This week I’m stationed in beautiful, though at the moment sodden, Bellingen learning to be a better writer. Enrolled in a course called Life Stories with 15 other pupils, we’re part of the overall turn-out of 1,000 students of the 2011 Camp Creative.
I haven’t felt so moved and excited in a learning situation for a long time. I go into the course room, fully awake and alive to discovering some unexamined part of my life for me to dust off and bring back from the past into the now. […]
Sometimes yoga poses need to be flirted with for quite some time before coming anywhere near forming a relationship with them. Not that you are being frivolous but you just don’t want to get in too deeply at first; an oblique approach works well, rather than a full frontal attack.
This is a particularly useful philosophy for paschimottanasana, the double-legged forward stretch, especially when you are in the getting-to-know-you phase. And, this beginner-ish period could go on for some months or years depending on your anatomy or various tightnesses. […]
January 1st of last year I launched Yoga Suits Her.
Therefore it seems auspicious (a word often applied to felicitous Indian things!) to re-launch today – Jan. 1, 2011.
I never realised when I started out e-musing that I would like doing it so much. To be able to stay in contact with friends and students through this medium, and even garner new yoga friends along the way, is a delight. […]
Part of my rhapsodic descriptions of Mitchells Island living are coloured rosy by the great people who I share our property with. We’ve known each other for decades.
Five of the six of us are yoga practitioners, and it’s pretty cool when we’re out in the yoga shed together for pranayama or asana practice.
A few years ago when we were still in the planning stage of our communal experiment, we hit a barrier, not surprisingly financial. It looked like our vision of living together was fast going down the gurgler. One of us had a great idea. […]
Six years ago I and my communal accomplices began planning our retirement. At that time we had no idea exactly what it would look like, but we started talking it over, bouncing ideas, and found enough of a common vision to take some concrete steps….Steps that ultimately led to living on Mitchells Island, with some of us retired, some semi-retired, and some still working.
That’s how it goes. Create a vision, make a plan, and then it turns out more or less.
Friends of mine in the U.S. […]
Loosely speaking, I do celebrate Christmas. But, to be honest with you, I don’t believe in Christ.
Notwithstanding, the birth of Christ is a great story – just the very idea that a child could be born unto a virgin, for one thing.
And then the image of this humble couple having to lodge in a stables where they are soon sought out by kings bearing rare and expensive gifts.
Even better, how about the power of an ancient messianic prophesy being fulfilled?
We saw the Mitchells Island school kids enact the nativity story recently. […]
Here’s a quote I came across yesterday (apparently it’s the star that Julian Assange steers by). I like it very much and thought you might too:
If you want to build a ship, don’t drum up people to collect wood and don’t assign them tasks and work, but rather teach them to long for the endless immensity of the seas. […]
I’ve been blessed this year by having been included in a group of local people who like to sing. Since it’s The Season, we will be performing carols tomorrow evening at the Mitchells Island Hall. (If you’re in the neighbourhood, do drop in. There will be a bar-b-cue, too.)
We singers ran up against a problem with one of the songs in our repertoire because the Anglican Board who are organising the carolling took offence with it. […]
It takes time to practice generosity, but being generous is the best use of our time. Thich Nhat Hanh
The giving season is fast approaching. Perhaps the only time in the year (apart from birthdays) when we rev up to give. […]
I stumbled out to the Yoga Shed this morning having had fewer hours sleep than I wanted. The reason? I was up late racing to finish “Nomad”, this month’s selection of our book club, which was scheduled to meet this afternoon. I have to admit I didn’t finish the book in time. However, I highly recommend it, mainly because of the courage of the author, Ayaan Hirsi Ali. She’s a feminist, writer, lecturer and fearless critic of Islam. I will finish the book as a vote of support.
Fortunately I had a Fatigue-fighting Yoga Sequence up my sleeve. […]
In 1997 Simon and Schuster published a book I wrote called, “Teach Yourself Yoga”. It took me 5 months to write it, in between teaching classes. I was really chuffed that I could pull this off, being a first time book writer and all. I remember getting a note from my editor after I sent her the first chapter of the book and she wrote back saying, “You’ve hit the exact market we’re aiming for. Keep on keeping on.” I delivered the completed manuscript on the day it was due. […]
With only two weeks to go before the end of spring, there’s still time to do your spring cleaning, that is, if you’re so inclined.
I was raised by a very squeaky-clean type of mother. My sister and I did a lot of the grunt work – basically taking our house apart – scouring, scrubbing, and sluicing it down, until there was a sheen and a shine on everything.
If you know me a little, then you could imagine that this sort of upbringing would make spring cleaning anathema to me. I’ve rebelled against it for years. Until now. […]
Seems we’re on a roll on the topic of ageing, and so you might want to read this article: It’s from the Sydney Morning Herald 11/11/10 and is entitled “Mastering the Art of 100 Year of Fortitude” – describing the ways that longevity is more than the luck of your genes.
And, if you needed a convincing argument for the statement ageing can be beautiful, here’s one for you:
[…]
Words are so important. What you say and how you say it.
I had three different wordings for the workshop I taught on Sunday.
1) Working with the Older Yoga Student
2) Yoga: A Companion for Life
3) Ageing: A Possibility
I went with the first title because of exigency. I was on a deadline and I hadn’t yet conceived of the second and third titles. […]
Like you perhaps, I don’t spend a lot of time talking about the topic of aging. Maybe it’s scary, even a downer. Nevertheless I am giving a workshop today on the topic of “Working with the Older Yoga Student”. So, I’ve had to do a lot of thinking about aging.
Also many of my contemporaries’ parents are up there in age. They are needing to go into aged care facilities. Sadly one dear friend’s mother just passed away.
Fact No. 1) Aging, and it’s close companion, death, are a part of life. […]
Those of you who have practised yoga with me know I am a sigher. Why hold back? Sometimes yoga is so delicious pleasure begins to burble up from the belly, the kidneys, the heart, and who would want to stifle such an organic impulse. Add voice to it, and, voila, perfection!
I’ve traveled miles on this U.S. trek, now drawing to a close, maybe 450 miles in Arizona alone. Sighs have been too few and far between. […]
I am at this time heading to beautiful Lake Shasta to enjoy an idyllic few days on a houseboat.
I will probably be out of range synthesis lake, but the real reason for “off-line” is I’ve lost my iPhone.
Is my yogic equanimity being tested? You bet. […]
Today, our last full day in Arizona with my family, we drove up to Phoenix for a late lunch/early dinner with Cary, Diana, Isabella, and Christian.
Daniel has been the main driver (right side of the road in America), but I did have a turn at the wheel the other day, after a hiatus of 35 years.
We’ve put maybe 400 miles on the rental car in 4 days, just driving locally in the main. […]
Why don’t people hold age as a complimentary thing?
I’m not naive. There are so many difficulties; every sense is under siege -loss of hearing, vision, even sense of taste.
Gravity is going to have an increasingly deleterious effect on skin, muscles, and organs.
The result of the above is considered decidedly unsexy. If you are relatively unscathed, you are said to be “good for your age”. You are “spry” or you still have all your marbles.
It’s been a long time since anyone challenged my senior status. […]
W.A.I.T. – anagram for Why Am I Talking? My favorite expression of the year.
I have been in the company of a few non-stop talkers this year. I think I have listened reasonably well, although perhaps not made enough boundaries at times. Politesse is so ingrained.
At the end of a week of good listening and being polite a while back, I found myself complaining to my mate and then dissolving in tears. […]