yoga

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Yoga Events in Seattle

Summer in Seattle and there is so much to do.

Sailing, hiking, biking, kayaking, dining al fresco, concerts in the park, and of course, YOGA.

Make sure you put the following on your calendar.

Saturday July 16th, 10:00 – City of Hope Fundraiser Class at Samena Club in Bellevue.  I will be leading this special two hour celebration class, and all proceeds go directly to City of Hope.  You may have thought you missed your only opportunity last weekend, but no, we have created one last chance to do yoga and support this superior program for cancer research and treatment.Click here to sign up and learn more.

If you have the time and wanter to go further afield, check out Wanderlust in Squaw Valley California for a weekend of music, yoga and beautiful scenery.  I think this sounds so cool.

Namaste,

Diana Bonyhadi

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Sunday Salutations

Thought for the day

“You’ve got to wake up every morning with a smile upon your face, and show the world all the love in your heart…”  Believing in the good is not naive, it is a recipe for wellness and profound change.

Believe in the good.  I know it sounds like all the platitudes of your childhood – but it is true.

When we begin to doubt others and ourselves, we quickly become stuck.  We soon find ourselves unable to move forward in almost any endeavor because we do not, cannot, believe that any good could come out of it.  You can almost hear Eyeore from Winnie the Pooh saying “why bother, nothing good will every happen to me…”

But when you least expect it, your belief in the innate goodness of humankind is restored.  A check for first and last month rent is returned, an event you dreaded turned into an amazing success, a friend calls and reminds you of the strength and determination of the human spirit, someone makes you a delicious dinner.

So, as sit upon your mat today, I encourage you to nourish the light within.  Blow upon that little spark and let it shine forth.  Your spirit is bathed in goodness and innate beauty.  Know this about yourself and others.  And now breath.  Breath into the beauty of your heart, into the beauty of your asana, into the beauty of the world.  Let your practice be a celebration.  Allow it to shimmer and shine and sparkle with all that is good in you.  The rest will follow.

And for a little encouragement dig up that old song by Carole King – Beautiful.

Have a great week.  Enjoy the sunshine.

Shalom & Namaste

Diana Bonyhadi

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Happy Mother’s Day

I am starting early.

Help me collect a list of all the things that mothering means to you.  I think we will all be surprised by how much we do for how many, and in the reading and remembering we will be nourished.

And in your practice this week, embrace yourself in mother love – that strong, fearless, limitless well of compassion.  Open your heart to love.

Shalom & Namaste

Diana Bonyhadi

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Yoga, Passover and Easter; Connecting the Paths of Faith

I am practicing asana but at a level where the quality is meditative. The totality of being, from the core to the skin, is experienced.  Mind is unruffled, intelligence is awake in the heart rather than in the head, self is quiescent, and conscious life is in every cell of the body.  That is what I mean when I say asana opens the whole spectrum of yoga’s possibilities.
– B.K.S. Iyengar

Fuse the powers of the sacred heart with the energies of the body and you transform everything.
– Pierre Teilhard De Chardin.

Good Morning

Here we are at the end of the week of Passover and the eve of Easter.  In the Northwest the sun is finally shining, and everywhere flowers are bursting forth.  It is no wonder that  there are major religious holidays at this time.  Clearly this is a time to celebrate.  We have hopefully seen the last of the dark cold days of winter, and can now  begin our planting and playing in the sun.

From the Jewish perspective, we have spent this past week reliving our journey from enslavement to freedom.  A metaphysical journey from dark to light.  I know that there are many ways in which we are all still enslaved, so as i crunch on my matzah, i am reminded to continue to keep my heart open, and to seek ways to help others escape slavery – both physical and mental

Yes slavery is still alive and kicking the world, think child labor and sex trade, coal mining and diamond mining.

And while I am not a member of the Christian community, I know many who have spent the last 39 days trying to give up something for Lent.  Chocolate, coffee, sugar, anything that they really liked, so that they can in some small way, experience the suffering that Jesus experienced.  Sunday, they will be released from their vows of abstinence and will be free to celebrate and consume as they wish.

But for more than a month, every time they almost ate/drank their favorite substance, they were reminded of others who have suffered or who are still suffering.  They brought the darkness of limitations to the forefront of their consciousness through a personal act of abstinence.

And now here we are, about to be set free from the restrictions we have set upon ourselves.  We are about to be free from the physical reminders of the suffering of others.  We are about to enter into the light and fullness of spring and summer.  I think perhaps our spiritual forefathers had something here.  They knew that there needed to be a “right of passage” a “moment of awakening”  “a space of rememberance”  at this moment of transition as we move from the cold days of winter into the warmth of summer.  We need to stop and pause and celebrate the cycle of birth, death and rebirth.  We need to remember that even in the best of times there is suffering, and, even in the darkest moments of suffering, there is room for birth and growth.

Okay, so what does this have to do with yoga?  Everything.  As yogis we come from many traditions.  Being a yogi does not mean you are no longer a Jew, Buddhist, Muslim, or Christian.  You are all that and more.  Let your yoga practice be a celebration of your spiritual practice.  Allow your breath to flow from the deepest recesses of your being.  Step into your asana practice with deliberation, awareness, and rememberance.  Your body is more than just a physical entity, allow it to be a vehicle for helping you to connect with the divine, and to live in greater connection with all beings.  Allow your meditations to be full of connection and wonder.

Shalom & Namaste,
Diana Bonyhadi

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Going on Vacaction

Leaving town for vacation.

So much to do.

Stay present, I remind myself as I pack, do  laundry, print tickets, confirm reservations, water plants…

Looking forward to seeing old friends.  Looking forward to studying with teachers from my past.  Looking forward to sleeping in.  Looking forward to seeing new sites.  Looking forward, but trying to remember to stay present.

Just as in the asana practice, I must remind myself; be present while preparing, be present while there, be present while leaving.

And drink plenty of water.

Shalom & Namaste,

Diana Bonyhadi

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Treat Yourself to a day of Heart Yoga

Wisdom University is offering us a locals a great deal.  We are now able to attend their Heart Yoga workshop with Andrew Harvey and Karuna Erikson at a special daily rate of $99.00.8:30 – 5:00pm, lunch  included.

Now if you are like me, this is exceptionally good news.  I do so want to attend this workshop, but really, I couldn’t walk away from my students for a whole week.  Now I can look forward to attending at least a portion of the workshop, and I know that even that small bit will make a big difference in my life.

So to all my fellow yogis in and around the Seattle area, I encourage you to take advantage of this opportunity.  Give your selves a gift of heart.  Open yourselves up to the deeper wisdom that lies within.  Sign up for the whole week, or just attend for a day or two.

Shalom & Namaste,

Diana

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An Egg-cellent Education

I have a friend who is 14. She wants to go to college. So she is raising hens and selling super fresh, local, organic eggs. Once a week I get 2 dozen eggs for $6.00. Now, if you like fresh organic eggs, you probably know that this is a great deal. I used to pay at least $5.00/dozen. The best thing is that these eggs are incredibly fresh and delicious.

If you want in on this deal, Let me know. You can post your request for eggs as a comment to this post.  I will forward your request on to my friend.   Eggs will be delivered every Saturday morning to Village Green Yoga in Gilman Village, Issaquah.  Thank you Jean for your support.

You can pick them up at your convenience. You can also sign up in person for the eggs while checking out the classes at Village Green Yoga.

Here’s to vision and perseverance and a college fund endowed by farm fresh eggs.

Shalom & Namaste,
Diana

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Dancing with the Divine – A review of my weekend with Jon Friend

Dancing With The Divine

Last weekend I flew down to San Francisco to attend the opening of the Dancing with the Divine Workshop and training with Jhon Friend founder of Anusara Yoga.  I love my Anusara yoga teacher (Jean of Village Green Yoga) and have been considering training to become an Anusara Inspired Therapeutics teacher.  So, I thought why not go to the source and take a workshop with John Friend.

I found my way to the JCC in San Francisco.  Parking was easy.  I was early.  There were a few people milling around.  But as the time to start the workshop drew near, the lobby filled with hundreds – yes I said hundreds – of totally cosmic, happy yogis.  Most seemed to be in their mid thirties, and all of them were glowing with yogi bliss.  Closing my eyes, I could easily transport myself back to my early days of being a Deadhead in San Francisco; the clothes were much the same, as was the buoyant, sparkling energy.  The only thing missing was the smell of marijuana.

Fast forward to the training.  Imagine a ballroom, with 250 yogis lined up mat to mat, all simultaneously chanting and om-ing, accompanied by two musicians playing wind instruments and drums.  The room was positively vibrating with energy.  And there it was again, that feeling of being at a Dead show – is everyone here a groupie?

John is a masterful teacher.  His instructions are clear and concise, and interwoven with yoga wisdom and humor.  He carefully builds the heat and energy within the body, encouraging the students to tap into the divine energy of Shiva-Shakti.  Before I knew it, I was entering poses that had here-to-fore been unavailable to me.  Maybe it was the collective energy of the room, or the letting go into the divine, but either way I appreciated the opportunity to drop back into a urdhva dhanurasana (backbend) from standing and then to rise back up to tadasana. It was also great fun to wrap my foot around behind my head and balance on one hand and the edge of my foot.  Who thought I would be going there?

Anusara is all about opening into heart energy and manifesting the divine.  No wonder there were 500 yogis coming to share this experience.  According to John, there are about 250,000 people practicing Anusara yoga in over 100 countries throughout the world.  I appreciated John’s encouragement to use this great energy to create good in our world.  In our final session we were each given a seed ball that has been made with concentrated energy of positive intention.  We were to practice with this seed ball, focusing our energies for healing into it, and then sometime in the future we are to plant the seed ball somewhere that is in need of nurturance, care, and a bit of green.  I picture all those happy yogis going out and tossing cosmic balls of love and healing into their neighbors’ yards – “here you go, have a ball of grace – you noisy, polluting so and so.”

So, I am back in Seattle, loving our snow covered world.  My practice in enlivened by my experience.  My students will appreciate some of the teachings.  But I don’t think I will be joining John’s merry band of yogi pranksters (his name for it  – without acknowledgment of Dr. Ken Kesey). John is clearly a masterful teacher, but I am not a groupie. I don’t believe I need to add another 500 hours of training to become a certified Anusara teacher.  As a yoga enthusiast and teacher, I believe we should all study the wealth of knowledge of yoga.  Thousands of years and thousands of teachers, all shedding their light on this sacred tradition, this is what makes yoga more than a physical practice.  It is a wisdom tradition that touches all of us and encourages us to find our own path within in it.  I am grateful that John has opened the door for so many and that he encourages students to make their practice of yoga resonate from a space of intention.  I will continue to study Anusara yoga, but I will also study ashtanga, iyengar, kundalini and all the many other paths that form the whole of hatha yoga – the yoking or joining of light and life within and about us.

Shalom & Namaste,

Diana Bonyhadi

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Inspired by Andrew Harvey

Andrew Harvey & Karuna Erikson

Heart Yoga in Seattle

It’s been over twenty years since I had the pleasure to participate in a workshop with Andrew Harvey.  It is no understatement to say that he is a wise man of great proportions.  I remember clearly the sense of wonder at his gentle ways and his immense wisdom.  He is perhaps most famous for his translations of Rumi, and his gentle rendering of other great sufi teachings.  He is in short a modern mystic; a man capable of leading all of us towards the deeper turnings of our souls.

Monday night, as I participated in the live teleconference, a precursor to the Heart Yoga workshop to be held here in Seattle at the end of March, I was again struck by Andrew’s intense intellect and deep commitment to helping us find our path to the sacred through Heart Yoga.  To hear the full content of the teleconference, click on the following link: download the recording here .

If you are interested in deepening your yoga practice, and strengthening your commitment to your life’s work here on earth, I encourage you to consider this fabulous opportunity to spend 5 days with two amazing teachers of yoga and mystical traditions.

Heart Yoga and Sacred Activism                                              Registration:  click here

Syllabus:  click here March 28 – April 1, 2011

Logistics (transport, rooms, meals, map, etc.):      click here

Eight 1-hour prep videos by Andrew & Karuna:      click here (from Daily Om)

From the Syllabus:  “This initiation will open your heart to love, strengthen and infuse your body with light, and deepen and inspire your yoga practice (whatever your level of experience) as well as your commitment to sacred service. You will experience the profound union of the radiant body with the awakened heart, and the love, peace, and sacred passion that is birthed from this marriage.”

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Insight from a weekend with Sara Powers

Greetings,

I spent this past weekend with Sara Powers who is the founder of Insight Yoga.  Sara and her husband Ty have been leading yoga classes and workshop for many, many years, and although I had not yet had the opportunity to study with her in person, I had been familiar with her through her video “Insight Yoga.”  As the only yoga video with which I like to practice, it felt like re-meeting an old friend when I walked into to take her workshop.

Sara Powers has set her heart and mind to the integration of yoga, meditation and transpersonal psychology.  So to spend a weekend with her, was an experience focused within, on the prospect of “being in yoga”, rather than of “doing yoga.”  And what a pleasant prospect it was.

As everyone knows who reads this sporadic blog, my focus has always been on “living yoga,” whether it occurs on the mat or hopefully even beyond the mat.  Thus to spend a weekend focused inward, breathing our way into the deepest parts of ourselves, was a great blessing.  I will admit however, that I am not so adept at being still for such long periods of time.  Not only did my body shout out its discomfort, but my brain was also busy, sending me all sorts of messages.

And yet that was what we were there to do.  Become aware of the ramblings of the brain.  We sat meditation before and after asana practice.  We practiced meditation in the asana practice.  In fact, yoga with Sara is meditation in stillness and in motion.  Our work in meditation was not to shunt away the messages of the brain but rather to become “mindful” of them.  Instead of noting a thought and saying “I see you now go away,” we were to acknowledge the thought and follow it. By allowing ourselves to follow a thought, we engage in a process of self-acknowledgement, and self-affirmation.  It becomes liberating to enter this process, and a bit entertaining.  For example, here is just one of the thought trains that I followed…

“Breathe in to the hara. Awareness of breathing into the hara. Am I thinking my breath?  Am I focusing on my breath? Am I focusing too much on my breath? Am I distracting myself from my breath? Am I really meditating?  Mindfulness… What happens if I spend the whole time analyzing the focus of my breath?  Will I no longer be practicing mindfulness? Follow a thought … There are no thoughts … How did I do that?  Oops, there is a thought.  My thighs are beginning to hurt … Should pay more attention to hip openers, or maybe I should pay more attention to closed hip positions … how to teach this balance …  Are my students getting it?  How can I serve them better”

Okay, you get the idea.  Not only did my mind search around for things to latch onto, but under it all, was a common thread of “am I good enough?”  And I doubt I am the only one out there who is constantly filled with self-doubt.  But that is the power of a mindfulness practice.  We can see how often we go to these places, and by doing so disempower those voices of self-doubt.  Recognizing our communal need for love and affirmation, and the collective tendency towards self-doubt, we in turn become more accepting and nurturing as individuals and as community.

Now that is pretty darn cool.

So, take some time (ten minutes) to sit in contemplation of your thoughts.  Acknowledge them  for what they are.  Enjoy the process.  Enjoy letting go.  Live your yoga.

Shalom & Namaste,

Diana Bonyhadi