Yoga musings

I can still hear my late sister Gail impersonating one of her young elementary school students, checking out her gray hair and asking her with an inquisitive stance, hands on his hips (ha!), head sidecocked with one eye closed, “Are you a (sic) ole lady?” Every time I struggle with stiff joints, unable to put […]

All week long when this word was the class theme for my classes I had that pop song, “to know, know, know him, is to love, love, love him”. I felt guilty. What does that syrupy song have to do with an ancient Sanskrit word that means to know who you are, where you’re from,

Dharma comes from the Sanskrit root dhr, which means “to sustain”, so dharma literally means that which sustains. Simply put, it means duty. What is your duty in life? That changes, depending on your age, your vocation in life, evolving relationships, and your interests. It has moral connotations, the idea that a certain dynamic order

Karma has accumulated a bad rep in this country. Karma is not always bad. And it isn’t necessarily a punishment. It is an opportunity to learn. It is an opportunity to hold yourself accountable for your actions because there is nothing so bold as to admit your shortcomings and hold yourself responsible for your behavior,

What is Yoga? Literally, it means to unite, to yoke. We unite mind, body and spirit to become more whole, more connected with ourselves. In ancient times, as yoga first took root, it was about getting in tune with yourself and your innate nature, to be kind and compassionate. to reach a higher consciousness. It

“You change your life by changing your heart”. —Max Lucado If you’ve been to yoga and you put yourself into any chest opening, heart opening pose, you’ve tapped into the energy of your Heart Meridian, the Yin half of this Yin/Yang pairing. Perhaps on a more subtle level you were able to detect a settling

At first, this organ pairing might not seem so obvious, yet with closer attention, clarity ensues. If you stop and really think about it, of course the two are related. Have you ever wolfed down a meal, only to suffer indigestion or other gastrointestinal disturbances later? Probably because you took in too much air as

My all time favorite yoga pose is Sphinx pose, shown in the photo that accompanies this post. It is wonderfully uplifting yet grounding at the same time, a perfect complement to a Yin/Yang approach to yoga explorations. It connects you profoundly with the earth as you open up your heart to the sky above and

Traditional Chinese Medicine follows a traditional belief that organs not only provide vital functions in the body to promote and maintain health, but that they are interconnected in their functionalities and energies, sharing an overall dynamic system on which the body thrives. Emotions are linked into these physical energies and one can affect the other.

According to Chinese Traditional Medicine (TCM) and Organ Meridian theory, the organs maintain a dynamic relationship in which their energies and functions interact, their powers going far beyond the physical, the obvious, and into the more subtle energetic layers, actually affecting our emotions, thoughts and behaviors. These Meridians make up a highway of bodily pathways,