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Nothing in this universe ever grows from the outside in. Every seed, every tree, every flower, every human heart unfolds from within. Life always moves from the inside out. Yet so many of us spend our lives looking beyond ourselves for the answers, listening to those who are deemed the wise ones of our time, searching externally for what is quietly waiting within us, and has been all this time. As my own yoga practice continues to mature, I am beginning to understand this tru

This week I have had an interesting experience, and I offer my learning out for you to try on for size, just like a new garment, if you like it keep it, if it does not quite fit say thank you and leave it behind. Fear of missing out (often called FOMO) is something almost everyone experiences at some point. It comes from the belief that something better is happening somewhere else, that other people are having experiences we're not, or that saying "no" means losing an opportu

Lots of people are searching for something. We get propelled by something that happens to us, trauma perhaps, the need for change, the need for growth. We seek to find what is hidden. With our families, and friends, in books, in church, at ashrams, with gurus, or psychotherapists. The only thing I say in response now is... you do you. And walk where you need to walk. But it is all here. Nothing needs to be searched for at all. Nothing is hidden. All that needs to happen is t

In the Northern Hemisphere we have the Summer Solstice and in the Southern Hemisphere the Winter Solstice is happening too, Gaia showing us how we too can go through all the seasons in one day, It is all about perspective.. It was also a New Moon last Monday, so when you turn to the Sun and smile also see if you can find sister Moon who kindly reflects the Sun when we can't directly see it. In Nuneaton if that is where we find ourselves, we will experience roughly 16 hours a

As you know last weekend I supported All Love with lots of my kirtan friends, and it got me thinking a lot about love. So, this week’s sharing is around my love musings, and the invitation is pay it forward wherever you go. Love is not one river. Maybe it is like weather, ocean, root, flame, shelter, compass, and song. It arrives wearing many faces, yet somehow beneath it all remains the same mysterious universal force. Love sits quietly behind all things. The ancient Greeks

As summer draws ever closer and the beauty of spring reaches its fullest expression, the world around us seems to hum with a quiet reminder, love is everywhere, the dancing of the bees and the butterflies, the smell of the magnificent roses and the birds singing of freedom. Ananda, Prem and Bhav are yogic expressions of the highest love, a universal, boundless and impersonal love that connects all beings, all things, the all and everything. A love that transcends the personal

I have just returned from five days of fasting and every evening we entered a sweat lodge a practice descended from the Blackfoot (or Niitsitapi) tradition. My five day birthday fast was an amazing roller coaster of experiences that ripples inward and outwards. It changes our relationship with food that is for sure, as well as how privileged we are to choose to sacrifice food and our livelihood for five days. To surrender for us to step closer to ourselves. Camping out in nat

The human mind is a wanderer in the past, and a dreamer in the future. These are where it journey's in our own imagination. For some of us, mind dances endlessly — leaping from thought to thought, story to story — gathering speed as it goes, until we find ourselves tied in invisible knots, with furrowed brows, and believing things that are not real. Yoga has been a gentle teacher over my years of practice. Not to silence the mind as some of the books may lead us to believe, b

So as part of our collective yoga journey I talk about the fact that we can choose what we do in every moment and how we react. Yes, sometimes it is easier to do this than others, and that is our practice, to be mindful in every moment regarless of the triggers and the reactions of our past. So we can stay in the moment and act from our real space of pure balance. And then we realise that every moment has been beautifully crafted for us to wake up, for us to do our work…not

A moving prayer of our spine We come onto hands and knees, a four-legged embodiment once again, instinctive, sensing, alive. Palms root beneath shoulders, knees under hips, the earth holding us up from our four corners. Here, no performance only rhythm. Cow pose bitilāsana बितिलासन (expansive — breathe In) We inhale, and our body becomes a bowl of sky. The belly softens and descends , not in defeat, but as trust. Our heart reaches forward and through , unguarded, reaching o

Here is an embodied teaching—so you can really feel Tadasana. As I like to say in our sessions we need grow our asana from the inside. We stand, not as effort, but as arrival. Feet gently kiss the earth with the quiet confidence of stone that has known the knowledge for centuries.The mountain does not strain upward, it grows layer by layer and invites the sky to greet it. In Tadasana, we remember this. Becoming the Shape Our feet spread like roots in fertile soil, four corne

deva nāgarī — the script of the immortals —is the sacred vessel through which Sanskrita is written. Sanskrita itself is often called the mother of all languages, the quiet root from which English, German, Greek, Latin, Hindi, Bengali, Tamil, and so many others have grown out from over time. In Sanskrita, each letter carries a precise sound—nothing more, nothing less. There is no hierarchy of letters, no capitals raised above the rest. Each sound stands equal, each vibration

Today I wondered why do yoga teacher trainings still insist that yoga can be understood through English translations and western thinking (completely made up)? Don’t get me wrong on my journey I have ‘done’ many many yoga teacher training’s and yes they have taught me some things. But, I believe now Yoga is as far from an academic discipline as you can possibly get. So surely it is time that folks stopped trying to fit a round peg into a square box. Yoga is a living, oral tr

So recently (yes I have been a little slow to "wake up!" ) I have realised that our 'how to be human' manual is all around us, being blatently shown to us by mother nature. Hidden in plain sight you may say! If only we stopped, rested, and opened up all of our senses to allow the knowledge in, it is all being freely shown to us, all of the time, not in words but in the unfolding. Yoga is our wake up call, our waking up practice(s) quite literally to clear the field, clean awa

I have been involved in b ehavioural change all my working career pretty much and I have learnt a few things about how it works. B ehavioural change is hard because our brains are pattern makers, and changing takes effort and quite a lot of it. To begin with it is hard to do, it takes effort, but then we start to feel and see the effects that the change we have chosen has on our life, and then we want to do more of it. So, the best thing to begin with is decide what we w

the seeds become the food - wether we like to eat it or not!

If we care to look, pagan traditions bring unexpected and magical meaning into our today's celebrations. Early pagan practices are actually at the root of many Christian and other religious traditions, including this season of Advent. Pagan communities, all over the world, set aside the weeks before the Winter Solstice as a time to honour the coming of the light. Interesting fact - The date of Christmas was officially designated during the fourth century as Dec. 25th - the da

As we say a fair bit in sessions with you all, we are better at repairing our bodies when we have our eyes closed as it allows our parasympathetic nervous system to become more dominant, but did you know when our body sends out the maintenance crew to do the deeper repairs? Yes, our bodies are on the clock too, and knowing the approximate times when your body is repairing parts can help you pinpoint when things are not in alignment . Obviously, these are guidelines and are ac

So we have noticed that it has been really dark at night over the last few weeks and we wondered why? So on Thursday evening in our mat yoga class we wondered if it was because the moon is showing itself in the day rather than in the evening, as we all mentioned seeing the moon's beautiful face in the daytime recently, so at the moment at night not only are we missing the sunshine, but the night (sun reflecting) shine of the moon as is around the other side of the earth (wh

So the invitation this week to find ten beautiful reflective minutes in our lives this week and sit in our comfortable seat (asana) and think about all the things we do in our life that helps exude a state of relaxation from within. One of the laws of this manifest universe is cause and effect, we plant seeds and then they grow, and we reap the benefit or detriment of what we have planted when it has grown, matured, flowered in our lives. So let us reflect on how often we ac