By Bethany Last
The Space Between Your Toes is a book about life.
The life of a yoga teacher, who decided the path laid in front of her wasn’t the right one to choose at that time. Choosing a career over university. Animals and nature over partying and late nights. Choosing to listen to what the trees whisper through their branches, choosing to hear what the wind has to tell. To dance in the rain and to bathe in the sun. Choosing to stop and pause and think. Becoming completely in tune with bird song and the soft rhythm of hoofbeats on warm earth. To bring more than stretching and asana to yoga practice.
This is a book about finding your Serenity. It is within us all, within this book hopefully you will find resonating thoughts to get you back to your inner Serenity.
Working in tune with nature, listening to what you truly are searching for, and hearing the answers. Even when they aren’t necessarily what you were expecting to hear.
This book came to be over two years, month by month, page by page, the words just tumbled out. You can use it like a two year long almanac, reading one chapter at a time. Or maybe you will read it like any good book. Curled up with a cup of tea or beside your bed. Losing yourself to the words on the pages, and the feelings those words create. The joyous feeling of not being able to stop reading, and everyone else blurring into insignificance. That is truly the sign of a great book! Devouring chapter upon chapter, and then feeling sad when it is all over!
Throughout the book we explore a buoyant, carefree, real outlook on life. No frills, no over the top optimism – but equally no negativity. Refreshing and realistic, we make friends, we meet people and animals and seasons. We learn how to let go, we learn how to stand tall, we learn some of the hardest life lessons over the twenty-four months inside.
You may giggle, you may roll your eyes in a sudden realisation that the obvious that has been staring you in the face this whole-time kind of way, you may feel warm, loved, cared for, sad, emotional and you may even shed a tear or two.
The Space Between Your Toes offers you the chance to realise that you are real.
Normal.
Human.
We all are, and the beauty that is our differences draws us together.
We all need to smile, to laugh, to shout and scream. We all could do with stopping and resetting once in a while. Use this book as your chance to reclaim you.
Your space, your time, you.
From childhood memories to adult experiences, from walks in the countryside to yoga practices, this is a book for inspiring you. It was written, like so many, mainly over the lockdowns. Finding that whilst the world was quiet, the mind could run. Exploring so many areas that we never would have without being thrust into stillness. Like our daily walks or cycle rides, seeing new things every time, the book evolved like this too. From the March walks where hawthorn hedges just showing with green, gave way into bobbing daffodils in April and then bright cherry blossoms of May. The heat of that summer was unbelievable and it was a joy to document and capture it all within the pages of our book. Lazing on the sun-baked earth, plunging into the cool waters of our local river, seeing the colours of autumn creeping in. Heavy dews on the morning grasses and that first frost on blackberries.
If you don’t feel like you want to dive right into The Space Between Your Toes maybe it isn’t the book for you, but if you have an interest in nature, animals, healing, listening to the earth or the energy found within connection in a yoga class – it should be on your ‘to read’ list.
MEET THE AUTHOR
BETHANY LAST is a yoga teacher, born in 1996 in Suffolk, England. She founded Serenity Yoga Suffolk in 2015, teaching yoga classes, workshops and retreats. In 2020 she founded Serenity Yoga Walks to offer those who cannot attend a mat-based class an opportunity to experience Serenity Yoga, on a walk. The Space Between Your Toes is her first book, giving account of her childhood and memories that made her find her spiritual path to becoming a yoga teacher.
She is a British Cycling Breeze into the Forest leader, an initiative to get women on their bikes, together and in a safe off-road environment. She also runs two groups, Serenity Swimmers and Spiritual Serenity. The first is a group of like-minded, outdoor swimmers who meet, at their own risk, all year round – more in the summer than the winter! For a swim in our local area and customary cake afterwards! The second is a meeting of minds, online and in person, to reconnect deeper with the earth, the universe and the spiritual within us all. If either are of interest we are always looking for new energy within our groups.
On the web
Find out more about Serenity Yoga Suffolk or Serenity Yoga Walks at:
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Bookshelf
THE SPACE BETWEEN YOUR TOES BY BETHANY LAST, published in paperback.