By Joleen Lunjew, of Asia Pacific Yoga Gratitude. What a simple practice. Yet, so powerful. My partner Steve and I have always practiced gratitude. If you’ve been on one of Asia Pacific Yoga Teacher Trainings or dinners with us, you know that we’ll always practice ‘joyasana’ before eating – our way of saying thank you for our meal and all the things that we are grateful for. I recently came across a book The Magic by Rhonda Byrne (author of The Secret) at a book fair at our … [Read more...]
Kai is Core – how we can nourish our future communities, now
By Michael Reynolds, of Roimata Food Commons and Toha KaiI have been working at the intersection of community development, food justice & sovereignty, and long term systems thinking for nearly 10 years.I am a big picture thinker, a creator, a doer and a companion within ecologies. I love seeing life thrive…Our food system is broken, which may not come as a surprise to anyone here. While we’re in a cost of living crisis, supermarkets are reportedly making in excess of $1,000,000 profit per … [Read more...]
Clean Your Glasses with Meditation
“The way one see’s life, is like looking through a pair of glasses, formed at a young age. The colour of the lenses distort what is seen. Meditation is a method to clean the glasses so that the view is clear” By Swami Karma Karuna Saraswati Perception of life is based on everyone’s unique societal, cultural, and family programming, called samskaras in yogic terminology. Much like software on a computer, this programming creates an interface by which one views and experiences their life. … [Read more...]
Lets talk about cultural appropriation in Yoga
Sometimes an email arrives in your inbox and you have to share it. A well written and important contribution to the conversation around cultural appropriation of Yoga. An invitation to have a difficult conversation. See what arises for you when you read this? What actions can we take to make a difference? How are we complicit? More questions than answers, but that doesn't mean we should not ask them. THE EMAIL: As world celebrates UN Yoga Day on June 21, Hindus upset at trivialization … [Read more...]
Expand your yoga into the dreamscape.
By Sarah Marlowe Spence That time a vacuum cleaner sabotaged my kirtan. Yup, an odd situation. So I delved into that dream to figure out what it was trying to tell me. Dreams happen to most of us when we’re asleep, yet dreams can also be daydreams of where you want to go in life, or waking dreams, i.e. what is happening right now in life. When I was a teenager, I found a dream dictionary in the secondhand bookstore, as we did in life before Google. I wondered what the meanings of my busy … [Read more...]
Is Wordle a Yogic practice?
Minds bright spark. Brief Bliss. Faith. Have you been bitten by the wordle bug yet? I sure have. How does this simple five letter puzzle have anything to do with yoga? As a student of Tantra Yoga I choose to look for the experience of yoga in my daily life. Every moment, every interaction is an opportunity to practice the teachings, to apply them to the world. Wordle is no different in this regard. It's now part of my daily practice and I love it. It's deceptively simple yet … [Read more...]
The challenges of Yoga and pain management.
More questions than answers on how we view and work with pain in yoga By Veronica King A recent post about a pain relief ad in a pharmacy sparked a lively discussion around yoga and pain, one which I was interested in exploring further. It seems to have created more questions than answers. A topic dear to my heart as I tore my hip labrum in a yoga class, this injury and the subsequent pain management was to become my greatest teacher. Many teachers and students have been injured in … [Read more...]
Does ambition belong on your yoga mat?
Teaching yoga as your career By Veronica King Luckily my first and most influential teacher always spoke about being a yoga professional. This was her livelihood and treated it with that respect. This helped shape me. As a yoga teacher, I would always treat my career with that same respect. It's not uncommon to feel shy about sharing this. There is in the teaching of any spiritual tradition an ongoing tension between being of service and charging for that service. You have every … [Read more...]
Travelling Yogi
How yoga helped me stay grounded before flying. By Veronica King Feels surreal to be writing this piece on my parent's kitchen table in Adelaide. The trip that was cancelled 3 times due to border changes, it would appear that it was 4th time lucky. The last few years we have been shrouded in fear, separated from our loved ones, and unsure if anything we planned would actually go ahead. As I prepared for this trip, I knew my practice was helping me stay steady and grounded. I’m sharing … [Read more...]
The joys and challenges of practicing yoga online
Students experience of online yoga Part 2 by Sandra Palmer “Since the arrival of Covid 19 into our world, the way we teach yoga has changed. Studios and teachers rapidly adapted to close brick and mortar studios and many immediately started teaching online. Some teachers and students love this online environment and, equally, many people loathe it”. Registered Psychologist and Yoga Teacher, Sandra Palmer shares her insights and experiences on the student’s perspective of … [Read more...]