This is the Convent of the Poor Clares at Woodchester. It is a beautiful, peaceful, spiritual place: a Cotswold home for prayer and worship for the past two hundred and sixty years (the nuns left only last year). We know in our hearts that this old convent would be the perfect space to welcome you all: to join us for retreats and trainings, for inter-faith celebrations and camps, for intensive studies and personal retreats, for workshops and classes, and for quiet times of healing rest. We see it as a gracious open house for interfaith relations, for yoga and for devotional music and song.
3rd - 10th June 2012, near Glastonbury
A feast of yoga and bhakti for you this summer:
Seventh marvelous year for the warmhearted yoga and bhakti camp.
Provisional Schedule for Santosa June 2012 now available
Arrivals and set up Sunday 3 June. Welcome gathering Sunday evening.
First classes start dawn Monday 4 June.
Full programme of yoga and bhakti from dawn til dusk daily 4 – 9th June.
Last session, celebratory community Kirtan Saturday evening 9 June.
Pack up and departure day, Sunday 10th June.
Now with part week booking for those of you who can't make the whole camp.
In a truly astonishing turn of events, I am delighted to anounce that Mother Maya (Maya Tiwari) will be here in Stroud to offer Satsang and workshops at the Sitaram Yoga Studio on 11th and 12th November. She is an inspirational spiritual pioneer, and am deeeply honoured that she has been able to include a visit here to Stroud as part of her Living Ahimsa World Tour.
Mother Maya is also offering a full day workshop on Healing the Ancestors. Saturday 12 November 0930 til 1630. From the Womb Yoga perspective, I feel certain that the direction of positive and healing energies towards our mothers, grandmothers, great- grandmothers and deeper, more ancient souls in our matrilineal line is absolutely crucial to access the potential for deep healing in our own wombs, in our own lives, and in the lives of our daughters and granddaughters. I warmly encourage all womb yoginis and yogis to take advantage of this remarkable opportunity to work up close and personal with a truly powerful spiritual luminary in the collective work of healing for all our ancestors and to clear the way for a future of fully vital living and openness.
We have begun to develop YOGASEVAs 5 year vision. Below are lists of projects that we are currently working on. Do get in contact if you wish to be involved.
1.YOGASEVA shall establish Yoga in all mother and baby units based in womens prisons (there are currently 7 in the UK).
We have chosen a mala as the symbol for our project yogaseva.
The mala in the image is a string of beads, like a rosary. It can also be described as a garland or a wreath.
In yogic use, such a circle of beads is sometimes used to aid the counting of breaths or the repetition of mantra (sounds or words of spiritual significance) during meditation or chanting.
The Sanskrit root word of YOGA is 'yuj', from which we derive the English word 'yoke'. So it literally means to bring two things together. Yoga also means to concentrate one's attention in the sense of fixing one's mind and heart in such a way to join our own energies with that of our goal.
