The Book Report by Rebecca Traver - Our Online Bookshop Curator

“Yoga is the perfect opportunity to be curious about who you are.”

~Jason Crandell

“Yoga begins with listening. When we listen, we are giving space to what is.” 

~Richard Freeman

Now that a third of the new year has passed, I’m guessing that some of those promises made in January to take better care of ourselves may have faded a bit. While I’ve generally learned to not set myself up for disappointment with resolutions, this past year has tweaked so many of my ‘usual’ rules to live by, that I have been revisiting practices that have dropped away over the years. At the top of my list is yoga. 

I’d love to share this amazing collection with you, chosen with an eye toward a diverse range of approach and practice level in mind. 

Here are some that I’m most inspired by:

Every Body Yoga: Let Go of Fear, Get on the Mat, Love Your Body by Jessamyn Stanley. This one is a stereotype-buster with beautifully photographed easy-to-follow directions for developing a powerful home practice.

This Moment Is Your Life (and So Is This One): A Fun and Easy Guide to Mindfulness, Meditation, and Yoga by Mariam Gates is a perfect introduction for tweens and teens. Miriam has written two others with even younger folks in mind: Good Morning Yoga: A Pose-by-Pose Wake Up Story for cultivating a balanced and grounded start to the day and Good Night Yoga offering a calming practice routine for bedtime. I find these useful for beginners of all ages.

I also particularly like Yoga Where You Are by Dianne Bondy and Kat Heagberg for it’s clear guidance and terrific photos of people of all shapes, sizes, and abilities. This is an inclusive approach to learning how to customize your practice to accommodate the needs of the moment in support your practice as it evolves.

Bringing Yoga to Life: The Everyday Practice of Enlightened Living by Donna Farhi does a beautiful job of guiding the reader toward developing an expanded perspective of yoga as a path of true spiritual growth, beyond its applications as an exercise routine or stress management alone.

Your Spine, Your Yoga: Developing Stability and Mobility for Your Spine by Bernie Clark offers practical advice and information about the structures of the body and how they interrelate. This book is especially useful for yoga teachers and includes suggestions for how to bring this knowledge into the classroom with clarity and confidence.

And last, but certainly not least, I offer this by the eminent chakra expert Anodea Judith on learning how to use yoga’s principles and practices to awaken and enliven the subtle energy centers - the chakra system - and connect with our higher source.

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May these works inspire and support you on your journey into wholeness, balance, well-being, strength, and ease. 

Namasté