Life’s Cycles and Rhythms
One of the wonderful aspects of working in higher education is the cycle of the academic calendar. We may not be able to predict the day to day details since we work with humans who do all sorts of interesting things at all times of the day and night, but we do have a pretty good…
Read MoreReflection
During my senior year in high school, I took a class that was to help me be ready for college. During the first half of the year, we learned to touch-type. And yes, this was some time ago, so I learned to type on a manual machine, which included hitting the return lever with determination – because…
Read MoreSavasana
Savasana, pronounced sha-VAH-suh-nuh, is one of the most, many would say the most important poses in yoga. It is the traditional final pose to any yoga class and it’s also often misunderstood. Like seeing only a room full of people ‘doing nothing but standing’ when you see a class practice Mountain Pose, people often joke that yoga…
Read MoreThe Stories We Tell Ourselves
“Nah, yoga’s not for me. I’ve never been flexible.” It may be the number one reason I hear from people who are unwilling to even try a yoga class. Well, if being flexible means some of the extreme postures some highly experienced yogis can do, then none of us are particularly flexible. But we aren’t…
Read MoreStanding Tall
I spent some time today looking at the dictionary for definitions, antonyms, synonyms and usage for the word stiffen as in ‘to stiffen the spine.’ I’ll spare you the details, but as you might imagine, the term is connected with courage, standing up for what you believe in, and strength. Now all of those sound like…
Read MorePlot Twists
A couple of weeks ago in a post about stretching, I mentioned the concept undergirding one of my favorite graduate classes – the idea that one of the skills of leadership is being able to envision the future. And so we studied leadership by reading novels and enjoying the ability of novelists to imagine a variety…
Read MoreTwisting Ourselves Into Knots
When we think of yoga, at least before we take a class, we often think of someone twisted into a human pretzel. Like this: – or some of those really crazy ones where you can’t quite figure out what leg is connected where. That’s the physical version of tying oneself in a knot, but we…
Read MoreTwists and Turns
As we reach the middle of May, the academic year begins to wind down. Many campuses have already celebrated their graduates with one version or another of a commencement ceremony. Some are still to come – final papers in my class are due today. But I think all of us would agree that this semester…
Read MoreSlow Down Faster
There’s a lot to be said for developing a practice of writing five days a week. Publishing said writing five days a week brings another set of challenges. If one is writing as a practice, quality doesn’t matter. That’s not true if one is putting the finished product out into the world. So today, instead of failing…
Read MoreCreating Space
You might be wondering what creating space has to do with this week’s topic of energy. The Quote of the Day is the stimulus for today’s topic. Eckhart Tolle suggests we find thirty seconds of space in our day and I think he’s exactly right. Creating even that tiny amount of space in our day, giving…
Read More