Dear Yogis,

If only you were as excited by the Bhagavad-Gita as I am,  you would not miss an opportunity to read it and discuss it with other interested students.

Along with the “Tibetan Book of the Dead” (and even the “Egyptian Book of the Dead”), they are books to prepare you for life and for death – which is not something you can put off to a more “convenient” moment, and even if you don’t like to think about it, it comes to us all.

Huxley, Ginsberg and even RamDass felt that they,  in taking hallucinogens, had received a preview of heaven and even met God.  Later they realised that preview was available to them in the Gita also,  without the cost of losing jobs and mind.

Many writers and even scientists working today credit mushrooms of various kinds with giving them such amazing experiences that they felt compelled to write about them, research them and explain them to themselves and then their students and the public.  You may not feel like replicating the experiences, but you can get a taste by reading the Gita for instance….

YOGA CLASSES AND STUDIO TIMES…..  

TAROT AND GITA READINGS – BY APPOINTMENT. Email me:  yogafirst2@bigpond.com

ZOOM GITA :  Monday  evenings at 6.30pm.    Although there is no charge, if you can, I would appreciate a small donation (or a big one!).  To donate go to the web site www.yogabeautiful.com.au and click on PAY VIA PAY PAL

Windarring Yoga –  Tues. 1pm a joint class –  Kyneton and Gisborne combined.

STUDIO YOGA WOODEND: Monday Hatha 1pm (full) Mon. 2.15, Wednesday Restorative 1pm  NEXT STUDIO TEACHER TRAINING Sunday 25th February at 2.30

LITTLE STUDIO/GALLERY:  Opening PREVIEW Friday the 9th February at 5.30 – all my students (and friends) welcome.  I will have my newest series showing there in the original with prints and cards.  Especially a series on waxed tea bags of the Dalai Lama. The large paintings of Collette, Krishna and Ganesha will both be finished and available at this time also.

THE YOGA LUNCHEON: Saturday 24th February,  at The Full Moon Saloon. Woodend at 12noon.

SEE YOU IN THE STUDIO and in the gallery.

NAMASTE – JAHNE

Dear Yogis,

 Friday already and we are encouraging you to come to our yoga luncheon on the 27th (next Saturday – not tomorrow!)

Here is the finished Collette as she appears on the new Tea Bag Original.  I am taking it into the printer this morning, and you will be able to get an A5 print, matted mounted and ready to frame.  I will pop it onto Etsy this afternoon.

The next portrait?  I have got a lovely canvas just waiting, smaller than i would have liked, but I have it, which is good.  I am very tempted to paint a portrait of John Wayne just because as he has such a battered face (and a fabulous hat).  Or I could paint Fran Lebowitz which is what I originally intended – she looks so much like Collette they could be mother and daughter.  I will see them I sit down… I certainly know about Fran’s face.

 

YOGA CLASSES AND STUDIO TIMES…..  CLASSES STARTED MONDAY THE 8TH JANUARY.  

TAROT AND GITA READINGS – BY APPOINTMENT. Email me:  yogafirst2@bigpond.com

ZOOM GITA Our first for the year…Monday  evening at 6.30pm.    Although there is no charge, if you can, I would appreciate a small donation (or a big one!).  To donate go to the web site www.yogabeautiful.com.au and click on PAY VIA PAY PAL

Windarring Yoga –  Tues. 1pm a joint class –  Kyneton and Gisborne combined.

STUDIO YOGA WOODEND: Monday Hatha 1pm (full) Mon. 2.15, Wednesday Restorative 1pm  TEACHER TRAINING Sunday 21st January at 2.30

LITTLE STUDIO/GALLERY:  Opening PREVIEW Friday the 9th February at 5.30 – all my students (and friends) welcome.  I will have my newest series showing there in the original with prints and cards.  Especially a series on waxed tea bags of the Dalai Lama. The large paintings of Collette and Krishna will both be finished and available at this time also.

THE YOGA LUNCHEON: Saturday 27th January at The Full Moon Saloon. Woodend at 12noon.

SEE YOU IN THE STUDIO and in the gallery.

NAMASTE – JAHNE

Dear Yogis

My latest painting (unfinished).  For those who don’t recognise the face (or the wild hair), it is the French writer Collette.  You might have seen her younger self  portrayed by Kiera Knightly in the film “Collette”.  She looks an impressive person, and I am sure that she was.

I was very disappointed when i learned that in Victoria LGBTIQ+ people can marry, but gay women cannot legally assemble in a single sex space.  In contrast to the Laird and Peel Hotels in Victoria which have been granted single sex exemptions.  I am not a lesbian (at the moment) however in response to this discrimination and to bring it to your attention, I have decided to paint a series of women – George Sand, Collette, Gertrude Stein and of course Fran Lebowitz.

Do you remember the days in the ‘70s, ‘80s and early ‘90s when there was a thriving and very colourful lesbian community in Victoria (especially in Melbourne). However, we have witnessed the demise of our culture and lesbian space since the early 1990s; either made extinct or subsumed under the mantle of “queer”. Many interesting groups have been banned from gathering, or even performing on the streets – not just gay women.  Why are we so afraid?  This is in part because of the rise of mainstream LGBTIQ+ and also because of diversity and inclusion laws which currently make it illegal for lesbians to hold public female-only functions without applying for an exemption with the Human Rights Commission.  For goodness sake, they are not exactly terrorists, or have I missed something!

In the early 2000s, lesbians applied for exemptions in order to run lesbian-only events. These were not successful.  The process became very stressful and expensive, and so they gave up.  It was easier to go underground and become invisible and organise events through a closed network just as the gay and lesbian community used to do pre-1970s.   So for the past twenty odd years, the lesbian community in Victoria has existed underground.

Mainstream LGBTIQ+ organisations and Government have force-teamed them with people of the opposite-sex. There was no consultation or negotiation in this process. Lesbians are not able to legally come together, as a minority group, to socialise and have their own culture and events. This is in contrast to gay men with The Laird and Peel Hotels in Victoria being granted ongoing single-sex exemptions,  trans-only events, which are widespread.  Google it – add your voice to the theirs to get this stupid law overturned (or at least modified).  Whatever they call it,  it is discrimination….

I thought we had grown up enough to deal with difference, to allow people to lawfully co-exist peacefully. It seems I was wrong.

YOGA CLASSES AND STUDIO TIMES…..  CLASSES STARTED MONDAY THE 8TH JANUARY.  

TAROT AND GITA READINGS – BY APPOINTMENT. Email me:  yogafirst2@bigpond.com

ZOOM GITA Our first for the year…Monday  evening at 6.30pm.    Although there is no charge, if you can, I would appreciate a small donation (or a big one!).  To donate go to the web site www.yogabeautiful.com.au and click on PAY VIA PAY PAL

Windarring Yoga –  Tues. 1pm a joint class –  Kyneton and Gisborne combined.

STUDIO YOGA WOODEND: Monday Hatha 1pm (full) Mon. 2.15, Wednesday Restorative 1pm  TEACHER TRAINING Sunday 21st January at 2.30

LITTLE STUDIO/GALLERY:  Opening PREVIEW Friday the 9th February at 5.30 – all my students (and friends) welcome.  I will have my newest series showing there in the original with prints and cards.  Especially a series on waxed tea bags of the Dalai Lama. The large paintings of Collette and Krishna will both be finished and available at this time also.

THE YOGA LUNCHEON: Will update as soon as we have a date for the next one.

SEE YOU IN THE STUDIO and in the gallery.

NAMASTE – JAHNE