No feeling is final

“Go to the limits of your longing... Let everything happen to you: beauty and terror. Just keep going. No feeling is final” (Rilke) Practice at the moment is an experience of longing. I feel a deep yearning to be more fully with myself, to let go of the past, to feel the reality of the... Continue Reading →

March 18, 2019 0

Best offering

Class started in full praṇām. Prostrate, arms outstretched, palms turned upward. The ultimate giving pose. Deeply humbling, stretched out on the floor, no defense. It's impossible to transition easily out of this posture. But then this pose is not about moving on: it's about being committed here. It's not about the look of it, and... Continue Reading →

December 18, 2017 2

Everyday beginnings

Periodically I have a bit of a yoga crisis. I wonder quite seriously whether I'm any good at it at all. Not in the impossibly bendy kind of way; I've never especially aspired to that (though obvs I'm not immune to craving certain poses). Rather I become so acutely aware of the critical voices in my... Continue Reading →

January 3, 2017 10

Days of love

I had a lovely phone chat with my mum today. All seems well with her and my dad, so I'm happy. And they are coming to stay soon too. This feels like a gift to me to have them in my home and be able to look after them and keep them fed and comfortable. Not that they... Continue Reading →

October 21, 2016 0

Getting (un)comfortable

My teacher often talks about playing the edge. I'm still not sure I get where this is exactly. Maybe that's part of the game, part of the playing -- first finding it, then flirting with it, finally staring it down rather than running away. I always thought I was good at the staring game, unblinking,... Continue Reading →

October 3, 2016 1

Joie de vivre

"F*ck, man, look at her!" I was on my way home last night after a long day of work plus yoga plus dinner with a friend. This guy was hanging around outside some bar and he shouted out at me as I walked past. I was a bit suprised. I'm not really the head-turning type.... Continue Reading →

September 22, 2016 1

Crying for a qualification

Hubby is very proud of my new TT qualification. But he's ever-careful (too careful for my liking!) not to inflate my ego, so his congratulations were characteristically ironic: "Congratulations on stopping crying long enough to complete your three assessments". Many a true word spoken in jest... Yes, I did cry quite a lot on TT.... Continue Reading →

August 18, 2016 4

Corpsing in class

At the beginning of teacher training we were asked what our favourite and least favourite yoga pose was. As my least favourite I settled on Tāḍāsana. Though it was a close call between that and Śavāsana. No-one else seemed to get the difficulty I had here; these are simple poses right? Huh, well not so... Continue Reading →

July 15, 2016 2

Lineage of a sort

Recently I've been talking a lot on the phone with my original guru -- my high school classics teacher who was a fundamental influence on my intellectual development. He stopped me being a lazy and arrogant teenage sh*t, he set me on the straight and narrow and kept me there through some pretty tough discipline, and... Continue Reading →

June 26, 2016 2

Beloved savasana

My teacher sometimes refers to śavāsana as a 'little death' and I have to fight an immature giggle at what can only sound like a sexual metaphor to my ears. Funny in contrast that his referring to the breath as 'the beloved' simply sounds esoteric and rather pure! Because 'bhakti' isn't from my native language... Continue Reading →