by Kara-Leah Grant, Musings from the Mat I've been pondering money, value, gifts, offering and exchange this week. I met with a friend who talked about how she was doing work she was passionate about that barely paid her enough to survive on. This work is about how we create our societies and so benefits everybody. She said that she'd noticed it as an increasing trend - that on one hand we do what we need to do to earn the money to survive, and on the other hand we do our important work. … [Read more...]
Why Letting Go is a Crucial Aspect of Loving Well
by Kara-Leah Grant, Musings from the Mat It's the summer of 2000 and I've just come back to Whistler, BC after nine weeks living on the side of a volcano in Maui. I'd been on a mad adventure with a man I'd meet waitressing that winter in Whistler - but that's another story. My life is packed full of stories from that time, many of them involving men. I was young, carefree and a permanent traveller. It was four years since I'd graduated my Journalism Course and bailed on New Zealand, … [Read more...]
Oh the obsessive, compulsive, lusting nature of deep desire
by Kara-Leah Grant, Musings from the Mat I went to a party a few weeks ago. A man sat down beside me. We talked. And we talked. And at some point I looked into this man's eyes and thought, damn you're an intelligent, witty bastard. That's always the first step for me. Desire can never arise unless a man is smart and sharp and somehow knowing. But that's not all that there needs to be. I've known intelligent, sharp, witty men before whose company I really enjoyed. I knew they were … [Read more...]
Exploration of the no-self: A total waste of time?
WIN a copy of Kara-Leah’s new book ‘Sex, Drugs & (mostly) Yoga - Field Notes from Kundalini Awakening’, publishing in November 2018. Guaranteed to take you on an intimate journey into the depths of the Kundalini experience. Click here to sign up for the book launch list and go into the draw to win one of THREE print copies. by Kara-Leah Grant I started this article over two years ago... and never finished it. But thanks to suggestions from a YLB commenter, I found and read a book by Jed … [Read more...]
What’s it like teaching yoga in prisons?
by Adhyatma, Satyananda Yoga Teacher and author of Broken Warriors - Reaching out to prisoners with yoga [Editor's Note: The Yoga Lunchbox is proud to support the Yoga Education in Prisons Trust through offering free listings of YEPT fundraising events. Plus $1 from every print copy of Forty Days of Yoga goes to YEPT. It's awesome work they're doing! You can make a tax-deductible donation here.] We thought it was time for an update on the activities of Yoga Education in Prisons … [Read more...]
On letting life flow unimpeded through you – no drama, no angst, just… life
By Kara-Leah Grant, Musings from the Mat Oh I'm giddy with delight right now. I was up at 6:15am, over an hour ago, and my child has yet to surface. I've written my morning pages. I've written an email to the 489 lovely subscribers on my book list. I've downloaded the software to review the Kindle and ePub versions of Forty Days of Yoga, which have just been completed. And now I get to write! Yes, write! I love writing. Love it, love it, love it, love it. Hence the website and the … [Read more...]
How identifying with NOT being something also causes great misery
By Kara-Leah Grant, Musings from the Mat It's 7am and I've been up for half an hour. Child-free time and totally blissful. Made even more so because since I returned from my book tour I've had no childcare at all. When my lovely Porse childcare woman told me she was stopping work to have a second child, I could feel part of me wanting to panic. "No, you can't! I need childcare. I'm a single mum with a start-up business who's just written a book! What am I going to do?" After all, I … [Read more...]
Do I dare open into the belly of my own desire?
by Kara-Leah Grant, Musings from the Mat I'm sitting in the Picton Ferry Terminal, about to head over to Wellington for my second book launch event. The first was at the International Yoga Conference and Festival at Kawai Purapura last weekend. It was both a blissful and challenging experience, and - as always - a learning experience. The bliss came in teaching a class to 40+ eager yogis and feeling the flow alongside them. It was such a joy to share my teaching and my yoga. It was … [Read more...]
What does ‘Yoga is a path to self-realisation’ mean?
By Kara-Leah Grant It's the eve of my book launch and I'm watching a talk on TED called The Gift of Asking. Earlier, I took time to sit on the front deck of my Aunt's house, high on a hill over looking Thames and watched the sun set. The views were panoramic, the insect life vibrant and lyrical, and as I sat I felt profoundly connected. I felt, in my bones, a sense of achievement and accomplishment as I realised I'd done it; I'd come back from insanity - all the way back. For the first time, I … [Read more...]
I can do it. (And so can you)
By Kara-Leah Grant, Musings from the Mat Oh yes... the pressure has been on this week. I leave this Saturday for Auckland in preparation for launching Forty Days of Yoga at the International Yoga Conference Festival next Friday. My book hasn't gone to print yet. There's been issues with corrupted files. Scheduling difficulties with layout folk and designers. Couriers that don't deliver. Trimming accidents. And finally, font issues on the print proof. It's to be expected. There's always … [Read more...]