Life’s Variety Show

And so the daily business and the immensity continue. Snow is melting in the northeast, creeks are drying up in the southwest, all against the backdrop of the changeless. Sky is sky, no matter what is falling out of it or evaporating back into it. Do we voice an opinion? Maybe. Or maybe not. We […]

Living in the Unknown

Life is full of surprises! We are always living in the unknown but we do not always know it. We only know it when something takes us by surprise. We may be pleasantly surprised or we may object vigorously, but ultimately, Life prevails. This time, Life is prevailing in the form of this physical body […]

Famous Last Words

Here are some famous last words: “Mehr licht” (“more light”) – Goethe “Ram” – Gandhi “Let’s rent a movie” – Swami Satchidananda (his way of encouraging his students to leave the room so he could pass in peace.) “Calcium carbonate” – from a geology professor who dropped dead in the middle of a lecture about […]

Not-news

So here’s the not-news: Just in case there was any confusion about This, the me-costume we are wearing is not permanent. In good times it could be seen as bad news. In bad times it could be seen as good news. But ultimately, we wear this me-costume in order to discover that what is beneath, […]

Yoga and Creativity

At the heart of the Kashmiri Tantric tradition is the effulgence of Pure Creativity, whether at the cosmic dimension as the Absolute takes manifestation as form, or at the individual level as silence emerges into word, sound and image. The Tantric masters of the medieval period were not only great yogis but also great writers, […]

If only

“Everything would be perfect if only…”  How long is the list? Everything would be perfect if I hadn’t failed tenth grade… if I could finish my taxes on time…if my neighbour were more cooperative about our adjoining hedge…if I could stick to my diet…if my son had a better job…if Sally didn’t have the flu…if Washington […]

Back to the Source

Still hanging out here in the Southwest (see photo above, once again) where the first tiny, improbable spring flowers are breaking parched ground, and the grey-green beginnings of lupen leafings appear in the canyons while patches of snow disappear from the peaks. A forest fire rages in the next range, 50 miles west, only 5% […]

Body Sensing Hiking

Here in these mountains (see photo above), it is so quiet that everything becomes a metaphor for everything else. Although marked trails and destinations may be known, as it were, just wandering about off-trail happens by itself, there being no need to get anywhere in particular. Sometimes, when just bushwhacking in a remote canyon, one […]

Gone Beyond and Still Here

“Joan” was reabsorbed into timeless spaciousness at “12:30pm” on “March 21” in “Montreal.” Ever our beloved teacher, she was speaking out about the mystery of reabsorption right up until the dissolution of speech. Some of her very last words were: “Living in the timeless it is always the end and it is always the beginning.” […]

entrevue avec joan ruvinsky

This interview was conducted in Montreal by Jean-Claude Leblond for Yoga Mondo, a French Quebec yoga magazine. YM : Where did you study yoga and how did you come to teach ? JR : Ultimately, there is only one place to study yoga, and that is in oneself. The notion of “studying” yoga risks leading […]