EP 13 - Neil Boyd – Yogi, Farmer and Friend

“Dear friends,

I was born in the spring of ‘54 to a farmer father and school teacher mother. Both of them children of homesteader parents. After grade 12 , in 72/‘73, I backpacked and worked through Europe and Northern Africa for nearly nine months.

Returning home I began farming and attending an agricultural college receiving a diploma in Ag Production. I bought my first land when I was 18, and have been making a living raising crops and cattle ever since.

I married well in ‘81 and together we have raised three children. I had the opportunity to volunteer in Africa for three winters in the last ten years. Leadership education in Uganda and water filters in Malawi.

I became concerned about small aches and tightness due to a lot of physical work. Yoga was mentioned and I first tried it in about 2006 to loosen up. At that time there were no classes up here in the north so when we were visiting Maui I took a stab at it.

I loved the feeling I got both physically and surprisingly mentally. I wanted to immerse and continue so I looked up a retreat and found the Feathered Pipe Ranch in Montana. I studied under very good teachers there. It expanded my connections and eventually I ended up in Ojai studying with more teachers, including Mark Whitwell who I returned to three more times, meeting at the Peppertree [J. Krishnamurti’s home in Ojai, now a retreat —ed.].

I am happy to now be on the board of directors at the Feathered Pipe foundation.

Yoga has definitely helped me and I can’t imagine not having a daily morning practice that was initially developed by Mark and I’ll weave in something different every day depending what feels right.

It allows me to keep farming in a sustainable nature both for myself and for the farm. We have to look after ourselves so we can look after the farm.”

More info here.

Highlights

• What cows have to teach us about health and community
• Neil and Mark discuss the nature of learning Yoga within the context of real friendship
• What Neil got from studying yoga with Mark and how profoundly it changed his life
• Why no hierarchy is the basic condition for the teacher-student relationship
• What is “furniture disease”?
• Neil’s experience finding Yoga as a farmer in the far north of Canada
• How Mark ‘tricked’ Neil into a daily yoga practice
• The nurturing principle of life in farming and yoga
• Bringing Yoga to our own communities in language and ways that are relevant to them
• Who can teach yoga – and when?

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