August Update

Please note the website has had some major updates and some of the links from previous mailings have been updated. Contact Mary if you cannot find something in this transitional period. Thank you for your patience! Please remember to bookmark www.maryyoga.com/home for updates!

Auto-Subscribers for online classes: make sure you resubscribe. Your old subscriptions ended with the movement from old website to the current site.

Contents

• Online Yoga continues - Keeping Cool!

• In Person classes:
  Cloverdale Yoga in the Park 8/27
  Ukiah Yoga Tuesday eves 8/1, 8/15 and 8/22

• Espana! Retreat - Special discount for final 2 spaces

• Online workshops 8/20 - Samadhi, & 10/28-29 - Samhain
  
  Nest Yoga, Oakland:
  10/21 Bone of Contention - with Richard Rosen
  11/11 Veterans’ Yoga! Richard, Patricia Sullivan and MP

• 
  Save the Dates:
  Gray Bear Retreat 4/25-5/2, 2024
  Summer Solstice at Bell Valley, CA 6/17 - 21, 2024 - More info soon!
  

Online Yoga continues…
4 Saturday mornings: 9-10.15; August 5, 12 (pre-recorded), 19 and 26
3 Wednesday mornings: Meditation 7.00, Vinyasa 7.30, 8.30 Basics: August 2, 16 and 23 (no class 8/9 & 8/30).
Sign up for Auto Subscription and receive 3 months of recordings - as well as a special summer one month guest pass for a friend.
Monthly or Dropin options available

Photo: Lubo Mirkin

Our Online Yoga Theme this month is “Keeping Cool” - While temperatures reach record-breaking heights this summer, we will explore practices that keep us cool, calm and clear. Join us for a drop-in, a month or longer!

Costa Brava, Catalunya

September 17-22
2 spaces left in the Catalan Spa Retreat
Discount: If you sign up before August 1, last space/s can be included in the early bird rate. Email me asap.

Alternatively you may be interested in renting my little flat which is on the Costa Brava! More info…

STOP PRESS - Local Yoga

Ukiah classes on Tuesdays 5.30-6.45pm 8/1, 8/15 and 8/22 eves.

Sundays in the Park - Cloverdale 8/27, 8-9am - Donation based event. Spread the word. 4th Sunday of the month June-August.

Wu Men Hui-k’ai 13th century China

Ten thousand flowers in spring, the moon in autumn,

a cool breeze in summer, snow in winter.

If your mind isn't clouded by unnecessary things,

this is the best season of your life.

Apple Harvest at Pomo Tierra

Gathering

So as we deal with strange weather patterns across the country and globe, we are also beginning to shift into the end of summer, and the last vacations, family events and celebrations. This month is our harvest time, where we welcome our friends to help bring in the harvest crop, usually between 50 - 100 people! Most camp outside under the stars and enjoy the labor of gathering the fruit amid the gathering of young and old, new faces and folks who have been coming here since this collective’s inception over 50 years ago. These gatherings are so precious, especially after the pandemic, and especially perhaps as we sense the challenges to our environments and futures.

Our solstice retreat this year, another seasonal event over many decades, was going to disappear in 2024 - I was going to take a vacation! But - with the insistence of the attendees - we will continue next year as we are drawn back to the land, to the way it is being stewarded and to these special and evolving communities where we can truly rest in community and the natural world. 2024 is also the biannual retreat time at Gray Bear TN where another delightful community has come together over decades in a uniquely beautiful and sacred space.

Whatever season of the year, especially seasons of great transitions, we yearn not only to gather in community but to gather internally. As Wu-Men, the 13th century Chinese poet says, we wish to enjoy every season of our lives, or at least to be present for them. How do we do this in our scattered busy lives? Another translation for Samadhi is Gathering. Instead of using the more typical translation of “Concentration”, this option implies a more natural drawing together, letting go of delusional detours, and a warming towards what is meaningful. If you want some encouragement in this area…..
- Follow this short centering meditation by Tara Brach
- Listen to a short talk, The Garden of Our Mind by Rebekkah LaDyne - designed for parents and families but helpful for all of us as we re-parent and ground ourselves in this confusing, anxious world.
- Read Gil Fronsdal’s guidance on Collectedness, Unifying the mind - as “weaving into one”
- Come to our last Yoga Salon event on 8/20 8.45-11.30am as a drop-in where we consider this word Samadhi while exploring in practice and discussion the themes of gathering, centering, calming in these turbulent times.
- Join us at harvest for a noisy outdoor, fun version of community gathering
- Come on retreat for a much quieter, yoga oriented option! - www.maryyoga.com