Dear Students

Another week has rolled around..  whatever else you choose to do, please support ‘REAL YOGA’ (the kind that is not about the perfect pose).  We miss you, and I am sure your other teachers do too.

MONDAY.  1pm Studio Yoga, 6.30pm TEACHER TRAINING (zoom) – “Forgiveness Pt.3. This is a free session.
TUESDAY. 7.30 RUMI (zoom)
WEDNESDAY. Studio 5.30 Yoga.

We have had wonderful classes, especially the Sunday morning Gita.  We are nearly to the end of the Gita readings, and are considering an ongoing class which will compare THE TIBETAN BOOK OF THE DEAD to the Ancient Biblical Scriptures…  I am looking forward to it.  Whilst most students were reluctant so speak of or read about God, quite a lot of interest has grown around this subject, and I would like to continue.  If you would like to join us on a Sunday morning you are more than welcome.  If you are serious about your studies I would suggest it is something that you need.  This also applies to the FREE Teacher Training Classes we have on a Monday at 6.30pm.  If you want to progress you should join us.  At the moment we are exploring forgiveness.  You may think this is not yogic, but we disagree.  There is a lot we have to forgive ourselves (and others) for – on and off the mat.  Of course, if what you are looking for is a fitness class or to teach a purely fitness class, well, we have never taught that, and we won’t be in the future.

 

THE MIDNITE DARNER

The last few nights I have been catching up with my darning (I call myself “THE MIDNITE DARNER”).  It is the best time of the day for me, and I get heaps done at this time.  The rest of the day is just a practice run.  You may think of darning as a waste of time.  For me it is like yoga teaching, those people who don’t think they are worth my effort, are probably the ones who shine once I have “darned” their yoga souls. Teaching, darning, gardening, mending – they are all the same.  Making something when nothing was there.  Manifesting.  The question is – WHAT ARE YOU MANIFESTING?

If you want your precious items mended or darned, please email me a picture of the problem, I will give you a quote – yes, mending is an art and is not done on a machine in 5 minutes –  and then you can post it to me,  and I will post back on completion.  In Japan, darning is recognised as an art, and darned items are precious.  The darn is a badge of honour and often done in a contrasting colour to show it off, and to recognise the value and esteem in which you hold the item.  Like my hat which is almost all darn now, but there is no way I will throw it out – I will wear it until it is absolutely falling to bits  with no rescue possible, and then it can live on the hat rack after a life of good service.  ART.

Darning is a way to help the world.  A lost ART FORM and way of re-using and honouring your best pieces…  Even Vivienne Westwood celebrates (and has spoken openly and often) about buying less and loving our items of clothing more….  Look at your wardrobe, and send me things to darn that need help being beautiful once again.. Even jeans. 

I am going to start accumulating jeans and other discarded items from the op shops, mending them – making them better than they were in the beginning without the badge of honour,  and having a monthly sale and demonstration.  I will have lots at the upcoming “RESCUED – THE LOST ART OF DARNING DAY….” wait and see.  

Darning is like yoga.  I take an article has been discarded, forgotten, relegated to the back of the wardrobe.  Perhaps a garment that has a big hole.  I darn and blend it once again into the fabric of the garment – It is a long job that takes time and patience…however,  if the damage was recognised and caught whilst it was a small hole not yet a threat to the whole garment, energy,  time and money would have been saved.  The garment made new, sometimes better than it was originally.  

See you on the (mended) mat

NAMASTE.  JAHNE

 

 

 

 

Dear Yogis..

Just a reminder.

Saturday afternoon ZOOM class at 2pm and the Sunday Gita at 10am.

THE VORTEX…

I am sure you all know the channellers of Abraham – Esther and Jerry Hicks.  (Jerry of course has passed over).  They did quite a few programs on the idea of being IN THE VORTEX.  If you are in the VORTEX, that place where intention and belief and “doing-ness” all meet up and you operate effortlessly doing what you were meant to do –  you can just feel it.  That super-happiness that comes when you realise the universe is open for you.   I had one of those days yesterday – no matter where I went,  I was meant to be there..

At Bunnings I got the last one of the items I went there for, at the grocery store the exact items in the quantities I wanted were there bagged and ready.  I did want a yellow sharps disposal container..I had searched on line,  but in Victoria it seems there is none to be had..  At Bunnings I was directed to Chemist Warehouse – result, none, but the Chemist there did spend time with me, (not just dismiss me), he gave me aa few ideas.  I think I got the last one in Victoria, certainly in Woodend,  hidden behind other things in a store cupboard….The staff were bewildered but searched because I asked…. and voila, a result.   Thanks guys.

This had taken more time than I thought,  so for the first time in about 4 months I went to Chambers for a coffee and met three clients who have been absent since covid who had been wanting to meet me, and I made contact with a new tattoo client.  I had missed lunch and was thinking about it when the owner of the shop came over with a beautiful bagged muffin for me to take home.. a gift (one of their muffins last 2 days for me!).  It went on and on like this for the rest of my time in Woodend.  I even was able to purchase a tiny, tiny Gita (4″ x 4″) printed by the Indian Gita Press I have been looking for for a long time – they just happened to have one at Woodend Books – how unlikely is that!

These synchronicities can happen if you are operating from inside the vortex.  There are no questions about what you should be doing or where you should be going.  It is all perfectly obvious – Just walk forward and everything is waiting for you.  However, in order to walk forward you do need to have a clue where you are going,  faith that God has got you, and you need to give thanks when these wonderful things work out for you.  As the Buddha Said – “do what you can with what you have, where you are”,  and then move forward….

 

FESTIVAL OF TIBET.

Every little thing was just for me.  Even the radio.  As I was driving home there was an interview with my friend Tenzin Choegyal, who has stayed here and entertained us over a number of visits.   Totally untrained in the Western sense, he learned his craft starting when he was a child in Tibet and in India.  Music, sound, chanting was always his highest pleasure.  He is now HH The Dalai Lama’s personal musician and plays at most of his gigs, has collaborated with Phillip Glass, and many other notable International musicians (and recently won a Grammy)….  This May,  Tenzin is heading up the FESTIVAL OF TIBET in Brisbane. He is the founder and every year it gets bigger and better.    There will be an opening concert, and then about 10 days of on-line programs, including a short introduction by the HH the Dalai Lama .  If you live in Brisbane, please attend.  Tenzin’s voice  and playing is unbelievable (he even has his own hand made “guitar”)

13th FESTIVAL of TIBET, 24th April – 4th May 2021
Proceeds go to the Tibetan Children’s Village, India.
“Be kind whenever possible. It is always possible.” – HH the 14^th Dalai Lama
Presented by Tenzin Choegyal with Perfect Potion

The Festival of Tibet 2021 will start with a special in person concert ‘Prayers for Peace – Brisbane Sings for Tibet’ at Brisbane Powerhouse Arts on 24 April and will be followed by ten day online virtual program of events through stories, panel discussions, music, poetry, workshops and films, and will focus impact of  Climate Change in Tibet and ongoing plight of Tibetans.

All funds raised will be donated to the Tibetan Children’s Village, India to support the education of Tibetan refugee children.

On the radio program I was listening to (Radio National),   Tenzin was speaking of his love of the TIBETAN BOOK OF THE DEAD.  Not “The Book of Living and Dying” which is a very Westernised Translation.  Tenzin is of course fluent in the Tibetan language and has translated several parts of the original book which he has set to music in his CD,  “MEDITATIONS ON THE BARDO”.  Please listen to it if you have not already done so.  I also am very fond of his previous CD on The HEART SUTRA, which he sang to a class here in the studio and nearly lifted the roof off… it was amazing.  It was interesting to learn that Tenzin reads the Bardo every day, as it is a guide to help us become unattached, a guide to this life preparing for death.  Not just for when you are actually in death.  No time to loose.

The Bardo Thodol (Tibetan: བར་དོ་ཐོས་གྲོལ, “Liberation Through Hearing During the Intermediate State”), commonly known in the West as The Tibetan Book of the Dead, is a text from a larger corpus of teachings, the Profound Dharma of Self-Liberation.

I look forward to your comments on this book.  Please find a copy and start reading – don’t wait, don’t leave it for later – we are all dying.  Like The Gita,  it is a lifetime’s worth of inspiration and profound teachings.

 

MEET ME ON ZOOM SOON.

NAMASTE.   JAHNE

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Dear Yogis,

WEEKEND. ZOOM AND STUDIO DATES

ZOOM:  Saturday at 2pm ART and Sunday Gita at 10am – we are up to chapter 13, so only 5 more chapters to go!.  It took us right through Covid lock-downs to read through the Gita from end to end last time.  This time not even 6 months.  Maybe next we could take the Bible or the Qur’an, or  “Jesus The Man”. Monday “Forgiveness” 6.30.  and Tuesday Rumi at 7.30 of course – the Qur’an and Rumi and The Gita are very close.  Can’t learn one without the other.  Rumi isn’t just a “nice” poet, he is apocalyptic as are the Sufis.  To learn more – come to class.

STUDIO:  I only have Monday yoga at 1pm and Wednesdays yoga at 5.30 as regular studio dates.  I do one-on-ones via the studio and zoom if you are interested in special classes email me for an appointment to suit you..

 

 THE DEPARTMENT STORE…

Keeping with my idea of the department store life, this week in my department store, I am focussing on some new art pieces I will be able to put in the window next week!  I have been working small. Now I want to work BIG.

Here is something I have learned about this way of thinking.  If I want to put something in the window next week, I will have to plan when I will have it ready for display.  It doesn’t happen right away.  This means that this week, whilst I am working on next week, I also have to keep the store open by bringing to you what I finished and got ready for you LAST WEEK.  Complicated…?  It is all a matter of timing, but I like it because it doesn’t nail me down to producing one thing forever.  I am also doing all the admin relative to my store.  Of course Etsy has always tried to get me to do this, but they used language that was too businesslike, so I didn’t listen.

Now I am doing it for myself I can see the wisdom in this way of thinking FOR ME.  It may not work for you, although I have a suspicion it will.

This week in my Store….

On the ground floor – YOGA is still happening.  Not as much as used to because other floors are being featured, but it is registration time and I always am studying and catching up for zoom and books I am writing –  that keeps me marginally busy but in a controllable way. Philosophy (a great love), takes up a lot of mind space no matter which “floor” I am on.

On the second Floor – ART – I am preparing two new works, if I can do more, that would be even better.  I do have small pieces to frame… First I have to MAKE THE BRUSHES (can’t buy the shape I want), and then prepare the boards.

On the Third Floor – ADMIN AND HOUSEKEEPING – I have been organising a Facebook page for my new book, I have also got the printer organised.. The garden and the house are benefitting from the new electrical gadgets I have.  I also bought a backyard tap timer, because now I am cleaning windows (and everything) with the new Karcher “Pirana”, and trimming and clipping hedges and borders with the Ozito implements, I can be so busy and involved – I forget to turn off the sprinklers…. A timer will solve this (that is the theory).  Cheaper than excess water bills.

In the morning when I look at the garden sparkling with sunlight on frost, and I  thank God for the responsibility He gave me when I arrived at this house and garden.  If I can’t look after this, then how will I look after what comes next?  Will I be going bigger or smaller.  If I look at the garden and think it’s terrific, but fantasise  about something half the size,   am I  saying I don’t know what I want or I don’t know what I can handle?  Or am I saying God doesn’t know what I want or can handle? I handled 100 acres well and when opportunities arose was not afraid,  took them, and  grew it from 15 acres…..  Although just a large house block,  I have radically improved where I am – the photo to the left was taken about 3 years ago.. the photo on the right taken last year.    I am excited to discover what comes next.  For me, changes happen suddenly.  Maybe all that is needed is for me to change my mind, not where I live?  Only God knows – I am open to the next chapter.

Our next Philosophy classes may be about achieving your destiny.

SEE YOU ON THE MAT – IT HAS BEEN MY DESTINY TO BE THERE FOR YOU.  I AM STILL HERE.

NAMASTE.  JAHNE