yoga, writing, cooking, and whatever else catches my fancy
I’m teaching two more online yoga classes as part of the current series. Both will use lots of props to create wonderful nests—although probably no pink feathers!
I won’t be teaching over summer, so this is the last chance for a while to join me live on Zoom—or enjoy the recorded sessions anytime over the weekend.
Continue reading “Softening into spring & summer”
I’ve been writing short aphorisms with my left hand nearly daily since the middle of February. The plan is to write a full hundred of these short, often blithely meaningless sayings, before the end of May.
Do I expect to be ambidextrously proficient after 100 days of left-handed scrawling? Probably not.
Will I at least get better at it? On day 28, my progress looks minimal, but I’ve got another 72 days to improve! And my intent is practice, not advancement.
Continue reading “The start of 100 days”
It’s been a year since Sofie died.
Twelve months adjusting to her absence.
A full 365 days of missing her.
She’s still very much a part of our lives, so much so that she inspired one of the eleven poems I submitted for my term assessment in December.
Continue reading “A fundamental force of nature”For the first year ever, I religiously tracked the books I read in 2021. From technical tomes on poetry and required reading for my Post-Graduate Creative Writing course, to cookbooks and the trashiest of romance novels, everything went into Goodreads. (Yeah, I’m not thrilled about it being Bezos-owned and the interface is pretty bad, but it’s the devil I know.)
The book-centric site can’t, however, capture all the smaller bits; the short stories, poems, and personal essays that fill my laptop screen or are thumbed through on my phone. Since starting the Creative Writing course, I’ve maintained a series of Google Docs where I sock away the best of those smaller bits. It’s useful when reflecting on what I read and how it influences my own work (a requirement for the final term assessments)—and it’s a great source for recommendations!
Continue reading “Selected short-story reading (vol. 4)”
At the start of my regular Tuesday meditation sessions, the teacher usually asks how we’re coming to practice. Yesterday, I said I was feeling a lot of resistance.
After her regular thank-you-for-sharing affirmation, she encouraged me to question what was feeling threatened by the practice. THREATENED. The word hit hard. The question caught me off guard.
Partway through the meditation, I found my answer.
Continue reading “Resisting stillness”
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 to fully relax and a lot of the shapes call for multiple bolsters, blocks, blankets, straps, and whatnot, stuff most of us don’t have in inventory.
But the pile of bolsters and blocks pictured (not to mention all the blankets we used!) created by doing ‘Instant Mallorca’ (aka ‘Stonehenge’) pose at a yoga studio is totally avoidable at home—using couch cushions!
Continue reading “A couch-driven getaway”
The report from the most recent MRI on my right knee is filled with words I don’t understand — and not just because they’re German. ‘Subluxation’ is the same in English and auf Deutsche. ‘Chondral degeneration’ and ‘joint effusion’ are pretty close. ‘Arthrose’ translates neatly to ‘osteoarthritis.’ And meniscus is readily understandable with a ‘k’ instead of a ‘c.’
The meaning of the medical terminology is opaque in either language. The effects on my life, however, are obvious — and leave me wondering about what osteoarthritis and a host of complications mean for meditating.
Continue reading “Meanings, meditations, and modifications”