Blissed out on oceans
If the women doing the “downward beluga” didn’t know this before Eoin Finn’s yoga class at the Vancouver Aquarium on Friday, they certainly did afterwards — we are all connected to the ocean.
As the aquarium’s resident whales swam in the tank behind him, the Tofino-based “blissologist” took the World Oceans Day celebrants through a series of moves like no others.
“If we walk around with a sense of gratitude and awe for the ocean, then we can protect it,” he told them as the early morning class go underway. “We came out of the ocean, so we’re going to do an evolutionary journey.”
He had them imagining they were single-cell creatures rising from the primordial “soup” before they “fished it up” with a little fish dance.
“What kind of fish stays in one place? Farm fish — so get moving!”
Next up was emulation of worms trying to make their way along the ground and then graduating to lizards. “In lizard land,” Finn said, “if your bum is higher than anyone else’s then you’ll get eaten so keep your bum down!”
And so it went until blissed out on yoga and feeling a few more muscles than they had before the class started, the 80 participants enjoyed a breakfast from Choices Markets.
At times funny, at times inspiring, and at all times surprising and delightful, Finn was able to mix his enthusiasm for life, yoga and the ocean into what one woman said was “the craziest class I’ve ever taken.”
Finn says the pairing of yoga with World Oceans Day was perfect. “What the yogis are saying is that there is a force that binds us all together. Ecologists say that, too. Yogis say there is a place inside of me that bows to you and the ecologists say that, too.”
For him, there can’t be life, let alone happiness, without the oceans. He and his wife Insiya Rasiwala-Finn live on the ocean on Vancouver Island and he’s out every day on his surfboard. “If I’m in the city too long I lose my superpowers. It’s my kyrptonite. I have to live by the ocean.”
If you missed the class, Finn will also be leading workshops at Wanderlust in Whistler in August. Blissology.com
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