It seems this photo of John Gebhardt has been circulating since 2006, but I just received it today. The image of humanity and of hope. According to John Gebhardts wife, Mindy, this small girls whole family including the children was executed by the insurgents in Iraq. Miraculously she survived after being shot in the head and was cared for in a military hospital. John had the magic touch with her and was able to comfort her when she woke screaming and groaning. According to the article he spent 4 days and nights comforting her and sleeping in this chair with her on his chest, close to his heart. A tragic story tempered with promise and faith in mankind. It is an image that I won’t ever forget. Yet when I think about it, isn’t his action one we all would embrace? Wouldn’t you do the same?
Can our kids get any more inquisitive? They are natural born yogi’s, we learn from them!
No one asked little Talulah Belle to do this pose, she just mimicked and it turned out to be such a special moment.
I would like to create an abundance of “yoga moments” with you and your children, and am leading a class for you with your child ages 0-5 starting next Tuesday Jan.12th 2010.
Class will be held at the Alchemy Center #3-431 Mountain Hwy in North Vancouver on Tuesdays from 9.30-10.30 am. The aim is for parents of tiny ones to get a practice in while babes rest on blankets, mats , or in seats, while the older children participate with us.
I will run the class on a drop-in basis for the first 5 weeks, and as a signed up course after the Olympics.
Please see my schedule on my website for more information.
Elizabeth Kadetsky became known to me as the author of a very interesting book titled
”First there is a Mountain”. She writes regularly in several American publications and this one I have linked to “The Art of Defying Death” is extremely riveting. Her first hand account of a brutal assault on her, and how her yoga training helped her survive and revive afterward. The comments are equally worth reading.
Elizabeth Kadetsky, a writer and yoga instructor, is the author of “First There Is a Mountain,” a memoir. Her fiction has appeared in the Antioch Review, Best New American Voices, the Pushcart Prize anthology and other publications. She is currently a visiting writer at Penn State University’s creative writing program.
Teaching yoga is, in itself challenging. Teaching yoga in places that aren’t specifically meant for yoga to be practiced in ie: the child care room in a rec center amplifies that challenge, but in itself presents us with necessary lessons for living in this busy, super-charged , modern world.
Even when we teach in a yoga “center” that is fully equipped with props, music, candles, and all the necessary ambience, it’s never “perfect’ and as teachers we need to be quick on our toes to recognize the lesson the moment grants, turn it into a teaching opportunity and quickly weave that into the class fabric.
Take, cell phones, creepy crawlies, and dogs for instance. These are a few of the challenges that presented themselves this week .
We were in the middle of class taking a rest in Adho Mukha Virasana when a woman found a little bug scuttling across her yoga mat. She didn’t freak out, but she wasn’t thrilled to have this little creature so close to her face. Didn’t help that the yoga mat was a borrowed studio mat!
We wash the mats, spray them down, air them out, but in a busy Iyengar studio full of fluffy wool blankets , well, it happens! Then and there I reiterated the principal of ahimsa (non-violence) by shaking the little critter outside instead of ending his already very short time on earth.
Last week at one of the rec centers I work at, a new dog obedience class started up, right around the time we began Savasana, in the room directly beside ours. If the doggy class had begun at the same time as our class, their barks and yelps may have urged the students on in Adho Mukha Svanasana, but since it was right at Savasana, the students groaned and I could tell they were quite off-put. Dogs are great, they are excitable, loyal, faithful creatures, always true to their innate nature so I jumped in and gave a little lesson on Pratyahara and Dharana.
This evening I thought Iwould outsmart those canine’s and start Savasana earlier, so we would already be rolled to the right and seated by the time they came romping in to class. Lesson plan arranged around this , candle lit, bodies relaxed, and ——–silence. Complete silence. Unheard of at that rec center, we couldn’t even hear the “Os” of the kendo practitioners. I watched as faces and limbs let loose, breathing lengthened and regulated.
Then—wham, wham, what, bam! Huge bangs like a basketball being thrown right at our window. It was a pottery class, throwing their clay, and it was loud! All I could think of was Demi Moore and Patrick Swayze in that “Ghost” pottery scene and I must admit I wondered how I would feel if I were in Savasana and had to deal with that distraction, but the Pratyahara lesson from the previous week must have taken root in these yogis, for their breathe stayed regulated and nary did I see a furrowed brow. (ok, maybe I couldn’t see it due to the candlelight, but they stayed very centered and peaceful)
What is the perfect time and place to practice yoga? If we wait for that hour and a half of uninterrupted silence and the sunset overlooking the ocean to calm the Vritti in our Citta, it may never happen. It’s like waiting for the “perfect” time to have a baby. There isn’t one, but it is one at the same time. We just have to remain present and alert, flexible and grounded all at the same time.
I saw a saying on a T-shirt once that I will never forget:
“Citt happens” Love it!
Cell phones, because they are in our control, are another matter altogether. A cell phone going off during class, ESPECIALLY during Savasana, is a rude interruption. It’s the fault of the student not to turn it off. I understand we are all humans and make mistakes, and when it happens I don’t get huffy, I turn it into a lesson, but really, turn off the phone! Have a look here how Wolverine handles it with so much class!
Well, Gilligan, this looks like an easier way to acquire an island and a community, wouldn’t you say?
It seems that Wee Cumbrae, a 700-acre island off the Ayrshire coast in Scotland, will now also be known as Peace Island after the purchase by devotees of Patanjali Yog, a brand of yoga practiced by millions.
A wealthy entrepreneurial couple, followers of Ramdev, the founder of this movement purchased the island for 2.5 million pounds in July, and are planning on making it a yoga destination.
Though it seems there is some controversy over Ramdev’s yogic views and claims , thousands of anticipated visitors and devotees are expected to flock to the new spiritual destination. No plans yet on how to accommodate the hoped-for visitors.
Maybe some re-runs of Gilligans island will prove inspirational, those folks always came up with brilliant ideas for domestic bliss on an island!
Well, it seems that “Juicy’s” new line of yoga wear “Down Dog Couture” is getting lots of attention from magazine’s, bloggers and fashionistas!
Juicy, owned by Liz Clairborne Inc. will launch it’s new line of splashy T’s , fold-over waist pants, zip tops and more for the holiday season! In keeping with Juicy’s fun, sparkly logos and embellishments, sayings like “Life is Juicy” will adorn the line which will be sold at Saks 5th Ave., Nordstroms, Bloomingdales and various boutiques across the USA. If anyone knows of an apprehensive teen who secretly wants to take yoga but has yet to take the leap, this may just the thing to get her motivated to try a class!
A few months back I was driving to pick up my 12 year old daughter from school, with my one year old girl sleeping in the carseat in the back.
I was listening to CBC radio and a woman , one of the authors of this book, was relaying a story. I started listening in the middle of the programming, so I didn’t have context and the story she relayed caused me to pull my car over on the side of the road and tremble.
It was the experience of a woman in Rwanda who was forced to take her infant daughter off her back, lay her in the mud, and was then raped repeatedly over a lengthy period of time. The men who did this were white men. Once through with her, she was thrown into a ditch to die.
Miraculously, by the Grace of God, this infant that lay suffering in the mud, somehow wiggled her way to the edge of this ditch, and fell in, near where her mother lay suffering. This allowed the mother to suckle her and they both survived.
I am a woman . I am a nursing mother of 2 girls. I am appalled, horrified at the suffering humans inflict on one another. I teach the precept of “Ahimsa”-non-violence as a cornerstone of all my yoga classes and am sure, that if we all were lucky enough to practice yoga as children, the world would be a more peaceful place.
“Fifteen years after the Rwandan genocide, The Men Who Killed Me features testimonials from seventeen survivors. Through their narratives and portraits, sixteen women and one man bear witness to the crimes committed against hundreds of thousands of others. Proceeds from this book will go to Mukomeze, a charitable organization established to improve the lives of girls and women who survived sexual violence in the Rwandan genocide.”
As Stephen Lewis, co-director of Aids Free World, stated in his foreword, “…the stories in this book, however painful, are exactly what is needed to jolt the world into sanity”.
Well, here is the proof!
We CAN be mothers and world champion athletes at the same time!
Kim Clijsters proved it to us all today in her triumphant win over Serena Williams, and this, after not playing for 2 years!
Clijsters who turned professional at 14 and found herself No.1 at 20, retired, married and gave birth to little Jada in Feb.2008.
In her mind, she had more important things to do than play tennis, like, sleepless nights,feeding, diapers and ……………… Clijsters comments that parenthood “definately made me a more complete person”.
For Clijsters becoming a mother completed her. It brought balance and harmony, which led her back to the court with a vengeance.
Inspirational for all us mamas out here, walking the fine tight rope of life on a daily basis!
This picture was emailed to me, without credit to it’s photographer. It is a phenominal image, breathtaking.I wish I knew who captured this moment so beautifully.
Well, it seems that “Juicy’s” new line of yoga wear “Down Dog Couture” is getting lots of attention from magazine’s, bloggers and fashionistas!
Well, here is the proof!