Yoga + Ayurveda. Rituals for Modern Wellness.
If there is one telling marker of our current generation of parenting, it is the prevailing appearance of a phone on our person, while we are spending time with our children.
Before I was a parent, I didn’t think anything of parents who had their smart phones at playgrounds or restaurants and yet, after I became a mama, now 7 years ago, this is all I noticed.
I awoke January 1, 2017 still tired, feeling the lingering effects of a nasty cold and flu that I got hit with exactly 3 days earlier, in the white cold of snowy Whistler, Canada; where we were hunkered down in a cabin with dear friends and our children. The highlight of the last night for me had been sending the kids off to bed at 9 p.m. with sparkling apple juice amidst the sparkling ice. No champagne, no dessert, I didn’t make it past 10 p.m. and didn’t have a choice. I was in the thick of an icky feeling winter flu. A part of me rallied against it. I wanted to be more festive, I wanted to talk, to enjoy a nice glass of wine with dinner, but the inner quieter part of myself was more real.
That voice said, “You’ve been pushing too hard, you just need to slow down.”
Modern living is characterized by increased speed and stress especially in our cities. The ancient science of Ayurveda, India’s philosophy of life, offers simple, practical and universal insights that are remarkably relevant to our contemporary lives, lives we inhabit at a pace our ancestors could have never imagined. Join Insiya for a thought provoking and insightful discussion about Ayurveda and learn about how we can achieve more healing, balance and vitality using key Ayurvedic principles. We will discuss taste, nutrition, health from a truly holistic viewpoint and daily rituals that will inspire you to live your most joyful life.
Join Insiya for 2 exciting workshops inspired by Ayurveda, the ancient science of healing from India and essential to the Yoga life, at Wanderlust, Squaw Valley this July. Both will offer indispensable tips to maximize your health, wellbeing and happiness.
Earth, Fire, Air and Water. According to Ayurveda, the elemental building blocks of nature also exist within us. In this interactive workshop, discover your individual Prakriti through a contemporary understanding of the doshas (or Ayurvedic mind-body types) and examine how these elements and energies impact our individual health, wellbeing and yoga practice as well as the larger, collective social fabric. Expect to leave with indispensable tips to maximize your health, wellbeing and happiness.
I find it to be the perfect base for smoothies, to pour over home made granola and to use as a base in raw desserts and soups. However, I decided a few years ago that store bought almond milk just wasn’t cutting it. It was bland; when you drank it just by itself you realised that it didn’t even taste like almonds; plus the “original” or “vanilla” flavours are super high in sugar. All this made sense when I looked at the ingredient list and saw that actual almonds amounted to less than 8% of the “almond milk,” while a bunch of unpronounceable preservatives and added synthetic vitamins constituted the rest.
Perhaps it is the long dark days here in Northwest BC that have been getting to me, or perhaps it is simply that that this time of the year is one of darkness, contemplation and introspection.
I’ve been thinking a lot about the passing of time and our rituals to mark the passing of time and even though this calendar we follow is purely arbitrary, and really a new year could be any day of these 365 days that mark our circumnavigation of the sun, there is something powerful about a collective people celebrating this start of something new.
To me, the year’s end and new beginnings are an embodiment of the vinyasa we speak of in yoga, the shedding of the past and renewal of what is to come. It is an exciting, creative time, once you can really come to peace with the letting go of the literal and metaphorical old. Out of the dust of the ashes come new possibility, but you have to go through your process.
It is also a time to think of think of our cyclical cellular regeneration. Think about the incredible regenerative capacity of our human body. Did you know that we breakdown and replace over 24 billion cells a day? Or that every component of every cell in our body is replaced totally within a nine-month cycle? We’re literally bodies in a state of flux – of dynamic evolution.
It’s not easy, yet if you open yourself to it, and begin to believe how vast our capacity is to remake ourselves, create new habit patterns, embrace new ideas and more positive thought / behavioral patterns, you’re almost halfway there. It sounds new-agey I know, but seriously, if our cells regenerate themselves continuously, don’t you think we’re capable of mentally and emotionally creating shifts? We’re all capable of evolution, we’ve been doing it for centuries.
Writing our goals down is the first step. A simple way to tackle them is to divide them into three categories. Personal, Health and Professional.
One of mine is to get even a mini- yoga practice in each day, so here I go.
Namaste. Light + lightness for the new year.
Aesop, Melbourne
Cult beauty favourite Aesop is native to Melbourne. Their chic Armadale store drew me in with the beguiling, natural scents the company is known for. Founded in 1987 the line offers botanical based personal care products for men and women.
Daily Gel Cleanser
Aesop’s uber-cool store design: each store is unique to its location in look and feel and boasts fixtures such as an original Paolo Venini hand blown glass light; focus on cruelty-free and chemical free skin-care, and simple, beautiful packaging, not to mention support of the arts, music and literature make this a beauty brand that ranks high in my books.
coriander seed soap
Aesop’s signature “Animal” Rinse – cruelty free rinse for furry or human animals 🙂
the lustworthy Marrakesh fragrance, a blend of clove, cardamom + sandalwood.
With stores in London, Tokyo and Paris, Aesop is not a down-under secret anymore. You can also get your fix by shopping online here.