Yoga, Tea & Bast

I had a dream last night about crows. We were at the store someone had a crow in a cage. I thought that’s rude and set it free. We left the store got to our truck and in the truck was a baby bird. So cuteI was annoyed because we were trying to leave for vacation and then it became one of those classic stress dreams of getting baby crow everything it needed so the cat wouldn’t eat it and we could…

Why am I just now hearing about this piece of history? This is the Hestia Tapestry. A Byzantine tapestry which was made in Egypt in the 6th century AD. It shows Hestia goddess of hearth and home as a fruitful, generous figure, with a headdress and earrings made of pomegranates. Hestia is always a very difficult goddess to find information. The eldest and the youngest of Cronus and Rhea’s…

A few days ago hope and I were chatting. Something we do not do enough of these days with Hope and Nic on one coast, Coyvere and I in the big woods and Glory and her sweet family in-between. It makes me thankful for the best witchy tool of all times – the internet and smart phones. With out these trying to communicate all of us would be very slow and annoying. I am not a good letter writer. Chats…

Update for Nettle’s Cat and Coyvere

So.. yeah… guess what?

We’ve moved again. In the past six years we have gone from old worn down mountains, to desert, to hot swamp and now we are back where Coyvere and Nettle’s cat first met up here in the great north woods. It’s strange to hear accents that are comforting and familiar. To recognize trees and plants as familiar knowing their names and what they are good for. It feels like…

Wednesday 8:30 pm CST Restorative Yoga + Yoga Nidra a midweek reset.

Wednesday 8:30 pm CST Restorative Yoga + Yoga Nidra a midweek reset.   This is a Zoom class – message me for information on how to join or better yet join my newsletter. Wednesday mornings I send out a newsletter with the link to join as well as other insights from me. It might be a recipe, a photo, a dharma talk or something else to help motivated you at this midpoint of the…

Awake to the Transitions

The studio I work for asks us to write a small post each month about the studio’s intention. For May the intention is Awake to the Transitions. I realized that in the past almost 2 years of working for this studio I haven’t shared my writings here in my blog. I am working to remedy that oversight on my part

  It’s so easy to just be numb,

Or, I should say, it’s easier to be numb than to be awake…

Loss in the time of Covid

Normally I would tuck this post over in my yoga blog but it wanted to be here on Moonlit Path.

“The people you love become ghosts inside of you, and like this you keep them alive.” ― Rob Montgomery

My girls have a favorite game they play with me. “Mama do you remember when….” Some times the story is funny, some times our two sides of the story are so far from being the same that we wonder…

― Wu Wei, I Ching Wisdom: More Guidance from the Book of Answers, Volume Two

Last Friday I taught my first on line class via ZOOM. I don’t have the technical expertise to share a video I can share with you pictures of the class so you at home can enjoy a yin yoga class at your leisure. If you are new to yin yoga – yin is yoga with meditation and inward journey. A We hold the poses for 2 minutes to 5 minutes each. You want to keep in mind the tenets of yin yoga as you practice.

Find your edge that 100% intensity and then BACK OFF to about 75% to even 50% of intensity.  The idea is that you can be still in the pose, you can breath and your body says yes to all the physical sensations

Work towards stillness. Fidgeting happens so take the time to pause and ask why you feel the need to fidget in the pose. If you are in pain adjust if your cloths feel funny that is your mind being uncomfortable in the stillness

Remain in the pose for a set length of time for yin poses that is anywhere from 2 minutes to 10 minutes depending upon the two upper tenets and how the poses feel in your body.

Come out of the poses slowly supper slow slower than you think you need to and enjoy that moment of so slow movement.

I am including a link to my Spotify play list. I set up my song lists for a class in a very particular way. I have 10 to 15 minutes of what I call settling into the practice songs. These songs are time to help you gather your props set up your yoga nest, shut off your ringer and begin to settle into you’re your practice.

https://open.spotify.com/playlist/4Th3bsTXhRfDc2LNc3wED6?si=cGXBr79eTCikZq9eNzRuFA

Once settled on your yoga mat take a deep breath and read to yourself our even out loud if you like the following quote

 “Change is like a river: nothing is the same, even for an instant. Everything is continually moving through the six stages of change: about to come into being, beginning, expanding, approaching maximum potential, peaking, and finally, passing its peak and flowing into its new condition.”

― Wu Wei, I Ching Wisdom: More Guidance from the Book of Answers, Volume Two

Let this be your intention for class – considering how do you embrace or deal with change knowing that change really is the only true constant we have.

Our meridian focus is on the liver and the spleen. The liver because it helps us find balance in the spring and when in balance, we have that good judgment out of balance we become inflexible and angry. The spleen for the Spring Equinox so that we may navigate life changes well.

Find your great breath letting the inhaling breath flow up from the root the base of your spine to the crown of your head and let the exhaling breath flow down the front of the body.

Start with Butterfly pose for 2 to 5 minutes (get a timer it will help when you first start with a regular home practice.) * note – pets are optional for this class

  Souls of the feet together you can stay upright or fold forward what feels good to you. As you melt into the pose feel the breath in the body and how your breath frees your body to change.

Rebound with legs out straight and breath that great breath inhaling up the spine to crown of the head and exhaling from the crown to the earth along the front of the body.

Move into ½ butterfly right leg out to the side and bending the left knee into the right thigh folding over the bent knee first for 1 to 2 minutes before folding over the strait leg for 2 to 4 minutes

Remember to do both sides of the body – cats are optional for these poses

Make your way to reclining or on your back knees bent

Move how your body wants – could be windshield knees or just pausing feeling the breath in the body.

Hug right knee into chest for some release to the low back for about 1 minute maybe 2 if it feels really good then roll onto the left hip finding twisted roots and hold for 2 to 4 minutes, I am showing two variations. One is leaving the foot on the ground the second is to roll over more bringing the knee closer to the earth.  Do the variation that feels best for you and know that it will feel different in the body one side to the next.

Back to center considering if you can notice change in the body and how the body feels. Rest, heal and just breath.

Move to the opposite side.

Roll on to the belly and pause in your reverse starfish or crocodile pose resting on the belly head supported by the hands.

You can stay in crocodile for 5 minutes or

I really enjoy ½ frog with sphinx combination. I do about 3 minutes per side with a crocodile rest between both sides.

See and feel what is best in your body. This is yin yoga its all about feeling the changes and movement of your body.

Take a child’s pose for as long as you need maybe even a down dog as an option to feel your body and to change.

Returning to your back we find that starfish rebound and then interlace fingers behind the head stretch out to the right bringing the right foot to the right side of your mat letting the left foot meet the right and stretch along the left side of the body in banana asana for 3 to 4 minutes longer if it feels good and the body says yes. Repeat on the left side.

We end in a 5 to 10-minute shavasana and this passage for closing meditation.

“March 23

As vines sprout, as flowers bud, and as plants make their way across your lawn. Take a moment to learn from their ability to adapt to any number of conditions, to germinate and grow even when all the odds seem stacked against them

Some plants can sow their seeds only when there’s a fire or smoke in the vicinity; they’ve learned to survive when other green have been charred to nothingness. Some trees have evolved to endure remarkable extremes of both heat and cold.

We can be as adaptable as the plants if we can treat obstacles as the conditions for growth. The spring invites us to try. “

-Earth Bound Daily Meditation for all Season by Brian Nelson   

Are they really that?

Ah… Hope my darling love

The gods are evil rat bastards and do not deserve our worship.  With all the raping and pillaging, fighting & backstabbing, we can add a few plagues and rivers and/or lakes of blood worst yet never giving us what we want but what we need and yes, we can come up with the idea that they are EVIL. Evil just evil.

Not worth our worship or time. After all, don’t’ they…