Thursday, December 14, 2006

The Ashes - 3rd test match (Cricket!)

Well after the awful fiasco of England snatching defeat from the arms of victory in Adelaide (2nd Test match) at least they're off to a good start so far. Australia won the toss and (of course) elected to bat, but they've lost 2 early wickets, including Ponting (arguably the best batsman in the world at the moment) bowled by Harmison!!! Fellow cricket-lovers will understand the exclamation marks!!

Christmas parties all round - tomorrow is the work Christmas lunch - we're going for Yum Cha in Brisbane, which should be good! Not for my waistline or yoga practice, but otherwise ... :) This time of year you just have to let go of a few things - there's always next year!

Yoga practice is slowly coming back. Flexibility is pretty much back - but that's the easy one for me. Strength is another matter entirely. But it will come - I keep telling myself! Christmas/New Year is also a difficult time to keep a yoga practice together. I'm going to be at Woodford (Folk Festival) as usual on Boxing Day till after New Year's Day. I've done a yoga class there in the past but this time they've put it on later, at the same time as the Festival Choir practice. So I think I'm just going to self-practice at the campsite this time.

Thursday, November 30, 2006

Back from WA

Long since time I should have been posting ... Seems like ever since I got back from the Western Australia trip the heat here has been going up and up and up ... 39 degrees yesterday - that's Centigrade!! And it's not even officially summer here yet!! Difficult to find energy to do anything in that heat. But anyway, it has cooled down a lot today, so here I am!

Had such a great time in Western Australia - here's a few photos.

Tingle tree trunk

Beach view

Perth trip

It was so green and lush - I had no idea that anywhere in the west would be like that! After all, it's mostly desert!! But where we went (the south-western corner) it was rolling hills, very long grass and very contented cattle munching away!! Not to mention all the vineyards!

Of course, as I was sharing a room, I didn't get to do any yoga. But I'm back now - was incredibly stiff the 2nd time I practiced. My hamstrings felt like they'd shortened by about 30cm!! But they are returning to their previous length now - strength is very much down though! But that'll build up again I know.

Tuesday, October 31, 2006

chaturanga - I need to take it carefully!

I've started a tentative yoga practice again - just at lunchtime at work at the moment, but will go back to class soon. I wanted to have the freedom to just do a few poses and not feel pushed (or caught up in the class energy) and do too much too soon.

And actually, last night and today I've been feeling it a bit. I had been reading this discussion on chaturanga on the Ashtanga discussion board and realised I've been doing it wrong all this time. My hands have been definitely under my shoulders, not further down my body. So was trying to do it more correctly, and of course it makes for a much deeper 'up-dog' section of the pose, which in turn stretches your abdomen more. So I think that's why I was feeling a few twinges and aches on the side of the missing ovary last night! I'll have to back off a bit on that pose for a while longer.

Perth trip is getting very close - in fact this time next week I'll be in the air! I'm not going to be blogging from there (well, it's only for 5 days, and I'm not even posting once a week, so ... :) ) but I will be taking lots of photos, so prepare to see some of them when I get back!

And rehearsals for The Messiah have started again - last night was the 2nd week of them. Performance is at the end of November in St Johns Cathedral in Brisbane. I do love singing this so much - but I've got a lot of work to do on it. I've got very rusty on a lot of what I did know, and there's still a few choruses that I've never got on top of - eg the Amen chorus! ! I'm going to take my iPod loaded up with the Alto part of the choruses with me, plus a photocopy of the music. I'll have to hope I don't start singing out loud on the plane while listening to it!

Tuesday, October 24, 2006

Flowering pots





This is a picture of pots on my front deck - gardenia in the background and New Guinea Impatiens in the front. Look so pretty, and the gardenia perfume is to die for!



Went to see my 'surgeon' today. All is well (well, I knew that!) and she said I can start doing yoga again. And just to do what feels OK. So tomorrow hopefully I'll start again. Was going to be today at lunchtime but I took too long going to the doctor.



This time 2 weeks I'll be in the air flying to Perth - yippee! Really looking forward to that. Am starting to think about what to take (not too much as it'll be 4 people's bags in the back of the car!)

Tuesday, October 17, 2006

A new look

Decided to use a different Blogger template. I rather like it - nice and clean! One of these days I'll get myself together and do my own template, but in the meantime ...

I was off work last week - had to have minor surgery done last Monday, and although it was minor (ovarian cysts - benign) the anaesthetic was more than I'd bargained for! I ended up having to stay in hospital overnight as I couldn't keep anything down. But apart from that, I didn't feel any pain and very little discomfort. Does take it out of you though! I was pretty tired, and although I've gone back to work this week I'm leaving early and taking it easy.

Of course no yoga. I read the leaflet about keyhole surgery (laparoscopy) and it said 'no strong exercise for 4 weeks' - yikes! I think I'll start trying a modified practice next week, which will be 2 weeks. okrgr - a doctor from the Ashtanga noticeboard, gave me some suggestions on what to do and what not to do, and I'll follow that ... thanks :)

Still holding the magic from Maharaji's event. I feel so lucky.

And in 3 weeks time I'm flying across to the other side of Australia to meet up with my sister and hubbie from London, plus my Mum, and indulge in a spot of wine-tasting (more than a spot!!), wild flower admiring and maybe even whale-watching!! Might be a bit late for the whale-watching, not sure! But whatever, it should be great fun - haven't been to Western Australia at all really - just passed through Perth a couple of times.

Monday, October 02, 2006

5 days in heaven

That was just the most wonderful 5 days ... 5 days of leaving 'everyday life' behind and just diving into that peace inside which was somehow manifested externally. 5 days of sitting and listening to Maharaji remind us all of that peace that is inside each person. 5 days of hearing others express their joy and gratitude. 5 days of being reminded that it is all just a breath away.

We heard some of the beautiful comments that have been made on Maharaji's website and in guestbooks at public events from people who had just come across this possibility. And a question from someone who had just been shown how to go inside - "I feel like there is light dripping from every part of my body. Is this how I'm supposed to feel?" !!

And now it's the week after and I'm back at work, but I'm still feeling it inside and I just hope I'll continue to be in this place ... Can't say any more right now :)

Sunday, September 03, 2006

This and that!

Went to a big multi-choir rehearsal this morning (Sunday) for the Brisbane Sing for Water concert, which is next Sunday. It's wonderful to be singing with 450 or so other people - sounds great! There are about 50+ primary school children too, and they sound angelic!

And the 5-day event with Maharaji is flying towards us ... Just can't wait! T and L, friends from England are arriving in a couple of weeks (with my new eco yoga mat!) to stay for it, and then it's just a week after that. I've got a week and a half off.

In yoga, I've got 3 things I've been given to work on since I last went to class. Firstly in Marichyasana C - I can bind on the 2nd side, but the first side I'm a mile away. Richard was looking at me doing it last Monday and we agreed that I don't seem able to twist as much left to right. So I'm going to just keep working on that, do the first side twice. Then in Bhakasana (we get given that as a preparation to bhujapidasana) and which I still can't lift both feet off the ground in, Richard's got me just leaning further forward and lifting one foot off at a time, then the other. Hopefully if I keep doing that I'll get 'airborne' sometime this century :)

And finally, he saw me trying padmasana (I'd managed to do it OK one day the previous week so thought I could manage it, but ...!) anyway, I'm doing this sort of cross-legged thing with my feet half-way between hip and knee, and foot flexed. A hip-opener thing ...

If anyone was at all interested ... !

Tuesday, August 15, 2006

New yoga mat

I'm excited - I've just ordered a new Eco-mat from yogamatters.com in the UK. I haven't found anywhere in Australia that sells them, and now some English friends are coming to stay next month and they are going to bring it over for me - yeayy!

The census collecting is going ... and going and going!!! In the delivery phase, 2-3 weeks ago, I came down with some awful virus and ended up being off work for a week! Can't remember ever being sick off work for that long before! And it was right in the middle of the delivery phase - such bad timing! I had to creep out and deliver maybe 10 forms a day! That was all the walking I could manage!!! However, I'm better now, though I do still have a rotten cough that must be very annoying for the people I work with ...

Didn't do any yoga for that week, so I was pretty stiff when I started again. But things are moving again ...

And preparations are going a-pace for the September event with Maharaji. It doesn't seem real yet!

Monday, July 24, 2006

News from my day-to-day life ... :)

My sister in London thought I hadn't done any yoga since May, when I last posted here! I'd be very stiff if that was the case ... no, it's just I've been busy I guess, and haven't made time to blog about my normal everyday activities!

I actually just did a short (3/4 hour) lunchtime practice ... I've got a second job for a few weeks, being a Census collector. In Australia they do a census every 5 years - and although they pay well, it's a lot of work. I'm certainly going to earn it ...:) I've done the training, and will start delivering the forms this Friday night - to 300 houses!! Anyway, it looks like I'll have a hard time getting to a class for a few weeks so I will need to grab the opportunities for self practice where I can!

I don't think I've "progressed" in anything, except maybe flexibility. I can put my palms on the floor now, to my amazement! But what I really need to 'progress' is in strength! Don't know why that's so hard for me!

I went down to Sydney for a long weekend at the beginning of July. Had a really nice time down in Bowral with Mum. She gave me a gorgeous alcpaca jumper - cardigan really. I love alpaca and haven't had an alpaca jumper for years ... Thanks Mum!!

And on the day I flew back, we went to this gorgeous exhibition about Pearls ... it was huge! So many beautiful pearls, and amazing pearling stories and historical exhibits! Then we had lunch with Jo (nephew) and Emma (gf) at the Mint, before heading for the airport and home.

I'm also up to my ears in preparations for Maharaji's 40th anniversary event at Amaroo in September ... it's going to be so sweet ...

Tuesday, May 09, 2006

It's a GREAT DAY in Australia!

http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200605/s1633713.htm
and http://www.guardian.co.uk/australia/story/0,,1770790,00.html

The 2 miners have walked out of the mine! 2 weeks after being trapped 1 kilometre underground by a rockfall triggered by an earthquake!! This was in a goldmine in northern Tasmania.

Eight days ago they were 'found' alive, but it's taken the rescue people this long to tunnel in to them. 14 days trapped in a 1.2m cube steel cage - 2 of them in a space not big enough to stand up in or stretch out!! - I just can't believe it! Wonderful scenes on the television at 6am this morning of them walking out of the lift into the arms of their family and fellow miners!!!

The whole of Australia has been following this, particularly since last Sunday week when they were discovered alive. At that point they'd survived 8 days on a muesli bar and licking water of the rocks. After that the rescuers managed to get a small pipe drilled 3m through to them that they could send food and drink down through - they even got sent a couple of iPods. Because the rescue kept running into problems and they obviously didn't want to do anything to trigger a further rockfall, it's taken this long to actually get to them.

Their health has been monitored by medical crews and paramedics for all this time - but even though the miners had said they were determined to walk out of the mine gates, no one quite believed that they'd be well enough to do so. But they were and they did!!

Sadly a third miner caught in the rockfall was discovered dead. His funeral is today (his family having held it back in the hope that the other 2 would be out and able to come to it). Although they're in the hospital now having checks, I feel sure they will go ...

Saturday, April 01, 2006

distracting ...

Yoga this afternoon was - hmm, a bit distracting! There were a couple of people there taking photographs (can't remember what for), and although in general I was fine with that, it did sort of take my concentration away a bit ... particularly because I'm actually doing a 6-week digital photography course with LVS online, and so part of me was thinking about focus and F-stops!!! (Which I have never known anything about before, having been just a 'point and click' photographer, but that's another story!!)

But anyway - the fact remains that I was really hopeless in the balancing poses - Utthita hasta padangusthasana was a joke!! (Except for my language!!) However, things did improve when I got to seated. I can bind on one side in Marichyasana B now, to my amazement! Once my left foot/ankle stops hurting from being squashed, I should be able to bind on that side too!! And Marichy C is coming along well too. I can bind on one side, not the other ... It's so nice, after maybe 2 years of nothing happening, to actually see myself moving into poses more deeply.

I've been having fun with the photography course. A bit overwhelmed with all the technical stuff, but still it's been really great. I've been taking my camera (Canon Powershot A520) with me a lot, and taking photos. Of course I have to do this for the course - after the first week when we all just posted stuff we'd done before, now we have to post 2-4 shots a week relating to whatever the lesson was about. The past week's one was on composition - below is one I took on Friday which I'm going to post! I was just driving home and saw the sky - if I hadn't had my camera with me ... !


Saturday, February 25, 2006

Busy busy busy ...:)

The last 2 weeks have been sooo busy at work - I just come home and crash out in front of the TV or head in a book. Uni Semester 1 starts on Monday, and typically lecturers leave it till 3 (or less) days before the start to suddenly announce they want all these Blackboard websites created! To top it all, the person I work with has been sick for the past 3 days, and the casual we were getting to come in, rang in sick too! So I was there all by myself yesterday, half the time on the helpdesk phone helping out people who hadn't thought to request their courses yet, and the other half frantically trying to churn out their course profiles in html ... sigh!!

At least it's the weekend. Yoga class this afternoon - hoorayyy! I just managed to find time to do a few sun salutes a couple of lunchtimes during the week, apart from that it's Monday since I last did a proper ashtanga practice ... Ah well, life happens, and yoga is just part of my life. It just has to fit in with what's happening.

Getting back to websites - I'm finding it easier and easier as I go on to use CSS and not use tables for layout. I resent it when I have to use tables (time constraints!) And my freelance webdesign business is going really well. Last year I don't think I did any new websites - just maintenance on various ones. But it's only February now and I'm working on one new website, plus I've got another 2 new ones lined up! Great!! I'm also doing my friend Angela's poetry ezine - www.foame.org. It's a yearly thing - this is the 3rd year. The new issue goes live on 1st March ...

on my iPod: retro 60s music from Heartbeat

Wednesday, February 01, 2006

The Ups and Downs of one practice

It's odd how you can start one practice (yoga practice that is!) and think "oh, I can tell it's going to be that sort of a practice" and then it changes back and forward! I practiced at lunchtime today at work. By myself - the other two who sometimes come were away in meetings or whatever ... And I was really stiff in sun salutes. (I only went to class on Monday night, so that's less than 2 days ago!) Then the balancing poses were just a disaster! I keep tottering over, couldn't keep my balance ... sigh! So by then I "just knew" what sort of practice it was going to be.

Come the marichyasanas, and Marichyasana C, (which I had been making some progress in - had sensed that it wasn't really impossible and that one day I'd be able to do this ). And then on one side I suddenly thought - "what if I stretch these fingers a tidgy bit more?" - and I touched the other fingers!! I nearly fell over! Only on one side, the other side is miles apart still, but - wow!!!

Moving on and I get to bhakasana (sp? In our shala we're given this as a prep pose till we can do an arm balance and then we swap it for bhujapidasana). So I've been having problems with this one too. I'd finally just managed to get 2 feet off the ground at the same time, and then I fell out of it a few weeks ago. Now I feel very unsafe - my legs wobble on my arms and I'm scared to try and take my feet off the ground. Last week in class I got the teacher to go through it with me. But now I've forgotten again how and where to balance my legs so they feel secure! So I guess I'll have to wait till I go to class again and get him to go through it with me again!!! I'm a slow learner!!

on my iTunes (work computer): Chris Berry and Panjea - Mandela

Wednesday, January 18, 2006

And so the year begins ...

Getting back into the swing of things at work - and I'm doing a new CSS Positioning course at LVS, which is great. I do feel like my CSS knowledge is increasing and I'm understanding it all a lot more (not just copying and pasting code without being sure why it's used!)

Have been to yoga class about 3 times - great. I do need that discipline! But also someone else at my work is wanting to do yoga at lunchtimes so that should continue this year - hoorray. Going well - except for the arm balance one. I seem to be scared of falling and now can hardly get one foot off the floor, let alone 2!!

I'm also in the process of getting set up at home with ADSL and wireless. Well, I can't afford to do it all at once so got the Apple Airport Express first. That let's you connect to the internet wirelessly, and also (wonder of wonders) let's you stream your iTunes music collection to your home stereo. So it can play through those speakers. What I didn't realise was that you can only connect wirelessly via ADSL/DSL/cable. Don't know if this has always been the case, or just now that cable is becoming the dominant way of connecting.

And I still need to work out quite how to connect to my stereo's amplifier! I've plugged it in somewhere, but no music is coming through! Hopefully I'll get my head around it soon!!

On my computer (not my stereo yet!!): Malcolm McLaren's Fans - Lauretta

Thursday, January 05, 2006

Woodford Folk Festival


Well - Woodford is over for another year ... Such an amazing 6-7 days ... I did yoga, drove musicians to where they were performing, listened to heaps of wonderful and different music, rehearsed and sang in the festival choir, danced my feet off, sweltered in the 40degC + heat, and cooled down sitting in shady places ... Ate wonderful food, met up with friends, talked for hours, slept a little bit! And lots more!

Yoga wasn't ashtanga - run by a group called Radiant Light yoga. Still, so good to do yoga though, and a lot of the poses were the same. I'd done a bit of yoga in the week before down at my Mum's place in Bowral, but it was good to do a class for 3 days.

Really, 'Woodford Folk Festival' is a bit of a misnomer. Yes, there's some lovely folk music, but there's also heaps of blues, jazz, world, pop, reggae and other music. Pretty much the only music they don't welcome there is country (thank goodness!!!) Plus Tibetan monks, various types of dance, cabaret, circus (lots of that this year), puppets, weird and wonderful street performers and who knows what else!!

Music that I really loved this year included Chris Berry's Panjea, (American band including a wonderful anti-death penalty song - "Why do we kill people ,who kill people, to teach people that killing people is wrong?"!! Right on!!!), Bomba, (fabulous big reggae band), Fruit (3 women singing gorgeous harmonies) and Ash Grunwald - great young Aussie blues/roots singer.

 

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