Yoga Space: Yoga & Climate Action

4th November 2023

Members are invited to join us for Yoga Space on Friday 17 November, 2-3pm on Zoom.

Yoga Space is a platform for IY(UK) members to get together online to learn and share views and ideas on our yoga lives and practice.  

For this event panellists and Iyengar yoga teachers Helen Clay (Sheffield), Laura Potts (York) and Kim Skinner (Manchester) will put forward ideas on how yoga’s yamas and niyamas might influence our thinking on yoga and climate action.

The panel has shared details of what to expect:

This session will open discussion about whether and how yoga can contribute to addressing the climate crisis. Evidence of the crisis mounts daily along with the realisation that human systems, values and behaviours are responsible. We need to do things differently. But how should we act and what can we do? 

Our panel will present ideas about these issues. In her article for the Autumn edition of Iyengar Yoga News (due out this month), Helen explores how teachings in the Bhagavadgītā about karmayoga, the ‘yoga of action’ have wisdom to offer, to widen perspectives, and help yoga extend beyond individual health and wellbeing towards planetary health and wellbeing, from ‘me’ to ‘we’. Helen will also report on the nascent ‘Yoga Climate Action Network’ in Sheffield. 

Along with Helen’s article is an open letter from Laura, which considers climate action in relation to yoga’s teachings about habitual patterns of mind and behaviour (saṃskāras) and the practice of yamas and niyamas, particularly non-harming (ahiṃsa) and truthfulness (satya). She particularly references our habitual travel for yoga and the imperative of environmental justice.

Kim is a yoga student and part time teacher and has lived in South Manchester for 31 years. For 27 of those years she has been involved in a campaign to save some nearby fields from developers. Being involved in campaigning has been, at times, arduous; reflecting on the yoga student’s relationship with other people and the world around us has helped sustain that commitment.

We hope that those who are concerned about the relationship between yoga and climate action will come along with their concerns and ideas, and that we can have a productive and useful conversation. As ever, you are also welcome to come along and listen.

The articles referenced will be shared before the event.

Members – sign in to book your place. Not a member? Sign up or renew here