The Essence of Yoga Center

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Richmond, KY
The Essence of Yoga Center

Modern yoga for the modern practitioner – offering continuing education, retreats and group classes.

12/20/2025

Winter Blessing

May you grow still enough to hear
the small noises earth makes in
preparing for the long sleep of
winter, so that you yourself may
grow calm and grounded deep within.

May you grow still enough to hear
the trickling of water seeping into
the ground, so that your soul may
be softened and healed, and guided
in its flow.

May you grow still enough to hear
the splintering of starlight in the
winter sky and the roar at earth's
fiery core.

May you grow still enough to hear
the stir of a single snowflake in the
air, so that your inner silence may
turn into hushed expectation.

- Brother David Steindl-Rast
📸 Darius Cotoi

12/13/2025

There is nothing I can give you which you have not got; but there is much, that, while I cannot give it, you can take. No Heaven can come to us unless our hearts find rest in it to-day. Take Heaven! No peace lies in the future which is not hidden in this present instant. Take peace!

The gloom of the world is but a shadow. Behind it, yet within our reach, is joy. There is radiance and glory in the darkness, could we but see; and to see, we have only to look. I beseech you to look.

Life is so generous a giver, but we, judging its gifts by their covering, cast them away as ugly or heavy or hard. Remove the covering, and you will find beneath it a living splendor, woven of love, by wisdom, with power. Welcome it, grasp it, and you touch the Angel’s hand that brings it to you. Everything we call a trial, a sorrow, or a duty: believe me, the angel’s hand is there; the gift is there, and the wonder of an overshadowing Presence. Our joys, too: be not content with them as joys, they too conceal diviner gifts.

Life is so full of meaning and of purpose, so full of beauty–beneath its covering–that you will find that earth but cloaks your heaven. Courage, then to claim it: that is all! But courage you have; and the knowledge that we are pilgrims together, wending through unknown country, home.

And so, at this Christmas time, I greet you; not quite as the world sends greetings, but with profound esteem, and with the prayer that for you, now and forever, the day breaks and the shadows flee away.

- Fra Giovanni, A Letter to the Most Illustrious the Contessina Allagia Dela Aldobrandeschi, Anno Domini 1513
📸 Valeria V

12/06/2025

For Light

Light cannot see inside things.
That is what the dark is for:
Minding the interior,
Nurturing the draw of growth
Through places where death
In its own way turns into life.

In the glare of neon times,
Let our eyes not be worn
By surfaces that shine
With hunger made attractive.

That our thoughts may be true light,
Finding their way into words
Which have the weight of shadow
To hold the layers of truth.

That we never place our trust
In minds claimed by empty light,
Where one-sided certainties
Are driven by false desire.

When we look into the heart,
May our eyes have the kindness
And reverence of candlelight.

That the searching of our minds
Be equal to the oblique
Crevices and corners where
The mystery continues to dwell,
glimmering in fugitive light.

When we are confined inside
The dark house of suffering
That moonlight might find a window.

When we become false and lost
That the severe noon-light
Would cast our shadow clear.

When we love, that dawn-light
Would lighten our feet
Upon the waters.

As we grow old, that twilight
Would illuminate treasure
In the fields of memory.

And that when we come to search for God,
Let us first be robed in night,
Put on the mind of morning
To feel the rush of light
Spread slowly inside
The color and stillness
Of a found world.

- John O’Donohue
📸 Sixteen Miles Out

11/30/2025

Monday morning classes with Judy, Wednesday evening classes with Cara, PLUS a special workshop on New Year's Eve. Won't you join us a for a class in December? All group classes, as well as this special workshop, are eligible for our Pay from the Heart option. Give yourself the gift of practice this holiday season... ❄️🎄🧘

11/29/2025

Praise Song

Praise the light of late November,
the thin sunlight that goes deep in the bones.
Praise the crows chattering in the oak trees;
though they are clothed in night, they do not
despair. Praise what little there’s left:
the small boats of milkweed pods, husks, hulls,
shells, the architecture of trees. Praise the meadow
of dried weeds: yarrow, goldenrod, chicory,
the remains of summer. Praise the blue sky
that hasn’t cracked yet. Praise the sun slipping down
behind the beechnuts, praise the quilt of leaves
that covers the grass: Scarlet Oak, Sweet Gum,
Sugar Maple. Though darkness gathers, praise our crazy
fallen world; it’s all we have, and it’s never enough.

- Barbara Crooker
📸 Pure Julia

11/22/2025

Let Evening Come

Let the light of late afternoon
shine through chinks in the barn, moving
up the bales as the sun moves down.

Let the cricket take up chafing
as a woman takes up her needles
and her yarn. Let evening come.

Let dew collect on the hoe abandoned
in long grass. Let the stars appear
and the moon disclose her silver horn.

Let the fox go back to its sandy den.
Let the wind die down. Let the shed
go black inside. Let evening come.

To the bottle in the ditch, to the scoop
in the oats, to air in the lung
let evening come.

Let it come, as it will, and don’t
be afraid. God does not leave us
comfortless, so let evening come.

- Jane Kenyon
📸 Gene Guy

11/18/2025

Feel like a good time to book a getaway in paradise? Consider joining The Essence of Yoga Center Mexico Retreat 2026 at the beginning of February. Daily yoga classes, delicious food, relaxing afternoons on the beach. All this and more awaits you. Reserve your spot today!

11/14/2025

After Samhain

Now, for a while, the dark
stays dark. The long nights
will be long no matter
how you pray for light.

This god will not be rushed.

But she will offer you
the thick black folds of her cloak,
where you're finally free
to lose everything
that can't be kept.

- James Pearson
📸 Martin Adams

11/09/2025

November Evening

And then there’s
the yellow trees dripping
with after-storm light.
And then the busy
people’s faces, each
with its effortless beauty.
And then the steely, spacious
twilight glow in the west,
and to the east the tall poplar
shining dimly against
dark gray distant clouds.
And then I’m walking in
a world once again enchanted,
once again seducing me
back into wonder. And then,
just for a moment,
I remember who I am.

- James Pearson
📸 Eduard Delputte

11/01/2025

Join us for a class in November! All group classes are suitable for all levels and are eligible for our "Pay from the Heart" option.

10/31/2025

The Way It Is

There’s a thread you follow. It goes among
things that change. But it doesn’t change.
People wonder about what you are pursuing.
You have to explain about the thread.
But it is hard for others to see.
While you hold it you can’t get lost.
Tragedies happen; people get hurt
or die; and you suffer and get old.
Nothing you do can stop time’s unfolding.
You don’t ever let go of the thread.

- William Stafford
📸 Noel Kirkegaard

10/24/2025

Bioluminescence

Sometimes, when I fear
the small light I bring
isn’t big enough or bright
enough, I think of that night
on the beach years ago
when every step I took
in the cool wet sand turned
a glowing, iridescent blue—
and the waves themselves
were a flashing greenish hue—
imagine we could do
what 7.9 billion
one-celled can plankton do—
can shine when it’s dark,
can shine when agitated,
can shine with our own
inner light and trust when we all
bring the tiny light we have,
it’s enough to illumine
the long stretch of night.

- Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer
📸 Ahmed Nishaath

Address

154 Redwood Drive
Richmond, KY
40475

Telephone

+18594929973

Website

http://www.theessenceofyogacenter.com/

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