yoga, writing, cooking, and whatever else catches my fancy
There’s a spot in my mid-back that sometimes feels as though it holds all the tension in my body. Like every keyboard stroke, knife cut, sponge scrub, page flip, steering wheel turn, and slouch collects between my shoulder blades and knots together. The best method I’ve found to release that tension is a long-held standing forward … Continue reading “Let tension dangle”
Back-bending sphinx pose can’t help bring to mind the Great Sphinx of Giza in Egypt. I like using that enormous limestone statue as inspiration when holding the posture in a yin yoga practice: level gaze, long neck, relaxed shoulders, and unstrained stillness. Dogs are also phenomenal models for sphinx. My dog, Sofie, often flops down into … Continue reading “Pose like an Egyptian”
Gorgeous weather calls for celebratory yoga. And what better way to honour the sun than with a salutation? Sun salutations are sequences with easy to remember poses that flow into each other, allowing you to focus on the moment and the movement. When you’re not worrying about what posture comes next, you can let your … Continue reading “Sunny salutations”
I tend to think of the yin yoga poses I teach and practice in loose groupings based on their purpose within a practice and which areas of the body they primarily affect. These groupings are not absolute and students all feel postures in different ways. A pose that one person feels very intensely in one … Continue reading “Strike a (yin) pose”
I probably spend most of my waking hours rounding forward — staring at computer screens, bending over a pan on the stove, hunching over my phone or any of a million other tasks. It’s not great for posture and the downward position also tends to tug down my thoughts and emotions, too. The yoga antidote … Continue reading “Wrap and release”
One of my favourite restorative yoga positions also happens to be one of the easiest to set up. It’s also one of the few restorative poses that’s easier to do at home—and no, it’s not just laying on the couch. Restorative yoga is, by nature, prop-intensive. We want to provide enough support for our bodies … Continue reading “A couch-driven getaway”
The current term of my creative writing programme is all about poetry. Lots of reading, critiquing, analysing, and, of course, writing. We’re being asked to write about things that move us deeply. And to share work from published writers (who I think of as ‘real‘ poets) that inspire us. The first poem I wrote this … Continue reading “The 22nd”