By Erin Wood
New year, new resolutions. Many of our best intentions end up broken by February, leaving us bereft. Perhaps instead of trying to force change, we could embrace what’s already inside ourselves as we nurture our spiritual and physical growth while improving our mental health.
For thousands of years, the ancient practice of yoga has helped practitioners do just this. With countless options for all body types, ages, and conditions, including anxiety, pregnancy, glaucoma, cancer, surgeries, amputations, retinopathy, or most any situation one can name, yoga is truly for everyone.
The Mud & The Lotus: A Guide and Workbook for Students of Yoga by Courtney Denise Butler is a rich selection for anyone interested in understanding more about personal growth through yoga.
Accessible for new students as well as informative for long-time practitioners and yoga teachers, it shares basic yoga history, physical and energetic anatomy, teaching tips and pose adjustments, essential cautionary notes, detailed yoga business advice, demonstrative images and illustrations, inspirational personal anecdotes, and much more.
Thinking of yoga teacher training or a yoga retreat in the new year but unsure about the investment? At $29.95, The Mud & The Lotus offers a preview of what you’ll learn as it was developed from Butler’s own student-teacher curriculum at Balance Yoga and Wellness Yoga School in Hot Springs, and may help you decide if this path is right for you.
8.5 x 11 x, 234 pages, 50+ illustrations. $29.95 plus free shipping at etaliapress.com, at Amazon.com, or from your local bookseller. Follow the author on her Courtney Butler-Robinson YouTube channel (see “Videos” for hundreds of options), find her on the Insight Timer app, or listen to her interview on episode #89 of at theconnectedyogateacher.com (“Yoga for Stress Management”).
A Hot Springs native, Erin Wood is a writer, editor, and publisher in Little Rock. She owns and runs Et Alia Press (etaliapress.com). She is editor of and a contributor to Scars: An Anthology and is currently at work on Women Makers of Arkansas, featuring 50+ women creatives. Wood’s work has appeared in Catapult, The Rumpus, Ms. Magazine’s Blog, Psychology Today, Tales from the South, and elsewhere, and was a Best American Essays notable.
