We’re excited to announce that we’ll be starting yoga lessons in the bookshop next month. These will be led by our awesome bookseller, Michaela, and she has written a few words to explain the thinking behind the idea…
When Alex and I first talked about doing yoga at Skylark, one of his first questions was “But why do yoga in a bookshop?”
It’s a great question. On the surface, doing yoga at Skylark seems like a fun and different yoga experience, but nothing more. But his question got me thinking. What if yoga and reading aren’t all that different?
Yoga is a practice that reminds me to be curious, and each day that I practice yields an entirely varied result. My flexibility (or lack thereof in the case of my hamstrings), my energy, the time of day, what I’ve eaten and who I’m practicing with can alter my practice infinitesimally or significantly. But that’s kind of the point.
It can be so easy to be lulled into our own routines and ways of being. And in some ways, routines help simplify our life and streamline our decision-making. But they also limit our ability to be curious. We know what we like to eat at our favorite restaurant, we know the best route to get to work, and we know what coffee to order and where.
Yoga turns what we know on its head — sometimes literally. It gives us the opportunity to be curious about how it feels to balance on one foot or be upside down. But even more than that, it gives us the opportunity to be curious about ourselves.
And it is in this way that yoga and reading really aren’t so different. Reading (as so many writers have already explored) allows us the chance to escape our own life and enter into a different one — all without leaving our couch. As a child, that journey might be a fantastical one that transports you to a world vastly different from your own. But as we age, so does our reading. We might still take fantastical journeys, but over time our protagonists’ worlds might not appear to be all that different from our own.
It is this new and different lens from our own that has the ability to challenge our own views and so-called certainties. Books invite us to be curious rather than judgmental about the experiences of others. Eventually, books might even help us to embrace the radical notion that we can change our own mind.
Which doesn’t sound all that different from yoga.
So how neat would it be to engage in a mentally and physically curious practice in the company of your favorite books?
Join me Sunday October 14th from 9:30 - 10:30 a.m. to stretch your body and your mind (sorry, I couldn’t resist) at Skylark Bookshop.
A few details:
Who: Yoga is for everybody so this will be an all-levels class. Seriously. It will be an hour-long class suited to all ages and all levels.
You will need to bring your own yoga mat.
Cost: $10 cash.
Perks: A $10 credit to Skylark Bookshop valid that day! (So it’s basically free!)