Heartbreakthrough

The saga continues. It's been so interesting to see how people are dealing with it. Some are withdrawing, some are rooting down for the long haul; some are pissed, others beseeching--and then there's the occasional "OM OM OM LOVE AND LIGHT everything is fine!" sort of cheerleader voice thrown in. There are the folks who want the nitty gritty details, and others holding space for a bigger perspective; there are poets and jokesters and analysts but more than anything there is a sadness. There's just no other way to put it: this is a big bummer for everyone.


It's been just over two weeks since the you-know-what hit the fan and I am about tuckered out from the constant feed of news on the internetz. It's sick. I'm exhausted. I'm sick of hearing everyone and any one's opinions.

As much as it sucks, the more I think about it, the more it makes total sense. This is the year where everything is set to shift; the world as we know it is coming to an end. The end of this beginning is just another symptom of a greater cosmic unfurling. We are being cooked in the great pressure cooker of the universe, and shit is about to get real. Who'd have thought one of the first big shake ups of the year would be a complete crisis in the yoga community?If it weren't such a disappointing cliche, it might actually be really funny.


Government is breaking down, the health care system is in shambles, and access to education is rapidly diminishing; I can't find an apartment in the city to save my life so it looks like I'll be living with roommates until I'm 50, and I'm making less money/year than any year since I was 21. Old ways of being no longer serve and we are collectively feeling the great squeeze.


OF COURSE this top heavy, patriarchal, hierarchical, single white-man run organization is unsustainable. Of course the new paradigm will be a horizontal system run collectively and cooperatively. You can't preach riding the great shakti wave in every aspect of your life and then ignore her in how you run an entire global organization. Truly, I see this as what the universe is demanding-no longer asking, but DEMANDING-happen to not only all aforementioned systems, but also within each and every one of us.


Another reason I'm grateful for this drama is the light it's shed on a few dark corners of my own sadhana. There were aspects of the Anusara community that I no matter how I tried, I just couldn't relate to--now that this is happening, for the first time I realize I am not the only one who felt that way. For example, one of the tenets of the method is fostering community. This is an incredible part of studying Anusara--no matter where you go in the world, you will be met with open arms by similarly oriented folks. However, certain parts of it felt false to me--what I call the Anusara bandwagon. Sometimes all the "SHINE OUT" jargon felt like cheerleading which quite frankly is the last thing I needed. I kept waiting for something to click within me, like one day I'd wake up and feel different. One day I'd wake up and realize that new John Friend endorsed Manduka mat really would elevate my practice to a whole new level! (har, har)


So that's one thing. I feel a new freedom that I don't have to fit into a certain mold to gain acknowledgement (because, let's face it, I am not the cheerleading type and I'm rounder than most yoga teachers you see out there). For now, I am clear about what this is all about for me and in this moment, it's not about a license, or even a certificate. It's about following my heart and those teachers who speak directly to it. None of my teachers have resigned which I find interesting.


I heard a Baron Baptiste quote recently that went something like "When you squeeze and orange, juice comes out. When you are squeezed, what do you get?" This scandal is such fodder for the practice. It's a great opportunity to learn to make spiritual lemonade!


Love to all
<3

Bring a friend for free promo

Hey Everyone! I am lucky to be able to offer this promotion--for the entire month of February, bring a friend for free to my class: Friday nights @ 7:45. Much love...

Notes on a Scandal

On Friday, February third, two things happened that couldn't have possibly pulled my heart in two more opposite directions.

Ever since I started my novice yoga teaching career just shy of two years ago, I always said I wanted to give the practice back to communities who perhaps wouldn't have access to the teachings/public yoga classes. Friday afternoon saw me on the 49 bus up Van Ness for a meeting with case managers from La Casa De Las Madres, an organization that serves women victims of domestic violence. We are moving forward and I will teach one class per week to the residents at one of La Casa's centers. I start this Wednesday.

That same day, immediately before clocking out of my day job and hopping on the bus, I learned of a crisis in the Anusara community (for those of you who read this and don't know what that is, it is a method of yoga/spiritual practice that I have aligned my entire life with). I am not going to link to any information here as I do not wish to contribute to the online brou-haha, but suffice it to say, it rocked me to my core and I spent the weekend investigating my thoughts, feelings, and initial reaction to the news. In a nutshell, unsubstantiated allegations were made against the founder of Anusara, and it is rattling the community as we patiently wait for the truth to come to light.

The juxtaposition between the political drama of what in the West is an elite system (yoga) and spending an afternoon with women, most of whom are old enough to be my mother, who are at-risk homeless, living in single occupancy rooms without even a bathroom to themselves, effected me all the way down in my bones. My emotions ran the gamut between heartbreak, anger, disappointment, anxiousness, disgust, fear, annoyance, bewilderment, and uncertainty.

What a brilliant opportunity to practice.

In yoga, the first step is to remember the bigger picture; take a step back, breath fullness into the back of your body, listen, and allow for a little space. We practice this subtle attunement on our mats again and again, day after day, week after week, so that when challenges arise in our "real" life, we learn to respond in a conscious way instead of being held captive by habitual patterns of reaction. This doesn't happen overnight. I doubt there is anyone living for whom this level of presence is a permanent state! Think about it as a well-worn dirt road; regardless of your intention, it is really difficult at first to steer your wheels in a different way when they are so used to just grinding down the same old grooves. But with practice, it is possible to shape a new and distinct path.

If the moment, ahem, shit gets real, I bail on all practice and training and insight and growth I've been supposedly committed to for the past near-decade of my life, then what is the point? It is easy for me to default to the anger that used to so easily rage out of me, that for years now I have been training myself to channel into higher forms. I take this practice so seriously, and the hardest part for me is how with all the online back-and-forth, speculation, and full on vitriol, it is relegated to mere tabloid fodder. I am not over exaggerating or lying when I say yoga saved my life--my early twenties were spent throwing myself so fully into the void just like so many of the ones who came before me that I am grateful every day to be healthy and safe, and even better yet, happy. 

So I guess what I'm saying is practice more. The last thing I will do is claim to have all the answers; I am still young and have so many more experiences to come. All I know is it is on my mat that I feel the anchor that connects me, that connects all of us, to the source. It's the only place where that bigger perspective grows; tuning in to the universal, we are brought back down to earth.

Amen Hallelujah Namaste and a big dose of LOVE
x
See you on the mat, where the rubber literally meets the road (;