Category: <span>Holistic Health</span>

Namaste, Followers

Thank you for following  my blog, The Teacher’s Journal, for so many years.  There are other follower’s at yogini.wordpress which was where I began blogging.

Much has changed.  For me, rearranging my writing life, whether for work or pleasure, is a priority these days.

So, after research, time & procrastination I’ve set up a Substack publication which I hope to grow whichever way the wind blows.  Meanwhile, it’ll re-inspire me to write to you more.  It feels like a platform that supports writers and connects us…safely.  And, I need more connection.

So,  if you’ve enjoyed my posts and want to read more find me now on Substack

I’ve titled my publication The World is My Ashram.  It feels like a fitting title for nearly all my interests that have a spiritual component.  Please subscribe.  It’s free.  You’ll get an email when I post.  And,  I’m allowing comments.  If you are a bot…you will be blocked.

Over time I’ll be cherry-picking various posts from The Teacher’s Journal and exporting them over to Substack.

That’s the pLaN 🙂

namaste.

 

 

 

Ancient Wisdom AstroCartography Astrology Feng Shui Geometric Art Holistic Health Meditation Time Management Yoga Yoga Therapy

Towards the end of my first 200 hr of IYT at Kripalu Center, 2000)  we were asked to choose a topic that we wanted to study using the techniques and practices we were learning.   I struggled to find a topic. Specialization was contrary to my personal philosophy of Yoga.  I  wanted to be skilled in ways to help everyone.  But choose I did and I narrowed it down to stress management & women’s health, looking for the lowest common denominator that would cover most people.  As a divorced, 50year old, real estate broker, (20+ years )  I understood stress.  As a mother of a tween & a teen, I was already suffering from the flashes that reminded me menopause was on it’s way.  I wasn’t getting younger.  I continued to study stress and was fascinated by where it led and what I learned.    My early classes were mostly women experiencing mental/emotional and hormonal balance/imbalance.   Integrative Yoga Therapy covers all of it.

Psychology was my first major course of study in college (1967)  After watching the professionals deal with mental/emotional difficulties for decades, I am convinced that the holistic nature of yoga provides better healing for what ails us.  Whether that be: abuse, trauma, addiction, estrangement, or just plain ole daily living.

Years and years of assisting the senior faculty at Kripalu Center honed my skills and satisfied my heart,  I learned about healing from: abuse, trauma, disappointment, and basic life stressors.  The issues are in the tissues, so says Swami Kripalu.  For 20+ years  I was part of the Inner Quest Intensive Facilitation Team, an experience of divine intervention in my life.

On December 14, 2012, the massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, CT occured.  I was in my car on the way to the grocery store when the news came thru on WNYC radio.  I immediately slowed down as I took in the news.  My first born grandson was 6 at the time so I felt an immediate connection to the story and stayed riveted for weeks to come.

Early in 2013 I was contacted by another of the facilitators from Kripalu.  She was a gifted psychotherapist from CT. working with Sandy Hook Promise, the non-profit organization formed to help the community, the survivors, and anyone else affected by the tragedy.  She was currently treating about 6-7 people directly connected to the event and thought an IQI-type retreat/intensive might be really helpful.  Would I help her? After much discussion in Sept. 2013 we rented a vacation home in the Catskills for 4 days and brought in a group  from Newtown, CT to participate in a  healing retreat.  I will tell a more complete story later, but the point now is how that experience changed me. From that moment forward I got to see how the work I was doing privately in my studio at home and at Kripalu could impact the world.

Sadly, events like this have only multiplied and escalated over the years.  Treating trauma has mostly been one to one., if at all.  But today, due to the state of the world and some earth-shaking astrology, we need more of this.   We are all wounded healers of sorts.

Meanwhile,  aside from gun massacres, wars, pandemics and climate events, abuse, addiction, psychological/emotional/mental afflictions and other dis-eases continue,  all rampant in our society. Everywhere across all lines,

Yoga, however you choose to practice is necessary in today’s world.  It’s not exercise.  It’s not woo-woo.  It’s not religious, or political, or anything that would encourage people to be anything less than peaceful towards themselves and each other.  If everyone practiced, alone and together, we would have a better world and calmer communities.

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So, this is my Tiger.  Gonna try and paint her for the “year of the tiger”.  Already the month seems to be very ‘busy’.  Tigers are an active bunch, especially if they have a ‘purpose’.   More on that later.  February is a really good time to Feng Shui your environment.  Expand your thinking on how to use (your) space.  It’s important.

Namaste.

Feng Shui Holistic Health

 

How aware are you of what you are feeling in your body when you walk into a house/office/building/room?

Today’s movement to declutter our homes/live has it’s roots in feng shui which is not the same thing as interior decoration or artistic design with an Asian flavor. Feng Shui is much, much more than a pleasing appearance. When properly understood feng shui is a methodology for creating harmony, balance, prosperity, health, & an elevated consciousness of environment and self.

Every culture on the planet has their own spiritual tradition of connecting buildings & man-made structures with nature and the cosmos.  The idea that we are affected by our surrounding is universal. As above, so below and so it goes.

vaastu shastra

(In India, vaastu shastra was practiced. Their spatial map looks like this. (Geomancy & sacred geometry are both related fields that have their roots more in western culture. The medicine wheel might be the way native americans lined themselves up with the cosmos, which is the original intention of all of these disciplines, to align oneself with that which is greater as represented by sun, moon and all the planets in the night sky.)

wind/waterThese chinese characters, wind and water, are the characters used to describe Feng Shui. (Just remember, when we begin to translate from language to language, a lot of translation gets lost; just one of life’s paradoxes)

In today’s culture, feng shui is showing up as an offshoot of interior design/decoration, and it can be a great reason to give in to ‘shopping’ addictions. Awareness is a key element in knowing what is really needed.  Some people regard feng shui as folk art, old wive’s tales, or magical actions time-fully performed in  affect our lives, and there’s certainly an organic truth to everything you’ve heard.

Feng Shui provides the map for us to see ourselves in relationship to others and the greater whole of our communities.  It’s intention is to bring peace, love, & happiness to all who enter upon the  space. And, where there is peace, love & happiness, there you will also find prosperity, health, & joy.

I became interested in feng shui, per se, in the late 80’s. Previously I had studied architecture & interior design in college. At the same time I was working as a real estate agent which enabled me to see thousands of homes & businesses…although with a different focus. My right brain began to relate to my left brain in  new ways and I began to understand  how different surroundings impact our lives in significant ways, and that we could change our lives with some simple ‘cures’.   Feng Shui became a tool for self-discovery as well as practice that kept me grounded and stable through difficult times. Another awakening occurred when I discovered the role that astrology plays in determining auspicious design & placement.

The compass school of feng shui  makes specific use of astrological information.The practitioners used a luopan which was placed in the home in alignment with the birth information of the head of the family…..usually the father.luopon With the advent of the computer, we are now able to create personalized maps of the planetary locations for anywhere and any time on earth. When these maps are placed in your home/office/business it is easy to see the ‘lines of energy’ radiate through physical space. From here, we can then apply ‘feng shui’ to mitigate, minimize, maximize, alter and adjust our interior spaces to take advantage of the movement of chi. The results are usually pretty immediate and impressive.

localspace_compassThis is what a local space map looks like. You place it in the center of the space and work from there. (If you live more than 50 miles from your birth place then you need to recalculate the map for the current location.)

Of course you also need to be knowledgeable of all the other correlations and correspondances that are part of the astrological/feng shui vocabulary…..none of these techniques are as simple as they appear and one needs to be quite balanced with both information and intuition to make use of the data.

I like to think of feng shui as environmental acupuncture, or perhaps astro-ecology.
How you choose to define feng shui is a personal choice since Feng Shui can be either a noun or a verb.

The Yoga of Space….June 3, 4pm on Zoom.  Go here:

As Above, So Below

@All Rights Reserved 2020

 

 

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I knew it was coming.  It was inevitable.  Today the announcement was made in the Berkshire Eagle.  It’s too much to process right now.  It’s a big deal for me, and many, many others.  There will be many stories in the days to come.  Mine will be one of them.

My first visit to Kripalu Ashram was right after Gurudev Amrit Desai, the Guru, had left.  That was 1993?  Over the next couple decades I commuted to Lenox frequently to assist/teach/train/volunteer/retreat and then some.  The Kripalu Community spans the globe and when I did volunteer work at the Amrit Institute in Florida a few years ago,  I discovered even more how the teachings of Swami Kripalu are available in other places as well.  Nevertheless, the feng shui and energy of this property will live on.  I hope I get to go there again.

I’ve written a lot here about Kripalu.  If you’re interested type Kripalu into the search bar.

more to come.

 

 

Holistic Health Kripalu Meditation Yoga Yoga Therapy

So, we’re in the middle of two eclipses and five planets are retrograde.  You don’t really need to know much about astrology to get a sense of the epic time cycle we’re living in.    It really doesn’t matter where you look there’s change, upheaval, and fluctuating conditions mostly everywhere.  You can try to block it out using whatever methods/medicine/magic you have at your disposal.  But relief is temporary.  There really are some terrible things happening if we are to believe the images and words on our screens.  It’s important to check in with the people around you since many are feeling fragmented, confused and hopeless.   Anyway, it’s  an auspicious time to Inquire Within and the stars will guide us accordingly.  It might not read as a “fun, summertime activity” but, for those who understand how transmutation and transformation work, the opportunity provided to you from this upcoming program is priceless.

 

more later.

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Chiron enters Aries.

This is a big deal.   The asteroid named Chiron was discovered in the mid-seventies and I believe he was in Aries at that same time.  Some   senior astrologers out there might remember quite well what was happening during that time.  It was similar to now in ways we are about to find out as Chiron returned to Aries on Feb 19.   A Chiron Return is in place.

Click for related post.

For a richer *understanding*  of what this upcoming cycle might yield I turn to the Sabien Symbols as interpreted by  Dane Rudyhar..   I’ve written about them in past posts.

Rudyhar writes: “1° ARIES is the “first of the 360 phases of a universal and multi-level cyclic process which aims at the actualization of a particular set of potentialities.”  This 360 phase process is described symbolically thru out the book.   Specifically the first degree of Aries is the Sabian Symbol: “A WOMAN JUST RISEN FROM THE SEA.  A SEAL IS EMBRACING HER.”

Rudyhar goes on with the keynote:  Emergence of new forms and of the potentiality of consciousness.

There’s a lot to unpack there.

….more later

 

 

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Many years ago I had the pleasure of working at the NJ Center for the Healing Arts. A wonderful group of various therapists, psycho-, massage-, art-, and other practitioners of the alternative/complementary arts/sciences all worked under one roof. The founder had a vision for how to treat mental illness in today’s society. She was a beacon of light to many and I applaud her for her accomplishments and the ripple effect of healing & inspiration she provided to the whole community, clients, and the world-at-large.   I was honored to offer astrological & feng shui consultations along with some hatha & dancing yoga classes during my early years studying yoga therapy.  It was a rich time.

While there, it was clear that much of the physical space was dedicated to art….The walls were filled with paintings painted by past & present clients.  Every now and then new ones would appear.  I loved peeking into the art room to see them in action.   It never occurred to me that art or painting or drawing could be therapeutic, or healing, or anything other than a means to an end, a picture upon which lots of opinions/judgements might be heaped.  “I like it” I hate it” etc.    Of course, I proved myself naive, again, it happens a lot.

Anyway, today  it’s nearly two decades later and I’m excited to be working around art again.  It’s in a different context, of course, but after such a long time learning & practicing integrative yoga therapy I’m comfortable teaching whever the winds blow me.

Anything can be therapized these days and that’s maybe a good thing?  It acknowledges that we all need healing.  All of us.   Everybody.  This is something I know to be true.

And, the kind of healing that occurs when we fully engage in a process that eliminates words can be felt thru and thru.  It has to do with how the hemisphere’s of the brain are organized.  Healing, though, is not a right-side/left-side experience, but rather what happens naturally when balance is acheived.  This is what yoga/meditation teaches us.  That amazing blissful state that occurs after one does some focused hatha practice, is the same calm, blissful state that occurs when we’re in the zone of: artistic expression, dance practice,, or musical harmonies & rhythms.

That zone, that particular kind of present moment is a very seductive state of being, and once you’ve experienced it your entire being becomes engaged with trying to have the experience again.  The challenge & difficulty is to get there naturally, chemically & substance free.  But, I digress.  Neptune is one of the astrological significators for spiritual practice, yoga, imagination, fantasy and more.  For more keywords of Neptune go here.

On July, I’ll be facilitating a weekend of workshops on yoga & creativity at The Sanctuary.  For the *intensive* on Saturday we’ll be at a local art gallery.  I’m excited to see what happens!   Namaste.

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FullSizeRenderTwo important announcements regarding my yoga community were made recently.  The first is that the International Association of Yoga Therapists, after years of work, have defined and developed a curriculum with which  to certify someone as a Yoga Therapist.  This new designation will read as C-IAYT.   This achievement comes on the heels of the Yoga Alliance announcing that they will not recognize the term yoga therapy within their certification requirements.  Their primary interest is in making sure that anyone who calls themselves a yoga teacher/instructor knows how to keep people safe while guiding asana practice.  Using yoga, therapeutically or in any kind of a ‘healing’ way is not what the Yoga Alliance is focused on.  Whereas, the IAYT which was founded in 1989 has been solely focused on using yoga therapeutically and they have dedicated all their resources towards that end.   Just as my yoga ‘career’ got started (1999) the dialogue on what is yoga therapy began.  Over the next few years they discussed just what were the most important aspects of a yoga (therapy) program and should we establish a required curriculum?  Much of this discussion occurred before the current explosion of  yoga ‘teachers’ hit the scene.   My feelings at the time were in line with others who asserted that yoga could not be strictly coded for anything since it’s very foundation was based in energy, spirit, and whatever overriding belief system was operating at any given time.   IMHO Yoga can not be quantified…and my personal practice of yoga therapy emphasizes that, which does not mean that I ignore the body during practice.  Quite the contrary.  But, a holistic practice should cover the whole as understood by the early yogi’s.

Today, all the debating is complete and the organizations have chosen their paths forward and it’s exactly what I feared would happen.  They’ve narrowed down yoga therapy to mostly asana & pranayama, and turned  the subtle & causal energy-bodies over to Ayurveda….which isn’t awful, just disappointing, for me, personally.  But, I have my karma to work thru just like everyone else.

All that said it seems that I do qualify to be grandfathered (or more appropriately) grandmothered in for their official certification of yoga therapy, I guess age does have some rewards. But first I have the daunting task of documenting 15 years of client contact.  Nevertheless, those that are wanting to call themselves yoga therapists are faced with a curriculum that would never have appealed to me, or anyone who understands that healing, well-being, and self-fulfillment is more than the body, more than the sum of the parts, more than anything that can be studied, measured, or quantified.

 om.jpg

Another piece of yoga news was the announcement that Integrative Yoga Therapy will become a part of the Kripalu Yoga curriculum, officially.  This is not a big surprise to me as Joseph LaPage was part of the early Kripalu ashram, but it’s so wonderful to have them together in this form.  All of my teacher-trainings have been within this lineage of teachers and I feel so much gratitude to be a part of the community.

I never expected to be a pioneer of anything, but it seems as though I have been blazing a path for sure.  Just the fact that I’m posting this to all of you is evidence of that.  My studio is 14 years old  and continues to be a safe and sacred space for those who seek healing, inspiration, and enlightenment thru yoga.  Om Shanti.

 

Holistic Health Kripalu Yoga Yoga Therapy

ahimsamlkIt’s MLK Day.

A day of peace?

more war?

inequality?

balance?

When hopes, and dreams, and cures, & kingdoms fail, what then?

For some odd reason of neural wiring, I always seem to link MLK to Gandhi.

Maybe it is because they both have darker skin then me?

How to know anything, for sure, anymore?

We live in a world that debates the definition of the word “is”.  And, perhaps, it is a worthwhile discussion to have?

Discussions and conversations give us opportunities to practice ahimsa, and amen to that.

I met Gandhi’s grandson about 10 years ago.  He gave a talk on ahimsa and told a story that really helped me to understand the concept,  rather than the definition.

Non-Violence in all things is a way of life, that begins again with every breath you take.  Start now.  Start again.

My teachers taught me how to look at myself,  first.  Practice.

Ugh.

The Bagua is an ancient map that helps us to understand the world around us.  It’s part of the Feng Shui tool box. Light a candle in your spiritual corner today, chant an om or a tone, and meditate on peace.

I’m leading yoga tonite……6pm.  Feng Shui Trainings coming this Spring.

Namaste.

Blogging Feng Shui Holistic Health journal entry