The launch issue of Australian Yoga Journal hit the streets on 9 December. The Australian version of the American original features all things closer to home including yoga profiles, home practice tips, healthy recipes, book reviews and travel. Read more …

British philosopher, historian, mathematician and Nobel Prize winner, Bertrand Russell, once said that an essential part of being happy is not having all the things you want. So what is happiness? What do we really want? And how do we get it? The relentless quest for happiness has plagued us mere mortals since the dawn of time and is at the core of philosophical, psychological, spiritual and even scientific questioning. In recent years there has been an explosion of books, studies, academic research, conferences, workshops and even stickpins about the art of happiness.

When I moved from Sydney to Cape Town in South Africa it took me a while to work out that I was energetically out of kilter. Initially I thought it was just good old-fashioned culture shock. I was used to the feverish buzz of Sydney but Cape Town had a different beat. It wasn’t until a friend told me that Cape Town’s iconic Table Mountain had a strong energetic relationship to the planetary Chakras* that the penny dropped. The city’s vibrational energy was different to where I’d come from – I’d moved to a different part of the earth’s ‘body’ and I realised I had to shift gears to adapt. That experience of the earthly charkas also helped me understand the concept of chakras within the human physical body…

What does it take to live with courage and fearlessness? And what is our individual role in creating a culture of courage? Wake Up Sydney’s next special evening explores this theme with live music, an inspirational film, meditation and a panel of inspirational guest speakers.

Proudly supporting Oxfam Australia, Exchange for Change launches on 1 September. Host a clothes-swap party, make a donation, spread the word and buy the t-shirt from Moral Fibre. Made from soft, organic cotton, the t-shirts come in a choice of round neck or sexy V-neck with the Exchange for Change logo on the front and Proudly Supporting Oxfam Australia logo on the back. Proceeds go to Oxfam Australia. Buy online at Moral Fibre.