YOGA ⋆ Parvati

CONNECT WITH THE FORCE OF LIFE

YEM: Yoga as Energy Medicine is a practice for everyone to tangibly feel the ways you are connected with the planet, the cosmos, and all life, so that you can experience greater energy, mental clarity, and relaxation.

PRACTICE

If you can breathe, you can do yoga.

YEM in Three Easy Steps

INSPIRATION

Let your breath connect you with all of life.

July 25, 2020

With every breath you take, you are touching the force of life itself. Your breath ebbs and flows, as do day and night, the sun and the moon, the leaves on the trees, and the waves along the ocean’s body. As you befriend your breath, you learn to feel its rise and fall as an effortless expression not just of your human experience, but as a source of connection to a much greater whole. You are an evolving, organic being perfectly held within it all.

True transformation arises when you let go…

July 11, 2020

Today, tune in to connect with your breath, your body and your spine. Witness whatever may arise, be they emotions, thoughts or physical sensations. Release all tendency to have an agenda of what it “should” look or feel like. Be receptive to what is instead of trying to push or pull at the moment. Open to the present like it is just that – a present. In this allowing, you create space within yourself for tremendous healing and transformation for yourself and the world.⁠

The life force that pulses through all creation…

June 27, 2020

Breathe deep. And then again… and again. See if you can feel the energy of the breath all through your body. See if you can begin to notice how there is no real separation between “within” and “without”. The life-force that pulses through creation also flows through us all. Whether you see it or not, you are connected to, and lovingly held within, an extraordinarily powerful and fulfilling whole. Breath is a way to begin to reawaken our knowing of this connection.⁠

LEARN MORE ABOUT PARVATI

Lineage

Scaravelli

Vanda Scaravelli was a pupil of both BKS Iyengar and TKV Desikachar. Her unique approach, with attention to gravity, the breath and a natural wave in the spine, all in a natural playful rhythm, spoke to me at a very deep level and helped me trust more completely in the body’s innate wisdom. Though Scaravelli had few students, I was fortunate to complete a teacher training with one of them, Esther Myers.

Sivananda

I took my first yoga classes in Sivananda Yoga in Montreal in my teens. In early adulthood, I took my first yoga teacher training at the Sivananda ashram just outside the village of Neyyar Dam in the state of Kerala, India. There, I learned about the breadth of yogic culture and history, as well as yoga’s profound effect on day-to-day living. I came to see what a practical and comprehensive science yoga is, teaching us to live all aspects of life more fully.

Other Influences

After I returned from India, I studied Iyengar and Ashtanga Yoga, as well as chi kung. These came together in what I then called Total Yoga when I co-founded the University of Toronto’s Active Integration and Holistic Education Program. Over time, YEM arose effortlessly through my yoga and meditation practice.

Yoga has given me so much. YEM is my way of sharing that richness with you.