by Donna Farhi, Now that the finger has been let out of the dam, there’s been a deluge of #metoo stories coming from our Yoga community. When we do start naming names, what then? In the past, even when teachers have been revealed for serious breaches of conduct, many of those same teachers were immediately forgiven without skipping a beat, and continued onwards with their glorious careers, seemingly unscathed. A recent article in a New Zealand newspaper by Michele A’Court called “Redemption … [Read more...]
Search Results for: spiritual
How Does Yoga, a Self-Regulating Practice, Regulate itself as an Industry?
by Melissa Billington, MYOGA Freedom & The Amazon Academy The advantage of growing up in the alternative health realms is that I’ve seen the evolution of these arts & sciences over a number of decades. My mother was doing yoga while I was in the womb & a few years later she became a massage therapist. When she worked in a health food store, I would hang out in the back. When we were Buddhist we chanted and had an altar in our home. Our family heritage to the pre-colonized Powhatan … [Read more...]
How Yoga Taught Me to Live a Fearless & Authentic Life
by Stephanie Spence, Editor's note: This is an excerpt from Yoga Wisdom: Warrior Tales Inspiring You On And Off Your Mat The setting: a luxurious villa on the Caribbean island of St. Barts. A wife and husband, along with several of his clients, are partying on a terrace overlooking the glittering ocean and sun-kissed beach. They flew in from Pittsburgh aboard his private jet that morning. The woman seems to have it all—she’s a self-made success story, wife, and mother. But beneath her mask … [Read more...]
How Your Unconscious Beliefs Shape Your Body & Mind
by KeiShana Coursey, Opti-mum As a midwife and yogi who has walked alongside women and observed their navigation through all that is birth, it appears to me that the mind doesn’t mind what you believe about sensation, and that it will loyally serve you to create whatever it is you’ve unconsciously chosen to believe. Let me explain… I became very interested in the vast difference between the individual experience of labour and birth when observing the stark contrast between women who believed … [Read more...]
Yoga Teacher, Heal Thyself
by J. Brown, Originally published on J. Brown Yoga. There is a performative aspect to teaching and promoting group yoga classes that sometimes leads to a denial of the teacher’s actual state. The conventional dynamics at play between teachers and students, both interpersonal and economic, are presenting obstacles to the kinds of exchange that encourage effective yoga transmission. Maintaining integrity often means having the courage to buck trends in order to reconcile our intentions with … [Read more...]
The Difference Between Being a Victim and Being Victimised
by Freya Vajra I was chatting with a good friend of mine the other day, about all this Agama/sex cult stuff. For those of you who don’t know, one of the biggest Neo tantra schools in the world, Agama, was recently outed by Be Scofield for a whole load of sexual assault and misconduct by the heads of the school. It’s a school I have trained at and didn’t stay at because the waft of dogma and abuse was so strong. My friend, who spent a number of years there, was saying how she felt that she had … [Read more...]
Are Plant Medicines Part of Traditional Yoga?
by Daniel Fow, Cardinal Points: Healing Arts "The Mystic States (Siddhis) are attained by yogic practices from previous lifetimes, or by special plants, mantric repetition, asceticism, or by meditation." - Yoga Sutras of Patanjali The ancient Rishis and Yogis often spoke of an ancient plant medicine known as Soma which would be made into a tea. Upon drinking it, the third eye would awaken and mystical states would occur, even the state of samadhi or enlightenment. The use of Soma as a plant … [Read more...]
12 Things You Must Know About Kambo Before Getting Pricked
by Chris Kelly, If you’d told me years ago that the slimy secretion from an Amazonian tree frog - sometimes called “ordeal medicine” - was incredible for my health, I’d think you were a little nuts. If you told me it was applied directly into the lymphatic system through small little burn marks on the skin, I’d think you were completely nuts! I never would have believed that I’d be applying these very same burn marks and this slimy frog secretion to myself, let alone regularly serving it … [Read more...]
What is Conscious Business and Can it Reshape our World?
by Kara-Leah Grant Nothing has changed society more than business. The second agricultural revolution (Britain approximately 1650 until about 1900) was defined by business, as farmers changed methods to increase productivity and food production out-stripped population growth, creating wealth. Laws around common land changed and transportation infrastructure became increasingly important, completely changing British society. And, through the British Empire, impacted the entire world. That … [Read more...]
Day 617 of my Thousand Day Practice. Ball dropped, Again!
by Kara-Leah Grant I was in the car, catching a ride to Day 3 of a three-day workshop with Ana Forrest & Jose Calarco. Nikki - giving me a ride - and I were talking about mountains and the energy they embody. I was sharing my recent experiences in Glenorchy, where I would sit outside at sunset and do my practice. My practice! My 1000 Day practice... The one I was up to Day 617 on... The one I... DIDN'T do yesterday. In that moment, I remembered. And shock hit. A wave of shock … [Read more...]