The wondrous shift of the seasons, with the prolific appearance of apples and pumpkins and the slant of light of Fall, signals change. The industrious spinning of webs with patient spiders suspended in the centre of their meticulous weaving, wood smoke and fallen leaves, indicate change.

Changes around the globe: political, geographic and climatic, escapes no one. Yes, the only constant is change, and it comes to us all.

A significant personal change for me of late is selling my Yoga Studio to the Salt Spring Island Wellness Centre.

Many of you have watched me create and recreate Ganges Yoga Studio five times in a total of the 14 years I have operated the Studio downtown. With each termination of my lease, I never missed a beat and found a forgotten, abandoned or undesirable piece of real estate and transformed each into beautiful, sacred spaces for multi-discipline activities ranging from daily classes in movement therapies to educational forums.

Who can forget the moment when we hosted the Sacred Relics at Grace Point Square with the Buddhist monks who had traveled around the world with this extraordinary Exhibit? Our silent circumbulations around the Matreiya Buddha and gazing in awe on the jeweled remains of high Lamas and Teachers was just one highlight of being present as a Sacred Space downtown Ganges.

I know I was ahead of my time in putting in the Great Yoga Wall in the first studio, as we were one of the first in Canada to do so. The Wall: a technical structure enabling remedial and reconstructive therapy for physical injuries and an intelligent method for enhancing and deepening the understanding of poses for beginners and advanced practitioners.

Over the years, we hosted great guest teachers, many of whom are now iconic figures in their respective fields: Michael Stone, Matthew Remski and Julie Gudmestad come to mind. Musicians and poets also found their way to our door. Sweet concerts with Jaime Sieber, Alan Micelli and Ma Muse still ring in my ears. Kirtan with Wade Morrisette, Jaya Laksmi & Ananada, and more recently, Bhavantu Sound from Victoria, B.C and Chris Mapstone from Byron Bay, Australia are memorable.

We have also been privileged to have facilitated several Wedding parties at both Ganges and Still Point Yoga Studios and offered our spaces for Memorial Ceremonies for beloved Islanders who had passed on. Workshops with psychics, meditations with Crystal Bowls and musical instruments designed to elevate consciousness, birthday parties and baby showers, tea ceremonies and circles for sharing and baring our souls, all in name of growth and truth. Gosh! We have done it all!

I know our spaces have been quintessential for many as a place of refuge where help and assistance with life challenges has been offered with care and attention. This will not change. Our teachers have been and continue to be impeccable, professional and empathetic.

Resting now at 120 Hereford Avenue alongside the Salt Spring Island Wellness Centre makes a perfect fit for the integration of Ganges Yoga Studio into a business model which not only integrates all things pertaining to Wellness, but also within a model which makes it affordable for all. Still Point Yoga Studio has also closed its doors for now as The Salt Spring Island Wellness Centre picks up where we left off and added more.

To all my students and folks who have traveled this path with me, to the artists, trades folk and Island businesses who have helped me with each new renovation, to Spirit and Angels who have encouraged me to never give up, thank-you so much!

I am happy to be continuing to teach at the Wellness Centre and shall remain accessible always for phone calls and emails and conversations about Yoga as we encounter each other at Coffee and Book Shops and whilst buying groceries!

Please check out the new model at the Wellness Centre and support this new emerging and unique business. They have a great website where you can follow their blogs, make on-line bookings for numerous and various classes and therapies, life style coaching and fitness programmes.

The Community Acupuncture and Drop-In Clinics are offered at a “ Pay-as-you-want” rate and they have Studio space to rent for your own Special Event.

As Locals we owe it to support new enterprise if the intention is to serve our Community, and I believe that Greg Clayton and the folks at the Salt Spring Wellness Centre will do just that.

See you in class!
Om, Celeste.