A Love Letter to Yoga
I am passionate about many things, but none so much as yoga. It has been the one constant and ever deepening exploration in my life, for 15 years. From breath to embodied movement, devotion and bhakti, texts, teachings and practices to the sweet sangha of like minded people.In those first few years, I couldn't get enough - I gulped at every chance to learn: My very first teacher Jodi Blumstein - who led me to Baron Baptiste - then to Rod Stryker for an early view into tantra, mantra, sequencing, meditation, wisdom - in the same training as Brenna Geehan, who shone out like a bright light during that month in Chicago. There was so much in that first Rod training that I am only now grasping fully. All kinds of training and experiments: Shiva Rea, Ana Forrest, Saul David Raye. For many years then, I didn't train, I just practiced and taught. Now, my core teachers are Eddie Modestini and Nicki Doane, the most exacting practitioners and physical healers I've come across, with ginormous hearts.5 years ago, I got the nondual teachings - from Mark Whitwell my love - and through him met the young and brilliant yogi and Sanskrit scholar Christopher Wallis with the depth of his philosophical and historical knowledge, and eventually began working with those texts, the deep tantra. Now, my heart was opening. In this phase, my yoga became a felt dance with the divine, full body prayer, source in action, entrancement, entrainment.Every time I take a class, with a teacher in a remote location, who's heart is full of love and whose mind is full of knowledge, I get this incredible upwelling of gratitude for the transmission, for the holding space, for showing up for small money, mostly in service. Things are changing again... I feel it. My personal practice is so strong now, in the mornings, without going anywhere, I'm on the mat diving into the stuck places in my body and mind. The poses that I avoided are the ones I can't wait to get to. AND I'm ready to teach again. I'm ready to serve like that. My heart and mind are clear. May the right opportunity manifest.Thank you yoga, for my healthy body, my healthy heart, the beautiful friends you have given me around the world, for the ever present sanctuary. I love you.