Suburban Yoga

It's not often you get something for free but Nu Yoga is offering this free class for anyone interested:

"Collin Blake has extended an invitation to all to come and experience his qi gong offerings this thursday august 29th, 7.15am - 8am"

Official classes start the following Thursday, September 5th, so take advantage of this free one-off to give Qi Gong a go 🙏

events — yoga upcoming events youspring into september and try something newwe have another new addition to the timetable from thursday september 5th:qi gong, thursdays 7.15 - 8.00amwith Collin Blake. see below for more detailshere’s what else we have coming up… qi gongstarts September 5th, Thursdays 7.15 - 8...

Stretching for the Stiff Course starting again soon with Colleen Murray 🤩
September 7th - 28th, Saturdays 10:15 - 11:30am

Do you skip stretching after your workout, run, or cycle? Struggling with tight hamstrings, shoulders, or hips? Join us to improve flexibility, balance, and body awareness in a relaxed, mindful setting. Perfect for complementing your active lifestyle!

Especially for all the runners out there!

Ever been curious about chanting but unsure if it's for you? Here’s your chance to experience its benefits firsthand!

Join Kate Bendall for a special Yoga Chanting Workshop on Sunday, 11th August, from 2:00 - 3:30 pm.

Why Give It a Try?
🌟 Boost Your Memory: Chanting sharpens your mental focus.
🌟 Build Mental Discipline: Strengthen your concentration and willpower.
🌟 Create Energetic Balance: Harmonize your mind and body.
🌟 Reduce Anxiety: Find calm and alleviate stress.
🌟 Enhance Your Breath: Improve your breathing capacity and overall health.
🌟 Strengthen Spiritual Connection: Deepen your sense of inner peace and connection.

We will learn the Candranamaskrtya-mantraha, a chant that glorifies the moon and its role in nourishing all healing plants. The session will include a simple practice incorporating a mantra from the chant.

This workshop is designed for beginners, so you’ll be guided through every step. It’s a chance to explore something new, and you might just find you love it!

Ready to dive in? Please register with Kate via [email protected]

Just one month till our next Beginners Course begins!
3 weeks, 6 classes for you to immerse yourself in and develop a routine of your own.

A great way for those new to yoga to get an understanding of the principles of the practices we teach and how to apply them to their body. If you've never done yoga before, returning after a break, or just want to go back to the basics, this is the perfect course for you.

Each class is 55 minutes active practice with 20 minutes Hansa Rest.

WHEN: August 14th - 31st, Wednesdays 7.15 - 8.30pm and Saturdays 10.15 - 11.30am
COST $150.00, Includes free Introductory Pass to the studio on course completion"

“STOP MEDITATING, START LIVING!”

People sometimes ask me, “Jeff, do you meditate?”

The answer is no, I don’t.

Or, well, yes, I do, depending on how you define meditation.

I have no formal meditation practice. No schedule. No technique.

No incense. No guru photos on my side table.

I never tell myself, “I am meditating now”.

And yet, throughout the day, I find myself deep in meditation. Absorbed in the Immediacy.

What is this meditation, then?

Pure fascination with this moment,
exactly as it is.

Allowing everything to be.

Drenching one’s present experience in curiosity.

Not adding anything.
Not taking anything away.
No goal. No seeking. No agenda.
No special state to attain.
No special experience to have.

Pure wonder.
The extraordinary ordinariness of what is.
Life being lived.

Ultimately it’s not something I’m doing.
Ultimately it’s who I truly am.
This wide open, child-like, innocent awareness, gently absorbing every sound, sight, smell, sensation, feeling, tenderly pulling in a ‘world’, yes, embracing a world as a mother embraces her young child.

I am the mother of my world, then.
I am the space that holds the ordinariness.
I am the silence at the heart of things.
I am the Capacity for joy and great sorrow.
I need never seek a more ‘alive’, a more ‘profound’ or ‘spiritual’ experience, for this ordinary moment is so profoundly holy. So beautiful. Awash with grace.

Complete. Always complete.

The cracked glass of a bus shelter.
The look on a stranger’s face, both concealing and betraying aeons of pain and longing.
The chill on my cheek as I walk to meet a good friend.

I used to meditate.
Meditation got into my very bones.
Now I am meditation.
The vastness that holds an entire world.

- Jeff Foster

Let's post this in every classroom.

Kate's Workshop on Vedic Chanting 🎶

This session is perfect for anyone interested in learning how to chant the Śraddhā Sūktam. Vedic chanting is a powerful way to access the deeper self and clear negativity from the mind and emotions.

Kate shares, "This chant is the one that has helped me stay clear and committed on my path, and it offers the same to anyone ready to learn it."

By developing śraddha, participants will build clarity and commitment within themselves, increasing their capacity to overcome fear and go beyond doubt. No singing or musical skills are required.

Cost: $30
Register with Kate at [email protected]

RESTING IS DOING

If only we could see the power in rest.
If only we could attach to it, the worth it so deserves.
If only we could open our minds to the idea, that everything in nature has its time to rise and its time to descend.
That each of these acts is just a important as the other.
And that is exactly as it must be.
If only we could see the courage it takes to lay aside the worries, the fears and the comparison, just for a few hours, to let the mind, spirit and body come together again.
Doing the one thing they all require so much… nothing.
If only we could see the power in rest.
Because resting is very much doing.

Donna Ashworth
From ‘life’
UK: https://amzn.eu/d/9Y6E6kz
US: https://a.co/d/4EvMqqA

Art by the utterly delightful Tarn Ellis (her prints and gifts are simply beautiful) Tarn Ellis

🩵🧘‍♀️🍀

When in Japan......

Here’s Mary Oliver, reflecting on how we keep assuming we'll be given another day, even though tomorrow is never guaranteed.

Instead of calling us foolish for acting as if tomorrow were in the bag, she celebrates the fact that life’s most basic impulse is to keep on living, no matter the odds. In the words of that old joke, MO would never have said, “At my age, I don’t even buy green bananas.”

In a famous line from another poem, MO asks, “Tell me, what is it you plan to do / with your one wild and precious life?” She wants us to be animated not by fear but by the soul that keeps sending us forth “with such cheer.”

Fear drags us down—fear of tomorrow, fear of each other, fear of life’s diversity and vitality, its “blooming and buzzing confusion.” Today we are surrounded by misleaders in politics and religion who exploit those fears to maintain control—that’s the far-right agenda in a nutshell. I pity the folks who buy into it, hunkering down in their ideological or theological foxholes while life passes them by.

Memo to Self: Keep leaning into life until you can't. Live each moment as if there will be another and another, even though you know full-well they won’t go on forever. Everyone gets one wild and precious life, so keep on buying green bananas!

[My 10 books are at http://tiny.cc/fly2yz AND http://tiny.cc/5rcmuz. The painting “Quiet Pond” is by Albert Bierstadt (1830-1902).]

🌸 Transform Your WellBeing: Modern Mindful Women Event! 🌿 🌸 Modern Mindful Women Event: redesigning mindfulness for very modern lives! 🌿

Join us in the Hutton Theatre at the Otago Museum for an empowering celebration of modern mindfulness. Immerse yourself in 4 hours of nourishment for your mind, body, and senses, featuring insights from 9 expert guest speakers. From discussions on efficiency, microbes, cooking, movement, and beyond, explore a diverse range of topics designed to equip you with techniques to infuse kindness, relaxation, and focus into your daily life.

But wait, there's more!

🦋 Prior to the seminar, indulge in an unforgettable yoga session amidst hundreds of fluttering butterflies, followed by a nourishing breakfast! 🌴

This slow flow yoga session, set in the Otago Museum's Tropical Forest, offers a meditative journey, inviting you to explore the depths of your mind and body, guided by the soothing rhythm of your breath. The yoga is suitable for all levels, simply bring your mat, towel, and hydration to immerse yourself in this blissful experience. Don't worry if you're new to yoga – beginners can use a towel in place of a mat.

Afterward your yoga class, enjoy a nourishing breakfast lovingly prepared by Precinct Foods, setting the tone for a day filled with mindfulness and self-care.

Save the date: June 9th, 2024, from 8:30am to 2pm, for this rejuvenating journey into mindful living. Your ticket to tranquility is just $120, including entry to the Modern Mindful Women Event! If you would like to attend the SEMINAR ONLY tickets are $80.

$20 of each ticket sold will be donated to the Breast Cancer Foundation NZ.

Embrace the essence of modern mindfulness and embark on a journey of self-discovery with Mindful Modern Women. Book your ticket now and nurture your mind, body, and spirit! 🌸✨

"Knowledge is learning something every day. Wisdom is letting go of something every day." - Zen Proverb

nu Beginners Course 🚨 with Jac Wilson

Pricing includes a free Introductory Pass to the studio on course completion!

A great way for those new to yoga to get an understanding of the principles of the practices we teach and how to apply them to their body.

Each class is 55 minutes active practice with 20 minutes Hansa Rest.

Book in through our website! Link in bio

Project led by UW–Madison’s Goldberg aims to increase scientific understanding of alternative health treatments As complementary and integrative health treatments like mindfulness, acupuncture, and chiropractic care continue to grow in popularity, a new project led by a School of Education faculty member aims to increase understanding of how well those treatments work.

I came across this poem by James Crews when I was sorting through my Mindfulness folder. Thought I'd share it, because I am sure many of you can relate. It is called Self Compassion:

My friend and I snickered the first time
we heard the meditation teacher, a grown man,
call himself honey, with a hand placed
over his heart to illustrate how we too
might become more gentle with ourselves
and our runaway minds. It’s been years
since we sat with legs twisted on cushions,
holding back our laughter, but today
I found myself crouched on the floor again,
not meditating exactly, just agreeing
to be still, saying honey to myself each time
I thought about my husband splayed
on the couch with aching joints and fever
from a tick bite—what if he never gets better?—
or considered the threat of more wildfires,
the possible collapse of the Gulf Stream,
then remembered that in a few more minutes,
I’d have to climb down to the cellar and empty
the bucket I placed beneath a leaky pipe
that can’t be fixed until next week. How long
do any of us really have before the body
begins to break down and empty its mysteries
into the air? Oh honey, I said—for once
without a trace of irony or blush of shame—
the touch of my own hand on my chest
like that of a stranger, oddly comforting
in spite of the facts.
🙏🙏🙏

If while washing dishes, we think only of the cup of tea that awaits us, thus hurrying to get the dishes out of the way as if they were a nuisance, then we are not “washing the dishes to wash the dishes.” What’s more, we are not alive during the time we are washing the dishes. In fact we are completely incapable of realizing the miracle of life while standing at the sink. If we can’t wash the dishes, the chances are we won’t be able to drink our tea either. While drinking the cup of tea, we will only be thinking of other things, barely aware of the cup in our hands. Thus we are sucked away into the future—and we are incapable of actually living one minute of life. ~Thich Nhat Hanh

(Book: The Miracle of Mindfulness [ad] https://amzn.to/3w8a8Qv)

(Art: Photograph of Tasha Tudor by Richard Brown)

I know I just shared this poem but I think it needs repeating. I live in the city so do a lot of walking around the streets and get to witness all sorts of human behavior. And lately, there has been lots of what I would call "bad" behavior. I have seen several incidences of road rage where drivers have screamed, shook their fists and shouted at pedestrians who have crossed the road at the wrong time. A driver this morning opened his window and called the person an as***le. Well maybe she was an as***le, I don't know. But is it possible that maybe she wasn't. Maybe she was preoccupied because she just found out that she won't have a job at the end of the month, or one of her children is sick, or her dog just died. I don't know. But what I do know is that we have to look at things through a wider and a more compassionate lens. As Rick Hanson says "Much of the time you're just a bit player in other people's drama." It's not about you and the person wasn't trying to deliberately ruin your day. Compassion starts at home so again, I share this Miller William poem:

Compassion

Have compassion for everyone you meet,
even if they don’t want it. What seems conceit,

bad manners, or cynicism is always a sign

of things no ears have heard, no eyes have seen.
You do not know what wars are going on
down there where the spirit meets the bone.