lucky?’. That is, we’re lucky to live on the mid-north coast of New South Wales because we dodged the torrential rains and gale force winds that our southern friends and relatives did.It’s been a shocker of a week down south. The Newcastle, Central Coast, and Sydney areas all experienced almost-cyclonic conditions, river flooding and power outages over several days. Inland, the little town of Dungog endured 145 mm of rain in a three hour period. […]
An Ancient Landscape
Why is it that we admire things from Nature that are tremendously old but that we have so little regard for aged people?
Recently a group of us plied the Murray River in South Australia on a houseboat.
As the sun set on our first night out, I stood on the upper deck awestruck by the millennia-old ochre cliffs, seemingly on fire. […]
Here’s a little look-in at our home and gardens and us.
In this film excerpt below we are being interviewed about our inspiring communal lifestyle by Australian comedian Judith Lucy. It’s part of a six-episode series called Judith Lucy is All Woman. You can view all of this episode or even the whole series on the ABC’s iView. […]
via pinterest
My husband and I celebrated our 20th wedding anniversary last week. For many people this milestone could be considered an improbable achievement, given that the median duration of marriage was 12.2 years in 2012.
Twenty years of marriage is almost time enough to experience three seven year itches. It’s time enough to fall into dull routines and think that you’ve said everything there is to say to each other. […]
via Meryl Fox – Pinterest
Things are hotting up over here on the eastern seaboard of New South Wales. Well, probably not just over here if you think in terms of the planet heating up. But, for now, let’s skirt the global warming issue and focus on right here.
It’s early spring, and because we’ve had very little rain the last few months, our property is crackling-dry. […]
Photo by Julie Slavin
On January 1st of 2010, I launched the “Yoga Suits Her” blog. That was 999 posts ago and lots of writing practice under the bridge.
Writing has parallels with yoga practice. Do enough of it and something changes. It may that your technique improves, or you will get more life experience which gets poured back onto the page or into what you do on your mat. Writing or practising yoga over a long time will change you, you can be sure. […]
It’s a gorgeous day here on Mitchells Island – twenty degrees c. (70 degrees F.) – with a light breeze. Spring blossoms are plentiful in our gardens, and I’ve spotted various species of birds building nests. A bevy of ducks have been parading their young around our property, an area relatively safe from predators.
Another day in paradise, you could say, and you’d be partly right. Except for the fact that it has scarcely rained this month – 2.5 mm. – that’s all. On the other hand, the Manning Valley has been burning for weeks. […]