Getting to The Point & feeling good

By JOHN HOWELL
Posted 8/6/20

There was no knowing it was a full moon. Gray threatening clouds filled the sky. There was plenty of wind and there were a few smattering raindrops, but that didn't stop 40 people, mostly women, all properly distanced from one another at

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Getting to The Point & feeling good

Posted

There was no knowing it was a full moon. Gray threatening clouds filled the sky. There was plenty of wind and there were a few smattering raindrops, but that didn’t stop 40 people, mostly women, all properly distanced from one another at Conimicut Point Park Sunday evening.

This was a joining of several yoga groups that conduct sessions at the park.

“It’s just taken off like a rocket ship,” said Patricia Bastia, one of the instructors, who looked close to taking off herself in the gusty conditions. Meanwhile, arriving participants, who were required to register, anchored their mats with rocks on the baked dry grass. Most sat down quickly to secure their position.

Diane Crosby of East Greenwich was among them. This was her first visit to yoga at Conimicut. She was breathing in the air and delighting in the connection with the bay, the view that takes in the Providence skyline to the north to the Jamestown Bridge in the south.

“This keeps my sanity,” she said of yoga. “It’s a meditative way to keep balance.” She felt especially drawn to Sunday’s event because of the full moon.

Crosby, who is a banker, also sees her involvement as a way of supporting small business and being a part of community.

Indeed, yoga at Conimicut and at Rocky Point has a strong following.

On Saturday morning, Bastia directed a group of nearly 25. It was sunny and cool before the heat of the day.

“Everybody needs us. It’s all about finding your breath,” she said. It is also about finding companionship and getting outdoors in a pandemic.

Conimicut resident Lisa Markovich, an artist and musical performer who also builds websites and does social media, discovered the yoga sessions. She saw the opportunity to bring the groups together, branding at “Yoga at The Point.”

She has plans for a yoga festival that would bring people into the city, helping businesses. She took video of the instructors – Bastia, Stacey Herrington, Pauline Mann, Arden Bastia, Aeriel Arthur, Debbie Valois and Nicole Thomas – posting it with photographs on the Yoga at The Point Facebook page and the website she created, yogaatthepoint.com.

She is the director of the group and the moving force behind Sunday’s “Full Moon Flow.” Similar events are planned for the September and October full moons.

“I’m doing what I like and not getting paid for it,” she says. She is a believer of yoga and what it can do at this time.

“It is so helpful to you and your body, your soul.” She said it has helped her “whole thinking on life.”

Instructors request a $10 donation per class. A free Yoga 101 introductory session will be held Aug. 16 from 9:30 a.m. to 10:30 a.m. at The Point.

The summer schedule for Yoga at The Point is:

Monday: 8:30 a.m. and 6 p.m.

Tuesday: 8:30 a.m., 10 a.m. and 6 p.m.

Wednesday: 7 a.m., 9 a.m. and 5:30 p.m.

Thursday: 8:30 a.m., 10 a.m.

Saturday: 8 a.m.

Sunday: 8:30 a.m.

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