Saturday Morning "Roll out of bed" Yoga
Check out the Artful Gifts Display in The Treehouse! Each month will bring a new showing of creative arts. Some will be for sale, some just for viewing, inspiration, and appreciation. Give it a peek, support our artists’ endeavors, and let Jan know if you’d like to share your Artful Gifts! 
Our Sisters Sangha Circle usually holds six to eight Yoginis on any given 2nd Monday evening. We’ve had as many as a dozen and as few as three but a half-dozen give or take one or two is our usual attendance.
The shelves of books in The Treehouse are a collection from many years, some I have read, some I have yet to open; some I acquired, some were donated. Re-draw your life energies
Retreat…to withdraw…to re-draw, actually! (See Latin etymology)
Comes a point in our lives when it’s high time to re-draw the scene we’ve sketched around ourselves…to re-draw the boundaries and lines of definition in our lifestyles…to re-draw real, authentic, and true life energies out of The Great Well. Perhaps you’ve experienced retreat on a grand scale over a year in an ashram or a month at a spa. Maybe a long afternoon walk in the woods set you in retreat mode. Diving deep, you may have dipped yourself into retreat while in a 90 minute Yoga class or with your hands in creatively expressive activity. Ahhh retreat! Retreat can set the world right again, reshape thought, mend the broken bits of life, and set us on a course of enlightened living.
“When the mind becomes still and quiet, the Self reveals itself. At these depths, one experiences the joy and peace of complete fulfillment.” The Bhagavad Gita
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Is it time to re-draw your life? As we have since 1998, Riverbirch Yoga offers you space to retreat, to be with yourself with intention and openness in order to find what you need to return to a renewed life. Check out the following retreat opportunities …
Saturday, November 7th 8am-5pm – An Autumn Nurturing Day Retreat! Begin your day on the mat waking to a new you. Be fed with delectable fresh whole foods for breakfast, lunch, snacks. Take time in nature to reconnect with The Source of Creation. Study your current wholistic needs and explore your dreams and visions through personal writing and 3-D collaging. Be still and know yourself. Find safe opening of your heart, mind, and body with afternoon time on the mat. Learn how to transition back into the everyday world taking home tools and practices to sustain and ground you. Draw and re-draw. Treat and re-treat!
REGISTER NOW
Early Registration by October 16th = $50
After October 16th = $65
(No later than October 30th please!)
Note that the retreat day start & end times have been extended but prices remain at the recession-conscious low!
Enhancements to this retreat: If you are interested in further augmenting your experiences on Saturday, let me know immediately if you would like to schedule time for a natural healing session (private Yoga, Ayurvedic constitutional study, creative-expressive therapy, lifestyle coaching, bodywork, &/or energywork) on Friday afternoon/evening. (Additional fees)
Next day retreat is in March.
“The mind of the Yogi, totally focused on The True Self, is unwavering like the steady flame of a candle in a sheltered place.” The Bhagavad Gita
Personal Day Retreats – Ever felt like you didn’t want to leave The Treehouse when class ended? Had a desire to spend more time exploring the natural space of Riverbirch? Longed to take just a bit of time just for you but can’t go too far away or spend too much time absent from home/work? Create your own retreat! Take a day or an hour or several hours here for your special get-away. Design your time or request assistance. Be in the quiet all alone and meditate, move, breathe, read, and be. Or schedule some form/s of natural healing session/s (private Yoga, Ayurvedic constitutional study, creative-expressive therapy, lifestyle coaching, bodywork, &/or energywork) as part of your time here. Bring your own foods or be fed by the natural whole foods of the Riverbirch kitchen. Utilize the Riverbirch Lending Library, write and create, nap, vision, renew. Perhaps you know just what you need and how you want your hour or hours to look and feel and how to make that happen. Or, maybe you would like some guidance and we are most willing to help with that! Have one retreat or plan on regular retreats to help keep your lifeboat afloat through stormy seas.
Fees a la carte, extremely reasonable, and individually determined. Mutually-beneficial barter & seva honored and genuinely considered! We are here for you.
Good for What Ails Ya
Autumn brings us a new freshness that can be a wonderful relief after the weight of summer’s humidity. But take away the heat and moisture of our Southern comfort and, if your body’s so inclined, you may recall aches and pains you’d forgotten about since early spring. Fall in elemental Ayurvedic terms is airy, dryer, and cooler and therefore more Vata while Summer is firey thus more Pitta. Heat and humidity warm and lubricate the body so for those of us with any arthritic tendencies, Summertime melts away some of our aches and pains. Autumn’s coat of many colors is a reminder that we’ve gotta prepare ourselves for colder and dryer days when Winter rolls around.
Let me introduce you to some of my herb friends who happily help ease The Rheumatiz that creeps in when the air gets airier and the dry gets dryer.
A Few Herbs for The Rheumatiz
As many of you know, my beloved Mama’s been struggling with inflammation for the last couple of years most especially in her knees, hands, and wrists. We’ve maintained her issues using herbs very successfully except in a couple of periods of high emotional stress when the inflammation raged out of control. Because she’d reached a point of not being able to walk due to the pain in her right knee, we sought medical help and tried oral and injected steroids which did not work. During that time, I took her off of her daily tinctures…and promptly forgot to put her back on them once the unhelpful pharmaceuticals were out of her body. When I finally remembered and got her back on them, (sadly, a couple months had passed,) within a week the redness, swelling, stiffness, and pain had all but vanished in both her knee as well as her left hand/wrist which she has stopped using months previously! All of her caregivers have become born-again-believers in “those herbs you give her!” The lesson learned here for me was a renewed confidence in the gifts of Nature’s healing powers and to watch for periods of stress-induced imbalance when doses need to be increased and the layers of remedies consciously employed.
The following herbs are wonders to reduce and eliminate inflammation…
White Willow Bark
Feverfew
St John’s Wort
Nettles
The above herbs are generally purchased dried (In our Charlotte area, The Healthy Home Market/Home Economist are our best local sources or you can purchase online from Mountain Rose Herbs or Frontier Herbs. If anyone’s interested in a bulk buyers’ club, let me know!)
Ginger Root
Tumeric Root
The above herbs are best used fresh but if you can’t get fresh root, purchase dried. If you are fortunate to get fresh root, put it in the freezer to keep longer and maintain its beneficial value and then just cut, shave, or grate off whatever you need (I generally grate it directly into my tea mug!)
Just an itsy-bitsy on-my-soapbox sidenote…..The first 2 herbs contain the element from which aspirin has been synthesized. White Willow and/or Feverfew used in their whole natural forms have no negative side effects like synthetic preparations do. Have you noticed the many many “small print” fast read disclaimers in the TV ads for various pharmaceuticals? One of them that stands out for me says to take such-and-such drug for asthma but by taking it you may risk asthma-induced death?!?!)
3 Layers
I highly recommend using all 3 of the following forms of herbal remedy, layering your approach to feeling better. Each preparation has a different vibe and style of healing and they sing harmoniously in their work together!
Infusion or Tea: Pour almost-to-a-boil filtered water over a mixture of ¼ -1 tsp of each of these herbs for a warming and soothing tea to reduce inflammation throughout the body. This infusion (also but incorrectly called a “tea”) can be prepared in a tea ball or steeping bag and reused (re-infused) throughout the day up to 3 or 4 times to get all the goodies out of the herbs! I recommend drinking this tea as your main liquid consumed all day everyday as a maintenance measure. Hot or warm is best but when it’s too hot for you to go for a warm drink, try room temperature or cooled if needed.
Tincture: A more intense use of the herbs can be prepared for acute conditions…when The Rheumatiz sets in hard and achy and you gotta have some relief. But you must take the time before you get to this point to have your remedy on hand for when you need it AND you must be patient and let the herbs take their time to harmonize with your body’s vibrations. If you are “way out of balance” and your vibrations are crazy, it may take awhile to bring you back to your natural healthy hum. But if you’re staying true to your constitution’s needs, you may find almost immediate relief after taking the tincture. Generally within 1-10 days you will find deep and full relief if you use the tincture honorably.
To prepare the Rheumatiz Tincture, mix 1 part herb mixture with 4 parts filtered water with 8 parts drinking alcohol. (In other words, for a modest amount you’d mix 1/8cup mixed herbs with ½ cup filtered water with 1cup drinking alcohol.) Rain Vodka has an organic vodka that I’ve been using but you can choose whatever you like - just remember that you’re not going to be drinking it, just using a tsp dose at a time.
Put the tincture in a glass jar in a dark place for 2 weeks. Shake every once and awhile. When your 2 weeks are up, you can do one of the following: Strain the herbs out and bottle the tincture or leave the herbs in. Personal choice. These days, I generally leave it in. If you are using a dropper or pouring the jar to get your dose out, filtering is helpful …but you’ll figure this out. Put the tincture in a dark glass jar or cover a clear jar with a sock or other cover. The point here is to keep light out which deteriorates the value of the remedy. You can also just store it in a dark cabinet!
Dose: Take 1 tsp tincture every 2- 4 hours during an acute “attack” by The Rheumatiz…when you’re stiff, achy, hurting, and inflamed. You can pretty much let your body tell you how often to use it. Pay attention and you will figure out your rhythm and needs.
Warming Liniment:
A liniment is for rubbing in, for massage, for superficial soothing. Some recipes call for alcohol, some for a mixture of tincture with an oil liniment, some for just oil. This one is just oil which provides for some skin moisturizing as well!
To enhance the skin pleasing quality of this one, add some calendula blossoms to your liniment as well as the Rheumatiz herbs!
And choose an oil that suits you. Oils are definitely personal choices…..almond is light and sweet, sesame is heavier and fragrant, jojoba blends into skin and hair well, sunflower is a medium-light choice. Test some. And please remember that you don’t have to purchase the more expensive and specialized bottles in the health and beauty sections but you can use oils from the cooking section of the store as well! Furthermore, but a lesson for another day….remember that consuming good oils is actually superior to coating the outside of your body with oil to moisturize!
To prepare: Mix about ¼ cup dried herb mixture with 1 cup of oil in a glass jar. If you wish, you might add some aromatic essential oils you like for fragrance. Set in a warm sunny window for 2-6 weeks. With the liniment, you are using the sun to infuse the herbs into the oil…and perhaps pulling into the mixture some of that body-melting warmth of Mother Sun! 2 weeks is if you are in a hurry but you can keep it in the sun for longer! Shake it when you walk by it and enjoy its warm colors! As with the tincture, you can strain herbs out or not. This is such a delightful joy to use on yourself and folks you love. Massage into joints to warm ‘n melt away stiffness and enjoy how soft your hands feel afterwards!
