Welcome to Lunar Lark Yoga! My name is Aisha Kindred, I am a mom, an educator, a yoga enthusiast and I am now the proud entrepreneur of Lunar Lark Yoga. Over the last few months, I have had the delightful opportunity of growing my yoga endeavours. These endeavours had begun years prior with ongoing yoga training, teaching regular children’s classes and enjoying my personal practice, to lately having the opportunity to teach classes at a beautiful new local fitness centre, sharing specialty yoga classes at a local holistic health clinic, teaching children’s yoga at a local learning centre, teaching classes to adults and children at my home-based studio, and offering one-on-one yoga therapy. I have also had the pleasure of sharing yoga through a variety of other opportunities within the greater Saint John community. I recently facilitated a meditative forest walk at a corporate event and LOVED the experience.

I believe in the power of yoga to help a person achieve a sense of personal wellness and to connect with community through honouring one's mind/body connection with breath using a physical practice, mindfulness techniques, breath practices, and a variety of meditation and guided relaxation techniques. Yoga is truly an integrative practice. It has helped me immensely over the years, physically, mentally and emotionally, and I wish to share its capabilities as a therapeutic modality with others. We live in a world where our nervous system is continuously in fight-or-flight through everyday events and stressors and yoga provides inherent tools to help upregulate the parasympathetic response of rest and digest. The opposite of stress is relaxation and achieving a healthy and relaxed state can take much practise and require many reminders, yoga has your back!

The name Lunar Lark Yoga, is jam packed with meaning because as friends and family have remarked from a young age… I am deep. I jokingly call Lunar Lark my third child and just like my parents named me with much consideration of the meaning given (this blog title is inspired by Stevie Wonder's song released in 1976 called "Isn't She Lovely", this is where my parents first heard my name as he sings, "Life is Aisha, the meaning of her name"), I named my actual children, Ayla, Wynn and my pseudo child, Lunar Lark with much thought toward the meanings of their names.

I will attempt to explain some of the deep thoughts that went into naming Lunar Lark Yoga without digging tooooo deep beneath the surface. First, I wanted something that represented the light and the darkness we all experience throughout our lives so Lunar (Luna is the name of our beloved family dog), representing the moon, became the symbol for night and Lark (a name on my list if I had an actual third child), one of the most beautiful morning songbirds and symbolic in its own right, became the symbol of the day time. Night and Day Yoga would be too obvious and not quite cut it. Second, I am crazy about the moon… cue a wolf howling soundtrack now. It is beautiful and its view changes daily, and it's even out of sight for a time each month. The amount of the moon we see lit up from earth as it transitions through its monthly phases is symbolic of the growth and manifestation we can generate throughout the course of our human experience, offering a mysterious and somewhat magical element.

Third, I thought of a songbird singing its beautiful morning song as a representation of a person finding healing and coping tools through their yoga practice regardless of their past experience and regardless of the amount of light or darkness in their current life’s events. It is often our darkest moments that can illuminate the most profound lessons. After taking off with this symbolism of a songbird, I later learned that humans find birdsong relaxing because we’ve been hard wired for thousands of years to connect birdsong with safety. Most birds won’t sing when predators are around so if there is birdsong it means there is no imminent danger nearby and this connection to safety makes us feel relaxed and at peace. Then, there is the literature student in me who loves alliteration, it’s just so tongue twistingly catchy. All of this to say, I named Lunar Lark Yoga with the intention of providing a space for my clients in which they can be themselves regardless of how good or painful, or somewhere in-between, things are at the moment. It is a space where they can learn to utilise movement, and mindfulness and breath to create some ease and relaxation whether times are blissful or challenging. Lunar Lark Yoga provides a space for you to come as you are, and drawing from a variety of yoga practices and styles, I am committed to helping you feel at least a little better when you leave. You can simply come for some great exercise on the easy days or to acquire tools that act as a healing salve on the hardest of days. Yoga provides tools for physical growth and challenge in a playful and fun way to supplement the brighter days. I believe strongly in the power of yoga to address one’s perceived minor physical and mental health concerns, and as a beautiful way to enhance one’s life experience in general as we increase our self awareness and tune in to the beauty of the moment. I am also trained, and soon to be certified, to share one-on-one yoga therapy. If you are curious about trying a class, a yoga therapy session, or are looking for a yoga facilitator for an event, please reach out and we can chat!

With Care,

Aisha

PS As summer winds down (hopefully very slowly) and a new school year begins, I have canceled Lunar Lark Yoga classes. My son and I are both in the midst of transition, he enters middle school in September and my work life is in the midst of some exciting transition. Classes will resume in early September once we've acclimated to our school and work changes!