From my yoga-in-daily-life newsletter.....

 People travel to wonder at the height of the mountains,
at the huge waves of the seas, at the long course of the rivers,
at the vast compass of the ocean, at the circular motion of the stars
and yet they pass by themselves without wondering.

Saint Augustine

Inner Peace

Spice, practising inner peace

Here's a recipe for inner peace if I ever saw one - from my Yoga weekly newsletter:

• Pratipaksha Bhavana is a technique offered by Sage Patanjali as a means of preventing the mind from being agitated and moving from its centre.
• Pratipaksha means opposite point of view and Bhavana is contemplation or a state of thought.
• In this practice when a disturbing thought arises, counter it by consciously bringing to mind its opposite to neutralise any opposition to positive values.

Try it - it's quite relaxing - I was in line for a hectic day at work, so brought to mind an easy day. The day may have still been hectic, but I didn't waste energy worrying about it!

Ommmmmmmmmmmm

This is not my yoga class, but it looks just like it...I did a 75 minute class last night after a very hectic day. Stretching and inverting, a little chanting and meditation, and you come out as good as new. This ancient art sure helps with the busy, stress-filled life most of us lead these days. My son will call me a hippie, but I'm sure he feels the same after rugby training! To each his own..........

samadhi bliss

Love this picture for two reasons - it is great (legal) wall art and it is the back wall of my yoga studio - Samadhi Bliss.

You know you're a yoga nerd when they tell you about the Xmas party:

a 6pm yoga class, followed by a chanting class, then vegetarian food and chai tea - and you think "WOW - I'll be there!"

Enjoy the Ride

After listing the 13 maxims of improvisational theatre (Patricia Ryan Madson) I had the notion to catergorise each post by maxim - will it work? Let's improvise and find out......

In response to Pat's post about Yoga, I told her how I started doing yoga to music on Anne's balcony in Hong Kong. Here is the balcony, as you can see, conducive to meditaton, introspection, and afternoon teas!

The music (Jose Feliciano) just happened to be on while I was doing some stretches, so I started sub-conciously holding the pose in time to the music. I enjoyed the experience so much that now I always have music with my yoga. Half the fun is finding appropriate CD's - Sting (Brand New Day) works really well (no surprise when you remember his Tantric Sex comments!) amd Sarah Blasko (What the Sea wants, the Sea Shall Have) is good also - and anything by Leonard Cohen.