Newsletter - March 2018

Dear One,

Iyengar used to say “why would you take drugs, when you have natural ones?” – snow, rain, wind, frost and sun.

It has now been snowing all night and as we have replaced the hedge at the bottom of our garden with a two rail wooden fence we now have extensive views over the fields. It is a white-out, there is no horizon, it is all white. I feel a soft white blanket has blanketed out my thinking, there is no movement anywhere and no desire to move just pure white stillness – nothing else. It’s a great opportunity to let go – soften up and meditate. Be persistent and gentle with your practise, like the snow. It sometimes wanders on its way down but always arrives and settles.

Quote:

Some people feel the rain, others just get wet.

Are you enjoying your practice? It’s our belief about ourselves that limits us. If you think you cannot balance in a posture then you will fall over. And it’s our belief that our experience should be different from what it is – eg “I can see that this is going to be a bad day” so with this label we have cooked up – it will be a bad day!

Focus is the key – absolute attention on the posture or mantra. 100% focus and no effort, please don’t confuse focus with effort.

John and I have just spent 9 heavenly days in the Brecon Beacons at Buckland Hall, a residential centre we used to frequent in the 90’s. It’s ideal for a yoga retreat. This time it was with the Ishaya Monks (we used to share our house with). The retreat is similar to our yoga holidays and starts the day with yoga and has talks in the evenings. The best part of the meditative retreat were the talks with Narain Ishaya.

Narain loves talking with yogies and is coming to this weekend to talk with us. It starts at 10am on Saturday at:

The New Beaconsfield Hall

Station Road

Shipton under Wychwood

Oxfordshire.

OX7 6BQ.

Please note this is different postcode to the one originally given.

Teachers – please bring your yellow cards with you. I know there is a bit of resistance there is getting down to your written work, but the feedback (from the most reluctant students) was that they were surprised to find it so enjoyable once they started to write.

Suffering is only in the mind!

It will be good to see you again. Perhaps you could be deciding on the next retreat which is in the Greek island of Lesbos (9th – 16th June 2018) come and feel the sun.

Pranayama comes well before meditation.

Breathe well

Love

Ruth