How productivity has wasted my time

Last year I heard a monk speak at the Wanderlust Festival in Whistler. In contrast to high sweat, uber upbeat, bouncy vinyasa classes that I’d been taking, his talk occurred in a shushed and darkened theatre.  He was settled into a chair on stage in his robes, while all of us shifted in our multi-hued Lulu’s, wrung out from our asana. […]

How To Sequence to Eka Pada Galavasana (Standing Pigeon Pose)

To do this pose well, you need open outer hips, coupled with hip buoyancy (from the core and back leg activation) coupled wtih a willingness to reach the chest forward to counterbalance the lifting of the back leg.  Component Parts:   Sequence: Props needed: Strap, two blocks, chip foam block Want more? Check out my […]

Love is in the details

At the office.  8 pm on a Friday night. With my yoga administrator, Caecilia.  And I’m fussing over syntax in an email. “Sorry, C,” I sigh, “I know this is picky.” “No, no,” she waves me off.  “Love is in the details.” I stop short. “What?  What did you say?” “Love is in the details,” […]

Real Life Yoga Philosophy: Intimacy is Earned

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Why the world needs big box yoga

Big Box Yoga. Mainstream yoga. Franchise yoga.   “It’s so…corporate,” the yogi whispers. “Sure, I occasionally go there, but the real yoga is happening at (insert name of small, financially unstable, ma and pop studio name here).” The multi-location heavyweights – be it YYoga, Yoga Works, Core Power, or Bikram Yoga – are often criticized […]

Flourless & vegan chocolate chip cookies

I really suck at preparing for the holidays. Oh, how I long to be the person who mails their holiday cards weeks in advance, or buys christmas presents in April!  If only I were more like my Grandma Vera, who just bought next year’s holiday cards in the “After Christmas Sale” rack.  Now that woman is prepared. But […]

Gifts of the darkness

7:48 AM: sunrise. 4:30 PM: sunset. That’s right, it’s full winter in Vancouver. And It. Is. Dark. When darkness descends, my immediately reaction is resistance. The long night is too quiet, too settled, too oppressive. Slowing down feels like depression, sadness, existential malaise. The darkness is a gaping maw of introspection. Like a bear with […]

Eclipse: why we need the dark

eclipse

Solar eclipses are spectacular. There was recently a partial solar eclipse. Miraculously, the perpetually cloudy Vancouver skies cleared at just the moment of the eclipse’s maximum expression. I raced out onto the office patio, shielding my eyes and squinting up at the sun (an enthusiastic, but slightly dumbass move, since you’re not supposed to look at […]

Lean into uncertainty: the liberation of self-expression

“Rachel, what’s going on?” “….” “…Rachel, clearly something is on your mind….just say it.”   I am silent: my oceanic feelings are contained behind the steel-trap of my teeth. I feel, I feel, I feel, and I have no words for my feelings, because I’m desperately afraid that if I say them, the person in front […]

Autumnal lessons: stripping to the bone

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Finding your essence by cutting back Imagine a gorgeous rosebush in the fullness of her bloom: overflowing with fragrant flowers, dripping with honeyed scent, full of wild, buzzing bees. During the summer, we are like this rosebush: lush, busy, sensual, full of distraction and sensual delight.  We romp late in the perpetual daylight, drink pink […]