Awaken Light Rotating Header Image

Posts Tagged ‘yoga’

A Little Yoga, For Beginners

“I did not come to yoga to stretch. I came to live.”
~Maya Breuer, Kripalu Yoga Instructor

Standing Pigeon Pose

————————————————————————————-
This article is a repost from our old blog – originally dated June 2008.
————————————————————————————-

Coming to Yoga

As we age, we embrace new things, we evolve and grow in wisdom and strength. This is not always so, but it can be, if we maintain an openness to new ideas and accept life’s challenges gracefully, as difficult as that may sometimes seem.

In my own evolution I have recently embraced a challenging new thing, one that actually facilitates my ability to accept other challenges with grace and strength. That thing being yoga.

I do not know what originally drew me to yoga, especially as the attraction began a few years ago when I was in the worst physical shape of my life. Still, yoga had an unknown appeal and I began reading and learning about it. At that time I did not incorporate it into my life, but that door remained open.

Brief dabblings in yoga over the last year have shown me that it’s not easy but that it is fun, and it remained very appealing.

Now, having been vegetarian for nearly nine months, and having shed over 40 pounds towards reclaiming my college/high school weight, I just suddenly incorporated a practice of yoga into my life.

The impulse was my thirty-second birthday at the end of March. I received an organic yoga mat as a gift from my fiancé, Serge, and he also paid for my first two yoga classes at the local ashram. Those classes were in the Sivananda style of yoga.

Though the classes didn’t work out, as the instructor was like a drill sergeant, I adopted a home yoga practice that has really done something good for me.

In the very beginning I did not believe that I would be able to stick to a regular yoga practice, and doing it every day seemed like a chore. I felt silly mostly, there was hardly a single … Continue reading →

God In All Things

“They say that God is everywhere, and yet we always think of him as somewhat of a recluse.”
~Emily Dickinson, 19th-Century American Poetess

God as a Bug

———————————————————————————
This article is a repost from our old blog – originally dated April 2008.
———————————————————————————

Today started out quite foggy and dreary, but now it seems to be brightening and drying up. :)

After months of focusing on my diet and introducing a vegetarian lifestyle, I begin now to bring my focus to my physicality.

As part of that process, I have decided to stop dabbling in Yoga at home and to actually go out and join a class.

I have chosen Sivananda style Yoga, partly out of a lack of options and partly out of what I learned about it during my research of yoga styles. It seems very balanced for me, who I am and what I believe.

I have just returned home after my first 2-hour class, feeling invigorated (and a bit out-of-shape) and looking at things with more open eyes.

I don’t know how long this buzz will last, so I will take this opportunity to write a post about what I have recently been observing.

~

So many people, myself included, spend a great deal of their spiritual life or spiritual intentions attempting to find a connection with God, the Creator, the Divine One. We look for it outside of ourself, we expect and hope for grace and guidance to come TO us.

For some religions GOD is something that one must earn, something that one attains at the end of life. GOD is something that you must … Continue reading →