15th & 16th March 2025

Ancient and Always Fresh – Movement and Mythology

with James Boag

Aberdeen Whole Life Yoga Immersion

• Storytelling and Mythology

• Movement and Meditation

• Kīrtan, recitation and the power of Sanskṛt sound

As the spring equinox approaches, let’s come together for a weekend immersed in practical, empowering teachings of yoga through movement, story, singing and recitation.

You will be working with James Boag and his practical, empowering Whole Life Yoga.

James draws on decades of study, practice and teaching experience, including many years in India. He shares the rich mythology of the yoga tradition from a deep well of knowledge and has a beautiful capacity to communicate the practical riches of yoga stories and symbols and the power of mantras and the Sanskrit language. 

Here’s what you are getting into!

Do you want to savour the rich flavour of yogic mythology and expand your understanding of timeless yoga principles to help deepen harmony in the reality of Life? 

We hope you do! And here is what TO EXPECT over the weekend:

– Experience the cleansing, harmonising power of Sanskṛtrecitation. Learn the principles to be able to recite Sanskṛtyoga texts with greater accuracy, clarity and confidence.

– Savour the rich flavour of yogic mythology and explore its practical teachings

– Expand your understanding of yoga principles to enrich your yoga practice, empower your daily life and cultivate deepening harmony in the reality of human existence.

– Experience how yoga principles can support all types of work, practice and movement through stimulating and refreshing movement practices.

– Learn robust and adaptable ‘do anywhere’ techniques to promote circulation of nourishing, harmonising energy and information.

– Work playfully with coordinative patterns and stimuli, challenging body, mind and senses to easefully, playfully promote neurogenesis and renewal while cultivating dynamic strength, balance and practical mobility.

Saturday 15th March

9.30am – 10.30am Chanting

Optional recitation time: invocatory singing and recitation of sections of Yoga Sūtra

10.30am – 1pm Movement & Mythology Workshop

Śiva Nāṭarāja and The Five Act Dance Drama of Consciousness:

Five Acts, Zero, Wholeness, Rhythm and Harmony

Working with the rich practical symbolism of Śiva Nāṭarāja – Lord of the Five Act Dance Drama of Existence –  this movement based exploration will explore how we can harness a movement or āsana practice to help us create more space, affirm more steadiness, let go of unnecessary tensions and inhibitions, see more clearly where we may be unnecessarily limiting ourselves and invite more grace, beauty and connectivity.

This will include work to mobilise the joints and spine, attune and awaken the body’s different instrumental powers so we can more readily function as a unit and move through life as more of a dance and less of a struggle.

2 – 5pm Liṅgāṣṭakam & Storytelling

Sanskṛt recitation and the power of sound

The Liṅgāṣṭakam hymn – eight verses on Śiva in the form of the liṅga

A special opportunity to learn about Sanskṛt recitation with a teacher who has been blessed to share this by traditional Sanskṛt paṇḍit-s.

In this session, we’ll learn the sounds of Sanskṛt and about the way recitation was traditionally taught as an integral part of yoga practice.

And we’ll experience this as we learn to sing and recite the beautiful liṅgāṣṭakam

While the Sanskṛt lanaguage is an ocean and can be studied for lifetimes, we can learn to recite and pronounce it relatively quickly.

Saṁskṛta literally means ‘well made, well done, well constructed’. One way the language is so well structured is in terms of how it is pronounced and there are clear guidelines that can help us access the tremendous harmonising power of accurate Sanskṛt recitation.  Research corroborates what practitioners have known for millennia: Sanskṛt recitation activates both hemispheres of the brain and invites a meditative, integrated state of awareness. Singing and reciting in Sanskṛt can be tremendously cleansing, empowering and is a very important aspect of traditional yoga practice. In the Indic vision of existence, sound is all pervasive, so when we work with it directly, we can bring tremendous benefits to our whole being.

James will guide us into the joy and power of accurate Sanskṛt recitation.

We will learn:

-How to correctly and confidently pronounce the sounds of Sanskṛt

-The sounds of Sanskṛt as an accessible vocal yoga practice

-The key principles for accurate pronunciation of Sanskṛt mantras, songs and hymns

-How to recite and sing the liṅgāṣṭakam hymn of eight verses in praise of Śiva in the form of the liṅga.

As we work with this hymn, we will look into some of the stories it evokes, allowing us to consider the rich and amazingly practical symbolism of yogic mythology and how this relates to our āsana and other yoga practices.

Sunday 16th March

9.30am – 10.30am Chanting

Optional recitation time: invocatory singing and recitation of sections of Yoga Sūtra

10.30am – 1pm Movement & Mythology Workshop

Śiva Nāṭarāja – dancing amidst the whirling wonder of Life

Expanding on practical themes from the previous day’s consideration of śiva and the liṅga and teachings encoded in the liṅgāṣṭakam hymn, we’ll explore how to harness yogic movement practice to shed obsolete patterns, deepen our experience of balance and help us develop in the directions of our deeper longings.

Principles and practices to help make practice renewing, invigorating, fortifying and refreshing through all the stages and cycles of life.

2 – 5pm Mythology & Storytelling

Why are we doing what we are doing? How can we ensure that our practice is serving us and we don’t become slaves to dogma?

In this session, we’ll look at the one of the key themes emphasised in the liṅgāṣṭakam through the powerful and many-layered story of the destruction of Dakṣa’s yajña. This will bring us to the heart of the teachings and how we can help ensure our practice stays heartful and nourishing to the whole as it inevitably evolves and changes through the cycles and stages of life.

With meditation, kīrtan singing and recitation of the liṅgāṣṭakam along the way.