Yoga: Approach and Philosophy

The coming of Spring is Nature’s miraculous awakening expressed by a warmer sun, evidence of green, and birds building nests ‘from coast to coast’. Like elementary schoolchildren, list signs of spring in your neighbourhood – are the red winged blackbirds back in their summer home along the railway tracks? Have you spotted red tailed hawks, […]

Act, allow; grip, let go: hold, release. Let’s take a closer look at one of the most challenging of many human dilemmas. Holding a posture is what we are expected to do in yoga schools that prize accomplishment, where striving is a virtue. We may not realize or want to acknowledge that physical, material progression

In Cree, trees are ‘who’ not ‘what’. – Tomson Highway We are profoundly attached to trees. We were arboreal creatures, after all. We also look like trees – sturdy layered spine/trunk, deeply earthing toe/roots, long demonstrative arm/branches, dexterous nimble finger/twigs, blooming flower faces. Trees support, nourish, oxygenate and hydrate. They sing, soothe, shelter and hide.

There are many songs written with the subject matter of spring, ‘It might as well be Spring’, ‘They say it’s Spring’, ‘You must believe in Spring’, in which the singer’s voice is light and soft and spring is associated with tulips, robins, love and yearnings of the heart, melancholy equally with hope and gladness. ‘You

Very soon, parts of the world will witness an almost total solar eclipse, a phenomenon so powerful, it entrances even the most consummate astronomers already familiar with spectacular celestial events. The untimely nightfall that occurs must have frightened our ancestors into imagining the permanent extinction of the sun, the end of the world, human life

Snowflakes and their study are a perfect metaphor for developing appreciation of our lives and everyone else’s – all of us alike, made of the same material and all unique in design. If we pause to remember that each snowflake is singular, something inside sighs with awe and hums with wonderment. Awe and wonder are

Already a dedicated practitioner, Esther Myers wondered what would happen if she devoted even more time to her personal yoga. Vanda Scaravelli suggested we practise as though there was ‘infinite time and no ambition’. When asked how strong the gravitational force and how deep it’s possible to release in a downward direction, Vandareplied, ‘To the

The Dalai Lama speaks of cultivating hopeful, appreciative, heartening thoughts and feelings and how the vibrations of these thoughts really, truly, exist and affect others. He gives talks on ‘Inner Peace/Outer Peace’ and suggests both are so closely interrelated as to be one. What we do to help ourselves – releasing our physical tension, soothing

by Monica Voss Roses have cheered our mental state, delighted our senses, soothed our nervous systems and stimulated memory and longing for over six thousand years. Their form, that leads us from outside to in, their colour, from the most delicate pinkish to ‘flagrant crimson’, their scent, delicious and otherworldly – all combine to stir

by Monica Voss Young children learn to sort by colour and shape, later by action and meaning. Do you remember choosing which image didn’t fit in? Or playing memory matching games? Finding the monkey in a complicated drawing? In the image above, what links the 4 animals? Making comparisons and noting contrasts, naming and repeating,

by Monica Voss ‘Drishti’ or gazing is a yogic meditation exercise during which one focuses eye attention on a person, an object or a scene, taking in all there is without judgement. In the summer or whenever our schedule is lighter or when we’re on holiday, gazing is easy-going and meandering and the colours and