Last time I visited this blog was in 2023. I didn’t stop there with yoga and my efforts to return to my mat. I did stop being able to share about it for a while. But yoga for me is an ongoing life journey. …

I studied at a traditional Vedic ashram school long before smart phones, selfies and social media were a thing.

This was back in the 90’s way before yoga became this vast capitalist western industry that it is now. I travelled to the hills, mountains and rivers of Canada, France and India to steep myself in yogic study and a yogic lifestyle. I stayed on ashrams and learned about the history and roots of yoga and vedanta, about yoga philosophy, yoga as a map for daily living, The Western response to yoga and it’s traditional South Eastern spiritual roots, I was lucky enough to learn devotional and traditional practices steeped in culture, yoga for the mind, meditation, mantra, Ayurveda, ancient health practices, and so much that I integrated into my way of thinking and being. Yogic thought and practice has been my highly influential companion and life map since.

Like any long term relationship my relationship with yoga has gone through phases

There have been times where I have been completely dedicated and driven to practice, and times where I haven’t been able to engage at all. I began teaching yoga in 2002. And post my first teacher training course I practiced religiously, diligently, passionately and with complete dedication for about 6 years. Daily asana and pranayama practice, devotional satsang and chanting, karma yoga, as well as breaking my teeth as a yoga teacher. At this time my practice was unstoppable, joyful and dynamic. I felt as if I was gifted Asana from the gods because as I practiced, the asanas would come to me. I had amazing teachers, and I thought this would last forever.

It is funny how we look back at our younger selves and see this optimistic sense that we will feel like superman forever. Suffice to say on my journey with adulting superman laid down his cape a while ago.

Does anyone else relate to the peaks and troughs of a long term practice? Post ashram yoga has taken me on a journey of self discovery through loss and grief, chronic illness, identity excavation, creativity and transformation, with yoga as my travel companion. I have sought self awareness and self knowledge, authenticity and truth, faith, belief and courage, and discovered falsity, betrayal, illness, and loss along the way, I have shed skins of illusion and it has been excruciating. Yoga showed me in what direction my practice would evolve, even though I thought I was supposed to plan the route myself.

Up to me I would have evolved physically to be a superhuman bendy yogi extraordinaire.

Up to actual yoga, life has crushed my ego and self esteem, leaving nothing but a pile of ashes behind. Not what most people sign up for when they attend their first yoga class.

18th-century painting of Durga slaying the buffalo demon

I have many more skins to shed and illusions to battle! But an inner shift recently says bring it on… I trust that something will emerge from those ashes. The myths and gods and goddesses of yoga mythology, make so much sense to me now when battling life’s adversities. Durga springs to mind for one, with her fierce protective maternal nature, multiple arms with multiple spiritual weapons to fight multiple inner demons…

As someone who lives with multiple co-morbid conditions, the resistance to feeling pain on the mat, emotional and physical has left me and my asana practice as distant and suspicious exes, despite my desperate efforts to get us back together.

Seemingly out of nowhere here we are in 2025 and the desire to return to my actual physical yoga practice on a daily basis has somehow returned. To have a flow of prana, from the solar plexus flowing in the direction of willingness and desire to practice physically, feels like a spiritual gift and one that I would love to share with anyone else who is struggling to meet their mat on a regular basis.

I am embracing two concepts to support this new willingness. Yoga as Union. And choosing to BE rather than DO yoga.

According to many yogic schools of thought Yoga means Union, or to yoke together, to unite. I’m really grappling with embodying this. Union with my surrounding communities, with myself, with my body, with the universe, with the gods and angels, the ancestors, the earth, humanity, the animals and plants.

From that has come a prioritising of my needs to stop doing so much and to allow myself to simply BE. To BE in my practice means to me for now to just stop trying so hard, to stop the pushing and the competition and expectation and of the desire to achieve anything at all, in exchange for recovery, relaxation, deep somatic healing, and a gentle communication with my nervous system. By giving myself permission to show up and do nothing but be gently present and connected doors have remained open to an almost daily union with my body and my mat.

And from this self practice, phoenix like, a practice has emerged that I am sharing with my committed students

I just know that to maintain a regular practice I need to hold myself accountable to someone else. So I’ve chosen to announce to you my students that I will be practicing every evening and that you are welcome to join me. A few souls have already been coming along. Secondly I give myself permission to use this as an opportunity to BE rather than to DO? To allow myself not to come if that is what I need one night. I allow myself to rest all the way through in Savasana if that is what I need, to allow myself to move slowly from a place of connection rather than from an idea of a goal I want to achieve. The more I practice the more I am embodying these states.

Here are the first few April 2025 practices, recorded so you can get a sense of what the evenings look and feel like. Practice along side one of these recordings if you like to get a sense of the practice. If you want to join in follow this zoom link 7:00 p.m. Monday - Friday. Video on or off is up to you.