“An ordinary life infused with practice becomes a meaningful life”

While there may not seem to be much connection between a ripening apricot and the practice of yoga, a new book by the spiritual director of Yasodhara Ashram makes clear the link between the two.

Living the Practice: Collected Writings on the Transformative Potential of Yoga draws on Swami Radhananda’s 30 years as a yoga teacher and her rich experiences as a mother and educator. She presents yoga not as the esoteric art of a few flexible people, but as an everyday spiritual practice that can play a role in anyone’s life — at a business meeting, while driving in traffic, cooking or gardening.

Read the rest of this story at the Creston Valley Advance…

Andrea Potter runs a cooking class at Radha Yoga Centre on Main St. She recently taught a class on gluten-free baking at which the class learned how to make dosa.

VANCOUVER–When Karen Morgan was diagnosed with celiac disease 10 years ago — a “deathly sick” form of it — she stared it down like a good Texan. Give up favourite foods? No way!

Adhering to her pleasure principle, she became a self-taught gluten-free baker — such a good one that her cookbook, Blackbird Bakery Gluten-Free caught my eye. The photos of her recipes would stand up in a chic Donna Hay food shot. She once sold her baking online but now sticks to teaching and talking.

Read the rest of this story at The Vancouver Sun…

Mindful eating is not a diet, or about giving up anything at all

PINE BUSH, N.Y.–Try this: place a forkful of food in your mouth. It doesn’t matter what the food is, but make it something you love — let’s say it’s that first nibble from three hot, fragrant, perfectly cooked ravioli. Now comes the hard part. Put the fork down. This could be a lot more challenging than you imagine, because that first bite was very good and another immediately beckons. You’re hungry.

Today’s experiment in eating, however, involves becoming aware of that reflexive urge to plow through your meal like Cookie Monster on a shortbread bender. Resist it. Leave the fork on the table. Chew slowly. Stop talking. Tune in to the texture of the pasta, the flavor of the cheese, the bright color of the sauce in the bowl, the aroma of the rising steam.

Read the rest of this story at The New York Times…

No shoes, food, drinks or cell phones are allowed

SAN FRANCISCO–Stressed out by flying? Travelers in Northern California can now find their inner calm in the Yoga Room at San Francisco International Airport. The quiet, dimly lit studio officially opened last week in a former storage room just past the security checkpoint at SFO’s Terminal 2.

Airport officials believe the 150-square-foot (14-square-meter) room with mirrored walls is the world’s first airport yoga studio, said spokesman Mike McCarron.  Read the rest of this story at Time…

Once you understand symbolism, the secrets of different cultures and religions also can start to open up

Swami Sivananda Radha

I studied the symbolism of Hinduism and Buddhism in India, Thailand and other cultures, and finally came full circle back to the Christian scriptures of my own culture. Suddenly everything fell into place. Reading, for example, the Book of Revelation literally, I could not make sense of it at all. But when I took time to study and understand the symbolic meaning, I found this text very closely linked to the Kundalini Yoga system.

In India, there are carvings and wall paintings on the temples and in the famous caves of Ajanta. The Divine images are not meant to be decorative, but rather to communicate knowledge in the most accessible way because written language had developed slowly and was available only to a few. And writing itself is symbolic. Each letter is an abstract symbol that combines with others to form a word. And behind each word is a myriad of ideas, open to interpretation by every reader. I think as long as we use words, the best we can do is to use symbol and metaphor.

Read the rest of this article at ElephantJournal.com

Skeptical at first, residents of Nazareth House now wait eagerly for instructor Anne Marie Delaney

MONTREAL–When yoga instructor Anne Marie Delaney entered the basement of an old greystone in Shaughnessy Village a few weeks ago, her eager students were waiting patiently beside their mats.

But the small group of students are not your traditional yoga disciples. They are mostly elderly men who live at Nazareth House, a shelter and residence for men who have struggled with homelessness, addictions or mental illness.

Most Wednesdays, Delaney takes time out of her busy schedule to take the men through a 30-minute yoga class that she hopes will empower them physically and emotionally. With soothing music playing in the background, she uses breathing techniques, stretching and relaxation exercises to help them strengthen their mind, body and spirit.  Read the rest of this story at The Gazette…

Image by Pierre Obendrauf, The Gazette

Friends of Compassion is meeting at various locations such as the Spokane Islamic Center and Radha Yoga

The Fig Tree, November 2011

SPOKANE–Even after the Dalai Lama turned down an invitation last year to come to Spokane, John Hancock and several others have continued to engage in conversations to promote the Buddhist leader’s call for compassion. Hancock’s interest in Buddhism began when Venerable Thubten Chodron from the Svarasti Abbey near Newport, Wash., spoke to his Rotary group in 2009.    Read the rest of this story at The Fig Tree.org…

Why the Art Gallery of Ontario and others like it want you to stretch, and even sleep, among the sculptures

TORONTO–The Art Gallery of Ontario is 583,000 square feet of beautiful, downtown real estate, room after room of high ceilings, nice lighting, pale hardwood, comfy chairs. But if the art is mostly on the walls, there is, to borrow an art term, a lot of negative space in the place, and a lot of time in which all that square footage and gorgeous art is left alone.

This month, however, a yoga class, convened as part of artist Paul Butler’s residency at the AGO, gave an inkling as to what an all-hours museum could be – a place where you might find yourself stretching at 8 a.m. in the Henry Moore Sculpture Gallery, or sleeping over for a night.   Read the rest of this story at The National Post…

Image by Darren Calabrese, The National Post

Underemployed gurus redemocratize downward dog

Alyssa Giacobbe, New York Magazine, October 02, 2011

Obscured though it may be by $100 Lululemon pants, celebrity instructors, and Eat Pray Love, there’s always been a current of altruism in the yoga subculture. Teachers are schooled in “karma yoga,” or the yoga of service to others. And an increase in trained instructors (there were around 70,000 nationwide the last time one trade group counted) means there are ever more of those teachers competing for paying gigs. The result is a lot of enlightened, and underworked, people looking for a way to put their $3,500 certifications to use, and a boomlet in what might be called welfare yoga.   Read the rest of this article at New York Magazine.

Illustration by Martin Ansin

Life has definitely had its shares of up’s and down’s as of late.  There have been so many new and exciting opportunies and breakthroughs that at times it has been hard to remain grounded.  While I struggle at times to have a consistent meditation practice I have spent the past month with intent and dedication to spend a few minutes in the divine light meditation each day.  It the few moments that it takes I can feel a shift of energies within myself and a calming light surround me.  While I have yet to get to the 40-day mark I am interested to see what exists on the other side.  I fully intend to continue with the meditation after that point, as the more the energies are summoned, the stronger they become.  Read the rest of this post at Balancing on Two Feet.