Yes I am in the process of editting the CSS for the blog, so please bear with me. I have changed the background colour to orange.
I’m halfway through the Satyananda weekend workshop with Swami Muktibhodananda. Swamiji is a very ordinary, approachable and wise teacher. She radiates warmth and is immensely happy and likeable. I looked at her and instantly felt that I could learn from her.
I haven’t done a lot of Satyananda tradition yoga, although several of my friends have (one is living in the Mangrove Mountain ashram). The pace is a lot easier than other workshops I’ve done, with more of a focus on inner yoga, pranayama, chakras, chanting. Unfortunately, childcare arrangements this weekend mean that I can’t stay for kirtan, which is something I would’ve really liked to do. Also, there’s housework…
Which brings me to someting that I will take away from this weekend: Swamiji is very much about showing that one can be a householder and a yogi as well. She is married with two sons. Her practice is the practice within the ordinary, mundane tasks of daily life.
I am fascinated by this. When I read many of the posts on other yoga blogs about the ways in which people practice, and the topics they write about, I’m struck by the very non-ordinary nature of what is comprises yoga. Yoga is about yoga classes, yoga workshops (ironic, that a workshop inspiried me to write this), yoga gear, the kudos gained from x number of trips to Mysore, etc. But not as much about how you cope with doing the dishes, getting to work, sweeping the floors, that you have children and can’t swan off to Mysore without a lot of arranging…
There is something here that the anthropologist is ruminating about… more on this soon.
I guess the main thing I came to understand that about myself is the areas in which I have blockages around the PhD. I’ll write more about this when I’m finished the workshop. The other was: I can’t really say that I have a clear sankalpa about … well … anything.
Which is, of course, a realisation in itself.
AnthroYogini 
I tend to think of yoga as about opening up and letting go…which is a hell of a lot easier to do on a yoga retreat or in an ashram than when I’m dealing with my day to day life at home…then, I guess that’s the whole point…not just of retreats and ashrams but of having this discipline of yoga in the first place instead of simply practicing yoga by sweeping floors and doing whatever else you have or want to do…or maybe I just need to go to bed………..