Thursday, September 1, 2011
Eoin Finn, his wife Insyia, and their 6 month old son Ananda returned home to Haliburton to visit Eoin’s mom Carol for a week in August. While they were here Eoin (with the help of Insyia and Ananda) offered a two hour yoga workshop at Blue Sky Yoga Studio that was about many things…. mostly about having a practice of tuning in and loving your body so that you can go out into the world (including the natural world) and be a better person. I’ve said it before but yoga is about connecting with all the goodness that is around us and then being the best you can be and offering your unique contributions to the world. Eoin and Insyia certainly live this practice. It was inspiring to be in their presence. They were fun, lighthearted, incredibly strong and flexible yogi’s and very accepting of all who attended the class. There were very part times yogi’s mixed with serious students and everyone felt welcome and very full of appreciation by the end. Eoin is Canada’s most well known, and popular yoga teacher. In 2011 he launched a series of beautiful DVD’s that were filmed in Bali and are about doing a yoga practice and living a life full of bliss. Yoga studios around the world, and individuals are using these DVD’s to inspire themselves. In 2011, Eoin was a guest speaker on the TED Talks (www.ted.com) that are “riveting talks by remarkable people” and it is a big honour to be asked to be part of these series. In the spring of this year, Eoin was mentioned by Oprah in her O magazine about his dedication to hammock enlightenment (Eoin believes that all of the hard work we do in a yoga class is so that we can truly relax at the end– ideally in a hammock). Eoin, Inysia and Ananda travel all over the world teaching yoga and inspiring people to be connected to each other and to the earth. In the next months they will travel to Bali, India, United States and other parts of the world to teach. They are very passionate people and it is infectious when you are round them. I was incredibly grateful to have them here, as were the sold out workshop attendees. Their visit to Haliburton also happened to be during the week in which Jack Layton passed away and Canadians across the country were expressing their gratitude for the way that he was in the world. He was a politician who cared about everyone (no judgments about where you come from, what you do for a living, how much money you make, your sexual orientation etc.). He worked to help everyone. Jack is an example of being a force of goodness in the world. Moments after his funeral people were posing questions on facebook like “how are you going to be a better Canadian?” . Jack Layton talked about the power of love, hope and optimism in our lives and how that can change the world. Jack, Eoin and Insyia are talking about the same things. They all challenged every one of us to contribute to making our world a better place whether it is through being a politician, a teacher, a parent, the manager of the dump, a writer, an artist, a doctor, a naturopath, a kid, a student etc. We can all make a difference by each being our unique best and by having a good attitude.