I dag mottok jeg en mail med et 'brev' fra Paul Wooden til alle som kan tenke seg å komme på workshopen han skal holde her i Grimstad i August. Han forklarer hva vi kommer til å gjøre og fokusere på. Det blir veldig bra! For mer info klikk her.
Hi guys,
I am very happy to take up Hedda’s kind invitation to come to Grimstad, Norway in August and share with you all a wonderfully rich program of yoga and meditation.
It will be my first trip to Norway and I have heard so many great things about your country.
Paul Wooden.
I have been studying and teaching yoga and meditation through the Yoga tradition, Buddhism and Taoism over the last 30 years.
I have integrated what I believe is essential to these traditions with a contemporary understanding of embodiment and developmental psychology.
There is so much to learn from these traditions that help us engage the world in a real and direct way.
Put simply, yoga is about relationship.
It is about learning to relinquish the constant internal struggle and cultivate a friendlier relationship with life.
We will be exploring ways to open ourselves to a deeper and more intimate encounter with ourselves with each other and with life itself.
Here are a brief outline we will explore together.
Basic orientation
There are two primary impulses in someone drawn to yoga.
A desire to connect and/or a desire for freedom.
The essence of all spiritual traditions are elaborations on the two basic human motivations. The exquisite impulse of love and the clarity of wisdom.
We will explore in ourselves how these impulses drive us.The malaise of our times is the opposite of these two impulses. A sense of isolation and confusion.
These two impulses, when truly felt and understood in ourselves become the guiding intelligence of yoga practice. This is how we draw the sometimes abstract and complex teachings in the traditions into the immediately felt reality of our lives.
It really is a process of getting real with ourselves.
If the teaching don’t find a home in the embodied reality of our felt experience, it remains spiritual ideas and has little real impact on us.
On a practical level we aim to strengthen the body, open the heart and deepen and clarify the mind, so as to open our whole selves to the innate intelligence and grace of life.
We will do this by exploring:
THE BODY:
- Embodiment and grounding
- Opening to the natural energetic dynamics of embodied life
- Making friends with ourselves and our experience
- Asana and the relationship between gravity, ground and space
- Somatic receptivity and action
- Deeper listening
THE HEART AND FEELING:
- The role of feeling
- Prana and natural bandha’s
- Harnessing the natural vital intelligence of life through the breath
THE MIND:
- Understanding meditation
- Distinguishing between the activity of mind and the nature of mind
- Curiosity as part of the evolutionary intelligence of life
- The psychology of yoga
- Recognising and surrendering mental and emotional fixation
If you already have a style that works for you, you don’t have to give it up. These principals can be applied to any style of practice and help to open deeper into whatever style of yoga you prefer.
What I am interested in is genuine transformation, and how yoga and meditation can bring real and practical changes to our lives.
Yoga is relationship. Relationship with the natural unfolding intelligence of life.
Its not rocket science, but it does require a willingness to genuinely participate in life in a real and intimate way. It requires a desire to recognize the ways we resist experience and to understand why we do this.
We can learn to offer ourselves the possibility of something fresh, tender and uncontrived and the possibility of touching and being touched by this life.
The benefits of this kind of relationship with ourselves and life are profound.
The mastery of yoga is not measured by how many difficult postures you can do but by how the practice is deepening your understanding and helping you live with more wisdom and heart.
Well there is a basic outline of what we will explore together.
If something in the above outline resonates with you…..this resonance itself is the beginning of the process of change.
If we can learn to listen and honor and trust this already unfolding intelligence in us it can move us towards what is most important to us.
It can help to bring us home and integrate these two fundamental human impulses…….freedom and connection, wisdom and love.
I recommend that you participate in the whole program we have planned if you can. This will give you a more complete view and experience, but if you can only join us for part of it, you will still have plenty to work with.
To participate in the workshops you don’t need to be an experienced yogi.
All you need is a genuine desire for a deeper encounter with your life.
I really hope you can join us in this inquiry.
I am really looking forward to meeting you soon.
I hope to see you in August.
Paul Wooden.
Om du føler for å lese et lite reisebrev fra Paul, der han oppholder seg på nydelige Filippinene, nå så kan du lese det HER.