Yoga: Another Strand of the Weave of Writing, Creativity and Ritual 

Cathy Eising is a certified Iyengar instructor with ten years of teaching experience. She finds yoga a journey on many levels where learning never stops and there is an avenue for every stage of life and physical condition. Her most personal and often difficult journey is into the self (svadyaya). She has a deep appreciation for her teachers who have given so much and it is her joy to share this understanding with her fellow students on the path of yoga. In 1998, she received international certification from the Ramamani Iyengar Memorial Yoga Institute (RIMI) in Poona, India. She studies on a regular basis with Mary Dunn, a senior Iyengar teacher.

You do not need any previous yoga experience to take advantage of the yoga part of the retreat!  Cathy will incorporate simple yoga techniques that are adaptable to everyone, breathing exercises and inner focus to free ourselves of the constraints of the ego and unblock avenues of expression that lead to a deeper creativity. Everyone's physical condition will be addressed and respected.

In addition, Cathy will teach optional daily classes for beginning and more advanced yoga practitioners.

On a personal note, Cathy has been Emily's yoga teacher for five years. Cathy is by far the best teacher she has ever had and she is delighted to have Cathy's inspiring teaching and expertise on the retreat!

How Does Yoga Help Unleash Creativity?

Yoga, like creativity, shifts our awareness from the outer to the inner world through discipline of the body and breath. This discipline is not rigid. Rather yoga opens up the flow between the inner and outer worlds. There is a continuous interchange wherein the body and mind communicate at a subtle and harmonious level that releases dependence on the outer world.

Writing is a visceral experience born of a deep longing for authenticity that carries us inward to a self we often do not consciously know. As creative women, we hunger for this self that dances to a song the outer world cannot hear much less understand. Images, memories, stories, characters rise up out of our unconscious but are stored in different parts of our bodies. They race along with our blood, are held taut by the muscles, flow on the breath and remain hidden, sometimes stuck in our sinews. Yoga brings physical awareness to the creative process and thus becomes another avenue to retrieve these images, emotions and stories held in the body. The release may come from accessing a particular muscle, concentrating on the breath or opening to the stillness that arises from the continual flow of the inner, outer, inner worlds.