The Essence of Yoga Center

The Essence of Yoga Center Modern yoga for the modern practitioner – offering continuing education, retreats and group classes.

WESTTurn with me to the west,where the sun fallsinto the horizon's open armsand the rising tideof cold and darksends the...
09/25/2026

WEST

Turn with me to the west,
where the sun falls
into the horizon's open arms
and the rising tide
of cold and dark
sends the shiver of change
through every living thing.

You will know the autumns of life,
when cherished pieces
of your world and yourself
wilt and wither,
when what has sustained you
is slipping away,
and only your faith--
that renewal
is the dancing partner of loss
--helps you trust
that the seeds of your
future wholeness
have already been planted.

- James Pearson
📸 Johannes Plenio

Good Morning, DestinyAnd what isn't a sign this morning--the way the alarm lost its ring,the scent of apples waiting to ...
09/19/2026

Good Morning, Destiny

And what isn't a sign this morning--
the way the alarm lost its ring,

the scent of apples waiting to be peeled,
the blue reveal behind morning mist,

a green street sign that reads Paradise,
the mountains themselves moving

until it appears the sun rises.
Everything feels worthy

of attention, of notice. We need
not scour for omens. What

doesn't have something to say
to us about where we are going:

five black crows on the fence line,
a missing glove, the trees shedding

whatever no longer serves them,
the sun so bright in our eyes

we must bow our heads
to move forward.

- Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer
📸 Quentin Schulz

How to ListenI’m not asking youto come down hereand clean out the muddycorners of my life.I’m asking youto be a forestwh...
09/11/2026

How to Listen

I’m not asking you
to come down here
and clean out the muddy
corners of my life.

I’m asking you
to be a forest
where mud and leaves,
shadows and light,
growth and decay
all have their unquestioned
belonging.

I’m asking you
to be an ocean,
where even great storms
don’t trouble the depths
and each tear is welcomed
as a homecoming.

I’m asking you
to be as spacious
as the vast darkness
behind the sky,
which will never be afraid
of what I do
or don’t choose.

I’m not asking you
to hold me together.
I’m asking you
to open so wide
there’s room for all the ways
I come apart.

- James Pearson
📸 Silas Baisch

Whether it's your first time or you've been coming for decades, The Essence of Yoga Center Mexico Retreat, taking place ...
09/11/2026

Whether it's your first time or you've been coming for decades, The Essence of Yoga Center Mexico Retreat, taking place January 31 through February 6, 2027, is the experience of a lifetime! Here's what awaits you:
- Daily yoga classes
- Delicious food
- Walks on the beach in the warm sun
- Time with friends, old and new
- The opportunity to befriend your body, breath and nervous system
Now is the time to reserve your room at Casa Om and your spot in the yoga room. Make your plans for a winter escape today! Visit our website to learn more and enroll: www.theessenceofyogacenter.com/mexico-retreat

VIIIWhen I rise uplet me rise up joyful like a bird.When I falllet me fall without regretlike a leaf. - Wendell Berry📸 T...
09/04/2026

VIII

When I rise up
let me rise up joyful
like a bird.

When I fall
let me fall without regret
like a leaf.

- Wendell Berry
📸 Theodor Vasile

In the days ahead I'll allow myself to feel into the deepest, purest yearnings of my heart. I will allow those yearnings...
08/30/2026

In the days ahead I'll allow myself to feel into the deepest, purest yearnings of my heart. I will allow those yearnings to bring me into spaces of stillness; spaces of gentle, wordless inquiry; and spaces of opening to whatever lies within. And I further resolve to explore, with loving awareness, whatever I discover within myself until it integrates and shines as one with the light of my innate being. I will not fear. I will not shy away from that light, whether gloriously or painfully bright. I'll look inside and welcome what I see, opening ever deeper day after day, with gentle effort, with sweet effort, allowing the spiritual unfolding that wants to happen and is ready to happen.

- The Recognition Sutras by Christopher Wallis, excerpted
📸 Dmitry Zvolskiy

Camas LiliesConsider the lilies of the field,the blue banks of camas openinginto acres of sky along the road.Would the l...
08/21/2026

Camas Lilies

Consider the lilies of the field,
the blue banks of camas opening
into acres of sky along the road.
Would the longing to lie down
and be washed by that beauty
abate if you knew their usefulness,
how the natives ground their bulbs
for flour, how the settlers’ hogs
uprooted them, grunting in gleeful
oblivion as the flowers fell?

And you—what of your rushed
and useful life? Imagine setting it all down—
papers, plans, appointments, everything—
leaving only a note: “Gone
to the fields to be lovely. Be back
when I’m through with blooming.”

Even now, unneeded and uneaten,
the camas lilies gaze out above the grass
from their tender blue eyes.
Even in sleep your life will shine.
Make no mistake. Of course
your work will always matter.
Yet Solomon in all his glory
was not arrayed like one of these.

- Lynn Ungar

How would it feel to rest in the home of your heart?Join Cara Sparkman for a donation-based workshop on August 29 from 1...
08/19/2026

How would it feel to rest in the home of your heart?
Join Cara Sparkman for a donation-based workshop on August 29 from 1 p.m. to 3:30 p.m. to experience the grounded clarity made available by an open and mobile heartspace. Explore somatic movement to free and integrate the ribs, chest and shoulder girdle into the larger context of whole-body embodiment. The workshop will conclude with a long-format yoga nidra with a focus on opposites, heartfelt intention and joy. There's still space available in studio and online! Join at the link below.
https://theessenceofyogacenter.com/workshops

SweetnessJust when it has seemed I couldn’t bear one more friend waking with a tumor, one more maniac with a pe...
08/14/2026

Sweetness

Just when it has seemed I couldn’t bear
one more friend
waking with a tumor, one more maniac

with a perfect reason, often a sweetness
has come
and changed nothing in the world

except the way I stumbled through it,
for a while lost
in the ignorance of loving

someone or something, the world shrunk
to mouth-size,
hand-size, and never seeming small.

I acknowledge there is no sweetness
that doesn’t leave a stain,
no sweetness that’s ever sufficiently sweet ....

Tonight a friend called to say his lover
was killed in a car
he was driving. His voice was low

and guttural, he repeated what he needed
to repeat, and I repeated
the one or two words we have for such grief

until we were speaking only in tones.
Often a sweetness comes
as if on loan, stays just long enough

to make sense of what it means to be alive,
then returns to its dark
source. As for me, I don’t care

where it’s been, or what bitter road
it’s traveled
to come so far, to taste so good.

- Stephen Dunn
📸 Grant Ofstedhal

Address

154 Redwood Drive
Richmond, KY
40475

Telephone

+18594929973

Website

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