What a beautiful crisp sparkling Winter’s day with such a clear blue sky! Just as the seasons and the weather evolve and change from day to day so does our internal weather. Nothing ever stands still …. we know that everything will pass and this is part of our journey through life.

To help us with our journey we have been observing Patanjali’s Yoga Sutras and the five Yamas which help us to train our thoughts, actions, speech in relation to the external world and particularly others:

Ahimsa – non harm
Satya – truth
Asteya – non stealing
Bramacharya – conservation of energy
Aparigraha – letting go

We are now going to look at the second limb of yoga – the Niyamas and these are more focussed on our internal world and how we can work with ourselves to lead a more meaningful life. The first is Saucha – purity and cleansing of our thoughts and body. This can be done in many ways and yoga postures tone the whole body and remove toxins while pranayama (breathwork) cleanses the lungs and blood and calms our nerves. But more importantly yoga helps take us to a calmer place where we can cleanse our thoughts of emotions such as hate, anger, pride, jealousy and fear.

Saucha can also be taken further by eating healthy pure food that is unadulterated by pesticides and chemicals. A clean palate can enjoy the sweetness of an apple, the purity of water; a clear mind can enjoy poetry and wisdom of a message in a story; a polished table reveals the deep grain of the wood; the practice of saucha allows us to enjoy and appreciate life more fully.

We can also practice Saucha on our mat in the following ways:
– Physical – having a clean mat and props; ensuring they are neatly folded and tidy when put away. Practising in a clean body with clean mat and props allows greater concentration
– Speech – allowing “quiet” to be a vehicle that transports us into our inner world of practice and respects the quiet of others too
– Thoughts – noticing the disruptive thoughts that come knocking on our door during our yoga flow and not allowing them to taint our practice. Instead observing our breath and how our bodily sensations change from moment to moment and by doing so perhaps the unwelcome thoughts will disappear.

Over the coming weeks we will be looking at the Niyamas during our yoga sessions at 5.50pm. The following are the dates of our classes leading up to Christmas:

24th November
1st December
8th December
15th December
22nd December

If you have paid for a block of sessions please let me know if you are able to make the class on 24th as soon as you can; alternatively please let me know if you would like to come along either to the five classes as a block or as a drop-in ……

I look forward to seeing you!

With love

JudithX