Dear Yogis,

There are many things we can do to change our days.  It is easy to feel down when you have spend days without your usual routines and yoga contact…  I know, I am human too.  

One of the things I like to do EVERY DAY is read spiritual and uplifting verses or stories in the morning.  That is why I read the Gita or the Bible or something familiar and inspiring every day.  To help you in this, I have made a poster out of one of the lovely, inspirational pieces I love to read.

This particular one I found on a toilet wall in Amsterdam. TRUE!  It took a while to write it down as all I had was loo paper and one of those roller pens which globs and smudges!.  The poem which actually I made a booklet out of early on and added my photographs is also on Etsy (“ON BEING HUMAN”), but to make it super easy, I have done it again in poster format.  I will put it up this afternoon (Friday), so look for it late today to early tomorrow (there is usually a glitch).  It is not as easy as you think to make ten small verses into something readable, and attractive enough  that you would want to put on a wall, but I think I am close.

“….RULE NUMBER EIGHT:  What you create in your life is up to you.  Life is like a movie.  You may feel like a bit player, but you have the opportunity to be the screen writer, the casting director, the Producer and or the Director.  It is your movie.  You have all the tools and resources you need”…………

 

It will help you through your day, and through your life.    Print it on lovely paper and frame it.  It will be in A4 format.  I will try and get it reproduced hard copy in A3 on lovely paper, and will let you know how I go, then you can buy it from me – but I would like you all to have it, so A4 Etsy is the easiest way to go.  Your newsagent is open so yours should be, just buy a few sheets of something lovely – Officeworks of course has the biggest immediately available stock, but I am not near one of this stores.    As usual, go to www.myyogabooks.etsy.com

Even the pieces of the whole you can see above will brighten your day, imagine the whole piece! It is fantastic.

Don’t forget, it is almost MOTHERS DAY.  Download a TAROT READING VOUCHER from ETSY, for her (or for yourself).  As they say, it is a gift “that keeps on giving”.   This could be the opportunity for transformation.

Keep smiling and happy, remember happiness is the path to health.

Namaste – JAHNE

 

Dear Yogis,

I hope that this time shut away has allowed us all to look closely at how we live, what we want and what we need.  

I have been encouraging you to go into the fields and forests for salads and herbs. To look at your gardens to understand what is there and what you can make.  To look into your wardrobe to box up what is not needed waiting until we can once again donate.

Years ago Vance Packard’s book The Waste Makers, made it abundantly clear that deliberate and calculated waste was built into our economy.  Light bulb manufacturers which reduced the life span of their globes, toothpaste manufacturers who made the hole in the tube bigger so we would use it faster and waste more and so on.   The advertising industry makes us want the new model before the old one is worn out, and like MAC make their new models almost unrepairable.  Wear and tear no longer dictates demand.  These are too slow.  In the 1920’s the car manufacturers started pushing the idea of new model of car every year – this hasn’t stopped.  We now have an endless choice of products that are virtually the same.. 177 brands of salad dressing, 249 brands of soap, and so on.

The dangerous result of this is the toxic pollutants which destroy the atmosphere.  This Covid break has allowed us to take the foot off the accelerator, and consider what we are doing, and see the result of just a small hiatus.  The people in India who for the first time can see the Himalayas.  How wonderful is that.  Clear skies over major cities, people out walking.  Big things and small things.

Dear Yogis, overconsumption is “the cancer eating away at our spiritual life”.  It cuts the heart from compassion and distances us from humanity.  It converts us into materialists, almost without us noticing – we think it is ‘natural” to want..

Yogis can make a unique contribution in this because we have a vital interest in the stewardship of the earth and economic justice for the poor.  We have a commitment to global citizenship that can help us to get beyond the claims of sole national interests.

HOW CAN YOU HELP?  1. Open yourself to Spirit to be used in a yoga way in the world   2. Become informed about our community and how we can help in big ways and small ways  3. Become advocates of the powerless  4. Support the relief agencies in our communities and in the world who are doing good work – they need our help. 5. Write letters and email our support to people who are helping and need to know we care  and 7. The Ministry of Meditation cannot be underestimated.

Most of these can be done at the kitchen table, in the home.  Just do it.  Once change makes all the difference.  As The Buddha said.  “Do what you can with what you have where you are”.  

 

Keep well and stay happy.

Namaste – Jahne

 

 

 

Dear Yogis,

There are some students who have put aside yoga and yoga teacher training particularly with me because I WORKED OUTSIDE OF THE BOX.  They wanted their yoga to be PURE.  What is that, especially now in the “time of Covid”?  Their peers were annoyed because I was not establishment either in medicine or yoga (or spirituality).  I wasn’t Pure.  I am not, and I  encourage my students to strike a path of their own.

Like you I am a seeker.  I not only started by being a nurse, I then moved on to Scientific and natural Science illustration (which I worked in INTERNATIONALLY at major tertiary institutions – Major hospitals, the Smithsonian DC, The Steinhardt.SF.).  My discipline was the old kind where we were in the operating theatre, at the operations gloved, masked, and gowned.  We looked and the body or the slide,  and we drew what we saw.  BC = Before Computers.  We experienced the work at a deep level.  All the while, yoga was there.. the constant thread through my life.  Luckily, I had teachers who encouraged me to look into every aspect – not just asana.  Seeing the body as it is was an intrinsic part of this learning process.

 

I am in awe of the human body and  I totally love working with anatomy and physiology which I hope I pass to you – however, that does not mean for one minute that I don’t believe that it is intuition that rules the roost!  We disregard it at our peril.  Yoga is not about asana.  It is about the mind.

I believe that disease  is due to certain states of mind and these moods or states of mind  interfere with the normal happiness of the individual, and if these moods, feeling and emotions are allowed to continue,  they lead to disturbance of the function of the body.

I do the tarot, I use Bach therapies, I have certificates in philosophy and counselling, and meditation and yoga, so that when a client stands in front of me in a yoga class,  or comes for consult, I am not just looking at statistics (or their lycra – their label), I am uncovering the whole person. You think I am chatting, or teaching yoga, or reading the tarot – In fact, I am deeply  looking at stretch, movement, stance, emotions, features, speech, excuses and so on.  Small things, big things, in order to be the best teacher, and the best healer that I can be.  That is why I use the skills I have – especially the Bach herbals… because they work in uncovering the REAL person.  The unsaid, maybe unknown person.

One of my students calls me “Tottie” = “Tough Old Tart”.  I won’t always agree with you. I am not in the “pleasing business” I am in the “truth business”.   I won’t always say, do or be who you want me to be, but I am always looking for the best in you.  How to bring you to the point where you can be the best you can be.   What are you looking for? What are you working for? Who are you aspiring to be? What do you want and want to be and why do you want to be that….?  Be all these things for your students.  Study deeply to help deeply, and teach deeply.  Yoga  is not just asana.

Let me know how I can help you.  I am your teacher.

By the way, I am offering a scholarship or two in BACH HERBAL THERAPY.  Level 1 and 2.   It is absolutely The YOGA OF HERBS. (www.bach.moonfruit.com)  Please email if you are interested.   yogafirst2@bigpond.com

Have a wonderful day.  Keep happy – it leads to health.

Namaste – JAHNE