Tag Archives: retreats

Fellow Hot Yoga Bradford YTTs and the yoga studio owner at the Lotus Heart Centre retreat in Brighton

Mia Herrera – Yoga Teacher In Training

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Fellow Hot Yoga Bradford YTTs and the yoga studio owner at the Lotus Heart Centre retreat in Brighton

Fellow Hot Yoga Bradford YTTs and the yoga studio owner at the Lotus Heart Centre retreat in Brighton

This weekend, I visited the Lotus Heart Centre in Brighton, Ontario for a yoga retreat. Since taking a hiatus from blogging for a little while, I’ve neglected to mention a few key activities I’ve been participating in, one of them being yoga teacher training.

I signed up as yoga teacher trainee (YTT) October 2014. I’ve been a yoga student on and off for years and was thinking of joining the YTT program for the past two years, but finally decided to join after moving to Bradford last year to get more involved in the community.

The YTT journey has been an amazing one, and far more complex than I anticipated. You can ask any yogini and she will tell you the same thing: Yoga is more than just physical poses; it’s something that requires body, mind, and spirit, and it calls for great perseverance, patience, and practice.

The Lotus Heart Centre retreat brought all YTTs from all three sister Ananda Yoga studios (located in Bradford, Aurora, and Georgina) together. As with the rest of the YTT program, the retreat gave me an opportunity to get to know some amazing people and focus deeply on my yoga practice.

Leading up to the YTT retreat, I was looking forward to two full days of uninterrupted yoga practice. I didn’t count on the amount of introspection the retreat encouraged as well. The retreat and the amount of time allowed for meditation gave me an opportunity to think about my life, assess where I am, and determine how I feel about it. The YTT retreat also helped me realize how important writing is to my personality. (Yes, somehow I always end up back at writing).

Writing is an integral part of my personality but, if I were to be honest, it often seems to get buried under the rest of my life. It seems that, for the past week, writing has been asserting its place as an important priority in my life – yelling, “Look at me! Don’t forget me!”

I noticed it first at the Bradford studio last Tuesday. There was a book on the shelf – one of those ones with 365 intentions – “messages from your angels.” I picked the book up, flipped to a random page, and found the following message (image on the right). I thought it was coincidental – writing being such an important (and yet sadly neglected) part of my personality and landing on this page.

"You've probably had many clues throughout your life that writing is part of your nature and purpose. This is a message for you to take time today to sit down and pick up your pen."

“You’ve probably had many clues throughout your life that writing is part of your nature and purpose. This is a message for you to take time today to sit down and pick up your pen.”

But then, yesterday (Saturday) night, as we were waiting for meditation to begin, a lady beside me pulled out a deck of oracle cards – coincidentally cards that were apparently from our angels again – and the card I was handed told me that I need to clear my mind to be more receptive to messages the world was giving me – whether these were messages from strangers that seemed to be hitting close to home or messages that seem to be coming up repeatedly.

Finally, during our last vinyasa practice this morning (Sunday), each student received a random intention card to read after they completed their practice. I looked at mine to find that it was a card all about expressing myself – about finding my creativity and finally voicing it.

It was at this point that I realized there is no single part of myself that I can separate out from the rest. A little while ago, I began drafting a blog post about how it seems that so many parts of my identity are compartmentalized – from what I do at work, to what I do at home, the person I am with friends, to the person I am with family, the hobbies I pursue in the yoga studio, to the hobbies I pursue in my notebook… all wildly different parts of myself that, oftentimes, don’t meet.

But I realize now that, no matter how varied these parts may feel, in the end, it all leads right back to myself. Becoming a yoga teacher has taken a lot of my time and attention, but it doesn’t make me any less of a writer. If ever, it’s enriched my ability to look inside myself and figure out exactly what I want to say. Even better, as I’ve seen this week, when I am having trouble finding my voice, it gives me an opportunity to reflect and find myself.

This blog, though varied, often has a narrow focus on me as a writer. It includes posts about readings, launches, and the writing process itself, as well as information about articles I write and reviews for games I play. I now realize I need to take a more holistic approach to this blog to fully explain exactly who I am and what my writing is all about. I’ll try better in future. As my angels have said, the more I listen to what the world is saying, the more creatively I can express myself.

And with that being said, from my yoga self, from my writing self but, most of all, from myself – from my light to yours – namaste.

 

P.S. I’ve officially added a new category to my website: Yoga!

LiL Article 4: Writer’s Retreats

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Check out my latest article on Live in Limbo, “Writer’s Retreats: What They Are & Where To Find Them”. It’s just a tad text heavy, but I’m assuming anyone interested enough to read an article about Writer’s Retreats won’t mind reading a 500 word piece without any pictures.

I noticed that my LiL content is pretty broad, from bookstore layouts to book reviews to writer’s markets. I mainly pick topics that are most relevent to me at the moment. Since LiL is such an easy-going site, it’s easy to write at large. Still, I know I definitely have to improve on my review writing. As a result, these days I pay extra close attention to reviews in papers and online in the hopes of improvement. Keep an eye out for my future book reviews to watch my progress!

Tatamagouche Centre’s Writers and Exile Workshop

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On Saturday I returned from Tatamagouche, Nova Scotia after attending the week-long Writers and Exile retreat.

Tatamagouche is a quaint, rural town located at about a two and a half hour drive from Halifax. It lacks cellphone reception and Internet connection (except for the basement’s landline computers), and is abundant in trees, mosquitoes and stars. That being said, Tatamagouche is a great place for writers in need of quiet writing and reflection time.

The bridge leading off to the hiking trail behind Tatamagouche Centre. It was my favorite part of the landscape, and is a beautiful place to watch the early morning sunrise.

The bridge leading off to the hiking trail behind Tatamagouche Centre. It was my favorite part of the landscape, and is a beautiful place to watch the early morning sunrise.

The Writers and Exile retreat, facilitated by Gwen Davies and Shani Mootoo, grappled with questions of an individual’s sense of exile and of the writer’s mission in regards to such experiences. The questions most frequently asked throughout the week were, “What story do I need to tell?” and “Why do I need to tell it?”

The retreat was the first collective writers’ experience I’ve ever had and it was an absolutely amazing one. In addition to travelling alone for the first time, I was thrown in the midst of an open and supporting group of unique individuals all searching for the same thing: their writing voice. It was heart-warming to finally feel that I, as an aspiring writer, was not alone.

Among the many things I learned over the past week, I learned that some stories just need to be written – no matter how bad the first draft. I also learned that I, as a cultural being, am not alone, nor are my experiences ones that lack interest or purpose to others. Instead, each individual’s story is one that can and should be told. The more stories we share, the wider our collective realities become. Most importantly, by being in an environment where writing is considered a serious business, I garnered the confidence in myself as a writer and in my dreams to write. As a result, I took a very important step on this journey of mine, and came back to Toronto without the fear that I’m doing the wrong thing by pursuing this dream. Life is meant to be lived. And my passion for writing is not a detriment to living. All I need now is the confidence and persistence to continue writing.

And if anyone from Tatamagouche just so happens to read this – Thank you to all the workshop participants, facilitators and visitors who made the experience a memorable one; it wouldn’t have been what it was without everyone’s whole-hearted participation and openness. It was a truly unforgettable experience.

From City to City…

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Hello everyone! After a long hiatus, I’m back from an extended three-week vacation around Florida, the Cayman Islands and Mexico. The break was a great opportunity for me to learn how to slow down and take it easy.

Posing on the Mayan Ruins. Clearly I need to do a lot of work on my yoga poses!

Posing on the Mayan Ruins. Clearly I need to do a lot of work on my yoga poses!

Prior to my vacation, I’d been feeling a bit discouraged about my writing. After fast-tracking through elementary school and university, I was faced with my career choice (writing) – something I couldn’t rush. The results seemed few and far between and I was mainly afraid of not being good enough or making a career-crippling wrong move early on. During my vacation, I realized that (as many mentors have tried to teach me before) in order to write one must first live to have things to write about. Furthermore, I realized that everything must come in its own time. Mistakes will be made and rejections will be had, but that’s all part of the process.

Although I’m currently having a two-day stop over here in Markham, I’ll be departing for Halifax this Sunday morning to attend the Writers and Exile retreat at the Tatamagouche Centre. Though I haven’t even attended the seminar yet, all of the people I’ve corresponded with thus far from Tatamagouche have been extremely encouraging and helpful.

I can’t wait to attend! I expect the retreat to be, not only a great experience, but just the kind of experience I need to further place my writing into perspective.

Convocation, Writing, Film Fest Going

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A lot has been going on and I just haven’t had the time to update. My apologies in advance for the long, long post.

Yesterday I attended my convocation ceremony and have officially graduated! The ceremony was early in the morning and, even if it was a nice day, I was extremely hot in the toga. I couldn’t help feeling sleepy, but I think the fact of graduating finally hit me when everyone began to clap for the final person to pass through and shake the Chancellor/Vice President’s hand. Only then was I suddenly struck with a wave of intense relief… I’m done!

I was unaware of this going into graduation, but apparently my grades ended me off on footing for an Honours Bachelor of Arts “with Distinction”. I guess that’s a good thing because only a handful of Trin students graduated without it. Nevertheless, it was a really nice surprise.

As I was walking up to the stage and shaking the Vice President’s hand, she congratulated me and asked me what I’m planning on doing now that I’ve finished my degree. I told her I’m going to write. She asked what I planned to write. I told her I’d like to write fiction – short stories or novels. So she congratulated me again and said she can’t wait to see my name in print. Neither can I!

 

In terms of writing, I recently registered for the Writers and Exile program at the Tatamagouche Centre. The program is a week-long intensive writing workshop focused on creative non-fiction, fiction, and culture’s role in these forms. The mentors for this retreat will be Shani Mootoo, author of Cereus Blooms at Night, Aaron Berhane from PEN Canada, and Gwen Davies, founder of Community of Writers. The only limitation I have with this program is its price ($620 for the program, accommodation, and food costs + approx. $450 in travel costs), but I received word that I’ve been approved for a $200 bursary from the Tatamagouche Centre and I applied for a scholarship there as well. I’m hoping all goes well. I used my published short story as part of my writing sample and received an awesome reference letter from Krishna. If everything goes through, I’ll be heading off to Nova Scotia for a week after I come back from my cruise this July!

In regards to scriptwriting, I’ve still been vigorously working on my script but am still in the plot revision stage. I’m not sure if I’m just really slow-going or if this is how long it takes to set the foundation down for a feature film. Although the last day of Krishna’s contract was June 15, I’ll be meeting with him tomorrow morning for our final go-over. Krishna has really been an awesome mentor – a little rough at times and blunt when things in our script have to go, but exactly what I needed – someone to tell me how things stand exactly as they are. After my time with Krishna is done, I’m taking a bit of a break from the screenwriting, only to return to my script with a vengeance later on to ready it for film fests and scriptwriting competitions.

On the side, my scripwriting friend, Maureen Holland, and I are volunteering for the ReelHeART International Film Festival. Founded in 2005, the ReelHeART Festival has grown to include the works of over a hundred different filmmakers from all around the world. The volunteer opportunity is a pretty awesome way to learn more about the industry, see new filmmaking faces, and view emergent films and screenplays for free! Maureen and I signed up for the Lunch n’ Learn morning shifts. Although the morning is a bit hectic, we get to see live reading performances of the winning screenplays selected for this year’s festival and meet with industry execs who discuss the art of screenwriting and the steps to discovery, distribution and filmmaking. Oh, we also get some free lunch – obviously the reason why I signed up for this shift. Haha, just kidding. But seriously, I signed up for this opportunity on a last minute whim upon request from Maureen, and have been wow-ed by the windows it’s opening up, providing excellent insight into the (still widely mysterious – to me at least-) film industry.

Last but definitely not least, as part of my graduation gift in celebration of yesterday’s event, my brother presented me with the following: https://miaherrera.com! Currently, the domain name redirects users to my blogspot, but soon I will have an up and running website of my own. I’ll update everyone when the website is in place. For now, feel free to continue following me here on blogspot or on my Twitter – a more informal place where I track what I’m doing, what I’m reading, what I’m seeing and what I’m listening to.

If you’ve made it thus far in my post, congratulations! I’ll be back soon!