Amanda Dzengeleski
Re-Blooming with Spring

Imagine practicing yoga surrounded by the delicate beauty of spring—wildflowers nodding gently in the breeze, the scent of fresh herbs and tea leaves in the air. This is the magic of the Tea House, where nature and mindfulness intertwine to create a space for deep connection. We invite you to embrace the season’s rising energy in our April yoga series.

Re-Blooming with Spring
Amanda Dzengeleski
NEW Mindfulness Meditation Class

Meditation is not a linear journey. It’s not about achieving a specific state or reaching a final destination. Instead, it’s a variable practice that shifts and evolves. This fluidity makes meditation an opportunity for exploration rather than a pursuit of perfection. It invites us to let go of binary perspectives such as good or bad, right or wrong, failure or success.

NEW Mindfulness Meditation Class
Guest User
Meditation for Those Who Can’t Meditate

Do you feel like meditation just isn’t for you? You’re not alone. Meditation is often seen as a gateway to calm, clarity, and balance. But the truth is, sitting in silence can feel anything but peaceful. It’s important to understand that meditation isn’t about achieving peacefulness. It’s about learning to focus on a single thought, noticing distractions, and gently guiding your attention back.

Meditation for Those Who Can’t Meditate
Amanda Dzengeleski
Easing into the New Year with Grace and ...

As the calendar turns and the new year approaches, it’s easy to get swept up in the tide of resolutions and the pressure to “start fresh.” We draft lists of goals and set rigid expectations, believing that January 1st marks the start of a perfect, linear path toward self-improvement. But what if we approached the new year differently? What if, instead of rigid resolutions, we embraced curiosity, intention, and a willingness to ease into this next chapter with grace?

SAM Sather
The Sacrum: A Key to Spinal Health and Mobility

The sacrum, often overlooked, plays a vital role in both spinal health and overall movement. It's not just a single bone but a fusion of five vertebrae that occurs as we age, usually completing the process in our 20s. Despite this fusion, the sacrum is part of a dynamic system that requires awareness and movement to stay healthy.

The Sacrum: A Key to Spinal Health and Mobility

Welcome, Gretchen Clore! Dogwood Studio’s New Summer Intern (2024)

Welcome, Gretchen Clore! Dogwood Studio’s New Summer Intern (2024)

We welcome our 2024 summer intern, Gretchen. “I am excited to intern with Dogwood Studio.” Teaching yoga is a lifelong learning and Gretchen looks forward to deepening her therapeutic and functional approach to yoga. She enjoys working with beginners and seniors. “This is an incredible opportunity to deepen my personal yoga practice and to strengthen my yoga instruction,” says Gretchen. “At the age of 57, I’m much more concerned with how I feel in a pose and how my students feel in a pose—not how the pose looks.”

Accepting Change

Accepting Change

Yoga invites an exploration of positions and movements you don’t always do. This opportunity to experience something different allows you to embrace the discomfort of change. You learn to notice when your mental imprints, known as samskaras, shape your perceptions, reactions, and understanding of the world. Exploring new thoughts, habits or routines cultivates mental resilience and openness.

Yoga Supports Lifelong Learning

Yoga Supports Lifelong Learning

Engaging in a regular yoga practice invites us to embark on an inward journey creating an environment conducive to lifelong learning. Through mindful movement and self-inquiry, we develop a deeper understanding of how our thoughts (mind), emotions (heart), and physiology (body) are interconnected. This heightened awareness helps us tune into our authentic selves, recognizing patterns, behaviors, and feelings that might otherwise go unnoticed.

The Components of Functional Movement - Stability, Mobility, and Flexibility

The Components of Functional Movement - Stability, Mobility, and Flexibility

Functional movement is the integration of stability, mobility and flexibility to support natural movement patterns and adapt to the physical demands of daily life. This approach takes into account individual differences, including skeletal variation and medical history. It's not just about being strong but being able to feel good and move well on and off the mat.

Heart of Wonder

Heart of Wonder

We look forward to our 3rd Art and Yoga Retreat: Heart of Wonder at the NC Botanical Garden in Chapel Hill. June 15, 2024 will be a day filled with a creative playfulness, exploration, and connection. Experiences of awe and wonder reduce activation of our sympathetic nervous system, increase vagal nerve tone, and reduce inflammation and physical stress in our bodies.

The mind is connected to the breath.

The mind is connected to the breath.

There exists a subtle yet profound connection between the mind and the breath. Choosing to breathe consciously, transforms our practice into an embrace of clarity. Yoga practice becomes more than moving with intention. Noticing the breath funnels activities of the mind into an effortless one pointed focus. With each breath, we surrender deeper into our practice, letting go of distractions and attachments, and embracing the fullness of our being. 

How We Breathe Matters

How We Breathe Matters

The way we breathe and the specific patterns we adopt can have significant effects on our wellbeing and nervous system. Yoga and pranayama cultivates mindful breathing. Breathing practices can activate the parasympathetic nervous system, the "rest and digest" system. Yoga can help train ourselves to pay attention to the sensations of the breath and allow us to choose how we breathe.

Spring Process

Spring Process

Happy Spring and blessed Equinox. This moment of Spring that we are in is not a sudden occurrence, but is rather a continuum of the rhythm of the natural world. In other words, this moment is part of a spiralic, dynamic process. This moment is not a sudden, isolated occurrence, but rather a continuation of all other moments, breaths, and (inter)actions. Our asana practice provides us a wonderful container to notice, observe, and experience our own process. It is in moments of observing attachments or aversion that we createspace to be free of these kleshas. 

Yoga in The Garden!!! April 2024

Yoga in The Garden!!! April 2024

Yoga in the NC Botanical Garden, resumes April 4, 2024 for 11 weeks. Spring offers us a unique opportunity to observe the ever-changing quality of nature (called anicca in Buddhism). While practice yoga in nature this spring we can witness the changes in phrenology of the trees changes and the emergence of perennials. This provides an opportunity to witness anicca in ourselves. Each time we arrive to the mat, we are anew.