To practice Yoga is to feel your own beauty, your own aliveness, and the inherent beauty of the world as one vivid and visceral experience. Philosophers call this a non-dual understanding of life; nothing is separate from anything else.

We naturally feel this integration when we give birth. The Feminine knowledge and wisdom gained in this rite of passage is invaluable because it reveals the template for all life processes. To give birth is to embrace reality. This embrace is the definition of Yoga.

Thousands of years ago, people took the principles evident in the creation and sustaining of life and applied them consciously in simple practices of breath and movement. In doing so, they deepened their connection to themselves and to each other. We each embody the fusion of the Masculine and Feminine. Tangibly harnessing the polarities within us reveals the heart, the mystery of what we are.

This ancient Yoga is utterly relevant now, perhaps even more so because we have come through two thousand years of civilization deeply embedded in a dualistic frame of mind where denial of the body, the sexual impulse, and woman is seen as necessary to reach what is pure, true and spiritual. How can spirit, the source of life, be absent from its expression as you and me? The actions that come from this irrational idea continue to cause us a tremendous amount of pain, both personally and socially. Cut off from the Feminine, an ongoing sense of alienation and dis-ease is ensured. Woman, and the life she bears, is feared rather than honoured. In this fear, we all suffer.

Ironically, suffering is perpetuated in most Yoga teaching today because its foundation is a dualistic one. Strength alone is destructive. Strength that is receptive is invincible. The technical principles that bring the Masculine and Feminine together and make the beauty of our natural state obvious are missing. Mark Whitwell has restored these principles and offers them to contemporary practice. They merge perfectly with my experience of how life functions.

Applying these principles to the truth of who we are as individuals, each of us does our own Yoga. Movement comes from our breath and deepens the breath, strengthening and softening our body so that life can flow with greater ease. We have the strength to receive life and each other. We are able to love. This is a gentle revolution that offers us our freedom.

PRIVATE STUDY

Relationship is the heart of Yoga. A personal connection with a teacher is the way Yoga has been transmitted for thousands of years. It works. It is the basis of my training, linking me, and those I work with, in an unbroken thread of life.

How we structure our relationship depends on who you are and what you need. Please contact me directly.

WORKSHOPS

Ontario Yoga Association
formerly known as the Federation of Ontario Yoga Teachers Further details to follow.

PRENATAL YOGA

To find out where and when I am teaching group classes, please contact me directly.
Of course, pregnancy is a wonderful time to work privately in preparation for giving birth.

TEACHER TRAINING

The student/teacher relationship is one of the mutual ties of life. It is a mutual enjoyment and an equal dependence.
Mark Whitwell

While information and the pleasure of community are the gifts of group programmes, the transformative power of Yoga is found in private study. Mark and I share an experience of Yoga that is in the direct lineage of Krishnamacharya and transmits
a way of practice and living that is a natural expression of who and what you are. It is simple and sane.

From the Beginning

Establishing and diving deeply into your own practice and life forms the foundation of the work. The opportunity for small group workshops is woven into our time together.

Continuing Study

Many of my students are teachers already. Principles of practice can be applied with ease and elegance to your unique circumstances and style of Yoga so that what you are living and teaching is completely integrated.

Since Yoga is to connect to the source of life, learning to work with the specific circumstances of a woman’s life cycle, your own or the women you teach, is a natural part of Yoga. How to work with women before, during and after Birth is an area I am deeply experienced in and am happy to share; so too is yoga for Sexual connection, Fertility, Menopause and Life thereafter.

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