Dear Yogis,

What a Fantastic time we had sharing RUMI” at our session last night.  All is not as it seems to be.  Rumi (like Patanjali) was not just a poet – he was an astrologer, a mathematician, a musician, a lawyer,  a teacher …and of course a philosopher and lover.  We will keep going with this study until we get to the end –  whenever that is.  I think it is uncapping lots of feelings, and certainly reflections on our lives as we live them – feeling rather than thinking about love.    If you are brave enough to learn about love from the Master Rumi…., please join us on Tuesday evenings at 7.30.

ZOOM and STUDIO
Wednesday 12.30 ZOOM Restorative Yoga, 5.30 Studio Yoga Class (full)
Friday 6.45 ZOOM, Free Tarot Pendulum Class
Saturday 2pm, ZOOM Tarot/Art Class
Sunday 10am, ZOOM ‘Gita Class

 

DRAWING AGAIN

A couple of weeks ago I started doing black and white drawings and portraits again.  I have a number of drawings of Jesus I have been given, and decided to draw Jesus as I think He would have looked.

Of course he would be Arabic/Jew, darker skinned, troubled, long hair, whiskers, dark deep set eyes, worry frown…. certainly not blue-eyed blond dressed in a white sheet.  So I did the portrait and finished over the weekend.  I showed it to a student, and she said “that looks almost the same as the guy who is playing the lead in the Netflix film THE MESSIAH”.  I checked the film out and she was right.  I tweaked the portrait a bit and now it really does look like Mehir who plays the lead, although a little more “working man” than Mehir who is an actor.  Jesus was a “chippie” (a carpenter) – he worked on building sites with tough guys.  I am sure he would have had muscles (and not just in his mind).  He was not a dancer although most portraits tend to portray a very feminine vision of the man called Jesus.  Not this one.  I also have taken to watching the film, but not all 10 episodes although I will probably get around to it.  As usual with my work,  I am selling prints of this drawing.  You can pre-order one A3 $125, A4 $85 printed on canvas- finish medium and posted in a tube.  To purchase,  go to the home page and pay via PAYPAL button on the page.  You can pay with cr or dr card via PayPal – you don’t need an account.

 

THE BREATH
Once we have finished ‘The Gita we will be starting learning more about BREATH.  There have been many breakthroughs since we started learning about the Yoga breath years ago.  It all upholds the things we learned in yogic studies, but this is easier, and we know from scientific studies the actual changes in the body that we can personally cause by concentrating on THE BREATH.

No matter how much you eat (or how little), how fantastic your genes are, how skinny, rich or wise you are.. none of it matters if you are not breathing correctly.  NONE of it matters if you don’t understand how to breathe. The billions and billions of molecules you bring with each breath builds bones, sheaths of muscle, blood, brain and organs.  Is the correct breath going to make a difference to your health and happiness?  I think so!!!

Throughout the world there are many Institutes of Health devoted to the eyes, skin, teeth skin diseases, ears and so on.  I am sure you have visited one or more.  However, where is the Institute of the Health of the Nose, even though we all breathe?  Twenty-five sextillion molecules (250 with 20 zeros after it), make the journey through our nose  18 times a minute, 25,000 times a day.

You can stop snoring, enlarge your lung capacity, increase your longevity, change a scoliotic spine, boost athletic performance, and balance the nervous system, relieve asthma, anxiety, ADHD, psoriasis and more by understanding and correctly breathing.  The missing pillar to real health is the breath – it all begins with the breath.  All of these sometimes chronic conditions can be reduced or reversed just by concentrating on the breath – changing the inhale and the exhale.  Let me know if you are interested – we will probably have sessions on Monday and Sunday when our current studies on those evening have finished.   yogafirst2@bigpond.com

“Therefore, the scholar who nourishes his life refines the form and nourishes his breath”  The Tao

 

DON’T JUST MEDITATE – BREATHE WITH ME…  

NAMASTE – JAHNE

 

 

 

 

Dear Yogis,

ZOOM:  
MONDAY 6.30 HYPERMOBILITY.  This looks like an ongoing series, this evening “the micro-cosmic orbit”
TUESDAY 7.30 THE LIFE OF RUMI.  A long awaited lecture series about this inspiring poet.
I will be sending out the ID’s if you want to join and are not on the list, let me know.  Payment is via the homepage PAYPAL button.  www.yogabeautiful.com.au and click on PAYPAL.  Simple.

Another weekend in paradise.  I have to remind you of this,  as we live on a blessed island, a place of peace and safety in a less than safe world.

The cat is out of the bag, the genie is out of the bottle – another way of saying that covid will now always be with us, we have to boost our immune systems to deal with this new virus.  It is a living thing (so as Buddhist we should refrain from killing it), an opportunist, and it will not attack us if our immune system is sufficiently robust to deal with it.  As I write this WA is once again in lockdown,  a worker at a quarantine hotel in Melbourne has tested weak positive, and fragments of virus have been found in water storages in Gisborne and Castlemaine (not far from Woodend where I live).  Happy days!

BUILDING STUDIOS

While all this has been happening happy husbands have been building studios for their wives.  Maybe too many folk cloistered in the house for long periods of time has prompted this, but whatever it is I think it is a good thing for everyone.  Especially for the wife!  She gets a special “room of her own” to escape to.  Most families would think the kitchen is a woman’s “room of her own” but with the rise of cooking shows, and husbands/sons who want to cook, the kitchen is not the escape it used to be.  Maybe in future men will build “cooking studios” for themselves or properly outfit the men’s shed to cope.  It occurs to me this could be the first step in a different type of family, where husbands and wives live in separate lodges, and come together when the opportunity provides.  It is not unknown in other cultures and in some cases in our communities would provide “peace in our time!”

“READ!”

“Knowledge and wisdom are the lost properties of the believer.  We should not be ashamed to acknowledge the truth from whatever source it comes to us, even if brought to us by former generations and foreign people.  For him who seeks the truth there is nothing higher than truth itself”. Thus wrote al-Kindi (801-66) the thinker with whom the history of Islam begins.

The first commandment of the Qur’an for Muslim civilisation was: “READ!”  The archangel Gabriel conveyed the order from God to the Prophet Mohamed to “read in the name of your Lord….” Reading, reflecting and writing were central to early Islam.  The Upanishads are also held in high esteem in Muslim countries as we do here.  If you want to know more about these texts come to our Gita Classes on a Sunday morning.

Today across the globe and thanks to the internet age,  book reading is become a lost art.  An  Arab Individual reads on average a quarter of a page per year,  compared with eleven books by an American person, five by a British person and between 11 and 15 for the average Australian.   In European countries 21 out of 100 people read books regularly.

It is said that “Poetry is the record of the Arabs” and the number of people of every nation who recognise the names (and poetry) of Rumi, Khayyam and Gibran attest to this.  In the Arab world there are poetry reciting competitions on Friday nite television which attract audiences of over 70 million, rivalling The American Idol or The X Factor in the West.  Winners of the “Sha’ir al-Milyoon” (Millionaire Poet) show receive prizes up to 1.3 million dollars – more than the Nobel Prize in Literature.

‘My heart has become capable of all forms:
a prairie for gazelles, a convent for monks, a temple for idols, a Ka’bah for the pilgrim,
the tablets of the Torah, the Book of Qur’an.
I profess the religion of love, and regardless of which direction
its steed may lead, Love is my religion and faith.” (Ibn Arabi)

It is significant today that Ibn Arabi’s books, written over 700 years ago are banned in Salafi controlled Saudi Arabia.  Combined with Rumi’s love of God, Ibn Arabis powerful, scripturally sound interpretation of the meaning of God helps modern Muslims (and “readers” across the globe) come to term with the contemporary world, and lead lives of greater harmony.

 

MEET ME ON THE MAT – OUR COUNTRY.

NAMASTE.  JAHNE