“Life is to challenge you with its ups and downs. Ride over them without losing your balance.” – Sri Swami Satchidananda What a beautiful week of teaching at my fave neighborhood studios, Embrace (Adams Morgan, DC) and Past Tense (Mt. Pleasant, DC), beginning last Saturday and wrapping up this morning. Students are so darn devoted…
Tag: Chakra
Be My Valentine
It’s amazing how far from my own heart I can wander. And not even know. Until a massage therapist hunts me down and kindly reunites us. “Come back to your heart, Holly.” The heart does not go anywhere! It’s right there, in my chest; it’s right there, with my head; it’s there, around and within…
Focus Wrap Up: The Eight Limbs – Yama
It was 10:38am on Sunday, April 3rd when I started writing this wrap up, and the New Moon hung invisibly above. In that Sunday’s classes we wrapped up our March focus on the 1st of the Eight Limbs of Yoga – Yama, or, abstinence. I extended the March focus through April 3rd so the New…
Focus: Why Yoga? – Resilience
Today a friend is having a lumpectomy to remove cancer in her breast. This friend is a strong, solution-oriented, resilient woman. After reading my news about the betrayal, breakup and decompression process, she wrote to encourage me to join her in a ritual of surrender. Instead of asking friends to pray for her well-being, she…
Bi-Monthly Focus: July/August – Why Yoga?
In the Spring of 1993 I attended my first yoga class. I was living in New Orleans and hitting an emotional bottom. Nothing in life made sense anymore. Someone suggested yoga. I arrived at a candlelit basement and felt a little scared. It was dark and I didn’t know anyone. But I surrendered to the…
Life on Life’s Terms
I am stretching here. And I don’t mean stretching my body. I am stretching to find a yogic approach to what I want to share this evening, after months without blogging or sending Yoga Updates to my mailing list or reaching out much at all, really. Somewhere around March I started falling behind on my…
Chakra Chant
As part of our Bi-Monthly Focus of TRANSITION & BALANCE, we’ve been closing classes with a chakra balancing meditation I learned from Corrine Champigny who teaches the blissful Svaroopa Yoga sessions at Nashville’s Yoga Source studio. http://www.yogasource.info/index.php We have seven energy centers, aka chakras, along our spine, from the tail bone to the crown of the head. …
Turn, Turn, Turn
To everything (turn, turn, turn) there is a season (turn, turn, turn). – Ecclesiastes (& Pete Seeger) Seasonal changes are intense and the coming of Spring can seem like a major upheaval. Spring forces our slumbering seeds to sprout and can leave us feeling off-balance – particularly after an unusually snow-blanketed Winter. For some, the…
I Know in My Heart…
Let’s wrap up our January/February class focus of HEART. We’ve physically exercised the heart-areas of the body and conceptually explored the heart chakra. Through anatomical focus on the neck, collar-bone, ribs and shoulder blades, we’ve felt the physical relationships among body parts. Through concepts such as “the heart’s desire,” “following the heart,” and “love,” we’ve…
Consider Love
Love is not a feeling; it’s an ability. – Marty to Dan in “Dan in Real Life” Am I able to love? More importantly – am I able to post a blog about love in a timely fashion? Hehe. I intended to write about love on Valentine’s Day, before teaching my evening yoga class last…
The Urban Yoga Den 