September Update - Journeys

Contents

• Online Yoga continues - Weekly Classes Sat and Wed ams
  Online workshop 10/28-29 - Samhain
  2024:
  Yoga Salon continues 2024 first Sundays 6.45am-9.30am Jan - July
  
  

• In Person Yoga:
  Nest Yoga, Oakland:
  10/21 Bone of Contention - with Richard Rosen - Sign up soon!
  11/11 Yoga with Veterans!….Richard, Patricia Sullivan and MP
  
  11/12 Gazelle Yoga - Hips and Shoulders - Ukiah
  
  12/17 Celebrating Winter Solstice - Bell Valley, Boonville
  
  

• Retreats 2024

• Gray Bear Retreat 4/25-5/2, 2024
  

• Summer Solstice at Bell Valley, CA 6/17 - 21, 2024
  - Special discount for early Solstice 2024 registrations - ends soon!

  
  2023 Espana! Retreat 9/17 - 21 Last call - 1 or 2 spaces left
  
  FREE mini audio practice for your dear hips below
  and interesting climate news and inspirations below, below…….

Online Yoga continues…
4 Saturday mornings: 9-10.15; September 2, 9, 16 and 23
3 Wednesday mornings: Meditation 7.00, Vinyasa 7.30, 8.30 Basics: September 6, 13 (pre-recorded) and 27
Sign up for Auto Subscription and receive 3 months of recordings
Monthly or Dropin options available

Our Online Yoga Theme this month is Journeys - I am traveling in UK and Spain from 9/12 - 10/16 and will be teaching my classes along the way. Many of us have been traveling recently and so this month we will be using the inspiration and imagery of this theme. After all, the practice itself is a journey….

Costa Brava, Catalunya

September 17-22
LAST CHANCE for 1 or 2 late registrations!
Catalan Spa Retreat
Email me asap.

Alternatively you may be interested in renting my little flat which is on the Costa Brava! More info…

FREE MINI AUDIO - a simple practice to ease into your dear hips before dog pose. Enjoy!

If you want to get a little deeper into the endlessly intriguing psoas-iliacus so critical in hip health, consider renting/purchasing this 40 minute online video Psoas Unravelling Practice

STOP PRESS - Local Yoga - In Person

Ukiah - Gazelle Yoga - Ease and Grace in our Hips and Shoulders! 11/12, 10 -12.30pm workshop
In Person in Ukiah - More info soon.

Boonville - Celebrating Winter Solstice
12/17, 12-4pm at Bell Valley Retreat Center

Samhain - Celtic Halloween 10/28 and 10/29
Online weekend workshop to honor transitions into the dark time, grief and letting be
Early Bird ends 10/1

“……….there is a seam stitching darkness like a name……”

A Journey by Nikki Giovanni
It’s a journey . . . that I propose . . . I am not the guide . . . nor technical assistant . . . I will be your fellow passenger . . .

Though the rail has been ridden . . . winter clouds cover . . . autumn’s exuberant quilt . . . we must provide our own guide-posts . . .

I have heard . . . from previous visitors . . . the road washes out sometimes . . . and passengers are compelled . . . to continue groping . . . or turn back . . . I am not afraid . . .

I am not afraid . . . of rough spots . . . or lonely times . . . I don’t fear . . . the success of this endeavor . . . I am Ra . . . in a space . . . not to be discovered . . . but invented . . .

I promise you nothing . . . I accept your promise . . . of the same we are simply riding . . . a wave . . . that may carry . . . or crash . . .

It’s a journey . . . and I want . . . to go . . .

JOURNEYS

Some of us have travelled this yoga path together over many moons. I love Giovanni’s beginning lines that announce the journey “I am not the guide, nor the technical assistant….I will be your fellow passenger….” This is more and more what I feel yoga practice is all about. Yes it’s helpful to have someone who has figured out the arrival and departure times, puzzled over the possible points of interest, brings some kind of experience to what will be new to everyone in some small or bigger way. But basically we are voyaging together into the relatively unknown, setting sail on what we used to call the high seas of pirate yoga - a term which has proved to be truer with each recent scholarly explanation of the history of modern day yoga!

Sometimes, our corporeal being ends up in the “doldrums”, or in that in-between space of not knowing as life creates transitions with different routines and demands, ageing and seasonal variations. And at these times, how delightful it is to be with “fellow passengers”, practicing, exploring and letting the enthusiasm of others inspire and rejuvenate. I feel this particularly in the recent outdoor practices in the parks or gardens, and the focus of groups like Off the Grid retreats who run outdoor meditation retreats. Perhaps the joy of these gatherings has been heightened by our pandemic confinements. We need the natural world so clearly, so passionately these days. And of course she needs us!

As much as I see significant futures in practice outside, in the natural world, I also find that the online journey, by bringing the natural imagery directly into breath and movement, can be exquisitely powerful. When I think back to the early days of covid and how many of us were super resistant to doing anything online, and now several years later the kind of communities that have arisen and still go on!, are unique in my experience of yoga community. The weekly classes allow folks from all across the country to keep in touch - notes are sent when someone is sick/having an op, babies arrive and are celebrated, politics discussed (occasionally!) and the kind of chat that we sometimes have at the end of the class is something that rarely used to happen at the end of a regular class.

The Yoga Salon this year was a remarkable group of committed travellers with years of experience in the practice and in this format with a monthly commitment to practice and a buddy checkin system online and by phone, the contributions were rich and helped us all sail through the month. Consider joining us in Yoga Salon - DEEP 2024 and if you want to join our current weekly class community this month, we are very accommodating! September Online Yoga

For those that online does just not work, retreat time in beautiful surroundings like Gray Bear or Bell Valley is in a way a vacation of the entire spirit and seeps out into our communities without us realizing. There’s a justification for going!! The same folks may gather at similar times of year and yet the experience can be totally different each time. One of the things I love about retreats is the simplicity of not having other responsibilities, not even to cook for yourself!. Your cell phone is silenced and the collective focus allows us all to drop into another dimension of being in sangha.

So as I depart to see my family and teach the Spanish retreat* where the thermal waters take us on another kind of journey, I wish you a wonderful September and also Bon Voyage, as you arrive on the mat or zafu and open to whatever is there in that moment. Those of you who have travelled this path with me over the years and decades, I salute your adventurous spirits and your unique creative paths wherever they go, fellow passengers!

luv
M

*still a space or 2 for last minuters!

Amazing Climate News!    
Children have a right to sue countries over Climate issues - https://www.nytimes.com/2023/08/28/climate/united-nations-children-climate-lawsuit.html
and
Youth win climate case against Montana in first of its kind legal ruliing - https://news.mongabay.com/2023/08/first-of-its-kind-legal-ruling-favors-youth-in-montana-climate-case/  

Inspiring Listens or Reads:
Just listened to this interview with Robin Kimmerer and have completed the new book Mobility by Lydia Riesling produced by those characters at Crooked Media.  Both audio experiences, one short one long are very poignant.  Short Interview with Lydia