Registration: Full weekend $220, Friday only $35, Saturday or Sunday only $100
Friday, December 11, 6-8 pm
Freedom in Your Shoulders; Freedom in Your Breath
This evening session will include light stretches and asanas to free up your shoulders and open up your body to your breath. You’ll get some key, memorable insights for keeping your shoulders happy and your heart open, and for more fully receiving the gift of your breath. This session is a relaxing, revitalizing evening that includes breath, meditation, and relaxation — and an introduction to the weekend themes of how mudra, drishthi, and pranayama connect you more deeply to your yoga, and how the ‘chakras’ provide practical and effective tools for focus.
A deep breath is not necessarily a ‘big’ breath; it’s the kind of breath that takes you deep. This session is a little experience of going there.
Saturday, December 12, 10 am - 5 pm (1 hour for lunch)
The Power of Mudra to Connect You to Your Breath
The secret of mudra is its connection to the breath, as well as to ‘bhavana,’ the power of your intention to cultivate positive inner states.
The practice of mudra is rarely explored, but its connection to breath and mind is quite tangible, and the tools of mudra are immediately available to you. You don’t need a mat or a ‘yoga space’ in which to do it.
Equally powerful — and connected to mudra — is drishthi, which has to do with the gaze of your eyes. Neck tension and eye strain are closely related and, in turn, affect our breathing and nervous system. Drishthi releases tension, brings us easily and naturally into more meditative states, focuses our minds, and even helps us fall asleep at night.
This session will keep it simple and memorable, with practices that integrate mudra, drishthi, and breath for meditation and deep relaxation — along with an understanding and appreciation of how and why they work so effectively, especially when combined with ‘bhavana,’ or the intentional cultivation of mental and spiritual states.
Sunday, December 13, 10 am - 5 pm (1 hour for lunch)
Chakras: Practical Tools for Transformation
We rarely recognize the power of vibration — how the very vibrations of words resonate and linger within us, influence our imagination, and shape our minds. The idea of the chakras was founded on this understanding, to give us tools for both self-knowledge and self-transformation — and ultimately for self-transcendence.
This session will give you an understanding of the original understanding of chakras as tools for self-inquiry and will bring together the practices and tools from the weekend — mudra and drishthi — and add to it an understanding of bija or ‘seed’ mantras for a deep experience of breath, meditation, and yoga nidra. You’ll have experiences to contemplate and tools to incorporate into your own practice, with a new understanding of what chakras are all about!