Seymour River – Karen's New York Love Affair

Yoga & Nature: The Four Directions—2013

2013 Dates TBD – Vancouver

Yoga is…

… union or communion. B.K.S. Iyengar

… a poise of the soul which enables one to look at life in all its aspects evenly. Mahadev Desai

… a way of remembering our true nature, which is essentially joyful and peaceful. Donna Farhi

… an act of kindness toward oneself. Judith Hanson Lasater

Spend a summer morning in the North Shore mountains, just 20 minutes from downtown Vancouver and 10 minutes from the Commercial Drive area, exploring your yoga practice in nature. We will spend the morning in an idyllic sandy spot in nature.

You will learn the nature psychology of the four directions, an ancient-modern model of understanding the psyche of humans and nature. Each cardinal direction has its own colours, textures, seasons, stages of life, and qualities of true nature. We will explore the qualities embodied by the directions through yoga poses that connect these elemental energies with your own physicality. This is an opportunity to deepen into your connection to yourself and the natural world.

Enjoy the carefree feeling of being a child outdoors, the vivid colours of summer, and the beauty of our westcoast rainforest with a small group of people like you who are interested in exploring the depths of nature.

Location TBD, North Vancouver

Date & Time Saturday, Date TBD, 10:00 am – 1:00 pm

Cost $69

Carpooling We will meet at 9:40 am at a location on Commercial Drive to carpool to the location.

To register Click the Registration tab and complete the form.

Questions Contact Karen at 604.251.6337 or email info@klove.nyc.

About the teacher

Karen Rempel is a certified and registered yoga instructor, and spent a year as a volunteer teaching yoga to youth in prison. She’s also taught yoga to seniors in Merritt, and developed a Yoga for the Office program that she teaches in Vancouver. She is certified and registered through Yoga Alliance and YogaBC. She is also a trained wilderness guide.

Medicine Walk: Wisdom of the Four Directions—June 23, 2012

Finding Healing and Guidance in Nature

June 23, 2012 – Vancouver

“Journeys start from where we are. Everything starts from where we are. Where we are is where we’re supposed to be.” – Evelyn Eaton, The Shaman and the Medicine Wheel

This day-trip in the North Shore mountains, just 20 minutes from downtown Vancouver, and 10 minutes from the Commercial Drive area, will teach you tools and ceremonies for working in nature to access your own inner guidance and the guidance that nature can bring. This could be in the form of answers to questions, deepening connection with the greater mystery, healing, letting go, accepting, or gaining new strength. Whatever you need is available to you, and can be reflected to you through the mirror of nature. You will learn different ways of working with the four directions to access this guidance.

Our ceremony will begin with setting our intentions for the day and creating a sacred container for learning by creating an altar together. You will learn the four shields, an ancient model of understanding the psyche of humans and nature. Each shield corresponds to a cardinal direction, with its own colours, textures, seasons, stages of life, and qualities of true nature.

Then you’ll explore what you’ve learned on a solo medicine walk. After brief instruction, you will go on your own solo walk in nature, seeking guidance from our dear earth mother and her diverse creatures. Following in the footsteps of our ancestors from many cultures and traditions, this solo time includes fasting from food, human company, and human-built shelters. At the end of the day we will break our fast together with brown-bag lunches while we share our stories with each other around the circle.

See here for an account of last year’s inspirational medicine walk by the rushing Seymour River.

9:00 AM to 5:00 PM Saturday
We’ll meet at a location in the Commercial Drive area and carpool from there. Bring your lunch. Wear comfortable shoes for walking on hiking trails, as part of the day will be spent wandering through the woods by the Seymour River.

Cost: $50 (free for those who wish to participate if the fee is an obstacle)
To register, please fill in the online Registration Form. For payment information, see Fees.

Nature’s mirror and guidance on the medicine walk

On Saturday, July 16, three hardy souls joined me for the four directions teaching and medicine walk at the Lower Seymour Conservation Reserve. The day was grey but our hearts were light as we joined together in the ancient ceremony of sitting in circle on the earth. Our basecamp was in a sand-floored clearing beside the Seymour River. The river’s water level was much higher than it was during last year’s event, due to all the rain Vancouver has been getting this year. I was worried that the entire clearing might be under water, but luckily, there was space for us to put up a tarp to seek shelter from the rain. The participants helped me to erect the tarp, and I must say we erected a very skookum shelter for ourselves! There was a slight mishap with a falling branch, but luckily no harm was done and it became part of our group story for the day.

There was a berry-filled bank of bushes containing the gold to ruby tones of salmon berries, and we stopped to sample these on our way to the basecamp site, and again on our way back up the trail at the end of the day. It is so wonderful to find literal as well as figurative nourishment from nature, freely offered! One of the gifts of the south and summertime is the lush fruits of the earth, there to pluck and to share with the other creatures.

Once our shelter was ready, we set up an altar with coloured stones for the four directions. Each person placed an object that was special to them on the altar, and we had a circle-round of sharing our current state in the moment and our intentions for the walk. I felt very moved by how strongly each person had felt called to come on this walk to explore something they cared deeply about. When I set the date and put out the offering for the day’s event, I offered the day quite lightly (partly because I never know if anyone will want to accept the offer), but it seems to send forth an energetic beam that draws people who are really into what I am offering. This is magical to me, and I am so grateful. As I have mentioned previously on this blog, the flow of events unfolding is an important indicator to me of how to offer my gifts into the world. If I offer something and there is no response, I conclude either it is not the right time, or it is not the right offering. This year three people came, and a few others almost came, so this tells me the flow is happening! And that bringing the nature teaching closer to Vancouver (rather than only offering events at Monkey Valley) was a good idea. I feel so psyched about the medicine walk day that I am inspired to offer a yoga and the four directions workshop in the same location in September!

After a teaching on the four directions, and some grounding in safety principles for their solo walk, the three participants set off on their three-hour meander through the woods. When they returned, all safe and not even too wet considering the heavy downpour that occurred during the first hour of their walk, I felt joyful to see their faces. We had a late lunch together, and each person told their story of what occurred during their walk. It was such a gift to hear how nature responded to their open-hearted intentions. Each person had a unique story, and it was fascinating how the details of their journey reflected their inner guidance and wisdom. The mirroring of nature is so beautiful! I am always amazed at how it seems that exactly what is needed is what occurs on the medicine walk, in the sacred space of the ancient ceremony. The perfection of the unfolding of the universe is revealed so clearly when the intention is to see.

Part 2: Aggressive owl clouts runner on the head

Well, after my magical experience on Wednesday night, I was quite looking forward to my run Thursday night, hoping to see the great grey owls again. On the way down the trail, I didn’t see them, but I thought it was still too early. It wasn’t quite dusk yet. On the way back, sure enough, as I neared the same spot where I had seen the owls Wednesday night, suddenly an owl flew over my head, landing on a branch nearby.

I stopped, and bowed to the owl, thanking it for coming to visit me again. I opened my awareness to pure consciousness, wanting to sense the field of the owl and listen for anything it might be wanting to tell me. After a few moments, I heard a sound behind me. I turned to look, and the second owl was there, on a branch about the height of my head, only about six feet away. What a gift, to have the owls trust me and come so close!

When I turned back to look at the first owl, it was gone, but suddenly it swooped over my head again. I remembered stories about great grey owls that I’ve heard from friends recently, and recalled that they can be aggressive, even knocking peoples’ hats off their head. It occurred to me that maybe the owl was telling me to hit the road, that I was too close to the nest or something. I said this to the owls, that I would continue on my way, and turned to continue running up the path. Next thing I knew, one of the owls had struck me very forcefully on the top of my head. Ouch! What a shock! It was a forceful blow, quite amazing considering these owls only weigh about four pounds.

Okay, okay, I get the message, I’m leaving! I thought. I continued to run up the path, and one of the owls swooped very close to my head again, though it didn’t strike me this time. It continued swooping in loops alongside me a few more times, until I came to the same bend in the road as the previous night. There the two owls perched, and watched as I left their territory. I paused to say goodbye, voicing the fact that I didn’t much like being struck that way, but still appreciated their presence.

As I continued up the next bit of trail, the full impact of what had happened sunk in. I began to cry as I ran. My head hurt, but what hurt more was my heart. I had been so open to the presence of the birds, feeling like it was a gift. I thought I was special, and that the encounter was proof that I have some kind of special connection with nature. I have longed for closeness with wild creatures, and the night before it had seemed this was what was happening. And also it had seemed a clear answer to a question I was holding. In previous times, when people were closer to the land, the land and her creatures were ensouled with meaning, and such encounters had significance. I had sought this significance myself, but in feeling physically hurt, it seemed all of this was wiped away. I was just a fool on a run, blundering through an owl’s territory, unwelcome. All of this wounded my pride, my identity, shook up my view of reality.

Suddenly I had more sympathy for people who feel frightened of nature. Perhaps this is what was most upsetting about the encounter (and also the gift, to understand how others feel). I have always felt nature is a friendly place, or at worst neutral. But it’s a place I have felt safe, and have trusted. This encounter shook that trust. I don’t know yet the full impact on me. To be continued…

Part 1: I heard the owl call the chefs’ names

Something quite wonderful happened on my run in the Seymour Forest on Wednesday night that I must tell you about. I did a 90-minute run along the Seymour River, where I always finish by coming up a steep 1 KM trail called the Homestead Trail. There is a bend in the trail near the top, right before the steepest section, with a creek bed that is usually dry but very green and filled with ferns. The trees are very old here, some of them huge, and the clear forest floor is red from the accumulation of dry pine needles. It is a beautiful spot on the run. As I was coming up to this spot I was thinking about the idea of Joe and Wahl doing the cooking at the ChiRunning and Yoga Retreat next year, turning it over in my mind.

Suddenly, as I neared the bend, a great grey owl flew over my head! It wasn’t totally silent, otherwise I wouldn’t have heard it… It came to rest on a branch overhead, and I stopped to say hello and thank it for its presence. It was dusk, so I couldn’t see details clearly, but the owl seemed to be grey, rounded head (no visible ear tufts like the great horned owl), with lighter feathers at the bottom of the tail. The owl looked at me for a long time, and after a while it made a sound like FFFFFsh. and then I heard another sound behind me. I looked, but couldn’t see what had made the sound. Then I realized there was a second great grey owl behind me!

I hung out with them both for about 10 minutes. They flew around a bit, coming closer to me to get a better look! Silent, puffy flight, but noise hopping from a branch to a lower branch, and once or twice noise opening their wings. One time I looked at one and the other one flew away without me hearing a thing. But they seemed interested in me, flew to nearer branches, both looked at me. They also both flew at each other and dislocated the roosting one from a branch. It was such a wonderful gift!

For reasons which I can’t reveal here, it was obvious that nature was providing a very clear answer to the question about the chefs. Joe and Wahl absolutely must come and do the cooking next time! Grey owl said so! 🙂 And I was thrilled both to have this magical encounter, and to have what I thought was a very clear answer to a question, for a change! To be continued…

Six days to the Vancouver Half!

Spring is here, with several cougar emails in my mailbox, fresh blossom scent in the air, and runners gearing up for the Vancouver Marathon and Half Marathon, as well as the Sun Run after that. I had a couple delicious runs in the cool spacious air of early evening this weekend—one along the river, running in the fresh mountain air, and one along the Burrard Inlet. The gap in mountains at the right side of the photo (taken from my back deck) shows where I run north into the mountains along a trail beside the Seymour River.

The spaciousness and cool air of the runs reminds me of what Chogyam Trungpa calls stepping out of the musty, familiar cocoon. The familiar patterns of behaviour and familiar sense of self that comprise the ego can feel very comfortable and cozy, but there is a staleness to the cocoon. Now that spring is here I invite you to step out of the cocoon, if only for a few minutes. Let your thoughts quiet for a moment and sense the cool expansive spaciousness that is all through and around your head. Try one new thing, or an old thing in a new way, and taste the freshness that awaits us all outside of the cocoon!

Kath running and pre-emptive forgiveness

The kath is the belly centre, also known as the hara (in some Buddhist traditions) and the don tien (in martial arts) or dantien. In the Diamond Approach we use the term kath, and one of the foundational practices is the kath meditation. The kath centre is also known as the moving centre, so on my run in the mountains by the Seymour River yesterday, I experimented with doing the kath meditation while running. Running is definitely a form of movement!

A while ago on a vision fast in Colorado, Ann Debaldo, a student of the Diamond Approach and apprentice on that vision fast, told me that focusing on the kath would help my feet find their way in the dark. I have certainly found this to be true on night runs when I can’t see the path. But yesterday I tried it in broad daylight, and what a revelation! First, I could see so much more of my surroundings by looking straight ahead rather than at the path. My eyes and soul could take in the magnificent greenness of the forest and the purity and freshness of the snowy mountain peaks ahead. Also, by focusing on the kath, my mind was much more still, which meant I could absorb the impact of the surroundings more. This is what I long for when I run in the forest; to be impacted by the beauty of nature, and have that freshness enliven the dead, stale spaces of my soul that get trapped in endless dry thought patterns. It was so refreshing!

And finally, I find it very difficult to rest in the kath centre when I do my sitting meditation each morning. But resting in the kath while running was very easy! I felt a fullness there, like a thick liquid, resilient and substantial. It actually seemed motionless, though my body was in movement. It was a wonderful way to experience the kath. And my feet did indeed find their way, over stones and sticks, potholes and lumps, with speed and agility. I recommend that you try this the next time you go for a run. Just bring your awareness into your belly, below the belly button. And keep bringing it back there when the mind wanders away. I’d love to hear about your experience after you’ve tried it!

By the way, the other thing that I did was to keep my eyes focused straight ahead or looking around at the mountains, trees, and river, rather than on the path. Keeping the eyes focused straight ahead is one of the techniques of ChiRunning. Angela James told me that she had one of her best race times ever when she focused on this technique. If you are interested in learning more about ChiRunning, check out the ChiRunning and yoga retreat at Monkey Valley in July!

And finally, I want to mention an interesting idea I came across in the Winter 2009 issue of Circles on the Mountain, the publication of the Wilderness Guides Council. The Hawaiian Maoli people have an ideal of Mihikala—the act of giving and receiving forgiveness before it is needed. Imagine the freedom of being able to forgive someone, rather than get upset, even before they do the thing that would upset you! The longing for freedom from reactivity is very strong in me these days, so this idea has much appeal. I will try to practice it on the other drivers during the drive in to work this morning!