Yoga - wow!

I have tried all sorts of relaxation approaches - meditation, reiki, tai chi, qi gong. But I have never tried yoga. Well, I am on holiday at the moment. We are in the middle of an activity week. We are learning to sail - something I am not finding easy. Capsizing seems to be the bit which I find particularly easy.

Each morning we have a class of yoga, which is amazing. We are learning Ashtanga Yoga - it is one of the most strenuous hours I have spent. I am gaining remarkable levels of fitness really quickly.

I intend to continue with yoga after the holiday.

Poetry silence - when to start again

I have written hardly any poetry in such a long time now - March was the last time I put anything together which might be called a poem.

I'm inspired by the daily posts on Greg Perry's blog at the moment. He is writing a canto series. Each day sees at least one new poem, and they are well worth a read. Well done Greg - now for some words of my own.....

Great books - Proust

Step One of the 'Big Reads' challenge. I have borrowed 'Swann's Way' from my local library. The first part of 'In Search of Lost Time'.

Podcasts backlog

I've not been listening to podcasts for a little while. It's something I have just returned to - thanks to a little gadget which makes it possible for me to listen to them in the car through my iriver mp3 player. Before I got this gadget the only way to listen to podcasts was by burning them to CD-RW discs which was a real pain. Now I can listen to anything on the iriver through the radio in the car. It is brilliant.

I do, however, have a huge backlog to listen to. I'm ploughing through them, and really enjoying what I am hearing. The best of the bunch are Adam Curry's 'Daily Source Code', Rowland Cutler's 'Dark Compass', Podcast Paul and Lynn Parsons' 'Chalet Show'. There are also a bunch of shows which cover self-development which are excellent. These include Steve Pavlina, Robin Sharma, and a collection of weekly shows on Hayhouse Radio. And the other feed which I am really enjoying is a weekly podcast called Zencast which is about all things buddhist and includes some programmes by Thich Nhat Hanh.

All of this makes the commute to and from work a little less tedious.

The world of podcasting has changed a lot since I last posted on the subject. There are now many legal sources of music for podcasters. More on this in a future post.

Big reads

There are three big books which I have not read in my life:

• Marcel Proust - In Search of Lost Time
• Leo Tolstoy - War & Peace
• Edward Gibbon - Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire

Like climbing mountains, I need to read them because they are there to conquer. Do any of you have other suggestions for the 'big books' challenge?