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Women who have had gynaecological cancer are invited to learn more about how yoga can benefit them at Yeovil District Hospital later this month. The GOSSIP patient support group provides advice and information for women with gynaecological cancer.

It was founded by the Gynaecological Cancer Specialist Nurses based in Yeovil and Taunton in partnership with women from across Somerset and Dorset who have had gynaecological cancers (i.e. cancers of the ovary, womb, vulva or cervix).

Attending meetings enables patients to meet with other women who have a similar diagnosis and may have had similar treatments. Partners, family members and friends are welcome to go along as well. A specialist nurse is present at meetings and will be happy to answer questions and discuss concerns on a one-to-one basis.

One afternoon in New York, I found myself on a street corner in midtown, licking salt off a slightly burned soft pretzel. I gazed about in a wondering daze, transfixed by the LCD nightmare.

Time seemed to stop for me just then, as though I were Dr. Manhattan from "Watchmen," only without the continually erect blue penis. Suddenly, I knew that everything in.

Times Square  the breeze-blown fliers for some outlier porn shop, the vaguely contraband luggage stores, the endlessly replicated advertisements for TV shows that never had a prayer, even the tourists from Nebraska -- was part of a larger cosmic reality whose boundaries we can't begin to perceive. The power of the universe, I realized, is transcendent, infinite, all-knowing, beautiful beyond measure. I quaked at the awesome kindness of its eternal might.

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Harried parents are descending on new outlets for their children, with yoga becoming increasingly popular.

Junior devotees are doing the downward dog complete with barks and the cobra to a crescendo of hisses in a twist on the holistic practice.

Boisterous children and those with attention disorders are among those reaping the benefits, according to instructors.

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The Yoga Puppies and Yoga Kittens calendars, 2011, are all about picking up your yoga moves from flexible felines and contorted canines. Photographer Dan Borris, 53, has created the artwork. Borris, get his wife Alejandra's to hold and coax the pets into approximations of classic poses, relying on her skills of being a Yoga teacher.Later, computer software is used to make it look authentic.

Borris of San Antonio, Texas, insisted that animal rights activists can relax, breathe and hold on to the thought that the pets are happy to go along with it. "Kittens and pups are very flexible but there's no forcing the animals to do anything," the Daily Express quoted him as saying.

 Yoga is fast becoming a big trend in Australia as it is being practiced by children of 6 weeks to 5-7 year olds. Yoga is helping the children find their calm inner selves. More and more daycare centres and pre-schools are calling in professional yoga instructors to help calm boisterous children.

Melissa Knapp taught yoga for several years before opening a yoga studio in Willoughby in Sydney's north in November 2009. "People were like 'Why do kids need yoga?'. Now people seem to be a bit more comfortable with it.

Kids have a lot of stress, especially kids in primary school. Whether it's making friends or bullying, they just don't know what to do to relieve stress. No one teaches you how to relax at school," Melissa said. She teaches babies up to primary school-aged children yoga using imaginative storytelling and simple postures.

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What I continue to learn, daily, is that yoga is not contained in asana. Yoga is, or should be, part of everything we do.

Which is great, until you find yourself slumped down on the couch, spine in an inelegant c-curve, eating blueberry pie with cheese and watching “Jersey Shore.”  Not that that’s happened to me. I mean, not in the last ½ hour, anyway.

Trying to live my practice should be, I feel, a source of great joy. And most often, it is. Living yoga – which to me means living mindfully, with my mind and body in the same place – is an incredibly beautiful practice. Eating mindfully, for example, by taking stock of the flavors on your tongue and textures in your mouth, can be downright sensual.

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The 18 men and women slowly climbing the steps to their yoga class at RAIN Inwood Senior Center the other day hardly resembled the young, lithe exemplars of America’s yoga boom. You won’t find the likes of Sylvia Guzman, 81, on the covers of yoga magazines or Francisco Batista, 88, on the proliferating Web sites hawking trendy yoga clothing.

But Mrs. Guzman, Mr. Batista and the other 70- and 80-somethings who faithfully attend Ricardo Sisco’s chair yoga class every Friday are a vanguard in one of yoga’s fastest-growing fan bases: the very old. More and more retirement communities offer gentle yoga classes, with heavy emphasis on breathing and awareness and less on movement. In chair yoga classes like Mr. Sisco’s, almost all poses are modified so that they can be done in a chair, accommodating people with balance problems or weak legs.

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 If you've ever done yoga, raise your foot. Over your head. And if you've ever done yoga in a room with wall-to-wall, floor-to-ceiling mirrors like I have, maybe you've found it pretty darn hard to keep a straight face. That's why when I heard there was going to be a "laughter yoga" class at the Eola Road Branch of the Aurora Public Library, it wasn't such a stretch for me to imagine a class full of people in yoga positions laughing their heads off.

So I showed up to the recent event with a pen and notebook in one hand and a camera in the other, which always gets me off the hook of actually participating in anything that might be even mildly embarrassing. Here are some things about the class, led by certified laughter yoga leader Caryl Derenfeld, that did not surprise me:

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Yoga seeks to soothe the mind and body in the process of evolving kids in the making of better human beings. It bestows the skill to shape their destiny with a positive outlook to life. Motivation.

Experts say that kids can be introduced to Yoga at the age of five. It involves little or no effort in getting your child to do Yoga. Since synchronization of breath with the asanas is involved, it is becomes a prime necessity to train them under a professional Yoga trainer.

* The Yogic poses themselves inspire the children to try them out as the enthusiasm in kids itself get them to do the asanas     * If you are trained in Yoga, have your children around while you do basic poses which will inspire them to follow you.

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IN mid-July, while the oil slick in the Gulf and the Goldman Sachs settlement were dominating the news, a blog named YogaDork had a worldwide exclusive. “Lady Gaga Takes Private Yoga Class in Cleveland,” the post read, offering a breathless account of Lady Gaga’s drop-in yoga session while touring in Ohio, along with a cellphone photo of the pop superstar, in dark sunglasses and blue bandana, hugging Sandy Gross, the awestruck instructor.

Within moments, the news was reposted on hundreds of Twitter messages, and posted on news sites as different as NPR and indiatimes.com. While it may not have been a scoop on the magnitude of, say, the guest list at Chelsea Clinton’s wedding, it was a definite coup for YogaDork, a blog that chronicles the often insular world of those practicing their sun salutations.

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