Looking at this photo, taken on the roof deck of Fekra Cultural Center in Aswan, makes me smile: oh, how over the course of the retreat, this empty circle filled! With people, with yoga practice, with peace, with camaraderie, with yoga! What an opening it created for each individual and for building community! When we gather with intention and explore yoga while-heartedly, things open…

The connections (to practice, to nature, to ourselves and with each other) made those days continues. On Facebook, the jokes, photo postings and well wishes keep on coming, but also in a more subtle level, there’s this sense of nourishment and calm in the body, heart and spirit.

And while time for retreat has passed and real life with all it’s complexities draws us further from our experience in Aswan, I remind myself that a circle has no beginning and it certainly has no end.

Photo: The start of the first Ashtanga in Aswan Retreat on December 19. Our circle awaiting filling.