True Nature Travels Blog

The True Nature of Yoga – What is the Meaning of Yoga?

  Yoga.  The word alone conjures up all sorts of meanings and images.  I bet you are thinking of someone doing a crazy yoga asana or pose right now, like standing on their hands or putting their legs behind their head.  Yes, this is yoga, too, but in fact, the real reason humans have been practicing yoga for over 5,000 years simply reconnect with their innermost selves, or their True

Memories of Asheville Community Yoga Trip to Costa Rica

Always slow breath of the Pacific calming, Body blooms in warm moist air, Scent of Ylang Ylang perfuming the night. I am cradled by rocking warm waves Shared with whales, dolphins, turtles, birds. Over boulders a stream plunges, I float in a rain forest cold hole, Ancient Ajo trees arc above Cicadas shriek, rattling eardrums Mute as head dips below surface. Alone where once dinosaurs roamed Crunching giant fern, philodendrons

Reflecting Through Poem on the Rhythms of Joy

Following the 2nd Annual Rhythms of Joy Retreat with Tiina Kivinen in January 2014, one of the retreat participants, Rick, shared with us this beautiful poem that he used to reflect on his experience with True Nature Education and time in Costa Rica. He spent a week on a birding expedition following his time on the retreat with us, during which he said he had ample time to process his

On Synchronicity and "Being in the Flow"

You know when everything feels connected?  Maybe you’ve run into a long lost friend at the grocery store who you’ve been meaning to catch up with.  Perhaps your yoga class focused on the exact part of your body that needed your attention. You feel like you are in the right place at the right time, and things are going your way.  I like to refer to this experience as “being

2nd Annual Rhythms of Joy Retreat: Waking Up from Silence

During the 2nd Annual Rhythms of Joy Retreat led by Tiina Kivinen with True Nature Education, we took an opportunity to be in silence.  This activity opened space to go deeper within ourselves, disconnecting from the daily chatter we partake in.  We were to be silent throughout the night until after the following morning’s meditation.  I spent the night listening to my higher self, journaling, meditating, and resting. I woke up earlier

A Journey of the Heart through Service and Adventure – Asheville Community Yoga Retreat Experience

On our third day of the Asheville Community Yoga Costa Rica Yoga Experience, we visited the village of La Florida, the home for many years of Joshua Canter and Kristin Luna Ray, TNE Co-Founders. It was a sweet reunion with some dear old friends along with the special local Costa Rica community, which represented, in many ways, the foundation of True Nature Education. We left the La Casinga Eco-Lodge and

The True Nature of Family

Just a couple of hours ago our Chant Together: A Family Bhakti Yoga Celebration with David ‘Durga Das’ Newman, Mira Newman, and Friends departed. It was a wonderfully rich week of retreat. Bhakti Yoga is also known as the yoga of devotion and love. The essence of this week was just that. Standing on the incredible Finca Luna Nueva Lodge property, I gaze into the distance at the vast rainforest