Why so fast?

Posted on June 8, 2014 by gydle

Yesterday as I was powering down Sasamat to meet a friend for a walk in the forest, I overtook a man and a small dog. The dog was setting the pace, waddling along and stopping frequently. As I passed them, I joked, “You guys are moving along at mach speed today!”

The man smiled. “It’s senior speed,” he replied. His love for this little fireplug of a dog was palpable in the air as I passed.

Later, in the park, my friend and I were surprised by a huge guy wearing earbuds who flung himself off a wooden walkway at top speed, nearly mowing us down. He pounded into the distance, leaving us gasping in his wake. Continue reading →

The underpinnings

Posted on April 23, 2014 by gydle

I’ve been doing some mindfulness meditation lately. It’s about the simplest “activity” you can imagine – you just sit on the floor, on a cushion, close your eyes, and breathe. And I’m not just doing this because I’ve moved to Vancouver and gone all yoga. Okay, it’s partly that. But it’s also been scientifically proven to build you a better brain.

Studies have shown that you can improve blood pressure and anxiety levels, increase cognitive capacity, and stave off aging just by sitting and doing nothing at all. A Harvard prof has done research that shows that it only takes 8 weeks of a meditation practice to rewire your brain. The brains of the meditators actually got thicker in areas involved in attention and sensory processing. It’s like doing pushups for your brain! (And here I thought it was a bad thing to have a thick head…) Continue reading →

Reality check

Posted on April 15, 2014 by gydle

Think for a minute: When was your last existential crisis?

Who, me? you say. Existential crisis? I don’t have existential crises. I’m a rational thinker. I’m practically an engineer.

I think everybody has existential crises, whether we recognize them as such or not. They’re in the high points, in the low points, in the situations that push you over an edge into a new thing. They’re moments in which you get a glimpse of the uncertainty at the very root of everything that is, and wonder about what your place in it could possibly be. You, this little wad of flesh and bone and bacteria. Continue reading →

Home

Posted on March 13, 2014 by gydle

Last week, while I was writing about the word that is the same in every language, (huh?), Marc was traveling back to Switzerland to confer with his PhD students and check in on our first-born. When he landed, he sent me an e-mail: “In Geneva waiting for the train for Morges…..all the usual emotions of coming back somehow…”

I asked him on skype later if he felt homesick. A little, he admitted. Well, we had lived in Switzerland for almost ten years, three years longer than any other place we’d lived before. I think I made a sympathetic noise. But I can’t really relate, because I’m not really homesick for Switzerland. I’m still enjoying shopping on Sunday and all these yoga classes. Continue reading →

The she-wolf

Posted on February 27, 2014 by gydle

Do you ever find that when you start to pay attention to a thing, all sorts of coincidences line up to help you hone your focus? Keep you from letting it go? It’s almost as if the universe is saying “Finally! I can’t believe it took you so long!” Continue reading →

Showing up

Posted on February 12, 2014 by gydle

I have a favorite website, called Brainpickings, whose curator, Maria Popova, assembles interesting, thought-provoking and inspiring things from all walks of art and literature. I can’t count the times I’ve gone down the rabbit hole of the site and emerged, hours later, thoughts spinning in new directions. You should definitely check it out.

She often posts about writers’ daily routines, and what inspires them. There are so many things that can get in the way of creativity. All these artists seem to agree on one thing, though. You can’t create if you don’t sit down and just do something. I think photorealist Chuck Close said it best:

Inspiration is for amateurs — the rest of us just show up and get to work.” Continue reading →

The One-body Problem

Posted on December 2, 2013 by gydle

Hello, December. What happened to November? All of October I was busy with the Yoga Project, happily scribing away my impressions, downward-dogging my way into a new yoga comfort zone. And then it seemed that November just floated right on by. And then yesterday, December 1, I opened the New York Times (oh joy) and I realized that I had been subconsciously working on a blog post for the entire month. It’s long, but I hope you still read it.

I’ll call it the One Body Problem. Which is this: We only get one body. This is it. You get the body you were born with, like it or not. And then you die. Continue reading →

Fantastic Friday

Posted on November 30, 2013 by gydle

It’s Black Friday!

I’ve been seeing this everywhere this week – BLACK FRIDAY!!

Just a quick reminder, folks – I’m currently living in Canada, where yesterday wasn’t Thanksgiving and today is not a holiday. Apparently, in an effort to keep the good people of Canada from driving across the border, or at least clicking their mice and spending their credit card dollars on websites across the border, Candian retailers have jumped on the “holiday shopping” bandwagon otherwise known as Thanksgiving.

This whole thing is just so wrong on so many levels. Continue reading →

TYP part 7

Posted on October 28, 2013 by gydle

My apologies for the lack of posts over the past couple of weeks. Things got away from me – we had visitors, I volunteered for a writer’s festival, there were translations in my inbox…

A comment by one of our visitors (yes, you, Roger) validated my hunch that my current spate of yoga-writing needs to come to an end, at least for the time being. You can only read so much about yoga, and then you need to go do it for yourself.

Today marks the end of my $25 smorgasbord yoga pass. In one month, I went to all four studios, had eleven different instructors, and tried out three different styles of yoga. I’d call that a fair trial. It was also a resounding success. I have given the good people of Semperviva access to my credit card so I can continue. Continue reading →

TYP Part 6

Posted on October 15, 2013 by gydle

Thanks for the positive feedback, friends. And so the saga continues!

It has taken me all weekend to digest the class I took last Friday enough to be able to write about it. I even did a repeat of Last Sunday’s class on Sunday (the one with P — ), rather than test out a new teacher, so I would at least be doing something predictable. That said, here goes…

Day 8: Friday, October 11, 9:00

I cycle down to the Kits Beach studio early this morning to be sure I get a decent spot. I’ve decided to try something different today – a class called “Kundalini,” billed on the website as:

“A dynamic, powerful, fast paced and effective form of yoga that produces quick results. Benefits include weight control, relief from stress and insomnia, enhanced creativity, lymphatic cleansing, liver detoxification, balancing the heart and mind, and developing will-power. … Each class includes centering oneself with a mantra, warm up, a specific yoga postures set, deep relaxation and meditation.” Continue reading →

Gydle

Category Archives: Philosophy