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Learn How to Practice Yoga By Yourself with MYOGA Online School

February 17, 2016 by Melissa Billington Leave a Comment

by Melissa Billington, MYOGA Online School My partner loves chess and when he asked me to play I said I’d be willing to try, but that backgammon is my game. Chess seems too complicated - too many things to keep track of and too many possibilities. I like the mix of math, chance and skill that backgammon requires. And it plays out quickly. However, I really like this guy so I sat down with him and he explained the name of each piece and where it could move. It was tedious and I was still … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Home Yoga Practice Tagged With: home yoga practice, Melissa Billington, online yoga classes

Drishti and The Relativity of Truth

January 22, 2014 by Melissa Billington Leave a Comment

by Melissa Billington How you’re looking is how you’re going to see it. And how you’ve seen it is how you think it should be. Unless you see it and change it. A story is not just a story. It’s your view to life itself. Your interpretation creates your world. This is a quote from my play, PocaHAUNTus—shapeshifting history into Herstory, that I’m in the middle of writing. Writing this play has been an enormous challenge because one of the main premises is the relativity of truth, as the … [Read more...]

Filed Under: The Foundations Tagged With: clear-seeing, drishti, Melissa Billington, MYOGA Basics, patanjali

Why We Need to Take Our Yoga Practice Back to The Basics

September 11, 2013 by Melissa Billington Leave a Comment

Melissa in down dog

by Melissa Billington, Ear2Earth Yoga is a self-regulating practice. It’s a yoke, a disciplined and regular practice that harnesses our innate animal power/prowess and enables us to see our own self-sabotaging habits and tendencies. And, armed with that awareness and new tools for transformation, we are empowered to change those tendencies and habits of self-sabotage into tendencies and habits of transmutation and transformation. We can become the opposite of our deepest darkest fear, … [Read more...]

Filed Under: The Foundations Tagged With: downward dog, Ear2Earth, Melissa Billington, MYOGA, MYOGA Basics Series

It’s time to hand the baton on – MYOGA & Powa Centre: Your opportunity?

August 6, 2013 by Melissa Billington Leave a Comment

Melissa, creatrix of MYOGA and Powa Centre, ready to pass the baton to the next person, or people

by columnist Melissa Billington, Ear2Earth Early on in my running ‘career’ I was pulled out of running hurdles to make up the needed numbers on our team for the mid and long distance races. I never considered myself a long distance runner, even when I was one! I preferred the immediate victory of seeing (or not) a clear flight over hurdle after hurdle, laid down in my path. I felt more capable managing the spurts of running required before, after and in between hurdles, than I did the … [Read more...]

Filed Under: The Business of Yoga Tagged With: commitment, consistency, Melissa Billington, MYOGA, running a yoga business, yoga and running, yoga business plan

From poison into potion: Why forty days of yoga is alchemy of the soul

February 10, 2013 by Melissa Billington Leave a Comment

by Melissa Billington We come into the new year with a desire to re-create ourselves, to arise out of last year and make a new start. While I personally consider Spring the new year and the place for emergence since 1582, with the advent of the Gregorian calendar, we observe the start of the new year as January 1. The Celtic calendar sets November 1(May 1 in the southern hemisphere) as the new year. They see going into the dark as the necessary first step to creation, like the child in … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Energetic Practices, Practices Tagged With: agni, anger, chakras, commitment, discipline, fire, manipura, navel centre, power, tapas, third chakra

Chakra One & Two: Feeling secure and letting go, the essence of Hanumanasana

December 3, 2012 by Melissa Billington Leave a Comment

by Melissa Billington Hanumanasana, often called the splits, is the extraordinary experience of moving in two opposing directions at the same time, without falling apart, or holding the breath, or injuring ourselves. In practicing this great leap of Hanuman, we learn to engage actively and consciously, while releasing actively, consciously and bravely.  AT THE SAME TIME! Which brings me into two chakras - Muladhara, root support and Svadisthana, one’s own sweetness or … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Energetic Practices, Practices Tagged With: apana, chakras, muladhara, prana, sahasrara, svadisthana

Is our addiction to Spirits a symptom of an UnSpirited society?

October 9, 2012 by Melissa Billington 18 Comments

by Melissa Billington MYOGA’s second focus in the deeper part of winter has been on the 7th chakra -  Sahasrara - a place of surrender, acceptance, unity consciousness and spirit. As I let my vision be filled by these ideas, I became more and more aware of society’s mass disconnection from a sense of anything larger than ourselves – from Source - and how this shows up in our levels of medication and self-medication. It is no accident that alcohol is called ‘spirits’ - it shares the same … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Yoga & Community Tagged With: alcohol, drinking, drunk, medicating, medication, sahasrara, seventh chakra, Source, Spirit, surrender

Why MYOGA uses a seasonal structure to map it’s yoga classes

August 6, 2012 by Melissa Billington 9 Comments

by Melissa Billington Over the last few years, I've been using a seasonal map to organise my yoga teaching. Until I witnessed myself gesturing the same way when I referenced the calendar year, I didn’t realize that I had an innate sense of time being egg-shaped instead of linear. For some reason I’ve always seen winter at the narrow top of the egg, summer at the wider bottom and spring and autumn on the longer sides.  Growing up in the four seasons of the northern hemisphere on the northeast … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Living Your Yoga Tagged With: Melissa Billington, MYOGA, seasonal structure, seasons, time, yoga

What’s the point of winter – whether of the soul or of the seasons?

June 21, 2012 by Melissa Billington 5 Comments

A season for all things...

by guest author Melissa Billington, Creatrix of the Powa Centre & MYOGA Driving into Wellington there’s a big billboard by the docks that reads, “Cancel Winter.”  It’s advertising warmer climes, in this case, Nelson. I know we can travel and many with means become snowbirds following the warmth of the sun around the globe.  Yet I wonder if we’re missing something crucial by avoiding the dark and the cold and the seemingly difficult. I’ve lived in equatorial countries and the monotony … [Read more...]

Filed Under: The Foundations Tagged With: depression, light, Melissa Billington, seasons, solstice, soul, winter

How to cope with post-pregnancy poopiness

January 7, 2011 by Melissa Billington Leave a Comment

Kara-Leah and Samuel doing yoga

by guest author Melissa Billington, POWA Centre, Wellington Creating a baby is such a natural thing, yet it can change your world so irrevocably and unexpectedly that it’s no wonder women struggle after the intensity of birthing to feel centred, balanced and “themselves” again. Not only is a new human created, but a new mother is created as well. As much as you read and research and reconnoitre with other women and mothers, no one and nothing can prepare you entirely for the reality … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Living Your Yoga Tagged With: baby, post-natal, pre-natal, pregnancy

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