Yoga’s Autumnal Equinox

Our summer and fall have been especially beautiful in the capital city of Alberta, Edmonton. Summer days are warm or cool - not sweltering as they have been elsewhere.This September, the days are balmy. The garden blooms in late-summer nearing autumnal madness. The nights grow cooler reminding us of change. And today, the autumnal equinox announces our mid-point. A time of reassessment for some. A moment to rebalance for others. ...I am thinking with admiration of my brother who called yesterday to say he was in the hospital mending his heart.

The Beauty of Yoga

My co-teacher Veronika and I prepare to teach in our 300-hour Octopus Garden Holistic Yoga Advanced Teacher Training We came full circle. In about 1981, I introduced yoga to Kim Echlin, a fellow PhD student, now accomplished writer of many novels and other works. Kim remains my dear lifelong friend. The late inspiring Esther Myers… Continue reading The Beauty of Yoga

Pandemonium Journal 3/12/22 โ€” the glass bowl

Objects with a history follow your imagination into the past carving out their own stories. Years ago, my mother gifted me a glass bowl. A few months ago while visiting her, she told me once again to take the bowl home with me and I finally shipped it across the prairies from her Ontario farm.

Pandemic Journal โ€” My visit to Tamworth, Ontario 30/8 – 2/9 22

Forty-eight years after after our last meeting, Hans and I rendezvous in Tamworth, Ontario, where he lives. A picture perfect village with a glorious bookstore. I feel such profound pleasure in experiencing this Ontario landscape. My return to Ontario is a homecoming. We recognize each other, Hans and I. Late in life, we think we know more than we knew then. Bookends in life. Today: Hans and I perform the present very well โ€”a loving friendship with healed hearts this many years later.

Pandemic Journal 26-28/8/22 โ€” Blossoming at Bloom Holistic Retreat

This Bloom Holistic Retreat weekend yoga is splendid. Not only are the Octopus Holistic Yoga teachers superb, but the sumptuous setting and convivial fellow participants are thoroughly welcoming. We create a beautiful nourishing community of fellow travelers in just a few days. The retreat is a luxurious reward to myself after a year of heavy steroid and biologic medication to treat the sudden onset in the summer of 2021 of Giant Cell Arteritis, an auto-immune condition - now in remission.

Pandemic Journal 27/6/22 โ€” โ€œCome into my gardenโ€ or Asteya, stealing time

Experience life just as it isโ€ฆ Sweet June. Is she of Summer or of Spring,Of adolescence or of middle-age?A girl first marvelling at touch of loversOr else a woman growing ripely sage?Between the two she delicately hovers,Neither too rakish nor, as yet, mature.She's not a matron yet, not fully sure;Neither too sober nor elaborate;Not come… Continue reading Pandemic Journal 27/6/22 โ€” โ€œCome into my gardenโ€ or Asteya, stealing time