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 What
makes a yoga studio “green”? Not green walls, but a
green, ecologically healthy orientation that we call our “eco-commitment”.
This studio is part of a Green Yoga Studio Pilot Program with the
Green Yoga Association, a nationally recognized group of yoga teachers
and students committed to environmentally excellent standards and
guidelines. The Association is supporting yoga studios around the
country and beyond in establishing themselves as green and greener.
Metta Earth Institute is a founding and business member in this
new and exciting organization. Visit their web site www.greenyoga.org.
In the Metta Earth Yoga Studio, our “greenness” is expressed
in the following ways:
- the use of ecoyoga mats
- an extensive project sourcing and commissioning
completely organic materials for our meditation cushions with
organic cotton batting, organic buckwheat hulls, organic canvas
and muslin, and organic dyes, as well as curtains that are made
from organically grown cotton and sewn on a non-electric, restored
treadle sewing machine. Our wall tents, which serve as one of
the types of guest sleeping spaces are also made from organically
grown cotton canvas and natural waterproofing.
- eco and organic products in all our retreat needs…cleaning
products, linens, towels, and bedding, and just about everything
we use
- a bamboo floor in our studio and adjoining library/office
space, which is noted as a highly renewable building material
resource.
- locally, sustainably harvested and hand-sawn wood
for our woodstoves (Why go to the gym when you can breathe fresh
air and move in rhythm with your fellow yogis hand cutting firewood?
This is one of our finest karma yoga practices with singing, chanting,
or silence, in solitude or in community.)
- an abundance of organic, locally grown foods in
our vegetarian meals including foods from our Metta Earth Community
Garden and fresh eggs and dairy products from our resident farmers.
- green yoga practices…which we call “Metta
Earth Yoga” to support the enhancement of an ecologically
attuned consciousness
| Gunilla
Norris in
Inviting Silence
Room
When we make a place for silence, we
make room for ourselves. This is simple. And it is radical.
A room set apart for silence becomes a sanctuary - place for
breath, for refreshment, for challenge, and for healing. It
is helpful to keep the space plain and simple: a few cushions,
a rug… Simplicity allows the senses to rest from stimulation.
Silent spaces invite us to go to the
inner room - the room inside ourselves. By making room for
silence, we resist the forces of the world which tell us to
live an advertised life of surface appearances, instead of
a discovered life - life lived in contact with our senses,
our feelings, our deepest thoughts and values.
When a space is reserved solely
for mindfulness practice, the silence seems to deepen. A room
devoted to silence honors and invites the unknown, the untamed,
the wild, the shy, the unfathomable - that which rarely has
a chance to surface within us. It is a visible, external symbol
of an internal reality: an actual room signifying space within
ourselves set aside for silence. |
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