Chocolate & Peanut Butter

There’s an ad from when I was a child that sometimes still runs in my head: Two great tastes that taste great together.  Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups.

That’s what deciding to create a yoga and writing workshop felt like to me. Marijana and I met in yoga teacher training at Open Sky Yoga in 2009.  We have different backgrounds and personalities, and have enjoyed getting to know each other over the last five years.  As we talked, we were inspired to combine our passion for both yoga and creativity/the written word.

I love the way I feel after a yoga class—particularly one with some restorative poses and meditation—as though I had settled back into my bones again.  More at ease.  Settled, blissed out, quiet, content.  And I craved the way I felt after a really good writing class or session with my writing group: inspired, contemplative, energized, thoughtful, peaceful.

That peacefulness, in either kind of class, does not last long.  Often after yoga class, everyone starts talking.  There’s a buzz; you’re putting the props back, your shoes back on, and even though you are in a better and different place than when you came, the special moment and mood inevitably dissipates.  We lose the chance to explore it. Writing & Yoga will capture that creative-rich time and use that savasana rest, that asana vigor, and move our bodies from yoga directly into writing, contemplation, journaling.

We will meet on Sunday, April 6, 2014, to tune up, relax, write, and set writing intentions for the rest of the spring.  This will be a day to meet like-minded people, to eat a delicious lunch and to explore the lovely grounds of Writers & Books’ Gell Center in Naples, NY.  Oh, and we might well have chocolate (and peanut butter) cups for you.

To learn more, or sign up for this retreat, click here.

This blog post was written by Sejal Shah. Sejal, along with teaching artist Marijana Ababovic, will be running a yoga and writing retreat at The Gell Center on April 6, 2014.