Category: Musings

Back in 2014 I decided to finally travel to India, the primary source of yogic teachings, to spend ten days meditating in a shrine to Sri Vidya, the Tantric lineage of my teachers. Sri means “most auspicious, beautiful, joyful”; vidya means “knowledge.” I didn’t really know at the time why exactly I was going, how I’d get there, […]

Attention. It’s a valuable resource. When we pay attention we are stretching toward the object of our attention. Whatever we pay attention to, be it an ideology, a social media post, or a person, we are spending (thus the term pay!) that resource. And as many of us have discovered, our modern lifestyles – often […]

Our senses – they are our link to the world outside of ourselves. They guide us, and they distract us. They lead us to what we like, and turn us from what we don’t. They keep us alive, and can also do quite the opposite. We continue our journey through the eight limbs of yoga […]

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 […]