Overthinking I was having a chat with a neighbor friend of mine the other day about overthinking. About how decisions seems harder to make because of all the thinking, considering one choice and all the potential ramifications and then another and another. It's actually a pretty...

Yoga Prop ExcitementThis past week brought all kinds of excitement in yoga prop land. I had conversations with some friends/students/practitioners about how useful the wall is in asana practice and other friends/students/practitioners have acquired new props or inquired about which ones to buy.All these happenings have made...

Prakrti & The GunasYoga philosophy holds that all things in nature (nature: prakrti) are in a constant state of change. Specifically, this system says that everything is a mix of the three gunas with the proportions arranging and rearranging forever.The three gunas are rajas, tamas, and sattva. To put it simply, rajas is activity...

I wonder if you've noticed any differences in your life from before you were practicing yoga to now. Has your practice changed things for you in any way? Does it show up for you outside of the time you spend on your mat? Is Yoga a...

Last week we talked about trees, which brought up the foundational dualism inherent in the yoga philosophy – prakrti and purusa, or nature and pure consciousness. This week, let's talk about distractions for the mind.Refresher on Purusa and PrakrtiPurusa is the light of awareness within you that's said to...

Trees. Aren't they great? Trees are our teachers and are a large part of the reason I've wanted to move back to Oregon for so long, to be situated in the temperate rain forest surrounded by trees.I sit here now, hotter than I remember it...

In our last week of philosophy month we focus on the fourth limb of yoga, the last of the more hands-on limbs before they take a dive into the (even more) esoteric. Pranayama is the fourth limb of yoga. Pranayama means breath control and it is exactly that: practiced...

With a strong foundation in the yoga yamas and niyamas, we continue this week to explore the eight limbs of yoga from the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali with something that's likely familiar to you as a yoga practitioner. Asana, the third limb of yoga, is the limb we most often practice in...