Yoga Garden

The Bounty Begins! The tom’s were a gift and the flowers are from my garden. How lucky are we to live in a place where we can trade food and flowers?

“The Yoga Garden Teacher Training has profoundly impacted my study of yoga and teaching. Laurel is beyond knowledgeable and her methodical teaching style has given me the tools to continue to expand and grow as a yoga practitioner and teacher. Thanks to the YGTT, I now have a much more solid understanding of yoga postures and their alignment and can confidently teach an intelligent and well thought yoga sequence. I could not have asked for a better and more amazing experience.”
– Hannah Strom, 2016 YGTT Graduate, physical therapy student, deeply dedicated to knowledge of the body, and absolutely hilarious and so much fun to be around.

The 200 HR YOGA Garden Teacher Training is a 12 week course. We begin Sept. 13th and run through Dec. 13th.

I am a sucker for design. I got these flowers from my friends Linda Wu and Laura McCabe on my birthday in 2014. We met at a Balinese restaurant in SF and Linda handed them to me right there in the lobby. I loved them so much and paraded them around all night until I was able to put them in a coffee cup in the room I was staying in. The YOGA Garden logo was designed by my friend Ave in 2011. She has been a dear friend for years, and I’ve been lucky lady-bird to trade yoga for her amazing graphic design skills as my business grew.

Beauty inspires us. It makes us appreciate what we have and who we are and who we want to be. Watching someone move into and through a beautiful pose, with grace and ease no less, makes us want to move the same way. I found this quote by a Swedish designer last week and I can’t stop thinking about it. We need that inspiration but our understanding of the importance of the way we put it together is what makes it beautiful, and ours.

A well executed design shines when it comes from the heart. Whether it be a bouquet of flowers or a yoga pose, the beauty shines when we care about the details. When we take the time to step into the process and make it a collaboration between what we understand now and making something new. We truly shine on our mats in these poses when we understand the actions, the details that go into the making the shape. When we have the heart to work with what we can do now and keep moving that forward from there vs trying to make a shape we don’t yet understand because we skipped over the actions that take us there. We have to slow down, and pay attention to the details to move from the heart and make it our own.

I’m finishing up my very first 200 hour yoga teacher training with 6 lovely yogis and it has been both hard work and so much fun. Starting something new is always fun. That space between what is possible and taking the first steps toward making it real is an awesome space of infinite possibilities. We love that space where we get to talk about it with our friends, and roll it over and over in our heads how great it’s going to be. We figure it all out in the shower or talking to ourselves in the car. It’s going to be perfect.

But it’s the part about where we have to begin is when it gets tricky. You all know what I mean, the part where you have to do the actual work. Where you have to start a new process that is unfamiliar and full of new tools that you don’t know how to use. Where we get challenged to try something new and we start to question why we started the process to begin with. It would be so much more comfortable to stick with what we know and learning in front of other people makes us feel stupid anyway. Where we return to the physical. The physical is where the magic happens. Where our ideas take shape and evolve into collaboration. Where we have to crack open our familiarity and comfort to reach beyond ourselves to learn and grow.

Since I opened YOGA Garden 4+ years ago I kept getting asked when I was going to do a 200 hour training and I really never thought I would. One thing the world does not need is another 200 hour training. But I decided I would give it a shot for a few students who had been asking and anyone new who was interested and see how it went. And like always, the process of growth was frustrating and wonderful and ultimately so rewarding. I can’t wait to do it again.

I believe I know the only cure,
which is to make one’s center of life inside of one’s self,
not selfishly or exceedingly,
but with a kind of unassailable serenity
— to decorate one’s inner house so richly that one is content there,
glad to welcome anyone who wants to come and stay,
but happy all the same when one is inevitably alone.
– Edith Wharton

I’ve been loving meditation more and more these days after years of fighting with it. It used to really seem like a chore, another thing on my list of things to do for the day I didn’t want to and could easily knock off and not feel bad about it.  It used to seem kind of selfish and indulgent. But I look forward to now as much as my asana practice. I find boundaries in my breath that decorate the walls of my inner life like nothing on the outside can and now I can’t get there fast enough.

A little bit of Summer in Winter. If you asked me that question about the deserted island my Vitamix would be 1 of my 3 things. I know there’s no electricity but I would figure out a way. (Plus, like I’m really going to get stuck on a deserted island). I feel like I get a little hit of summer every morning even when it’s wintery and cold.

START A NEW STORY

As we live through each season we move forward through cycles, change and choice. Within us and all around us.  On the solstice we move from the time of Ether to Earth.  Each of the seasons is symbolized by one of the 5 elements: Winter = Earth, Spring = Water, Summer = Fire and Fall = Air.  The element of Ether is symbolized by the time between Halloween and the Solstice.  The element of ether is symbolic of our intuition, our ability to close our eyes and sit still.  It is a place of creativity before boundaries, judgment, insecurity and this freedom is what ignites the creative spark at our core. It’s where the story begins. It gives us a light in the dark, our word for the year, an idea about how we would like to tell our story for a new year.

But in order for our word, dream, desire to manifest it has to become physical, like a seed.  It has to take shape, to have a place to root into and grow.  The element of earth is symbolic of the body.  As we move from ether to earth we start to manifest our idea physically.  We begin to make choices about the way we breathe, move and rest to build a body that reflects where we are now and what direction we want to go.  Our bodies literally take the shape of our hearts and minds, each pose a reflection of our awareness as we weave and unwind our narrative of experience.

Next week we move from Ether to Earth.  We will move from one season to the next and into a new year.  We will step into a new cycle of change and choice and create the story of a new season in our lives with us as we go.

w LAUREL VAN MATRE
Monday 12.21
6:30 – 8:00 PM – All Levels Vinyasa

Stay for a toast to a New Season after class!!!!