Category: Musings

Ouch! We’ve all said it. We’ve all felt it. Hurting is part of being human. But that doesn’t mean any of us like it; in fact, we often do everything we can to avoid pain. It’s hardwired, part of our survival programming. But avoiding pain, or avoiding feeling or examining it, can cause more harm, to […]

I don’t know about you all, but in the summer I find it a bit tough to practice daily. I love to meditate in the early morning — in the dark, before the world wakes up — and that gets tough when the sun rises before 6am. The birds start earlier, the traffic noises start […]

Last month I wrote about how the concept of heat shows up in yoga philosophy. This month, let’s balance that with a little FUN! It’s summer in Seattle, for Pete’s sake, time to let it hang out! We have a few ideas for you, of course… FREE YOGA AT THE SCULPTURE PARK Once again 8 Limbs was […]

Since 2000, 8 Limbs has been a host of what we call “Visiting Teacher” workshops. Teachers who have expertise and knowledge that we believe will benefit our community are invited to “visit” from outside our studio (and usually outside our state). We have had the honor to host internationally known teachers such as Sarah Powers, […]

Stress. It’s having a moment. Stress is a word we use to describe an experience, or a feeling, of being strained or tense due to difficult or demanding circumstances. It may come from the French word estresse, which means narrowness or oppression. What I’d like us to consider is what stress actually feels like, when we […]

Nah, we’re not going to start offering “LSD & Yoga” classes at 8 Limbs, this isn’t that kind of April 1 email, but we do have our own take on Timothy Leary’s famous motto that we’re rolling with this month. Turn On In yoga, we are learning to turn on our awareness of habitual patterns of thought […]

Storytelling is essential. It helps us to understand the world, ourselves, and our part in this world. It is a way we learn from the past, and pass information to the future. We ALL have interesting stories – stories worth sharing, stories that inspire others. As a writer and yogi, I am interested in the intersection of story […]

A couple years back, during a guided meditation on retreat, I was given the prompt, “Why are you here?” I don’t remember exactly how I silently answered that question but I think it was something along the lines of, to deepen my meditation practice. Whatever it was, it was a pretty standard response for the setting. And […]

I hear there are other ways to say it these days, but steady once meant committed, longterm. In Sanskrit the word for steady is sthira, one of two qualities prescribed for the practice of asana in The Yoga Sutra of Patanjali:  Yoga Sutra II.46 – sthiram sukham āsanam – The pose must be steady and easeful. […]

As 2019 gets underway we’ve been exploring the theme Ditch Your Distractions. Sometimes though, the easiest and most compassionate path to not doing something is to consciously turn one’s attention towards something. Here are five ideas for doing just that, including a 5-minute audio sound meditation. Create an opening practice ritual. Consistently rolling your mat […]