Maggie Norton Yoga

Maggie Norton Yoga Maggie Norton has studied yoga and meditation for over 30 years. Maggie is also trained in Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction and iRest Yoga Nidra.

Maggie offers weekly classes in Ukiah in Active and Adaptive Yoga, as well as specialized courses and workshops in Back Care, Stress Reduction, Balance and Mobility, Deep Relaxation, plus Therapeutic Yoga and Yoga Philosophy programs for Yoga teacher She particularly enjoys a body-sensing approach to a mindful and playful yoga practice, seeing the body as a doorway to deep connection and presence. Maggie is Co-Founder and board member of Yoga Mendocino, a non profit community organisation.

09/18/2026

Inspiration for our yoga sessions!?đŸ±

Those of you who have attended class will know that I always focus on the breath, especially at the beginning and end of...
09/15/2026

Those of you who have attended class will know that I always focus on the breath, especially at the beginning and end of each session. Our breathing certainly benefits from the ‘opening’ and stretching of yoga poses. Flexibility in your back can protect our lung function, especially with the amount of time we spend hunched over devices. Also deep abdominal breathing stretches the diaphragm, which can help expand lung capacity. Sometimes the practice is simply to pay attention to our breath. This in itself will sometimes slow the breath down, ‘smooth it out’ and allow us to feel more present. This attending to our breath is also important during our physical practice of course, offering greater ease of movement and release of tension. There are so many approaches in yoga to working with the breath, including the ones that we have practiced together in recent classes, alternate nostril breathing, extended exhalations, the 4/6/8 breath and box breathing. I wonder which ones are your favourites?
This week we will return to box breathing, also known as square breathing. In traditional yoga, this equal-ratio breath is called Sama Vritti Pranayama, which translates to ‘equal fluctuation’ or equal breathing. This approach involves making all four parts of the breath cycle equal in length: an inhalation, a retention (holding) at the top, an exhalation, and a retention at the bottom. While classical yoga texts refer to equal ratios and four-corner breaths (chatushkona) for steadying the mind, the specific moniker "box breathing" was popularized more recently. This (and some other pranayama techniques) has benefits for both the mind and body by helping to regulate the nervous system.
Here’s to the moments in your day ‘set aside strictly for breathing’ (see poem). I hope that you can join us for this week's virtual live-stream yoga classes on Zoom,Tuesday 4:30pm pst and Wednesday 9:30am pst. Let me know if you wish to receive my weekly email with more inspiring quotes and yoga class details [links and passwords are also in my IG bio]

Many of our beloved ‘heroes’ have left the earth recently, including Gloria Steinem, Wendell Berry and Dolly Parton. The...
09/08/2026

Many of our beloved ‘heroes’ have left the earth recently, including Gloria Steinem, Wendell Berry and Dolly Parton. They all shared many words of wisdom with us. I'm sure some of them will show up in my future 'epistles'. Today I’m turning to Wendell (novelist, poet, essayist, environmental activist, cultural critic and farmer) and some of his words both of, and about, hope.
The chaos and harm that seems to be increasing daily in this country and in other parts of our world can cause many of us a loss of hope, even despair. I've had a number of conversations with friends recently talking about how much the state of the world affects our moods, often giving us a sense of a ‘short fuse’. There may be additional causes of worry in our personal lives but my sense is that smaller concerns in our daily lives can trigger anxiety or anger more easily because we are carrying that burden of existential dread. There is even something called ‘Mean World Syndrome’, caused by chronic exposure to negative news and media, which trains your brain to remain in a constant state of alert regarding global events!
So, perhaps more than ever, we need a sense of hope and encouragement. It seems essential to follow Wendell’s good counsel to take care of ourselves, each other and our world and to notice ‘small human acts of compassion, acts of care, work flowerlike in selfless loveliness.’ May your yoga and meditation practice bring you back to the moment, reconnecting you to ‘the ground under your feet’. May we all be able to find moments of inner peace, to ‘be still and listen’, illuminated by what Wendell Berry calls ‘the light that is within you’. I hope that you can join us for this week's virtual live-stream yoga classes on Zoom,Tuesday 4:30pm pst and Wednesday 9:30am pst. Let me know if you wish to receive my weekly email with more inspiring quotes and yoga class details (links and passwords are also in my IG bio)

Joanna Macy said, “In times of turmoil and danger, gratitude helps to steady and ground us. It brings us into presence, ...
09/01/2026

Joanna Macy said, “In times of turmoil and danger, gratitude helps to steady and ground us. It brings us into presence, and our full presence is perhaps the best offering we can make to our world.”
In the midst of it all I’m feeling grateful for the first rain of the season here last night.In northern California we don’t expect any rain for a number of months over the summer but in my homeland that means drought. There, and in other parts of the European continent, it’s been a summer of successive heatwaves, scorching temperatures and bone-dry conditions with rain only arriving in many areas at the end of August. This week’s poet reminds us that we can embrace thanksgiving in every season of the year and of life. I cannot be reminded too often to express my appreciation for all that is around me, even and perhaps especially when it may seem that life is too hard to bear. For Ross Gay gratitude contains both the spontaneous joy of being alive and the hovering certainty of death and difficulty. He acknowledges sorrow and distress but guides us toward joy and wonder, choosing gratitude over despair.
The poem echoes the well-known words of Meister Eckhart a 14th century German Catholic priest, philosopher and mystic, “If the only prayer you said was thank you, that would be enough”. May our yoga and meditation practice encourage us to turn to acceptance and even appreciation for all that we experience, the grief and the delight, the garden in summer, and the garden in winter.
I hope that you can join us for this week's virtual live-stream yoga classes on Zoom,Tuesday 4:30pm pst and Wednesday 9:30am pst. Let me know if you wish to receive my weekly email with more inspiring quotes and yoga class details (links and passwords are also in my IG bio)

On Monday Aug 31, Luang Por Pasanno, Ajahn Karunadhammo and Debbie Stamp will be at Three Jewels in Fort Bragg for the m...
08/29/2026

On Monday Aug 31, Luang Por Pasanno, Ajahn Karunadhammo and Debbie Stamp will be at Three Jewels in Fort Bragg for the meal (11:00 am), tea time (5:30 pm), and the evening program (7:00 pm).
It's unusual for all three to visit from the main monastery, Abhayagiri in Redwood Valley. I'm looking forward to their combined wisdom.

I'm posting this earlier than my usual weekly yoga info so that those of you who are planning to take the live classes k...
08/25/2026

I'm posting this earlier than my usual weekly yoga info so that those of you who are planning to take the live classes know that I will NOT be teaching this week, the last week of August.
This past week I have had some kind of bug that has left me tired as well as not wanting to re-kindle the sore throat! Nothing too serious but probably wise to take a break. Also I will be accompanying a friend to a medical appointment out of the area on Tuesday and possibly back rather late.
AND..of course, there is a poem! It’s a very long poem that I hope you will really enjoy in the midst of 'this unbearable tenderness of being alive', 'all’ve it astonishing that we are here'. Link in the comments.
Do read ‘and then go outside and look at that moon’ and ' keep finding reasons to stay soft'
See you in September for our live streamed classes.♄

Last week as I was getting ready for some 'distinguished guests' visiting at the weekend, my sister and I talked about h...
08/18/2026

Last week as I was getting ready for some 'distinguished guests' visiting at the weekend, my sister and I talked about how easily we can be concerned about our homes being just right for visitors. Perhaps we imagine that they might judge us for all the imperfections and see them as a reflection of who we are! After that conversation, Pam sent me Donna Ashworth's poem. It's one I shared with you a few years ago and hopefully worth repeating. Most of us of course judge our own homes, minds and bodies in a way that is far more critical than what we bring to our friends and family. May the quotes and poem this week remind each of us to ‘be ready’ to notice and welcome any moments of peace, joy or beauty.
I look forward to our yoga time together, inviting joy, such a ‘distinguished guest’, to ’slither through the cracks’ of our yoga practice and our 'imperfect lives'. I hope that you can join us for this week's virtual live-stream yoga classes on Zoom,Tuesday 4:30pm pst and Wednesday 9:30am pst. Let me know if you wish to receive my weekly email with more inspiring quotes and yoga class details (links and passwords are also in my IG bio)

How do we stay present to this world? How do we both ‘not turn away’ as the poet Rumi wrote, open our hearts more, turn ...
08/11/2026

How do we stay present to this world? How do we both ‘not turn away’ as the poet Rumi wrote, open our hearts more, turn always to love and take care of ourselves? I know this is a question I often ask in some way in these weekly reflections. We each have our own ways of titrating what we take in, our own responses. My heart and mind feel assaulted daily by the news of cruelty, corruption as well as the silencing of many voices of truth. I know I am not alone in this.
Meditation teacher Sharon Salzberg says 'only love is big enough to hold all the pain of this world.' I certainly couldn’t express the invitation “to love as if the world depends on it’ any more clearly than this week's poem. Can you still, “race up to the world as if you were a puppy, adoring and unjaded” ? Certainly my partner’s puppy Button does exactly that, as does her 4-year-old granddaughter. They remain “ridiculously courageous in love”!
May our yoga and meditation practice encourage an open heart in the midst of it all.I hope that you can join us for this week's virtual live-stream yoga classes on Zoom,Tuesday 4:30pm pst and Wednesday 9:30am pst. Let me know if you wish to receive my weekly email with more inspiring quotes and yoga class details (links and passwords are also in my IG bio)

Meditation teacher Sharon Salzburg says,"Kindness is at the core of what it means to be alive." Would you agree? This i...
08/04/2026

Meditation teacher Sharon Salzburg says,"Kindness is at the core of what it means to be alive." Would you agree? This is perhaps another version of the Dalai Lama’s famous quote, ‘My religion is kindness’.
Sharon Salzberg’s writing reminded me of this week’s poem and I confess to plagiarizing some of her wise words today! Even though it’s a human tendency to almost exclusively remember what we’ve done wrong (as Rick Hanson says,“The mind is like Velcro for negative experiences and Teflon for positive ones.”), we can consciously shift our attention to include the good within us. This is not meant to deny what’s wrong or regrettable, but if we only think about our mistakes, we become demoralized, drained and lose resilience. If we can recognize the good, we’re inspired to do more of it.
There is so much difficult news and sadness in our world. Don’t we need even more inner strength as a deep wellspring in the face of it all, ‘a shelter of kindness’? Sharon tells us that it is entirely natural to want to be happy and that this is nothing to be ashamed of; it is not a form of selfishness. The problem is not the urge itself but the confusion about how and where we might find that elusive ‘happiness’, as well as mistakenly perhaps seeing personal joy or contentment as somehow separate from that of the rest of humanity.
May our yoga and meditation practice offer us this more personal ‘welcome’, an inner sanctuary midst all of life’s challenges, ‘a quiet patch’ where we can breathe, rest and refuel, encouraging us to return to kindness towards ourselves and others.I hope that you can join us for this week's virtual live-stream yoga classes on Zoom,Tuesday 4:30pm pst and Wednesday 9:30am pst. Let me know if you wish to receive my weekly email with more inspiring quotes and yoga class details (links and passwords are also in my IG bio)

I am sure we all feel deeply troubled with concern and compassion for all those suffering in our world today. It may be ...
07/28/2026

I am sure we all feel deeply troubled with concern and compassion for all those suffering in our world today. It may be more important than ever to bring kindness and compassion to ourselves as well as towards others.
Can we include ourselves in the message of Miller Williams' short poem? Do we truly understand that, without a deep sense of our own worthiness, accepting ourselves with all our human flaws, we cannot be fully present and engaged in (and for) the world with an open heart? Thomas Merton said that the whole idea of compassion is based on a keen awareness of the interdependence of all these living beings, which are all part of one another, and all involved in one another. So that includes you
and I guess me too!
What and who encourages you to recognise your own self-worth and reteaches you your loveliness (see poem below)? May our yoga and meditation practice offer us rest and breathing space as a kind of ‘self-blessing’, encouraging us to return to kindness towards ourselves.I hope that you can join us for this week's virtual live-stream yoga classes on Zoom,Tuesday 4:30pm pst and Wednesday 9:30am pst. Let me know if you wish to receive my weekly email with more inspiring quotes and yoga class details (links and passwords are also in my IG bio)

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