Nityal Living Blog
The Nitya living blog has something for everyone that loves yoga and yoga wisdom. A diverse variety of yoga articles, lifestyle advice, and meaningful poetry make it a great destination for yoga enthusiasts and those looking to learn more about its potential benefits.
Finding OM
Om will empty my mind so I can listen. I hear my heart open and flow like a river full of emotion, love, and compassion. I learn to navigate like a life surfer, a wave rider, a mystic of the seas. I can sit and listen to the stories in my bones, and I can hear the...
Recommended Reading List
Reading a book is pure decadence and a gift I've given myself. In fact, I bought all the books that were recommended to me over the past years. I've kept a good list and now they are stacked on the coffee table. Used, of course, so I can feel the hands and eyes of...
Wintering
It is not cold, far from it, summer holds heat for as long as she can in bright harshness that prickles my skin, sweat trickling down my brow. At times life abruptly brings everything to a pause as if you'd been a run on sentence desperate for a comma, a semi colon,...
Wintering Storm
I came to the beach to end my wintering Just as the tourist season was coming to a close. I sit here wettened, not by the ocean but the storm passing over. Eventually I had to escape to shelter. The rage wouldn’t let up and finally lightning had to split the sky So...
Wild Sister
Little child I was when I first heard the cry, That croak of choked emotion Erupting from the heron taking flight. All she contains, a clay cavern of silence held, Her own cry she feared to utter. Quiet now, hush child. The heron, that solo sailor of the sky, marked...
Little Pauses
What is Your Motivator? Your day begins with an alarm and is propelled forward by the dictates of who you live with, where you work, the people you are appointed to meet. The landscape of each day moves you as you follow along obediently to meet your obligations....
Rumi Speaks
I watch as the half moon considers itself in this blue sky. How the hawk hides in the crown of this great pine Screeching until a crow dives down and reveals the hiding place. The hawk's mate answers, echoing from a distance Until I see her circling the sky closer and...
Why Children Need Outside Time
School is back and many children who spent their summers running through sprinklers, building sand castles at the beach, riding bikes in the neighborhood, and swimming on the swim team are now at their desks. After nearly 20 years of teaching mindfulness yoga programs...
A Rock in the River by Lydia Nitya Griffith
I would like to be a rock in this river to feel the ever constant movement of wild water and the current's caress like a love affair for all time. I came down to the rocky banks and let my toes sink into the silky mud and disappear until I was as rooted as the trees...
My Untitled Yoga Journey Essay by Guest Blogger Abhaya Lulu Fueglein
The practice of yoga and what I have learned at yoga camp has made me realize how lucky I am to live in a world where the grass is green and where all of this is possible. Since I was a little kid, I have always asked if something is wrong or right. Whether it was in...
Life Story – original poem by Lydia Nitya Griffith
If I were to write my life story I’d start from now and work backwards, All the while forever continuing the story forward Until I can write no more Until I’ve been written off the page This morning I saw a veiled gray image Hovering over the highway Like a giant...
So It Goes
This golden light Falling through the windows Open to the wind. The garden echoes with invisible voices. Chairs positioned for conversations Covered in pine needles. Painting landscapes red and orange stained. Music pulses, a mood starts to rock In the chair next to...
From Whiplash to Whack-A-Mole
At the beginning of the pandemic I wrote a Blog called Life Whiplash. I think it pretty much summed up the impact that lockdown had on my mental health and livelihood. Fast forward a year and half later to this year I call Whack-A-Mole. Maybe you are feeling this too,...
Homeless Dancing
Homeless Dancing It is an annual tradition of summer yoga camp to take the oldest campers out one day for a couple hours to feed the homeless. This year 2021 we are still in a pandemic from Covid and so the need is even greater as so many people have suffered great...
The Little Red House, a poem
The station wagon with faux wood paneling, The memory of sliding from the car seat down to the wild grasses, The size I was then, My feet already wincing at the briars and sharp hidden things Waiting for me to step down and run painfully for the river. Summer country...
Reading, a poem by Lydia Nitya Griffith
It takes the setting aside of things, All that distracts and pulls us away from ourselves, To sit idle with a book and get lost in the narrative. Not that getting lost is a needful thing Or a requirement to something else, but more so that reading A book to the...
Stitch Me Together
My language is laughter and lunacy for I see light play and I hear trees whisper to the birds, "Stitch me together in nests of twine and straw." And the birds trill in response, "Gratitude for your strong arms and lullaby dance on gusted wind." When I heard you speak,...
Amazing Grace
It was 2008 and I was watching the economy collapse, my yoga studio slip through my fingers, and the world I thought was indestructible disappear from view. There was one shining light and that was that it was an election year, and I like many were hopeful. After 8...
Inspire Yourself
Seriously, have you hit a wall of information overload? Do you feel like most of your day is spent in front of a screen managing your kid's virtual schooling or your own job online? Do you feel like there is so much information coming at you that it's all just...
Presidential Election Predictions for 2020
When we look at the landscape of this highly unusual, deeply polarized election season we find that this coming election will bring nothing short of a revolution, a reboot, a retaliation, a resurgence. We find this in both candidates charts. Joe Biden born November...
Flying Stars for October
October 8th ushers in the month of the Yang Fire Dog. This is a critical time for our nation as we see Election Day just weeks away, still in the month of October, and we all know the Dog to be all about justice. How ironic that we will also see the likely...
Life Whiplash
Life Whiplash There we were on the highway of life going 80 miles an hour. We were in our lane and had hands on the steering wheel. The back seat might have had kids or groceries or other shopping. We had a passenger seat that resembled a make shift office because we...
Separate Together Poems
Being Spring The streets are empty. The air is full of the aroma of suppertime. My walk is a wandering, I know where I am going But there is no time anymore, It’s just now. So there is space to be aimless, And there is room to be mindless, Of course I mean that in the...
We Have Been Called Home
Many may think this means something heavenly but let us not forget heaven is here on Earth. Any ascension is your own spiritual vibration being tuned to a higher frequency. So an entire planet has been stilled and quarantined, or at least asked to and in so making...
Autumn Poems
The call of the geese Breaks the morning silence Through the trees I see their winged formation Marking the sky with autumn Monarchs track their own migration fueled by milkweed I picked one up off the road Orange and black patterned paper Hummingbirds visit gardens A...
School Lunches; Nourishing Our Children Responsibly
As the kids head back to school please keep in mind what they eat for breakfast and lunch too. This can also apply to anyone who works outside of the home. School lunches notoriously are disgusting and I have seen them first hand. Play-Doh blue colored apple sauce -...
Less is More – Self Care Begins at Home
When you are looking at your home, self care begins here. Just like in life, too much of a schedule and work load can also be seen reflected in home decor when there is too much stuff filling every room. Empty space, free time are one in the same. It is a refreshing...
If You Tune, You Hear the Music
In the classic book, To Know Your Self by Sri Swami Satchidananda one of the chapters is called If You Tune, You Hear the Music. I wonder if what we are mostly tuned into isn't static, white noise, and the vrittis or monkey mind or the chaos of our minds. I wonder if...
Your Power to Thrive
The mind is a powerful tool. The mind can hold onto memories of experiences from childhood. The mind can inspire you or depress you depending on what is going on. When we experience pain, when our hearts are broken, when we feel abandoned or rejected especially as...
I Am But Clay
At the beginning of this year, one dark, cold, rainy morning I sat in front of my altar meditating. The heavy weight of grief from a relationship that had ended and the realization that for the first time in over two decades I was alone again muddied my mind as I...