World Environment Day 2026: A Yogic Call to Wonder
Yoga reflects the importance of balance as harmony within, among and between inner and outer worlds. When greed, dissociation, overconsumption, and disregard for natural limits dominate human behaviour, these are symptoms of us being lost on the inside and systemic ecological imbalance follows. The ‘climate crisis’ is a sanitised and dissociative way of naming our loss. It calls insufficiently clearly for external action (but what, after all, is truly external). It misses the need for inner transformation, for recognising sustainable living begins with a recognition that there’s only one of us here.
The Transformative Symbols of Yoga
Each yoga asana is in its essence a symbol: its name is by no means arbitrary, and indeed hints at its inner meaning, whether it is an animal, plant, bird or geometrical shape.
Moreover, not only is the asana a symbol which may be reflected upon intellectually, but the practitioner is invited to ‘enter it’ and to experience it organically and existentially in the timeless here and now and indeed to become one with it, “the dancer becoming one with the dance” to paraphrase Yeats.
Living gently with the Earth
22nd April 2026 marked Earth Day. The theme this year was Our Power, Our Planet. This in itself invites many layers of reflection and provides the opportunity to seed an extra layer of awareness into our yoga practice - every day! Earth Day invites the kind of attention that is less about marking a date and more about remembering a relationship. In yoga, we might recognise this as a return to bhūmi, the ground of being, not only beneath our feet but within our awareness.
Awareness of Light is the Light of Awareness
Spring is a beautiful time of renewal when we get a sense of the freshness of deep-down things. As the sun climbs higher in the sky, light spills from the heavens above, and we see everything more clearly. It is as if the external sun generates inner illumination also.
This article on the the awareness of inner light looks at how to work with Surya Namaskara, the Vedic solar mantras and the chakra focus for each posture.
The Whispered Wisdom of the Upanishads
The Upanishads are the essence of Yoga wisdom.
They are time capsules containing the deepest insights of rishis, yogis and seers in the period of the ‘Great Awakening’ some 500 years or more before the Christian Era.
They are epiphanies, lightning flashes that scorched hearts, and then solidified into engravings on birch bark and then onto the printed page.
We are looking forward to reading and discussing the Kena Upanishad in our final book club meeting of the season.
An Introduction to Mudra
The word Mudra means a “sign”; a symbol; an attitude; or a seal.
Mudras are said to balance the connections between the first three koshas in particular: physical, energetic (pranic), and mental.
Mudras also promote health, balance the brain hemispheres, and, as a seal, prevent dissipation of energy from the fingers. Mudras help to re-direct and channel prana, especially the fall of prana from higher to lower chakra levels.
Find out more in to Micahel’s one-day workshop entitled The sacred science of mantra and mudra on 28th March 2026.
Mantra Yoga
A mantra is mystical energy encased in a sound structure. In this article, Yogacharya Michael McCann explores the origins and purpose of mantra; the different types of mantra; and the various ways in which to practise mantra. Find out more in to his one-day workshop entitled The sacred science of mantra and mudra on 28th March 2026.
Yoga as a mirror on life – or perhaps a laboratory?
As a student within the Iyengar yoga tradition, it is usual that we focus quite a lot on āsana practice. Perhaps there is a perception in the wider yoga community that this is all we do. In fact we are clear that the āsana practice is set in the full context of yoga as a path to freedom, and this is what Claire Ferry wanted to explore to some degree in her October workshop for the Yoga Fellowship members and guests. Here she offers her personal perspective on yoga practice.
Imbolc: the return of the light
There is an old remembering that time was once kept not by clocks or calendars, but by light and land. By the slow breathing of the Earth. In the Celtic wheel of the year, the dark half and the light half face one another like twin lovers, meeting at the solstices. Between them lie the equinoxes, moments of balance, and between those again the liminal thresholds of cross-quarter days — the fire festivals — when something turns, quietly but irrevocably.
The Path of Karma Yoga
Karma yoga is known variously as meditation in action, spiritual action, non-doing, working with awareness and selfless service. It is nishkama karma (non-doing).
Karma yoga is more concerned with the means than the end. It encourages us to offer up the result or fruit of action in a spirit of sacrifice to God, the Supreme, or what represents the Highest for you. In so doing, the action becomes ritualised and spiritualised, because the true meaning of sacrifice is “to make sacred”.
Set thy heart upon thy work, but never on its reward. Work not for a reward; but never cease to do thy work. (Bhagavad Gita)