I am excited about launching woods walks! For a long time I have been wanting to integrate the beauty of the Wissahickon with the profound nature of our time on the mat. I have several ideas for a number of initial hikes… and possibly creating some outdoor practices as a result if the interest is there…
As many of you know, my lens through which I teach Yoga is focused on maintaining and improving health, wholeness and wellbeing. The mat gives us opportunity, as does the woods; in fact there is a whole healing modality called Forest Bathing that originated in Japan. It’s sort of funny that science has to tell us that the woods are beneficial to our health.. but thats exactly what the Japanese discovered and there was even a governmental push to get the Japanese people into the woods on a regular basis to improve the overall populations health and longevity.
so… with this as our inspiration we are launching our first walk, and calling it ‘Sensory Delights’.
It will be lead by myself and Margaret Kinnevy.
This first offering will be held on Saturday May 4th at 6:30am. We will meet at the studio and carpool to a trail head. The walk will walk for about 2 miles and will return to the studio in time for Jake’s 8am class.
As this is our inaugural walk, I am not sure exactly what to expect.. maybe we will be silent, may be we will chat, maybe we will name plants, may be we will simple observe them; what I do know is that we will wash ourselves in Sensory Delights..
the endless different shades of green, the myriad of bark textures, the amazing smells, the feel of the air on our skin, the colors of the ground and the sky…
If there is interest in this walk we will happily do it again another Saturday morning in May.
I have a vision of eventually creating a group of Yogis and Yoginis to ‘ conquer’ the “All Trails Challenge” sponsored by Friends of the Wissahickon together.
Maybe an outdoor practice will evolve, may be a workshop.., we’ll see, but I’m excited!!
Pada, Pada (step by step)
s
