Yoga Under the Bodhi Tree

31/12/2025

Wishing all my students a wonderful 2025/ 2026 New Years Eve celebration! And yippee to see the end of 2025! Shedding our snakeskins and moving into a more optimistic, truthful, change- driven 2026, the year of the Fire Horse. 2025 was chokkers with challenges. Who can forget Cyclone Alfred hovering offshore, wrecking its destruction on the SE QLD coast. We held our Yoga Retreat at the Theosophical Centre in Springbrook the weekend straight afterwards as we moved back into normal life. It was so good to do a whole weekend of beautiful yoga and laugh! My Guru and mentor Doreena Scales retired . I'm so grateful for her guidance. Buddha said: "These teachings are a one time offer. Take them while you can or lose this opportunity forever." This goes for all of us. Opportunities to learn and grow mentally, spiritually and physically are rare, so grab these teachings while you can!

I've always taken that philosophy to heart and when the International Breathwork Conference 2025 came up - Fraser Island, K'Gari the first time offered in Australia, I knew I would be learning from the worlds best breath workers. Such an honour. Taking my sound healing training to new heights and falling in love with the Gong. Sound and vibration - joined with yoga, breathwork and meditation - you will never be the same! In fact resonance, electricity and light have inspired my whole Yoga Retreat coming up in 2026 (Fri 20/3 - Sun 22/3/26). A Yoga retreat geared to teach my students to tune their bodies and minds like a Stradivarius violin.

A quick hop back to RSA to see family - walking with the elephants. So beautiful. And our last class for the year - 3 very special yogis joining hands. Penny and her dear little boys. What a gorgeous year of yoga! Thank you students for joining me. Love and namaste Margot

28/12/2025

24/12/2025

Merry Christmas to all my beautiful students and your families! Thank you for joining me for yoga this year. And thank you for your friendship and love and courage! It has been an honour to share this magical, ancient science of yoga with you all. Have the most wonderful celebration of Christmas, surrounded by people you love. And may 2026 be healthy, loving, joyous and abundant for us all. Love and namaste Margot

14/12/2025

Such awesome yoga the last couple of weeks and so good to be back on the mats with my students! And as we wrap up 2025, this last week of yoga classes (Mon 15/12 – Sat 20/12/25) will be Ta**ra! A glorious way to end the yogic year. Ta**ra is one of the oldest yoga traditions and is all about finding balance in all aspects of our lives. Ta**ra is the path to inner liberation and through Ta**ra, everything we do can become a sacred, spiritual act.

An interesting aspect to Ta**ra is Vedic Astrology. The influence of the planet energies is part of every spiritual tradition and Vedic astrology points to the alignment of 3 planets in 2026 which is huge. A triangle alignment of the north node in Aquarius, Saturn in Pisces and Jupiter in Cancer. Your North node disrupts, Jupiter expands and Saturn stabilizes – so for everyone, 2026 is our year of karmic growth. This triangle brings: Global tech growth with spiritual awareness, truth coming out in politics and society and deep inner healing for water signs (Cancer, Scorpio, Pisces).

In Chinese Astrology, as 2025 looms to a close, if you feel like things are ending, it’s because they are. This year was all about shedding bad energy. Transformation, deep truth and regeneration. 2025 was also a 9 Year and 9 is the highest level of change. Moving into 2026, the year of the Fire Horse and a 1 year in Feng Shui, a year for new beginnings, honesty and self-leadership. And if you are a Fire Horse in Chinese astrology this is the year for you!

As usual life mimics art and where I put my attention, so Mother Nature jumps to the occasion! A snakeskin in my garden which gave me a big fright! I had met its owner a day earlier, I think it was a brown tree snake. My Poinciana in full bloom. Red like the Fire Horse, what a great omen for 2026. And Sound Healing, using resonance and frequency to help us shift us into new realms of awareness. See you on the mats students! Love and namaste Margot

14/12/2025

Last class for the year Saturday 20/12/25 8am Zamia Theatre MT Tamborine.
And join us for lunch at St Bernard's Hotel afterwards, 12 noon, just text me (0428 137 391) if you'd like to join us to wrap up a divine year of yoga!
Back on the mats Monday 12/1/26.
Have the most wonderful Christmas break students!
Lots of love and Namaste Margot

07/12/2025

Yin Yoga tomorrow with Sound Healing: All classes, all week: Mon 8/12/25 - Sat 13/12/25. Come and join us for a divine YIN class. Bring your bolsters and blocks . Love and Namaste Margot

07/12/2025

Yin Yoga tomorrow with Sound Healing: All classes, all week: Mon 8/12/25 - Sat 13/12/25. Come and join us for a divine YIN class. Bring your bolsters and blocks . Love and Namaste Margot

04/12/2025

Your Shadow Self
So, I’m truly back from my trip overseas to spend time with Derek's mum. A very special time it was. And one thing that struck me, in the 5 years I last revisited South Africa, is how everyone, and I mean from the chap sweeping the path, to the shop assistant to the person begging at the light - has a mobile phone clapped to their heads.
This sunk home when we were in Storms River, a spectacular part of the East Coast where ancient old growth Yellowwood (related to the Antarctic Beech trees of Springbrook – part of the Gondwana age when dinosaurs roamed the world) grow right down to the sea. This cold, sparkling blue water, the baboons in the forest and the myriads of seabirds circling above – all this magnificence was lost for the man who organised our kayak paddle up an ancient gorge. On his break he was glued to a movie on his phone. He wasn’t there. The vegetable (gross, material) body was there, but he had lost his mind to some Hollywood fictional junk. And this is the story of much of every society on this planet.

So, it begs me to ask, what would your life be like if you clawed back ownership of your own mind, your own thoughts, your own daydreaming? Instead of thinking of the movie you watched last night, or the Instagram post you scrolled through this morning – what would your world be if you reclaimed the whole of you?
The quickest way to get there is through a structured weekend of Silence. A study on silence found that in just 2 to 3 days of intentional silence the brain begins to functionally and physically rewire itself, with changes comparable to what might be achieved through months of meditation or cognitive training. After 2 days of sustained silence, participants showed the growth of new brain cells in the hippocampus, something previously thought to require long-term interventions.
Silence also benefits your emotional state. The emotional centres of the brain begin to communicate more efficiently. People then respond to emotional stress more effectively, with people reporting steadier moods, increased resilience and fewer overreactions. Those changes also lasted weeks beyond the silent period.

So, what will it be like, this silence combined with breathwork, yoga and meditation? Well, initially you’ll have to get used to the noise in your head. The chatter, the monkey mind. It won’t last long and then will reduce to a faint hum. And then the feelings, and memories, maybe some sadness, grief or regrets will bubble up. Your Shadow Self will emerge. This is the part of you that finds that person over there sooo annoying. They move too loudly; they might have an unconscious sniff or tic that drives you bananas. After a while of ruminating internally you’ll realise that they bug you because that habit reminds you of YOU. Yes, our shadowy bits, those ugly, disowned little orphan bits of us, locked away, often shamed, we see in others all the time. Those people we don’t like.

Once this lightbulb hits, you’ll find yourself mentally turning to face your Shadow YOU, and hopefully invite it in. You’ll be doing so much funky yoga, meditation and breathwork that you’ll be like a fearless warrior and open your arms to invite whatever dark bits of you are hanging around your mind. You’ll be encouraged to journal, maybe draw, document your dreams and in this way, in these 2 days of silence, you will get to know more of YOU than you have perhaps in the last year. There is nothing as powerful as getting to know and integrate the whole of YOU.
It will be a blast. You’ll never be the same and will keep growing weeks after the Retreat. Hope you can join us! Love and namaste Margot

27/11/2025

Last bit of our African holiday- the wild animals! These beautiful, sentient beings are beyond all adjectives, they resonate with an energy of pure presence. Walking with the elephants. OMgosh I will never get used to how it feels to walk alongside these incredible mammals. Did you know that elephants are the best mothers, and form the most loyal and connected social groups? They celebrate the birth of their young. They mourn and re-visit the burial grounds of their dead. And they are poached as are all the other animals featured here, by disgusting non- human nations for various body parts for "medicines", usually of a sexual prowess nature. And they are bred for private game trophy hunters. May those who kill for fun return as the lowest form of energetic being - a rat perhaps or a cockroach in the cycle of sa ta na ma.

These 3 elephants here are rescues, in fact most of the animals on this farm have been rescued from abuse, poaching and illegal trafficking. Mum elephant is called Three, and is pictured here with her biological daughter and adopted daughter. Three remembered Derek, he fed her as a little boy. She sniffed him all over with her trunk to reconnect. So beautiful. The two male lions Dandelion and Boris, a white lion. Beautiful female lions, amazing predators. The most lethal of the predators here are the Cape Leopards. Roxy, the lone hyena, another rescue story. About 15 years old, the ranger said she was the most intelligent and grumpy of all the animals on the farm. Cheetahs, they could barely raise their heads to glance at us gawking humans. Giraffes waiting for treats. Zebra, Wildebeest and the dearest Warthogs. And the birds! Weaver birds, my favourite bird from childhood. Their nests are magical creations and the males spend so much time decorating them and lining them with soft mimosa leaves to attract the females. The lone Hammerhead bird, waiting for fish. Vultures, we used to soar with them on our hangliders and paragliders . Finches of all colours. See you on the mats students - love and namaste Margot!

24/11/2025

Back in business! I hope many of you can join me back on the mats today Tuesday 25/11/25 9.30am Zamia Theatre, MT Tamborine. All classes normal from now on. We are enjoying classes all the way up to Saturday 20/12/25 and the studio will reopen Monday 12/1/26.
So happy to be back!
Love and namaste Margot

20/11/2025

Our leg to Cape Town. And I cant wait to do a full yoga class with you all! My morning yoga routine is not the same. Cape Town is lovely, crowded with tourists, hawkers and everyone else. We lasted a few days and had to move to more remote digs. Definitely not city fans. And the wind blew about 30 to 40knots everyday except the one we went up the mountain, us and the rest of CT. A 2.5hour queue, even though we got there as it opened and the whole business soured by privledged locals bribing the queue ushers and jumping the queue much to the outrage of a very vocal Netherlander in front of us. When corruption occurs from the top, the cartels in this current government do exactly what they want and everyone else feels they can do the same. Structures dont work when no one honours them. But the West Coast was our fave. Lonely, desolate, so beautiful and windy! The kitesurfing and foiling on Langebaan was world class. We were exhausted. Beach bomas, impromtu restaurants on the beach and beautiful white cottages of Cape Dutch origin. Kirstenbosch gardens breathtakingly beautiful and home to rare and endangered native species. Many are harvested illegally for the medicinal trade or wiped out through land development. These tireless amazing botanists are doing their best to preserve this amazing flora. Rich and fascinating stuff.

14/11/2025

Sagubona to all my beautiful students from sunny South Africa! I cant wait to reconnect with you guys on the mats on Tuesday 25/11. Have had a wonderful time so far reconnecting with loved ones. So important in our world of scattered, nomadic families. And not all care and no fun! Weve squeezed in some fabulous stuff as well. Shark diving off Gansbaai eastern cape. No great whites unfortunately but lots of hungry bronze whalers slamming themselves against your cage hoping for some yummy chum. This is actually a conservation effort and these remarkable people are raising awareness of how imortant sharks are in our ecosystem. Zip lining over the sea from the lighthouse to the beach mossel bay. And swimming in the pristine waters of storms river. That metal appendage was actually a ladder and years ago derek had a photo of 17yo me climbing out. Time flies when you have fun! Of course this beautiful place has its share of divine birds. The eagles! My fave bird. Travelling through the wheatbelt many telephone poles have nests for the black and the brown snake eagle. Hardedas waking us up in natal. Louries hiding in the forests of knysna. Shongolos, my fave centipede and this dear little tortoise was cruising through the garden. Theres always a downside to paradise though. The water here is undrinkable, even boiled. Full of ecoli. Many of the natal beaches are unswimnable, sewerage. And the postal system and railway systems have collapsed . Teething problems. The people here are as always, warm and gorgeous. Love and namaste Margot