It’s the end of another year – seems like the older we get the quicker time moves! It’s been a big year for us with the birth of our beautiful baby girl Tula. She has come with many teachings for us, learning patience, endless kindness, being with tears and upset, and immense gratitude for her life and presence. We’re especially grateful for friends and family and our community – so priceless! And I feel more than ever that life is precarious, that ease in every day is precarious and even a very simple event could radically alter our lives. Each moment therefore is a reason to celebrate. Small happenings in our lives are cause for great joy.

There is a wonderful practice in gratitude – learning to be grateful even when challenged, even when life is not flowing for us, and of course when we do feel blessed and in a good space.

The 21 Gratitudes

Try this at home: sit with a friend or partner and take turns in sharing 21 things you are grateful for in your life. Anything works, from being grateful for your partner, to being grateful for the rose you smelt earlier in the day. You can also do this practice by yourself of course – just before going to sleep is sweet. A moving way… put on some music, have a dance Read the rest of this entry »

A couple of years ago Sacha and I were walking the Camino De Santiago, an 8ookm pilgrimage across northern Spain. An incredible journey, one of the best experiences of my life. Rich, rewarding and certainly challenging, it became a walking meditation that we just didn’t want to end.

It’s an old Catholic pilgrimage route but people of all faiths and traditions walk the route, and many walk it simply for the joy of hiking across a very beautiful country. On average it takes between 4-6 weeks to complete – plenty of time to reflect on one’s life, connect with the land and challenge my body. I met one guy who runs marathons regularly who was struggling, another who was 74 years old with prostate cancer, overtook me while carrying a 20kg pack.

Read the rest of this entry »

Looking down at our baby Tula at 3am a few days ago and she seemed so utterly vulnerable. She is fully and absolutely reliant on either Sacha or myself for survival. It is quite a responsibility. And it is also an amazing opportunity!

For what I recognise is the inner response within me to meet that vulnerability – a drive to meet it with love, kindness and patience. It’s not a chore at all – though it is a challenge to wake up night after night at 3am, but 10 mins after getting up, and we’re sitting together eye gazing, it’s sweet! Of course this inner response to our baby’s vulnerability is completely natural – nature’s way of making sure we all survive entering this world.

But there is something deeper going on too because being vulnerable doesn’t stop once we reach 18 and let our parents be.

On many levels our vulnerability continues throughout our life. Keep Reading >>

Someone said to me yesterday that with a baby, the days are long and the years are short. Mmmm, I can already see what they mean.

It’s been just about 4 weeks since the birth of our baby girl, and it seems like 4 months and yet on another level it’s all gone so quickly. Tula Bliss was born on the morning of 22 June – a very beautiful experience for us two three – Tula was born in a pool, at our home on Waiheke, no complications, though of course birthing was  intense. So many amazing moments, connecting eye to eye, soul to soul, learning to be parents, sleep deprivation (no matter what people tell you nothing prepares you for so many sleepless nights), changing nappies endlessly, endless feeding sessions, figuring out an approach to bouts of baby crying….

It’s a steep learning curve that’s for sure and every day seems like a long adventure. That’s why the days are long, and we have to be so present, that the weeks are beginning to pass by.  And we wouldn’t have it any other way.

In the past mothers would say to me that they wish they could come to yoga class but don’t have the time as it’s all taken up being a parent. And I would reply, “Well that’s a yoga practice in itself, looking after a young being.” And now I truly know what it is like. Looking after Tula has opened my heart, opened me to new levels of unconditional kindness and unconditional service.

Yogis and Buddhists often talk about service and kindness as spiritual paths, and I have truly felt the truth of that over the last 4 weeks.

Keep Reading >>

Dear friends,

As you can see this is our new Sacred Moves website! We’re beginning afresh and we hope you like the new look. It will hopefully be easier to update and also gives us new functionality – like this blog! So please feel welcome to browse around the site, and send us some feedback too.

New Beginnings…Entering the Unknown…
For Sacha and myself, these are big times…we have just a few weeks to go til our first baby is due. Well in fact the little soul could arrive at any time, and there’s one of the first teachings I have received from our baby. It seems to be a great unknown! When will the baby arrive? What will the labour be like for us? The birthing? Being a parent of a new born? Keep Reading >>