Earth Medicine

To follow on from my last entry, which documents my recent experience of depression, I wanted to share my ongoing journey towards subsequent recovery. I must caveat this entry by saying I am no authority on how to recover from depression, I can only share my personal experience with heartfelt honesty. Every story is unique

The seed awakens

As winter slowly turns to spring, I feel my energy begin to build again, after its long period of rest and introspection. I can feel the shift towards the new beginnings of spring, even through the snowy vistas – like the flowers and trees and animals, I know this icy blast from the east is

Love Revolution

As I write this in front of my woodburner, with snow filling the sky outside and lying many inches thick on the ground already, my thoughts briefly turn to sunny southern India, and how I could just as easily have been supping a post-yoga fresh coconut on the beach in my flip flops and sarong right

Detoxifying the mind

NB This article appeared in a newsletter to my yoga students earlier this year but at the time I didn’t dare to unleash it on the internet. But, today, I realised quite how pertinent it is to the topic of saucha, which I have just blogged about, and so again I man up and speak

Bringing the niyamas to life – Saucha

The niyamas are the second limb of yoga, as outlined in Patanjali’s yoga sutras.  Along with the first limb, the yamas, these two limbs together form the ethical code of conduct that creates the foundation bedrock of the yoga path.  If you use the analogy of the tree of yoga, the five yamas and five

Unveiling the heart

For the last month, my partner and I have been happily living on the side of a beautiful mountain in a remote part of northern Portugal.  The reason for this change of address has been to try out community living for the first time, with a relatively new community venture called Merkaba Community.  I’ve been

Brain freeze with BKS Iyengar

Our new apartment is just round the corner from the famous ‘chocolate man’, a Gokulum institution of legendary proportions who has been meeting the international yoga community’s wild and wonderful dietary needs for years from his tardis-like corner shop. As well as all kinds of trendy health-foods such as almond milk, organic granola, quinoa etc, he also sells a

Goosebumps

Despite being pretty early for class this morning, it seems I’m still not keen enough. I only just managed to squeeze my mat inside the shala, right by the door. All was going fine until I jumped into bujapidasana and whacked my foot on the door in the process. Sharath’s sympathetic response? “Don’t break the door!”

Culinary cooperation and amazing ant-ics

Yesterday was all about teamwork. First of all, we took a cooking class with Manju, the gifted, maternal and all-round lovely cook at Mandira Cafe. It was great to enter the tiny, dark kitchen where all the magic happens, and watch Manju at work over the gas hob, taking notes and helping chop, grate and stir.

Karma bananas

I feel like being in India is teaching me all kinds of little but important lessons. Perhaps it’s because I have the luxury of time each day to do asana, pranayama and meditation, such that I’m more open to them; I think such life lessons are probably there for the taking at any point, as long