Category: Benefits of Yoga

Cures, Divination, Trance-Channeling

Maryellen O'Brian
David Cumes, M.D. / South African Healing Wisdom & What it has to Offer the West Cures, divination, trance-channeling and more What a delightful surprise it was to discover David Cumes’ presentation among the offerings of this year’s YogaHub Conference. Indigenous medicine and healing is an area of deep interest to me, so I made a beeline for this presentation and was not disappointed. With a couple of weeks...
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Ayurveda Defines Three Root Causes of Disease 3

Chaya~Sharon Heller
In my last blog, I talked about the first and second causes of disease. The third cause of disease is considered the most important of all, time. “Time” means living according to the rhythms of nature and understanding the symptoms of change, which Patanjali also speaks about in his Yoga Sutras III-13 to III-16. As the sun moves and changes in quality and form, it governs specific functions and...
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Simple Beauty

Christina Souza Ma
The other day on our daily walk, we noticed that our neighbor had just cut back her roses. These are the roses we stop to smell together every morning. Pink, red, white, yellow and — our favorite — mauve, which gives the most incredible scent. Well, this morning there lay a pile of stems, flowers, petals, leaves. My son was sad, looking at this pile as he questioned why they were...
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Breathing Is for Living: Part 2

Anatara Buckley
What is your breath doing? We have established previously that the breath is not only vital to the survival of our physical being, but that it is also vital to the sustenance and maintenance of our spiritual and emotional bodies. When the breath is fluid within us, encountering no obstacles or blockages, we can utilize the oxygen, prana and renewing energy of the breath, unencumbered. In this case, the breath is pure nourishment. It...
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Ayurveda Defines Three Root Causes of Disease

Chaya~Sharon Heller
Ayurveda’s first cause of disease is a mistake or misuse of the mind, where one observes or perceives incorrectly. When we try to solve it by suppressing or thinking what to do about IT, that creates further fragments and divisions. Observe holistically, observe the whole movement of life as one; then conflict – with its destructive energy – not only ceases but also, out of that observation, gifts a totally new approach to life! The second cause of disease arises...
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Breathing is for Living

Anatara Buckley
This comment seems almost redundant. In fact, how could we live if we were not breathing? And at the same time, it is a fact that we don’t always pay attention to this life-giving mechanism on which we are so dependent. I have spoken about the vital link that we have with our breath, and with our breathing before. It seems appropriate to revisit it here now. Every day, I talk with...
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IN GRATITUBE: Surgery and Superheroes

Glenn Wollman
Calculating the rate of bladder filling and hours before surgery, it was painfully obvious I would have to catheterize myself and penetrate the Three Gorges of Hell (see Act Three), hopefully, for the last time in this life time. I awoke early. Mission accomplished. Trying to remain in a very positive mental state,I crossed the Hospital threshold at 0500 hours. (more…)
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IN GRATITUBE: A Nightmare Week

Glenn Wollman
IN GRATITUBE: A NIGHTMARE WEEK Act three: Time, in my mind, was moving at a different rate than real time. The reality of imminent surgery was circulating in my brain cells. Would it happen in hours or days? The Doctor held an anatomical model of the entire exposed male genitalia in front of my eyes. While focusing on the plastic model and relating it to my own anatomy, I learned that a green...
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Magical Medical Tour: IN GRATITUBE

Glenn Wollman
Act one: Signs and Symptoms I was absorbing the beautiful light of a mid-May dusk when my right kidney decided to gift me with a nugget made of calcium oxalate (a chemical compound that forms needle-shaped crystals and is a major part of human kidney stones). I was grateful that the diameter of the tube (Right URETER) from my right kidney to my urinary bladder was larger than the diameter...
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Gary Kraftsow Explains It All

Lia Aprile
Full disclosure: I am a yoga teacher, and it’s very possible that I’ve felt a little, um…scoff-y about “yoga therapy” in the past. I’m not admitting anything outright; I’m just saying it’s possible. Because, come on, “yoga therapy”…what is that, even? I imagined that, at best, it might involve sitting in a therapist’s office (all brown leather couches and impressionist paintings of storms) being prescribed some count of down-dogs as...
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