Riding the Heat Waves – Yoga for Menopause. This “pause” is often a 10-year process and includes a huge list of symptoms that are all considered normal, but which can lead you to feel like your world is literally falling apart. Please join us to practice asana, meditation, pranayama, journaling and rich, confidential conversation around this rite of passage, which is so profound in a woman’s life.

Although we strongly encourage live attendance for livestreamed workshops in order to receive the maximum benefit, these classes will also be recorded and all participants will receive a link to watch for up to a week post-event.

Cat Enright has completed over 800 hours of training, and is a Certified Yoga Therapist. She is deeply committed to yoga as a holistic path to freedom and joy. Her intention in teaching is to help students to see themselves authentically, with compassion and patience.

*Workshop Cancelled * We hope to offer a one day workshop in the new year.  Keep an eye on the newsletter for more information. 

Wow, what a whirlwind of a year it’s been already, and there are undoubtedly intense times ahead. You might find yourself feeling burned out and engaging in old familiar unhealthy habits. Maybe you’re riddled with anxiety and stress or just “blah.”  Now is a time for gentleness combined with tenacity, for incredible patience combined with perseverance, for great self-acceptance and radical self honesty. You might be thinking sarcastically, “Is that all?”

NO FEAR reads the bumper sticker on the loud truck that backfires as it speeds by me. My body jumps and prepares to flee as my sympathetic nervous system kicks in with a rush of adrenaline telling my body to get to safety. When I realize that I’m not in danger, I laugh at the irony of the bumper sticker and continue walking to my yoga studio. It takes me 20 minutes into the class to calm down, feel my breath deepen and my heart rate slow, and for the cortisol rush to subside. 

This is by no means an exhaustive or comprehensive list of the many organizations and individuals out there who work tirelessly in the name of racial justice. But these are a few we as a staff have found helpful in educating ourselves, learning and listening to black people and their lived experiences, and our ongoing work of taking our yoga practice off our mats and out to create meaningful change in the world.

Like many of you, I am just starting to settle into the flow of being at home, working at home and now practicing yoga solely at home. At first creating a home practice can be a little intimidating, very much like walking into a yoga studio class for the first time. Creating and feeling comfortable while practicing at home, with the support of online classes can be a positive that comes out of all of this. I want to share some tips for creating and sustaining a home practice. .

Every morning I drink a cup of water out of one of my (many) favorite mugs while I stand and look out the window (seeing how the lilac grows) and let the hot water kettle get my coffee water boiling. After that I put on a wiggly song and get my coffee brewing and stretch out my shoulders and sleep-stiff body while I wait to push down my coffee and have a hot cup all ready to go. Often the little blonde and pink bobbed heads of my daughters are milling around me, a dance partner might join in, and the kitten threads my ankles as I find a forward fold across ancient wood floors. I’m present. The interruptions, voices, and little lips stealing first sips are all part of the ritual. My presence, reverence, and deep breaths invite them in. 

When I first began practicing yoga, it was at a gym. I had heard yoga was good for back pain and decided to give it a try. It was sweaty, and I wasn’t very good at it, but I kept going.

Eventually I fell in love with the practice, and I started exploring the variety of places that I could practice in. I went to a couple of studios, played around at home and outside, and noticed how different each of these experiences were. From the temperature of the room, to the music, to the practice itself, they all were distinctly different. None of them were better than the other, they were all unique–like trees, like people, each with their own gifts.