Although I’ve already revealed that I’m not the peppiest person in the morning, I also know that morning is the best time for a yoga practice.

Actually, there are two best times: at sunrise and at sunset. Many traditions and cultures encourage some sort of practice that pulls you away from either the sleep state or the mundane activities of the day so that we can notice these shifts of energy- in the light, the air, the animals and the elements. (more…)

Doing my own home retreat (see yesterday’s entry) got me thinking about the whole idea of retreats-and unfortunately why nowadays it seems to be only for those who can afford to stop their lives and pay to go into the forest for a few days. (more…)

There is a practice I remember one of my Sivananda teachers describing where you don’t speak for 3 days, called mouna- it is a voluntary vow of silence.

I remembered this because when I get depleted, my voice becomes very weak and I recently started feeling as if I was using massive amounts of energy just to engage in conversation. (more…)

Although there are super-teachers who say that even when they are sick they continue their physical yoga practice, I’m not one of them. I usually tell students to notice when their bodies are clearly signaling to take a full and complete rest. (more…)

The weather has been perfect for long fast-walking, I mean like 4-5 miles in less than an hour!

Although I’ve never been a jogger, I can outwalk most of my runner friends. Even before my years of doing standing warrior poses, I always had amazingly strong legs. And, I’ve been feeling a need to build endurance into my physical movements and this is by far the most beautiful way to do it -as I go up and down these marvelous hills in the Bay area. (more…)

How can we just sit in lotus position when there’s several wars raging right now in the world, our nation is on “high alert” again, we’re gobbling oil faster than we’ll ever be able to replenish it and women and children’s lives are still at greatest danger in their own homes?

In the past 6 years of my graduate studies in San Francisco I have met many amazing individuals who have inspired many others in a strategy that can only be described as Spiritual Activism. That means that you do not have to abandon such spiritual beliefs as seeing goodness around you in order to enter the often painful public arena where injustice, violence, hatred and abuse may also exist.� (more…)

There is so much out there about yoga: yoga videos, yoga classes, yoga studios, yoga teachers, yoga books, yoga styles, yoga methods.  It feels exciting, and can be overwhelming.  Students wonder if yoga will help them, if the teacher is good.  They wonder if yoga will make them thinner, calmer, more loving and better lovers.  That’s a lot.  Can yoga really be all that? (more…)

Change happens on many levels when you begin a yoga practice. In my first week of daily yoga I notice the aches and pains – the limitations- of the physical body first. But also how energy moves. My digestion is better- proof that yoga poses massage our internal organs and help the digestive “fires.” (more…)

We seem to be terrified of silence.

I notice a constant chatter in most of the yoga classes I’ve been attending lately.

Perhaps because the teacher feels a need to deliver a performance? (more…)