Category: Musings

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 […]

I still remember back to the first few months I practiced yoga, in the fall of 1994. I started attending once a week, on Tuesday nights. By the end of October it was twice weekly, and by November, almost daily — whenever I could. As the poses became more familiar I began to notice their […]

Support, it’s a word we all use, but what does it really convey? As a verb, it means to hold up; to bear the weight of; to give assistance to. As a noun, it refers to the thing that offers support, or material assistance. Support comes from a French word, supporter, which is made up […]

It’s November! Winter is coming. The midterms are coming (have you voted yet?). And so are warm cups of tea – all day long, cozy robes, down jackets, and fleece blankets. It’s not either/or, it’s both/and. We need to be in reality, in this current phase of the year, and this current time in history, […]

Nature can be a great source of insight and healing, when we take time to be with it. This week we offer a seasonal poem and guided meditation. We hope they help you to connect with the restorative wisdom of autumn, and to experience the beauty of your own natural presence. Find a comfortable seat […]