The Sunday DOWNdog POST

In honour of Valentine’s Day, this week’s DOWNdog POST is dedicated to love. I hope you enjoy this special Valentine’s edition.

The idea for this week’s DOWNdog Post came to me while reading Olive Again, a novel by Elizabeth Strout. Two characters in the story had a conversation during which they shared their belief in something beyond this world. Some unknown power or guiding hand…
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My father loved to sing. Every year, my father’s side of the family held a family reunion in Shawinigan, Quebec. When we were at one of the annual family gatherings I remember, like it was yesterday, my father kneeling on his left knee next to his sister, Therese, who was in a wheelchair. He would have been about 83 at the time and she, 85. As I witnessed the scene, it was as if there was no one else in the backyard where the party was being held. It was just my father and his sister and myself looking on. The party was blurred in the background.

He was singing the song, “Mon hirondelle”. He sang every verse while never once turning away, gazing steadily into her eyes. When I looked at him, I was mesmerized. It was like looking at someone who was asking his beloved if she would marry him. He had so much love in his heart.

Whenever I recall this incident, my heart goes out to my father, a man who was capable of such deep love but who rarely expressed it in his lifetime. I know he would have wanted his life to have been different.

My father passed away February 27th, 2019 at the age of 97.

According to myths and legends, robins appear once a loved one has passed. Last spring, as many of you recall, a robin came to build her nest on a wreath next to the entrance to the yoga studio. I named her Robbie. I was mesmerized by this beautiful bird… just as I had been at the family reunion, 14 years ago, by my father. I believe Robbie was an angel sent by my father. She was my father’s harbinger of love.

Namaste my dear friends and students! Get set this week for another awesome practice: yoga for the heart.

💞Happy Valentine’s Day!💞

Jocelyne, Valentine and Dr. Jake

Dear students and friends of DOWNdog,

New Year’s is a wonderful time to give our life a new BOOST: be it a new beginning, a new direction, a new challenge. The New Year’s resolution or resolutions is/are most definitely a wonderful way to go beyond our limits and set a new goal or set of goals.

This year I made 10 resolutions for the New Year!

1. practice the ukulele daily
2. practice the piano daily
3. do crunches and pushups daily
4. make a grocery list once a week (I have never made a list.)
5. always floss before putting on my retainer at night
6. write in my “A Line a Day” journal daily
7. practice my Spanish daily
8. brush the dog once a week
9. brush the cat once a week
10. meditate on why I didn’t do most of the above.

Happy New Year everyone!

Jocelyne and the unbrushed dog and unbrushed cat wishing you good health, much laughter, new adventures, lots of love and peace in the New Year.

DOWNdog reopens Monday, January 6th!

This week I panicked. I was overwhelmed and thought I couldn’t make it through another down in the blue in my life. Sounds depressing and I’m certain you prefer some cheerful POST in the midst of what seems like our cloud-filled winter…. Bear with me my friends. 🐕😎

Wednesday night. I had just watched an episode, 🤔 actually 2 episodes of Suits 😉 to relax. I could not escape the blues. Despite my efforts to climb back up, the health issues of the past few weeks had come to anchor me down. I needed a ray of sunshine.

I know it sounds corny, but corny is good sometimes. I looked into my back pocket and looked at what I always store there: openness, strength and calm.

I looked back at other challenging moments, moments much more challenging than I have experienced this past week and realized, based on my record, I had a very good chance of getting through this. That my nurturing of openness (trust and patience), strength, and calm had gotten me through.

And so, if you ever have the blues, and I think it is safe to say most of us have, trust that there will be a moment soon when the sun will pierce through the clouds and send you a ray of sunshine.

Sometimes, we get more than a ray of sunshine. We get a jackpot! We get a rainbow to colour our world once again. I am happy to report that I got a jackpot on Thursday evening…

On a final note,

Some of you have asked me how my friend who had surgery last week is doing. I am very happy to say that she is doing very well. The surgery was a great success. She has a rainbow in her back pocket once again holding her and letting her know that all will be well.

Wishing you sunshine and rainbows,
Jocelyne and Dr. Jake

Namaste!

Your SUNDAY Morning POST from DOWNdog!

Last night, I was watching an episode of “Suits”. It was the BEST EPISODE EVER! But of course, when I meet my buddies at the pool in the morning and start talking about how great Suits was the night before (most have seen the entire series) they repeatedly tell me it just gets better!

In this episode, there was a scene between Harvey (the lawyer who never loses) and Donna (his secretary who believes that Harvey is a foolproof Mr. Fix it). She messes up “a…situation” and he is upset with her. He has no time to comfort his damsel in distress. 😢 He has to fix… “the situation”. 😎

When I watched this scene, I saw a skeleton walk out of my closet. The skeleton was like a closed dam. The water let go from the dam. In other words, I faced the skeleton and eventually, it got up and left. I could literally see the skeleton walk out of the closet and out the door! (Jake is my witness. He was there beside me on the couch.)

I won’t tell you what the skeleton in my closet was. It doesn’t matter. What’s important is that I observed the skeleton. I took it in as an honourable guest in my “house” and was then able to open the door and let it go.

Now yoga can do just that.

When we come to yoga we learn to observe our bodies, observe and honour all our feelings/thoughts. Every exhale is an invitation to let go of that which no longer serves us. It can help us move towards greater stillness. Inner peace.

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Yesterday it rained all day. But it was a bright day.
A skeleton in my closet had come forth and I was able to observe it and let it go!

AND…

I did all of those 10 New Year’s Eve resolutions! I would have to say that… I’m ON A ROLL! 😉

This week, back by popular demand, Yoga to Express. We will be focusing on the jaw, neck and shoulders.

Get ready for Awesome Practice Number 2. And who knows, you might find a skeleton on your shoulders…and let it go!

Namaste my dear friends,
Have a Savasana kind of day

Your Sunday DOWNdog POST! – Week 1 (Winter Session)
Last night I watched too much TV (I am totlly hooked on the series, “SUITS!”)  followed by too much ice cream. (Let’s not forget the chocolate chips!)  I then sunk into a relaxing yoga practice to have a good night’s sleep.  It was late when I finally got to bed.
The yoga didn’t work.  
I was too wound up on sugar and TV.  Tree pose would have been difficult! I had a restless sleep.
This morning I wasn’t a happy camper and decided to sell the TV and ditch the rest of the ice cream!!  I was desperate to restore balance to my daily schedule.
…
No one will argue that it is important to have a balanced life: we need to balance our body energy, our mind energy, and our heart energy 
However, it is most important to balance our body energy (balanced and nutritious food; daily exercise balanced with relaxation; sound sleep).  The mind energy and heart energy are largely  dependent on a balanced body energy. 
And so as the New Year begins, our Week 1 yoga practice is an invitation for  RESOLVE: resolving to create better balance in one area of our life that affects our body energy.  
Keeping our energy balanced is a yin/yang operation: balancing our sun/moon energy.  And since we have shorter days and less sun, it becomes much more difficult to stay balanced in the winter months.  Bringing some awareness to this fact is a beginning.  Making a small change in our daily schedule is an important first step.  I have resolved to relax more and have started playing the ukulele and the piano again, on a daily basis.  This small change in my daily schedule has made such a difference.  I am happy I included it in my 10 resolutions!
I am very much looking forward to our practice! Namaste!
Jocelyne and Jake PhDOGDROP-in availability for Week 1 (January 6th and 9th)
2 spaces in the Monday evening class 7h15-8h302 spaces in the Thursday evening class 7h15-8h30

Dear friends and students of DOWNdog,

This is the last DOWNdog POST for 2019! I would like to thank everyone who has sent me warm responses to the DOWNdog POST throughout the session. Your comments, feedback continue to inspire me.

As this year draws to its end, I would like to share with you, this beautiful poem by John O’Donohue, “The End of the Year”.

Its imagery captures so well the yoga philosophy which invites us to embrace and harvest all that life has to offer us: the”gifts” and the “surprises”; the “darkened days” and the “days when beloved faces shine brighter…”

Enjoy!

Wishing you happy surprises, peace and much love in the New Year,

Jocelyne and Dr. Jake

“The End of the Year”

The particular mind of the ocean
Filling the coastline’s longing
With such brief harvest
Of elegant, vanishing waves
Is like the mind of time
Opening us shapes of days.

As this year draws to its end,
We give thanks for the gifts it brought
And how they became inlaid within
Where neither time nor tide can touch them.

The days when the veil lifted
And the soul could see delight;
When a quiver caressed the heart
In the sheer exuberance of being here.

Surprises that came awake
In forgotten corners of old fields
Where expectation seemed to have quenched.

The slow, brooding times
When all was awkward
And the wave in the mind
Pierced every sore with salt.

The darkened days that stopped
The confidence of the dawn.

Days when beloved faces shone brighter
With light from beyond themselves;
And from the granite of some secret sorrow
A stream of buried tears loosened.

We bless this year for all we learned,
For all we loved and lost
And for the quiet way it brought us
Nearer to our invisible destination.

JOHN O’DONOHUE

Dear students and friends,
I sit here this morning witnessing the early dawn from my breakfast table, awed by the beautiful stillness of the rose-coloured skyline. Within minutes the rose light has faded.

What a wondrous gift this stillness is as I begin my day.

I pause to soak in the present moment. I look for inspiration to write this morning’s POST. For some reason, the song, “Silent Night” plays in my mind and I become teary eyed as I think of the first two verses of Silent Night,
Silent night, holy night
All is calm, all is bright….

Those two first verses have an effect on me. I stop to observe what it is in these two lines that has caught my heart strings.

I think it is because this is what we are all really seeking: those moments where life stops and we are transported totally into a perfect, present moment. We are immersed temporarily in a world of peace where all is calm and all is bright.

I think this feeling of calm, of brightness is within our grasp more often than we may realize. We just need to stop and observe and be in the present moment. There are perfect moments every day that we miss.

When we practice yoga, we try to move and sink into the present. In doing so, it is an invitation to uplift our spirits and find calm and brightness… and experience a perfect moment.

See you this week, for a magical Christmas practice!

Namaste!
Jocelyne

Fear is a formidable enemy! When we conquer our fears we conquer the world. We are at the helm. We are in control of our thoughts.