Yoga with depth in Italy
You can continue to bring depth your yoga journey with more intensive yoga practice in the mountainous region of Trentino in Northern Italy. Courses of 4 to 6 days are offered involving more intensive practice, specifically tailored to help you make progress. These courses will also include other practices such as breathing practices, soul exercises and meditation.
The place
Courses are based in the small, peaceful mountain village of Lundo or in the nearby village of Cares. You feel truly high above the world here, away from daily life with all its habitual thoughts, feelings and stresses. It is the ideal environment in which to focus on new and deeper ideas. Lundo is the home of the so-called Sun Oasis, created by spiritual teacher Heinz Grill as a place of connection and dialogue for people who want to bring a living spirituality to the world.
The Architechture
Over the last few years, many of the old houses in this ancient mountain village have been renovated following Heinz Grill’s ideas of harmonious architecture, providing a variety of unique venues for teaching and accommodation. The rooms are designed to encourage a feeling of harmony and connection.
Many windows are created and sharp corners are rounded off to allow light to circulate. Each house or room is based on a theme (for example lavender, rosemary, the sun, etc) and visiting artists have painted corresponding murals on the walls.
We stay in one of these beautiful houses and you will also have a chance to see many of the other newly designed buildings.
Yoga practice
These courses give you an opportunity to practise yoga more intensively, making both physical progress in your practice and also deepening your understanding and experience of the exercises and their spiritual meanings.
There are one or sometimes two yoga sessions per day. I give you tailored help so that you can progress in the poses and areas of your choice. We explore how to perfect the exercises in order to give them real form and expression. We look at their inner meanings and what we can learn from them to put into practice in life.
Yoga practice happens in the teaching rooms in Lundo, or if the weather is lovely we can walk up to the mountain meadow at Naone and practice outside.
Yoga practice in Naone meadow
The teaching building at Naone meadow.
Other practices
While the physical asana practice is the chief focus, other practices including breathing practices (pranayama), soul exercises and meditation also form part of our day. These spiritual exercises are a way of training concentration, learning to form clearer and freer thoughts, developing more sensitive and refined feelings for things, and of guiding our will more consciously.
Exploring spiritual wisdom
Yoga is a spiritual discipline involving not just physical practices but ultimately a permeation of the whole of life with deep wisdom. During these days we work with short passages of text containing thoughts of deep truth. This kind of work is not intellectual study or discussion, but more like a form of meditation in which these thoughts are given space and a chance to come alive in their own radiance.
Food
How do the thoughts and attentiveness of the cook affect the food we eat? At the Sun Oasis a thriving and imaginative new art of vegetarian cooking is developing in which this and many other questions are being explored. Organically, locally grown wholefoods, based on grains, vegetables, pulses, nuts and seeds, cheese and yogurt and artfully crafted sourdough bread provide the sun-filled fuel necessary for creative work. Two meals per day prepared by cooks trained at the Sun Oasis are included in the package cost.
An encounter with living spirituality
The spiritual teacher Heinz Grill resides in Lundo and runs spiritual study courses some weekends. His thoughts carry a deep content of truth, and so they speak to each of us in the depth of the heart. A meeting with Heinz Grill can open up new insights for us, or bring to the surface realisations that had previously not reached conscious awareness. These encounters represent an important landmark on our journey of spiritual development. If you would like this encounter you can book to stay on after the course with me to attend one of these weekends.
In this video Heinz Grill talks about the practice of looking beneath the surface.
Walking
During our stay we include at least one mountain walk for those who wish. This is not just for exercise and to enjoy the spectacular views, but also to practise soul exercises in which we build a deeper connection to nature.
The walk up to the meadow at Naone takes about half an hour, up a mountain path through the forest.
For those who prefer a flatter walk, there is a beautiful footpath around the exquisite, turquoise lake Tenno.
Location and travel
The Sun Oasis is located a 30 minute walk from the small mountain village of Lundo in Italy. Lundo is in a valley adjacent to Lake Garda. See maps. The nearest airport is Verona. Other possible airports are Milan Bergamo and Venice. If you wish to fly with me, or meet me at the destination airport, we can share car hire. Otherwise you can make your own way to Lundo. The nearest train station is Trento and from there there are buses to the local town of Ponte Arche from where you can be collected.
The village of Lundo
Yoga in Italy Cost
Costs vary depending on the length of stay, but generally it is around £500 for 5 nights accommodation, 4 days tuition, two vegetarian meals per day for 4 days, and transport from Bergamo airport.
Additional costs will be the flights and breakfast/snacks. There are breakfast making facilities in the accommodation and we can buy food in local supermarkets and shops.
