Speaking the Truth, Thoughtfully: a short take on the principles of satya and ahimsa

        One recent Monday morning my first grader, Dylan, presented his sleepy self at the bottom of the stairs with droopy eyes and a strained cough. “I think I’m sick, Mommy”. A quick look at him suggested yes, he might be a bit under the weather, but sick? No. However, I recognized a certain kind of fatigue that Dylan gets when his daddy has been on the road a long time. I quickly decided it would be fine for him to stay home, acknowledged his feeling ‘sick’, and tucked him under a quilt on the couch while I got breakfast for his brothers. Later, as I reached for the phone to call Dylan’s school about his absence, I heard some small, insistent voice in my head urging me to look again. “What is the truth here?” it asked

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Getting Trashed: Redemption at the Curbside

         From the vantage point of our cleaned-out garage, my husband gazed at the two overflowing trash containers and five full recycling boxes taking up half the sidewalk in front of our house, and sighed. Deeply. “How is it that we generate so much garbage?” he bemoaned. I leapt in to remind him that we’ve been on a mission this year to clean out every room of our house. Three years after moving here we’re still getting rid of stuff the previous owner left behind (how many miles of pool-cleaning hose does one person need?). “But it looks like that EVERY week!” he retorted.

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No Electricity for 36 Hours

          My family and I are engaged in an experiment this late-May weekend. We turned off our electricity Saturday at 2:35 pm, and won’t be turning it on again until Monday morning. My husband and I hatched this idea months ago- let’s go without electricity for at least a day, it’ll be fun! Putting it into action has been a struggle, however, and my resistance has been strong. There just is no ‘convenient’ time to do without something that is so interwoven into every aspect of our lives. However, the one exception I could come up with was one of those island vacations where you pay big bucks to ‘rough it’. Give me a bikini and a sun hat and I’m there! 

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Surrender

          Lately, three themes have been appearing, reappearing, and rippling through my yoga, meditation, and daily life. They are:

• the discovery and cultivation of one’s inner teacher (our individual voice)
the ability to find freedom within constraint
• the idea of surrender

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Interview with Liza Keogh, owner of Soularium

How did you get started teaching yoga?

             I had been practicing yoga for a number of years. Then suddenly  my grandmother died, my father died and my best friend was diagnosed with peritoneal cancer. I spent a lot of time with that friend as she went through chemotherapy and surgery. It was while sitting on her hospital bed and massaging her feet that I realized I had to become a teacher. I didn’t know what form that would take—it simply became clear that I was to work with people and help them feel better in their bodies -- and help them find a calmer,  more centered acceptance in themselves.

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