Inspiration Reset
A tree peony bloom from my mother’s garden, May 2022. Photo credit: Rami Schandall.
After writing regularly here for so long, then taking a pause, it becomes harder to reenter, to break the ice or radio silence. Hello!
And hello now, and now, and now!
How are you faring? I have a sense of needing to “catch up” — with you, with myself. This world of ours keeps on offering the challenge of change, and I find myself oscillating between anticipation and fatigue. The move from (essential) pandemic withdrawal, toward increased social engagement has been fascinating. I am grateful for practices and tasks that bring both reflection and interaction — introspection and mirroring are necessary for balance. I am sure we all have our own particular relationship to this re-emergence and ongoing uncertainty — a Spring-like phenomenon of stormy awakening, which we can forget completely by Summertime when we are cooking in that spicy heat. Though the forgetting is ongoing, I need to “remember to remember” — to come back to myself and notice what is passing, what is being born, what is ongoing…
Breathe Yoga Studio, where I have taught for eight years, has announced its imminent closure. They will no longer offer classes after June 18, 2022. My Unwind & Restore class that day will be the studio’s last. A passing.
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On June 25, I will begin a new class — Inspired Reset: Restorative — at Mosaic Yoga Studio on 225 Sterling Road, Toronto. This in-person class will also be recorded, to meet you where you are. I would LOVE to see you in person, and, I’m excited to welcome students from out of town or those who prefer to practice in their own space. I’ll be weaving in the good things I am forever studying — modalities like Qi Gong and nidra, pranayam and kriya yog, that support rest, healing, and creative flow. Something being born. Bliss.
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Thank you so much to everyone who has joined my Thursday morning restorative rope-wall classes since March at Mosaic Yoga in Toronto. This practice looks kind of dramatic but it is wonderfully accessible and adaptable — we rest and fly and release, playful like kids on swings! It is one of my very favourite practices to lead — ongoing.
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I’ll write again as we approach the Solstice. There is more to share. And so soon we will be in a new day, another new season. Blessed be!
P.S. As I thought about naming the new class, I remembered “Inspire/Respire” and the ways that these words relate to breath, to pran, to recovery, to renewal…
in·spire
/inˈspī(ə)r/
to fill (someone) with the urge or ability to do or feel something, especially to do something creative.
to inhale.
re·spire
/rəˈspī(ə)r/
to breathe, to carry out respiration.
and, in literary use:
to recover hope, courage, or strength after a time of difficulty.
Both words derive from the latin spirare ‘breathe’ — the word was originally used of a divine or supernatural being, in the sense to ‘impart a truth or idea to someone.’ [Read More]
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