I never was a fan of outdoor yoga practice. When I was a kid doing yoga in the 80's, my Iyengar yoga teacher, still actively teaching, used to strictly instruct us not to - it was distracting, and hard to get level ground. Try doing trikonasana on soft sand and you'll know what I mean. The cyynic in me is also scathing of those choreographed sunset shots of a beautifully slender yogi in natarajasana (dancer's pose) balancing precariously on a rocky outcrop, no one in sight except her and the photographer. But cynicism doesn't a good yogi make, so I'll bite my tongue.

But yoga isn't meant to have an audience. It's meant to be just you, introspective, meditative, connected.

So however you get there, that's okay.

A few weeks ago I went to an outdoor yoga practice to support a local yoga teacher who couldn't teach at the hall due to COVID restrictions, and was beginning her classes. I didn't want to go - it was hayfever season and practicing on the grass didn't seem too appealing, let alone my self professed aversion to outdoor yoga. But I swallowed everything and went, because I imagined how I'd feel if no one turned up to my class.

Janu sirsasana by the river

Putting aside the annoyance of slightly slopey ground, having to wear mosquito repellent and practicing in a public place aside, and the fact that at one point the cops circled us with their car, I ended up quite enjoying the experience, especially as I slipped into savasana as the cockatoos came to roost. Yes, they are noisy buggers - not what you'd really want to interrupt a resting pose. I didn't even shut my eyes - I looked up into the beautiful red gums and listened to the birds and watched the dappled light in the trees, and felt peaceful and full of grace. It wasn't as bad as I thought. Sure, I coughed and sneezed for the remainder of the evening, but I wasn't quite as anti outdoor practice as I thought.

In the majestic outdoors this week, camping in the mountains in Victoria, I realised I did practice outdoors much more than I thought. In the quite bends of lonely beaches or by rivers, I reached for the sky and bowed to the earth, stretched sideways and expanded my lungs, moved my heart to the sky. It wasn't a traditional sequence as such, but connected breath and movement, helping me to connect to my essential life force, prana, chi, feeling joy as the energy flowed through me and I celebrated the joy of life and movement and breath.

And then there was the immediate grounding I received in nature that was much, much faster than any meditation practice in four walls. Earth below, sky above.

By the river, I felt the stones and pebbles at my seat, wiggled my sitting bones into the warmth of the earth, imagined the flow and flux of water and living creatures and soil underneath me, tiny worms, microbes, underground streams. Solid, earthed, my spine coiled to the sky, the crown of the head touched with sunlight, the blue expanse stretching into infinity, the bounds of the atmosphere to the great galaxies that spiralled overhead, the sun and the moon in their waxing and waning and eternal spinning. The birds screeched and cawed and their wingbeats shroooomed in the morning air as they caught insects, kookaburras diving for yabbies and wetting me with their wing beat. Here I was, there they were, here we were, I am that, they are that. That which is. It can get very, very cosmic very quickly. Root chakra, heart chakra. Open and full of light and grace.

Practicing by a river bank or in the great outdoors can be quite the spiritual experience

This cosmic energy is the cosmic agni or fire of ancient sun salutations, igniting the energies of the self, allowing us to connect to this higher state of being.

By the river, my sun salutations are not traditional - I stretch my arms up, but on the sloping river bank, being fully prostrate on the earth is not possible. But moving to breath can be intuitive, not bound by formulaic sequence and strict instructions of movement. As long as I am moving mindfully with breath, connecting, I am practicing the ancient tradition of yoga. So I stretch my hands skyward, the upward salute of urdhva hastasana, and sweep my hands down to the clear mountain water, lengthening my spine, breath exhaling and being taken by the water. I trail my fingers in the velvety silk, lift droplets up with my fingertips so they catch the light, splash cold liquid on my face, my closed eyes, inhale, exhale and dip my fingers down again and reach upward, sweep my arms around in gentle twists, spine opening up and loosening the tension of the night. Again and again I reach and dip, reach and dip, conscious of the elements, the fire of the sun, the river water, the pebbles. It's ritualistic, a prayer of body and breath to the earth, the sky.

And then it happens - the moment where there is no sense of me ending and nature beginning. The boundary of the skin is thin and loose - I flow with all that is around me, shimmering. There is no separation.

I am one with all there is, just for a moment.

Ananda, bliss.

And so I sit for a while, smiling, alive.