For those that feel

One day during a niching exercise, the instructor asked us "Why?! - why this work, why this offering, who is it for, what are they feeling?"

This was the very inelegant answer that poured out of me.

For those of us who are heartbroken about what we humans are doing to Nature.

EcoYogaTherapy(TM) uses Yoga and Nature to heal the pain and disconnect to create a deeper sense of peace, place and connection.

We do this through contemplation, awareness, yogic techniques and applied eco-psychology activities...and by having the conversations that begin the healing of our personal & societal, mental & emotional disconnect to Nature, Earth AND ourselves.

EcoYogaTherapy(TM) arose out of years of helping yoga students understand Nature's language, working through the distrustful stories about our senses being something to 'turn off' and how forcing our bodies is somehow 'spiritual'.

EcoYogaTherapy(TM) is a calling back, a remembering of what it's like to listen to the subtler in-the-moment communication that Nature and our inner nature are expressing.

It's a honouring of our innate connection to Earth, ourselves as part of Nature, and our own internal spaces.

There's a knowing within that we belong in harmony and communication with Nature.

This knowing comes from within the wisdom body, the Vijnanamaya (wisdom body).

It's also for those of us who wish to be deeply connected but not appropriating.

Let's break it down a little further...

Eco is a Greek word that means house/home. In our daily vernacular we use the word Eco in reference to Earth, ecology, Nature. When something is eco-friendly it is environmentally friendly.

Yoga is a both a practice and an experience that calls us back into our koshas (bodies). It asks us to introvert and to look within to find our own direct understanding and experience of ourselves, life, and others. It demands we settle into presence and be with reality. In this way, it calls us back to a place of natural connection - home, if you will.

Why then, are our practices so removed from Nature? Not just physically removed, but also mentally and emotionally removed.

Societally, we think of Nature as a playground, a place to retreat to, something to be overcome; not as a relationship to be nurtured.

And yet, there's something that draws us back home in our yoga - you can see it subtly making its way out of the shadows; there are thousands of pictures of people 'doing' yoga postures in Natural settings, retreats are almost always set in Natural areas.

Why?

It seems to me that we intuitively know that Yoga is a practice that needs Nature to be whole. We need Nature to be whole, connected, free, peaceful, and healthy.

As our world gets faster and busier we are slowly realizing the need to nurture ourselves and to slow down, but what if nurturing ourselves meant nurturing our Nature as well?

In EcoYogaTherapy(TM) we delve directly into Nature and Yoga, feel for and remember the threads and connection of these two that are one. By healing this divide of Nature & Inner Nature we can experience a deep sense of Yoga, oneness, connection, and what it means to be a human in all of this.

It's an environmentally friendly and inner nature friendly practice.