Category: Musings

At the beginning of the month 8 Limbs owner Anne Phyfe Palmer opened her newsletter with two potent sentences – Money. It’s a sensitive topic! Behind the scenes at 8 Limbs, we’ve been diving into that sensitivity. In a recent admin meeting we reflected individually and as a group about our relationships with money. What and whom […]

Money. It’s a sensitive topic! But if you’ve been around 8 Limbs for very long, you’ll know that we are willing to put ourselves out there and inquire deeply through the lens of our Mission: a commitment to be supportive and welcoming place to learn and grow through the mind-body practices of yoga, and per our […]

Tapas  refers to a particular type of energy – a blend of discipline, passion and courage. It’s the sort of energy that propels us into acting in accordance with our heart, and on behalf of who and what means a great deal to us. Whether you have just a couple of minutes or twenty, the […]

This morning I attended the final class of this year’s Summer Intensive Teacher Training. One of my most favorite honors as Studio Director of 8 Limbs is as witness to the power of yogic teachings, when shared and studied with earnestness and integrity. The enthusiasm, tapasin Sanskrit, is energizing and contagious! The second limb of yoga, niyama, addresses […]

“Love and compassion are necessities, not luxuries. Without them humanity cannot survive.”  – Dalai Lama Whether we have an independent streak or not, each of us at our core is an interdependent being.  As Martin Luther King Jr. shared in a 1967 peace sermon, “Before you finish eating breakfast in the morning, you’ve depended on […]

The first limb of the eight limbs of yoga, Yama, is made up of five restraints – five ways to prevent harm to other beings: ahimsa (non-harming), satya (truthfulness), asteya (non-stealing), brahmacharya(moderation), and aparigraha (non-grasping). In the Yama-s lie the keys to being in community – with unity – with other beings. I am thinking, as July 4th nears, of another […]

“Yama,” the first limb of the eightfold path of yoga, is sometimes translated as “restraint.” (8 Limbs Owner/Director Anne Phyfe Palmer wrote about her relationship with Yama in her May and June blogs.) This first limb essentially shares what skillful restraint looks like in practice. And by practice in this context, I mean life – […]

This weekend 8 Limbs is hosting a workshop that I would have never imagined ten years ago. I was a yoga teacher who made adjustments without asking, because I hadn’t considered that for some, this would be invasive, or even harmful. I regularly asked folks in class to “close your eyes and go within” without considering […]

I first learned of the acronym W.A.I.T. (Why Am I Talking?) from 8 Limbs Yoga Teacher Sally Carley. When she shared it’s meaning I laughed and paused. It’s a question most of us could benefit from pondering more often than we do. Why do we say the things we do? Why do we feel compelled […]

I have a confession to make. I skipped a limb. As an ambitious 26-year-old, I named 8 Limbs after the eight aspects, or limbs – anga in Sanskrit – of yoga. I did what some of us do when we find something we love, and want to share it with others, urgently, I bypassed the deep learning […]