Whether you are brand new to yoga or have been interested in it for years, you’re likely to have experienced inexplicable moments of joy during your practice. As if you entered into a moment of spacious timelessness, and equanimity. It’s like you’ve come home to a place that is extraordinarily familiar, yet you aren’t quite sure where you are. That’s because states of freedom spontaneously arise through yoga. Freedom from habitual patterns of being and reacting to circumstances. Yoga helps us experience the joining together of complimentary patterns of feeling, thought, breath and sensation in which insight into the open nature of being spontaneously arises. Āsana opens doorways of perception, prāṇāyāma establishes pathways for intelligence, while meditation, chanting and philosophical study facilitate patience, clarity and discernment. Yoga begins and evolves within these practices in the moment at hand.

In this retreat we will work with all these forms of practice, dropping deeply into the awakened embodied state of freedom which is at yoga’s core. In the mornings we will practice prāṇāyāma and āsana (some guided, and some Mysore style all sculpted to meet individual needs) and. Afternoons will include meditation, chanting and philosophy. Using the Śiva Saṃhitā for context and as a springboard for study we will experience how communicating and working together provides a feeling of ballast and the opportunity for insight into the value and truth of interconnectedness. Together we will explore how the ancient practices of yoga can be brought into the world with meaning, to foster a sense compassion and of agency in our daily lives. This retreat is appropriate for practitioners of all levels and all traditions of practice.