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Ironically, I began massage therapy school without ever having received a massage. However, I was attracted to the idea of touch as a method of healing the body both physically and emotionally. In 1998 I graduated from the massage therapy training program at the...
I was born and raised as the youngest of three children in Kempen am Niederrhein, Germany, and then West Germany. After my school years I did an apprenticeship in a local firm. I met my husband (who was in the army) in 1974, got engaged a year later, and we married in...
My first experience with yoga occurred in 2006 shortly after moving to Florida from northern Virginia. Moving out of state was a particularly difficult decision to make, but I bought my first house, packed my belongings, and ventured 1,000 miles away from everything...
I was born, raised, and educated in Brooklyn, NY. I studied social science at Fordham University, NYC and 35 years ago married my husband Jay. We have two sons, Ian and Ryan. Jay and I lived in NYC, Long Island, and Boston before purchasing our home in Punta Gorda in...
Teacher Appreciation Day By Gwen Burdick "Everything in the world has come out of one Divine Being, the sacred fire. The sages are the direct manifestation of that fire. No one understands them. No one talks to them. No one walks with them. They live in their own...
A few times over the past couple years I have been asked the question, “When did you start practicing yoga?” I realized that, subconsciously, I have been practicing yoga throughout my life and in various ways since I was five years old. At that age, I would put on...
My name is Sarfraz Islam. I have lived in Port Charlotte for the last 30 years and recently moved to Punta Gorda. I am a physician who has practiced for 30 years, until March 2014 when I retired. I have always been inspired by the physical and spiritual aspects of...
I was eleven years old when I watched Mark Spitz win his seven gold medals in the 1972 Olympics. A nearly full-size poster of him in the red, white and blue speedo hung on my sister's closet door. My father's stopwatch was always nearby. We were a family of swimmers....
Seven years ago I retired as a fourth grade elementary school teacher about 20 miles west of New York City. My husband Coty and I live there for five months each year, and we enjoy boating, clamming, and spending time with our family. I have two children and four...
Around the year 1965, a woman named Sue Luby moved to my hometown of Andover, Massachusetts and changed my life. Sue offered yoga classes – we’d never heard of yoga, but for some reason my mother decided we should give it a try. This would have been around the early...
I was born and raised in the northwest suburbs of Chicago; where I met my childhood sweetheart, Jane, my wife of twenty nine years. We raised three wonderful children, two whom are professional ballet dancers and one is an aspiring artist. At twenty four years old, I...
I am a teacher. In May, I will retire after nearly 55 years of teaching secondary and college German classes. I have two sons who were married this past year and now have two granddaughters. I am divorced, but have been in a committed relationship for the last eight...
I came to yoga in a way that is not usual for me—little by little, one piece at a time. Usually, I hit things full force, but with yoga it was a much slower process in the beginning. My first experience with yoga was attending classes with a friend of mine in a large...
Bob and I first met when a temporary housemate of his whom I had been casually dating invited me over to see the house. Bob was painting the ceiling of his sunroom, I recall. There was an immediate attraction. Bob recalls that I was wearing tight yoga pants—I don’t...
I have always enjoyed moving around. After teaching elementary school for 10 years, and the birth of our son, I began teaching fitness part time at our YMCA—aerobics, strength training, weights, loud music, etc. If that wasn't enough, I took up running and competed in...
My first yoga class was in 2002. I remember one pose in that class, Viparita Karani, known in English as Legs Up the Wall. It struck me as being very relaxing and not at all what I expected. In 2003 I retired and found myself with time to devote to a more fit...
I was born in Michigan and moved around the mid-west as a child, living in Michigan, Missouri, and Indiana. When I was 15, I was a passenger in a car accident. During the accident my sixth and seventh cervical vertebrae were dislocated, partially severing and...
“Unified Consciousness results when the gunas return back inward because the Ascendant’s purpose is fulfilled, or when the Absolute Self is permanently stabilized in the Divine Power of Pure Consciousness.” The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali, Sutra IV.34 Of all the...
I was born in upstate New York and moved to Florida with my parents at the age of nine. I remember telling people that I would never move back. My fondest childhood memories are from that time in New York and, while I love where I live, there are pieces of me that...
As we approach the busy season here in Punta Gorda, I can’t help but be obsessed by this idea we call time. We all have a million expressions for it: “Don’t waste your time,” “It’s about time!” “In the interest of saving time,” and so on. I, myself can’t help but feel...