Join Eoin in Melbourne on his Australian Tour 2012 when he visits Union Yoga.

Friday, April 20, 18:00-20:00 |  YOGA FOR HAPPINESS – SWEAT YOUR TENSION AWAY

Happiness is our inner nature. We can always use more of it and the more we give it away, the more it comes back to us. Expect a 20-30 minute Blissology discussion, exploring strategies for more joy, awe and love and understanding yoga’s role on our bliss path.  Then we will flow into Eoin’s dynamic, alignment-based Vinyasa yoga class.  All levels are welcome in the “All Levels, All Good” experience. Expect to release tension from the body, because to be happy, sometimes we try to hard.  You will be surprised what happens when you are in a room filled with positive energy with great yoga and music. Once stress and tension leaves the body, not only are you healthier but happiness will abound. Come enjoy a big dose of this Blissology experience! All levels welcome.

Saturday, April 21, 11:30-14:30 | REVOLUTIONIZE YOUR YOGA: ALIGN YOUR PRACTICE, ALIGN YOUR LIFE

When someone has mastered something they can experience great results with effortless ease.  This workshop is about becoming a master of Yoga in the gravitational field using some revolutionary Blissology Yoga concepts. Suitable to both beginners and advanced yogis, you will learn how to balance steadiness with ease, how to relax into gravity and how to surf its currents.  Even though there is a lot of great knowledge, this workshop will also be fun and deeply transformational.  Expect to tackle the intricacies of downward dog, standing balances, Handstand, forearm balance and more.  You will be surprised when you have this knowledge how easy some of the most challenging poses can be and how deep and therapeutic even basic poses are. Your practice will never be the same.

All levels welcome.    Don’t miss this experience.

Saturday, April 21, 16:00-18:00 | THE PURSUIT OF HAPPY HIPS ™: THEORY AND VINYASA PRACTICE

The energy of the hip area can be alive and vital, or dull and dormant.  The hips are the connecting point between the upper and lower body.  Furthermore, the hip area is where we experience significant tightness, both from the stresses of our sporting activities as well as from the inactivity of sitting in chairs for more hours in a week than our ancestors could have imagined possible.

Find out what rules we need to follow to help keep the yoga practice safe and beneficial to our physiology, while also learning how many rules actually restrict us.  Then participate in Eoin’s flowing series of poses that will leave you feeling blissful and ecstatic.

This workshop is taught in Eoin’s All Levels, All Good Approach, with modifications for beginners and plenty of juiciness for intermediates and advanced yogis.  We are talking freedom, baby!

Sunday, April 22, 11:30-13:30 | VINYASA EARTH PUJA

Make your Yoga practice a ritual to honour our connection to the Earth at this crucial time in our planet’s existence with renowned Yogi, Blissologist and Ocean Workshipper Eoin Finn.  Experience true interconnectedness, not just with our own body-mind, but also with our personal relationships, our communities and how we treat out larger environment.

Expect a vigorous and fluid vinyasa practice infused with lightheartedness and depth, followed by Eoin’s unique earth-body meditation to leave us feeling plugged in to the source of deep awe, joy and bliss.

Don’t carry the weight of the world on your shoulders or shoulder any burden. Instead feel strong, balanced, free and open in this crucial area that many yoga practices seem to overlook give minimal attention at best.

In this workshop you will get a better understanding of proper shoulder functioning, get stronger and release from stress and tension that didn’t know existed.

You will also see how opening the shoulders contributes to better breathing, more joy, an even helps yoga poses like back bends and twists.

You will feel like you have come out of icy cold water and landed in a hot tub of ecstasy after learning and applying Blissology Alignment Principles followed by an experience of Vinyasa Flow.

Everything is within the framework of bringing more joy, awe, bliss and connection in the world. Come play!

By, Insiya Rasiwala-Finn

(originally published in Asia Spa, Jan 2012)

How can we prepare ourselves for this New Age?  Here are some strategies to help you create your own personal transformation as we step not only into a new year, but a New Age.

2. Have a practice:
Bali based Kundalini yoga teacher Daphna Dor is enthusiastic about the Age of Aquarius.  Infact, she led a special meditation on 11/11/2011 at 11:11 a.m.; one of a chain of meditations occuring across the globe to promote world peace.

“I believe that this is a coming of age for humanity,” she said.  “We have to take responsibility for our actions, we have to share our responsibility.  We can add to raising the frequency of unity and oneness but only if we let go of the “me me me” as it doesn’t sustain us anymore, before we crash as a species on our planet. You cannot hide behind the consequences of the way we have been living. It’s almost like things had to come to a contraction in order for us to take a leap forward.”

“The most responsible way we can do this,” she continued, “is to have a practice.  Be it yoga, medtitation, whatever calls to you.  Having a practice will allow you to cushion yourself to shift and prepare for a new way of thinking and being. “

Dor believes that practices such as Kundalini Yoga will gain in popularity in the new age, particularly because of their emphasis on the spiritual nature of Yoga and devotional or Bhakti Yoga.  Anusara Yoga and other practices that combine physical yoga with heart based connection will also continue to spread, as they offer more than simply an asana practice.

Committ to creating a practice for yourself this year.  Set aside as little as ten minutes a day to meditate, do yoga, tai chi, whatever it is that allows your mind and body to feel connected, fluid and strong.  Just as a mother needs to be strong to birth a baby, we need to be strong in mind and body to face the turmoil and chaos as we move from old ways of thinking into new.  As the late Ashtanga Yoga guru Shri. Pattabhis Jois famously remarked, “Practice and all is coming.”

3. Sustain your energy reserves:

Dr. of Traditional Chinese Medicine, Ayurveda teacher and author of a new book, Balance Your Hormones, Balance Your Life; Dr. Claudia Welch cautions our tendency to “do too much while not getting enough physical or emotional nourishment.”  Between holding down a job, maintaining relationships, caring for our families, we simply blow through the energy we earn each night from sleep, good food and good company. If this happens for too long, we dip into our reserves, which depletes our core nourishment.

“This is no more sustainable,” says Dr. Welch “than spending money we don’t have.”

Ironic isn’t it? Just as we are realizing (around the globe) that we can no longer ignore financial debt, we need to view our energy deficit with the same urgency.

Dr. Welch’s advice: to evaluate “the choices about what we deem essential or desirable in our lives, and the efforts we make to achieve those things.”

See if you can hold yourself to this in 2012.  Slow down, pay attention to your body.  If you are doing too much, your body is probably sending you signals.  IBS and anxiety disorders are commonplace today and a direct consequence of stress say many holistic and conventional doctors. This year, make it your goal to decide what is worth maintaining in your life, what contributes to your well-being and that of those you are in intimate relationship with.  Stop trying to hold onto an archetype.  You do not have to be a super mom, super dad, super careerist, super spouse.  Just be yourself.  Your body and mind will thank you in the short and long term.  Plus you will be able to truly engage yourself for both the challenges and changes that are coming our way.

Join Eoin this summer for an inspirational, blissful and magical program at Hollyhock, Canada’s Lifelong Learning Centre, on Cortez Island, B.C. from July 18-22, 2012.

Cultivate more awe, joy, bliss and love. Discover Blissology Yoga, blending yoga teachings with the wisdom traditions and offering fresh insights toward nurturing a positive attitude. This all levels vinyasa yoga experience ranges from active, to technical, to slow and restorative, allowing time for stillness, flow, humour and lightness. Emphasis is on the intelligent alignment of your joints so your movements in yoga and all of life’s activities are fluid and bio-mechanically sound.

Blissology Yoga guides you to tune into the energy that connects us with each other and planet and to use it as a guide to achieving your goals while minimizing your impact on the web of life. Become a powerful conduit for love and transform your relationships with yourself, your community and our planet. This is the art of the Upward Spiral.

“love is the ultimate renewable resource” ™

Eoin Finn, BA, EYRT, is a yogi, surfer and blissologist who has been teaching his unique and transformative approach to yoga and Blissology across the world. His life mission is to stay in touch with the deep vibration of love so that he can be a conduit for love in all he does. He wants to inspire people to be continuously lit up by this mysterious, powerful force and believes that one of the best ways is to get out in nature and let its beauty fuel us.

Eoin’s passion for spreading his vision of body and mind coexisting in harmony with nature and community has led him to be featured in the “we like this guy” section of Oprah Magazine. An avid athlete and surfer, Eoin has worked with hundreds of pro athletes. It is his love of the ocean and the creatures within it that allowed Eoin to find the courage to follow the words of his greatest hero Joseph Campbell and “follow his Bliss” making the move from his highly popular yoga classes in Vancouver, BC, to the remote, wild and stunningly beautiful Canadian surf paradise of Tofino, BC. This powerful connection to Nature informs all of his teachings. www.blissology.com

Check out Eion’s Blissology Happy Map for more about his core philosophy.

TUITION: $495 CDN (meals & accommodation extra) / 4 nights

Click here to request a reservation with Hollyhock.

A Special Solstice Blissology Weekend with Yogi, Blissologist and Surfer Eoin Finn!

Friday, June 22^nd – Sunday, June 24^th, 2012

Friday, June 22^nd ~ 7 – 9pm ~ Vinyasa Earth Puja ~ $45^+hst

Make your Yoga practice a ritual to honour our relationship to the earth at this crucial time in our planet’s existence. The number one thing we can do for our health is to experience connection with the earth. In this inspiring and unique workshop with Yogi, Blissologist & Ocean Worshipper Eoin Finn, experience true interconnectedness, beginning with our own body-mind, extending to our personal relationships, our communities and how we treat our larger environment. Understanding our linkage to the earth is good for us both physiologically as well as psychologically, and the earth wins too as we want to protect what we love and revere.

Expect a vigorous and fluid vinyasa practice infused with lightheartedness and depth, followed by Eoin’s unique earth-body meditation to leave us feeling plugged in to the source of deep awe, joy and bliss.

Saturday, June 23^rd ~ 1 – 6pm ~ Revolutionary Yoga: Align Your Practice, Align Your Life ~ $110^+hst

When someone has mastered something they can experience great results with effortless ease. This workshop will revitalize and reconnect your Yoga practice, allowing you to become a master of Yoga in the gravitational field using key, revolutionary Blissology Yoga concepts.

Suitable to both beginners and advanced yogis, this is a course that moves from fundamental yoga principles presented in a unique way with plenty of juiciness for teachers as well as longtime students of yoga. You will learn how to balance steadiness with ease, how to relax into gravity and how to surf its currents. Even though there is a lot of great knowledge, this workshop will also be fun and deeply transformational.

Expect to tackle the intricacies of downward dog, standing balances, handstand, forearm balance and more. You will be surprised when you have this knowledge how easy some of the most challenging poses can be and how deep and therapeutic even basic poses are. Your practice will never be the same.

Sunday, June 24th ~ 11am – 2pm ~ The Pursuit of Happy Hips ™: Theory and Vinyasa practice ~ $65^+hst

Suitable for All Levels of Students, from beginner to advanced Yoga practioners.

The energy of the hip area can be alive and vital, or dull and dormant. The hips are the connecting point between the upper and lower body. Furthermore, the hip area is where we experience significant tightness, both from the stresses of our sporting activities as well as from the inactivity of sitting in chairs for more hours in a week than our ancestors could have imagined possible.

Building from the foundation we experience in the Yin and Yang of Yoga, we will continue on to explore pelvic anatomy and the psychology of the hips. Find out what rules we need to follow to help keep the yoga practice safe and beneficial to our physiology, while also learning how many rules actually restrict us. Then participate in Eoin’s flowing series of poses that will leave you feeling blissful and ecstatic.

Balance the discipline of a hot and sweaty practice with the chilled West Coast, “play yoga” attitude.

This workshop is taught in Eoin’s All levels, All Good Approach, with modifications for beginners and plenty of juiciness for intermediates and advanced yogis. We are talking freedom, baby!

Register for the entire weekend and save! Entire weekend price: $190^+hst (regular price $220!)

Contact Rama Lotus Ottawa to register.

Welcome to 2012, a time of transformation, change and new consciousness.  You roll your eyes as you read this. Welcome to another new year, you think.  This is the year when everything is going to be perfect, your new years’ resolutions are going to stick and the next 365 days are going to be better, more creative, more satisfying for you, your family and everyone you love and care about, way more than the previous year, and yes, we’re going to achieve world peace as well.

Before you unleash your inner cynic, hang in there for a moment and breathe.

What if you discovered that this year, 2012 is different?  That we are actually, truly entering a New Age, an exciting and enriching time where old ideas will be cast aside on a global scale?  Where humanity will prosper and we will trade guns for love and oil for sunshine.

It is happening, isn’t it?  The vast democratization movements that are spreading like fire across the middle east, the growing use and demand for renewable energy, a rising consciousness about sustainability and living in a way that is more connected to our planet, the Occupy “every city” movements. Aren’t these events signs that we are finally moving into a new age?

 Are we moving into a new sphere of human evolution?

Many astrologers and followers of the Mayan calendar believe we are.  In fact to them 2012 is the make or break year. The Mayans, who were an advanced and highly literate Mexican people skilled in astronomy and math, had a 26,000 year-old calendar which officially ends on December 21, 2012.  Kabbalists, the Hopi indians as well as various other ancient peoples also hold the year 2012 to signify a change.  The big question in astrological circles is what exactly did the Mayans envision?  Would 2012 be the end of all time, or would it be the dawning of a new era?

While apocalyptic theories abound (especially on internet message boards), the general (and more optimistic) consensus seems to be that December 12, 2012 marks our rebirth into a new world, a new age.  An age called the Age of Aquarius.

Late Kundalini Yoga guru Yogi Bhajan, became an ardent supporter of the new age movement, the Aquarian Age, he said “is a time where religion and spirituality will move from a culture of denial and separation to one of inclusivity. “

“Aquarius offers a rebirth into a world that is all about oneness rather than separation. It is a move from a time of secrecy into one of openness. In the Piscean Age it was central and sacred to find and gain access to the right information. In the Aquarian Age, there are no secrets! Information is readily available.”

Not too far off an interpretation from the Age of Aquarius song in the cult sixties musical “Hair” which imagined a world of higher consciousness and openness, one in which “peace will guide the planets and love will rule the world” while “harmony and understanding, sympathy and  trust abound.” Though a Hollywood creation, the song  managed to  embed the precepts of the new age movement, really the Aquarian age movement, deep into our cultural consciousness.  Love, freedom, liberation, transformation, peace and truth; compelling ideals indeed.

Ideals that we can definitely use in our chaotic modern world, say the Aquarian age proponets.  In fact, most believe that we’ve been on the cusp of entering this new age for the last sixty odd years.  At the “cusp” according to astrology, one experiences the influences of two different heavenly bodies.  This explains the turmoil on our planet, say new agers. Conflict occurs when we pit old ways of doing things against the new.

It’s hard to disagree.  Our world, socially and environmentaly is in conflict.  The polar ice caps are melting, the ocean is heating up, we are losing forested land at the rate of 17 million hectares a year; the disparity between the haves and have nots is increasing everywhere; our cities are exploding with the problems of population and density; and stress is one of the leading causes of disease.  As a species we complain of feeling overwhelmed, underslept, overfed, yet undernourished. Cancer rates in developed countries are now at 40% a statistic that led to Japanese officials in the aftermath of the deadly nuclear accidents in Fukushima dismiss the threat of increased cancer rates because of radiation leaks, any increase would be too slight to count.

Perhaps believing in a New Age offers a measure of hope? Astrologers think so. The symbol for Aquarius is the water bearer, symbolically and eternally giving life and spiritual food to the world i.e. raising the planet’s spiritual vibration.  Water with its cleansing properties washes away the past, representing new possibilities, growth and change. Aquarius is also an air sign, which produces intellectuals, scientists, inventors etc. They cite the ubiquity of the internet as a good example of Aquarian ideology, especially the rise of social media.  Facebook has more than 800 million active users today.  This is unprecedented. Even a decade ago, could you have predicted a world where people were so ready to share information, especially personal information?

experiencing true interconnection, the idea that we are all one, that there is no “other.”

How can we prepare ourselves for this New Age?  Here are some strategies to help you create your own personal transformation as we step not only into a new year, but a New Age.  Read on next week for more transformative ideas!!! 

1. Create Rituals of Interconnection:
“A ritual is a consciously performed action which reinforces a belief system,” says noted Yoga teacher Eoin Finn, founder of the Blissology movement, who advocates that we must always evaluate all our actions on the continuum of how they impact us and how they impact our community and larger environment.

“The belief system that we constantly need to reaffirm, is that we are all connected, and that all life is interdependent, for example, try eating honey,” says Finn in his Blissology Project book.  You can eat it in what he calls the “ho hum way” i.e. simply eating it without giving it much thought, or you can turn the act of savouring honey into a beautiful ritual of interconnection.

Interconnection, incidentally is a key Aquarian Age theme.

“Not only does honey taste amazing,” says Finn, “but if it wasn’t for bees making honey, flowers wouldn’t have evolved with scent or colour; and fruits wouldn’t emerge from plants. There are so many small but mindblowing connections if you allow yourself to see them.”

Astrologers say that the Age of Aquarius is a time when we will be filled with more light (from the sun) than ever before.  Light in this context refers to sacred illumination.  When we practice rituals, we feel more in touch with the divine.  Whether you believe in sacred energy or not, rituals when performed mindfully, allow us to slow down enough to get present and when we get present says Finn,  “You are filled with awe for the sacredness of life.”

Create your own rituals.
Make every act a ritual.  If you walk to work, slow down and feel what you are doing.  Feel the morning breeze, listen to the voices of people talking, the sounds of traffic or perhaps birds chirping.   Try to make it your practice to bring that same sensory awareness to other aspects of your life.  Celebrate small moments, relish your morning cup of tea or coffee, enjoy an unhurried visit with a friend, play in the puddles with your child after school.  Realize that small tasks can be filled with profound moments of awareness, joy and sacredness. Open yourself up to them.

(more 2012 strategies coming next week… stay tuned)

By, Insiya Rasiwala-Finn

(excerpted from an article published in Asia Spa Magazine, January 2012)

Join the The Love Revolution. 

Feb 14, 2012
Yoga Mandala
Calgary, AB

Blissology is about finding the still place inside of all of us that opens us up to the source of deep joy, love and wisdom. Perfect for Valentine’s Day!

We’ll start with a fun and light-hearted discussion about strategies for more Love. The flow in a rocking Blissology Yoga experience. End in a quiet savasana then spend time in a group generating positive thoughts towards those close to us. Please bring photos if you can.  Remember Happiness is Best when shared! Put smiles on people’s faces and Let Love Rule!

Eoin visits Yoga Mandala in Calgary on February 14, 2012 for a workshop on Blissology, love and light.  For more information and to register, contact Yoga Mandala.

Release and Align your Hips and Spine!

Not just for sisters, but yoga brothers can join in the bliss as well. Twists are an ecstatic way to broaden our horizons, expand our range of motion, loosen the hips and stabilize the spine. They make us feel younger, freeing the side body muscles, invigorating our spirit and detoxing the belly organs, key for this workshop. It is incredible though how much deeper and safer you can make both twists and hip opening using specific Blissology Alignment Principles. Expect to work in detail but also be prepared to experience a flowing and deep vinyasa yoga class that will have you not wanting to operate heavy machinery for a while. Come taste the bliss waiting to be set free in this hips and twist class.

All levels – all good!

$35 + HST | Register HERE