A common refrain: “I hear yoga is really good for you, but I’m so out of shape/unflexible. I try to remember myself as a 30 year-old moving to Chicago, drowning in extra weight from my French fellow’s late night pasta experiments (carbonara cannot be reheated!), and just relative sedentary office-work life. I had started to …
Author Archives: Emily Johnson
Retreats, defenses, & walking
Full moon, a Strawberry Moon, time to harvest wild strawberries. I’ve had a few but my plants have largely run their course. I haven’t been posting because I’ve been pushing on with a new business with my brother called Book Driver. It’s a donation-based bookseller business in Denver and now Chicago, where I’m building up …
In the Garden, year 3
Some people have asked me if I’ve been planting, yet. No, I say, well yes, a little. Chicago’s weird because every year there’s a warm spell sometime in April, and it’s tempting to start seeding. But the more seasoned gardeners know—there is always one more snow in April. Many wait til mid-May to plant, or …
Strength and Length: Standing Poses
Over years the wear and tear on the body—normal aging along with biases through injury—makes us less eager to fully engage with and feel the body. In reality the mind and body cannot be separated, so cutting off the intelligence of the body renders us informationally starved.
Health and Wellness: Moving past hype
The hype of modern medicine is largely encountered in the newspapers for most of us. The disconnect is in the level of care we receive, especially in this day and age when many have no regular doctor, one who knows us. The wise patient knows that no one could care about their health as much as they do.
Beginning Practice for Yoga
In yoga, functional awareness starts in the body, literally, with the breath. The asana or postures are among the early steps of yoga works, followed by longer meditative states.
To begin change, watch cycles
So whether you are a resolutionist, or scoff at such notions, there is precedent for paying attention to at the timing of your changes. The new year is one time to reflect—the winter solstice. The new moon of each month also brings an opportunity to again start fresh, to come up with and carry out plans, to adapt, to review, and to recuperate between active times.