kat mansfield's yoga sangha

Show your Yoga Spirit.

Spread your love of yoga.

Do you know someone who could use a little yoga this season?

Through December 31st ~
purchase a 10 class pass for $10*.
(valid for first-time yogaspirit® students only.)

*offer excludes 6 week series classes. Passes expire February 28, 2010.

Call (978) 927-0099 or purchase right at the studio.

Saturday, December 5th, 2009, 4-6 PM at Union Studio Yoga, Andover

It’s the most wonderful time of the year.  Or not.  Depending.

Bring your spouse, life partner, business partner, brother, sister, mother, daughter, son or best friend and explore what it is to be in sync with another human being at the most wonderful time of the year.  Your level of yoga expertise is not a factor here.  Bring your open heart, sense of humor and holiday baggage. With humor, accessible yoga postures, courage, sankalpa (intention) and a festive lightness of heart, we’ll look at what it takes to get through Chrismakwanchanukah whole, in tact and full of joy.

All levels are invited to participate, ages 12 and up.

Fellow Yogi Mark T. has an extraordinary place available to rent or buy in Chelsea. As a help to the community, in this housing sensitive market, here’s the info:

Chelsea Loft for Rent/Sale

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2lXh2n0aPyw&feature=player_embedded

Take a look at the video link above.  We need more stairs like these!  More fun, less Cotton Mather-ishness, don’t you agree?

Please take a look at my updated teaching schedule, effective November 1st, 2009.

Mondays 12:15-1:15 PM Vinyasa Hour @ Yoga Spirit, Hamilton

Tuesdays 8:30-10 Am Vinyasa and 7:30-9 PM Vinyasa BOTH @ Yoga Spirit, Hamilton

Wednesdays 12:15-1:15 Vinyasa Hour @ Yoga Spirit, Hamilton and 5:30-6:45 @ Yoga Loft, Marblehead

Thursdays 8:30-10 AM Vinyasa @ Yoga Loft, Marblehead

Fridays 9:30-11 Vinyasa @ Union Studio Yoga, Andover

Saturdays 8-9 AM Vinyasa Hour @ Yoga Spirit, Hamilton

With lots of choices for 90 and 60 minute classes at really convenient times, and at studio locations around the North Shore,  I look forward to seeing you on the mat in November.

Jai, jai!

Yesterday, we took one last run in a friend’s boat, taking it up the coast, under the Gloucester bridges, through the Annisquam River and down to Essex through the inlet where it will go into dry dock for the winter. It was freezing cold but the light was extraordinary, the colors vibrant and everything beautiful about the North Shore was fully revealed. The dunes at Crane’s were gorgeous in the afternoon shadows. Hog Island and the Essex marshes were, simply, exquisite.  We were alone on the water, something unheard of in the summer, to enjoy this abundance and peace.

The channel marker to the entrance of the Essex River was submerged and we missed it, finding ourselves in less than 2 feet of water very suddenly, skimming over the sand bar across from Wingaersheek Beach. Thinking we would go aground, we stopped the engines and, in the silence, felt  helpless and a bit foolish as we contemplated what it would take to jump into the  53 degree water and push ourselves off if we hit bottom. In this moment of uncertainty, we realized we were uncharacteristically but woefully underprepared for this trip: no chart, no oars and twin engines with equalizer problems.  The channel was in a completely different place from the last time, two years ago, we had navigated this stretch of beach. Maybe it was the light, or the beauty or our fear, but we were all very quiet and calm.   And then, a gentle breeze lifted up, riffled the water and we drifted unharmed across the bar, missing the shoals and straight into the deep water of the channel.

Without charts and a mis-firing GPS, we talked to each other, making suggestions, looking for the next mark, and then the next, feeling our way through the Essex River channel.  We sighted a seal, which seemed to point us to the correct direction, avoiding the next sand bar.  There were cormorants, ducks and egrets flying everywhere.  Just as we had cleared the last of the shallow water and had found a straight path into the marina, a rainbow, a sort of multi-colored aurora, appeared in around the sun in the gathering clouds sitting low on the horizon.  It was an amazing sight- beautiful and powerful.

Twenty years ago, when my husband and I were married, my best friend read the following passage from the Old Testament during our wedding:

God said, ‘Here is the sign of the Covenant I make between myself and you and every living creature with you for all generations: I set my rainbow in the clouds and it shall be a sign of the Covenant between me and the earth.” (Genesis 9:12-13)

There it was.  The bow in the clouds, all the living creatures around us and safe deliverance to home port.  A blessing, loud and clear, in the guise of a boat trip.

I don’t quote the Bible often, nor do I attend church any more.  But sometimes, there is such a clear declaration of grace from the God of my youth, the God I knew when I was a member of the choir and the acolyte guild, a declaration so loud that I cannot ignore it.  So I share it with you here, and hope you are on the look-out, open for what grace is coming your way.

See you on the mat this week.

Is it just me, or has everyone been suffering from some sort of Turbo Electric Nuclear Chitta Vritti (fluctuations of the mind) in class lately? I feel as if, while teaching, I am practically shouting, “Hey, YOU! Any chance you’ll land on your mat sometime this hour?” I find myself, while calling the sequence, saying things like “pretend I am talking to YOU,” in the hope that something will connect.

Students laugh; this is all light hearted and meant with love. But minds are some kind of BUSY these days.

What’s distracting you?

Come to your mat, find out and get a handle on it.

Tuesday, 7:30-9 PM @ Yoga Spirit in Hamilton
Wednesday, 5:15-6:30 PM @ Yoga Loft, Marblehead
Friday, 9:30-11 AM @ Union Studio, Andover

See you on the mat, Busy Ones.

Sorry for yet another Mercury Retrograde communication glitch.

Hot Power Vinyasa at Yoga Loft, Marblehead is at 7 PM.

See you on the mat.

Lots of options this weekend:

Hips , the Mutha of All Movement, Friday, September 25th 9:30-11 at Union Studio, Andover

Torsion to discover what you can untwist and release, Saturday, September 26th 9:30-11 at Union Studio.

Back Bends Redux on Sunday, September 27th 9:30-11 AM at Union Studio, Andover

Hot, Sticky, Joyous Power on this Sunday afternoon 4:30-6 PM at Yoga Loft, Marblehead

Power ON! again on Monday, September 28th 7-8:30 PM at Yoga Loft, Marblehead

Inquisitive Vinyasa on Tuesday, September 29th 7:30-9 PM at Yoga Spirit, Hamilton

See you on the mat, Sannyasins.

I have the privilege of teaching 3 days, back to back, at Union Studio Yoga in Andover this weekend. Friday, September 25- Sunday, September 26th, I’ll be teaching a series from 9:30-11 am each day. Friday, we’ll look at hips as the mother of all movement. Saturday, we’ll explore twists, torsion, and revolutions of all sorts. Sunday, we’ll follow up last Saturday’s class and get into the Anatomy of Back Bends again.

Juicy stuff.  Come with your incredible open hearts and minds, a sense of your pure potentiality and we’ll see if we can raise the level of the Shawsheen a couple of inches.

I hope you come by. Ham/Wen folks, if you want to car pool, shoot me a word.

See you on the mat!