Winter Session Starting: January 3 -February 11, 2009

Welcome to Tapestry Yoga.  I am eager to have a place on the web where I can write about the yoga I am teaching and offering in my new favorite place and new hometown, Viroqua, WI.  My yoga friend and colleague, Meg Abene Newlin got me started on this idea of blogging to stay connected with students with her blog (alignwithnature.blogspot.com).  So simple and easy to create and a perfect place to elaborate on themes and teachings from the classroom.  This is also a wonderful resource for posting class times, special events, announcements, and news.  

I began teaching classes in mid-October and have enjoyed teaching again after an 18-month break to move and get myself and my family settled here from Takoma Park, MD.  Three classes a week is a great opportunity to explore what resonates with students.  The "Fall Session" focused on the basics of yoga -- connecting every breath and movement to come into the present moment.  By letting breath lead the way into every pose, we become aware of the pulsing energy that is within us and around us.  Miraculously, connecting more to pulsation actually brings us into vibrant stillness and we move in life with greater clarity, equinimity and luminosity.  

This Winter Session, we'll cultivate our connection to inner light and fire as we move deeply into the heart of winter with very cold weather, short days and long nights.  We'll continue to focus on the foundations of asana, deepen our exploration of pranayama and move energy systematically to build internal fire to live vibrantly through the first months of this new year.  

The session ends somewhat randomly in mid-February to accommodate my upcoming trip of a lifetime:  A Pilgrimage to India with my grand-guru, Panditji to a magnificent shrine in the foothills of the Himalayas.  To learn more about this trip, you can check out: www.himalayaninstitute.org and click on the Kamakhya header on the main page.  There's much to write about this in future posts!  I will then resume teaching after I return very late on March 7th.

I look forward to writing often and elaborating on what I introduce in class.  I welcome you and your comments, thoughts and insights.  It is my clear intention to do this perfectly well, but to not be hampered by perfectionism.  The writing here will be "good enough" and will simply be a place for ideas in progress and reflections from my practice and study.  There's such a temptation in me for this to be a place where everything's flushed out and clear (and hopefully there will be moments), but it will be more easily done (and regularly written) if it's reflections in progress.  It occurs that this really is what 'blogging' is -- forgive me, but this whole concept is a new one to me -- and so I state the obvious -- blogs just ARE opinions and reflections.  

So, join me in stepping into 2009 -- linking this new blogging with the ancient lineage of the himalayan masters.  Yoga -- duality contrasted to non-duality.  It really is all one. 

Hari Om and Good Night.