Class Reading

Love everything Love the sky and sea, trees and rivers, mountains and abysses. Love animals, and not just because you are one. Love your parents and your children, even if you have none. Love your spouse or partner, no matter what either word means to you. Love until you create a cavern in your loving, until it seethes like a volcano. Love every time. Love your enemies. Love the enemies of your enemies. Love those whose very idea of

Ancient Hindu drawing of the Nadis and Chakras Taken from Anodea Judith's Wheels of Life ​ This is an exercise Judith recommends in order to experience what a chakra "feels" like. It is said to open the hand chakras and allow you to feel their energy. i think you can also feel this if you rub your hands together rapidly, creating heat. Try it for yourself. ​ Extend both arms out in front of you, parallel to the floor with elbows straight. Turn one palm up and one palm down.

This being human is a guest house, Every morning a new arrival. ​ A joy, a depression, a meanness, Some momentary awareness comes As an unexpected visitor. ​ Welcome and entertain them all! Even if they're a crowd of sorrows, Who violently sweep your house Empty of its furniture. ​ Still, treat each guest honourably. He may be clearing you out For some new delight. ​ The dark thought, the shame, the malice, Meet them at the door laughing, And invite them in. ​ Be gra

In my late 30's I hit a difficult patch of life. During a particularly bad episode of chaos, faced with losing everything, I zoomed out, in the truest sense of the phrase. Seated at my dining room table, I drifted up and away toward the ceiling and looked down on myself. Then further away I went, through the roof of the house, up into the sky. The slate tiles on top of the house got smaller, streets below shrank into vein like networks and the trees and roads became smudges

Lokah samastah sukhino bhavantu holds the values of the first and most important of all yoga ethics which is Ahimsa: non-violence, to ourselves, to all others including animals, the planet and all living things. ​ The simplest English translation of the mantra is “may all beings everywhere be happy and free.” I learned this mantra many years ago from my teacher Stewart Gilchrist (East London School of Yoga) and I still say it at the end of every yoga class. Jivamukti founde

Listen and often the universe delivers. ​ For personal reasons I'm not teaching some of my classes occasionally (I am sorry for this as I don't take covers lightly) and my own practise has looked different recently. It's at these times I find refuge in reading (often poetry and philosophy) and listening to podcasts. I was listening to an episode of Keen on Yoga (Ep: 212 Adam Keen) aptly called When life disrupts your yoga practise. Adam talks about various reasons life may h

UNIVERSAL LOVE Before I am born, before I am 5 years old, 49 years old, 84 years old, before I die Before I am a student, before I am a teacher, before I am an artist, a shopkeeper, a doctor, a monk, a priest, a farmer, a scientist, a spiritual seeker Before I am a Christian or a Buddhist Before I am good or bad, right or wrong Before I am a success or a failure Before I am enlightened or unenlightened Before I am a man or a woman Before I am this body or that body Before I a

Just lately I came across Marco Pino, a meditation teacher and blogger (path2yoga.net) who has researched and beautifully explains the Soham mantra (which becomes hamsa - read on). It can be used in meditation (anywhere anytime not just on the mat.) You may have heard of the So'ham (or soham) mantra. A simple tool we can use silently as we watch the breath to help focus the mind on one point. From the Sanskrit words saḥ, which means “He” or “That,” and aham, which means “I

Before you know what kindness really is you must lose things, feel the future dissolve in a moment like salt in a weakened broth. What you held in your hand, what you counted and carefully saved, all this must go so you know how desolate the landscape can be between the regions of kindness. How you ride and ride thinking the bus will never stop, the passengers eating maize and chicken will stare out the window forever. Before you learn the tender gravity of kindness you mus