SURPRISE! Sunday night Kundalini Yoga for six weeks starting October 17th!

I know… it’s been a while since we’ve done the Sunday evening thing. I taught Sunday nights for so very long and the break has felt good but we need this longer, one hour practice.

I’ll be offering a six week session of this every couple of months. I won’t be running these one after the other like I do other classes. Just a heads up!

HOW?

As always, you can participate live or watch the video on your own or do both, because the videos stay available for the whole session.

I’ll stream out of Zoom.

You’ll get the recordings in a private Facebook group.

Music will be provided via a Spotify list and a YouTube list. You’re in charge of using it for yourself or you can do this class in silence, of course.

DETAILS:

DATES: Sundays, October 17, 24 (skipping Halloween), and November 7, 14, 21, 28
TIME for LIVE: 5:30 PM (Eastern United States) to 6:30 PM (and I get online at about 5:20 if you wanna chat)
COST: $85 (for six classes that you can use over and over during the six week period)
*As always, if the cost is a stretch, just message me and we’ll figure it out. Please don’t miss out for that reason.

WHAT?

If you’ve never done my Kundalini classes, go here for more details about my approach.

For this session, we’ll be going back to basics. Which is pretty much what we always do in Kundalini but we’ll be re/membering this practice form the ground up.

October Session Themes: Overall joint health and connection to self and others via the fascia

October classes start next week, of course. Please remember that these are LIVE but also RECORDED. So you get the best of both worlds. The recordings don’t disappear after 48 hours like in so many virtual studios. You have access to them for the whole month.

In quickie yoga, we’ll be focusing especially on the lower three chakras and the joints of the lower body, including lots of FEET action. The goal is more emotional balance with its mirrored physical body balance.

For Tuesday’s Peony Method, we’ll be focusing on exploring all the joints of the body. This will be a freeing investigation of mobility, strength, and internal alignment.

For Thursday’s Peony Method (excuse the 80s chick who wrote the title for the class), we’ll be deep diving into the fascia and what that means for your individual body but also how that awareness affects your body in space and in relation to all other bodies.

Go here to register.

As usual, if payment is, for any reason, difficult, just email me.

Peony's Legacy

If you’ve not been following me on Facebook, you might not know that Peony Yuki passed away a week ago. She had been struggling with some chronic issues for quite some time, but what was hidden from us was an underlying heart disease that finally, and thoroughly, showed itself. To say we are devastated is an understatement.

My life is changed, as always happens with death, but this time, I am able to feel the devastation and to navigate the crashing waves of grief with a level of awareness and self-compassion that I have never known.

Part of this is, of course, the result of a stable love in my life. In the past, I have lost myself when I lost dear animals because their loss exacerbated my own, very real aloneness in the world. Not this time. Thank the Big Cat in the Sky for Craig. And thanks for spiritual practices that over time have, well, worked.

As most of you know, Peony has been around for most of the 12 years during which I’ve been developing and refining and reimagining and adding to my movement art/dance based therapeutic practice.

I’ve named it here and there but no name has ever stuck.

Over a month ago, the right name hit me and then I let it go, second guessing myself as usual, and then Peony passed away and I knew it was beyond right.

Peony blooms are delicate and vulnerable, and thanks to ants, which seem quite agitating, they are protected (from other petal eating insects) and then they are able to bloom into their fullness.

Much like our practices and their effects on our hearts.

And so I introduce to you, in her memory…

Things Pretty Much Suck and Yet We Still Must...

I’m writing this the day after the Texas fuckery. I don’t have the capacity to really write about that yet. I’m seething.

It feels like the world is just falling apart… or imploding… Like I said, I don’t have the words yet.

Which makes me feel like, oh, right, duh… movement.

Isadora Duncan was once asked what one of her dances MEANT, and she said, “If I could tell you then I wouldn’t need to dance.”

Exactly.

At times like this, it can be easy — for me anyway — to succumb to an externally created depression. To just give up. Lay down. Do nothing.

Which is what evil shits want, right?

Getting into these bodies and feeling the anger and the grief and the overwhelm is the only way. Once we do that, we can start transforming that energy into something to counter what’s happening — even just in tiny bits at a time.

Like in that image to the right… I was working some serious stuff out there. Without the need for words.

Anyway… like I said… I’m feeling pretty quiet.

But if you need space to move and be with others, the next session starts on Tuesday, September 7th.

All the yoga and movement art are right here.

AND remember that you can participate live or use the video whenever you want.

AND FEEL FREE TO WRITE TO ME TO ASK ABOUT A DROP IN IF YOU’RE CURIOUS ABOUT WHAT WE DO.

The Power of the Gayatri Mantra

I don’t remember when I first came across the Gayatri Mantra, but it was at least over 10 years ago. And there was a time, when I would turn on a version of this and listen to it on looping for a huge chunk of my day. I could feel it repairing some part of my mind/heart without even understanding, at the time, what it was about or how mantra worked in general.

The Gayatri Mantra comes out of the Vedic tradition and is probably from around 1500 BCE (Before the Common Era, for those in the world who are not Christian and therefore would not say BC).

It’s also mentioned in my favorite text, the Bhagavad Gita (link is to my favorite translation/commentary), as the “poem of the divine.”

In Hinduism, it’s said that chanting it or even just listening to it brings happiness and light.

I’m sharing a version from Deva Premal because I love her and find her easy to chant with. This video has it looped a few times to make it longer. But just go on YouTube and start searching for the one that really speaks to you.

The Gayatri Mantra in Sanskrit:

Om bhur bhuvah svah

tat savitur varenyam

bhargo devasya dhimahi

dhiyo yo nah prachodayat.

The Gayatri Mantra Translated:

The eternal, earth, air, heaven
That glory, that resplendence of the sun
May we contemplate the brilliance of that light
May the sun inspire our minds.

*Translation by Douglas Brooks

As is usual with Sanskrit, there are so many translations. Sanskrit is a deeply poetic language and is difficult to translate into English.

Here are some more translations. I believe spending time contemplating these can open new spaces in our mind/heart. Try them out, especially, first thing in the morning, when it’s said to be the most auspicious time to work with this particular chant.

"O thou existence Absolute,
Creator of the three dimensions,
we contemplate upon thy divine light.
May He stimulate our intellect and
bestow upon us true knowledge."

Or

"O Divine mother, our hearts are filled with darkness.
Please make this darkness distant from us and
promote illumination within us."

And one more:

"We contemplate the glory of the light
that illuminates the three worlds:
dense, subtle and causal.
I am that life-giving power, love,
radiant enlightenment, and the divine grace
of universal intelligence.
We pray for that divine light to illuminate our minds."

You Only Need One Yoga Pose

This photo is from about ten years ago, and yes, there’s my actual, original hair color. And this is me with Erich Schiffmann, still my favorite of all the “big” yoga teachers. He’s the real deal to the core. A gentle bear of a man who is brilliant and funny.

This yoga retreat with him took place in Yellow Springs, OH, now under an hour from where Craig and I live (and I can’t wait to take him there because that town is adorbs).

Okay… enough background stuff…

The whole retreat with him, we listened to dharma talks, meditated, and did downdog and child’s pose.

That was it… downdog and child’s pose over and over and over… it was WONDERFUL.

To focus on those postures alone was enough.

Because with a good teacher, one posture contains the entirety of yoga.

And to really get to know yourself inside one posture? That’s the entirety of yoga.

How much we distract ourselves with newness… even in yoga.

It reminds me of Butoh, actually… taking our time to notice the most micro of details. Going SO SLOWLY that we can’t help but run into our own crap.

And lately, as I listen to Sadhguru on my walks, he is constantly saying the same thing. He mocks American yoga with its obsession with SO MANY POSES.

KNOW ONE POSE, he says, that’s all you need.

As a teacher, I feel the pull to constantly be changing things up, but that comes from how we’re taught that everything is supposed to be endlessly entertaining.

In the meantime, we are turning our spiritual physical practices into yet another mode of consumption. More, more, more.

As we feel like less, less, less.

Nothing will fill an emptiness of that kind.

Slowing down. Paying attention. Limiting our intake.

We can finally truly come into contact with our wounded parts, and then we just might have the patience to sit with them.

A Question to Tap into the Wisdom of Your Original Self/Body

When I do one on one work with people, it can look about a million ways, but one thing stays consistent: Homework.

Mostly, I listen to you. I’m listening for experiments that you can run to get more into your body, to become more aware of what you really need, to take better care of yourself.

This can be something simple like taking the typical two weeks between our sessions to really notice what tastes good. Or to set up some mini altar to pay attention to a particular aspect of yourself every day for a few minutes.

Recently during a one on one, it was a question that came to me that I then told my client to ask herself every time she was starting to feel uncomfortable in a situation or with a person.

Or you can even use this question as you enter any new situation or encounter any person any time. It could become a really great habit, actually.

This question won’t necessarily create word based answers, and that’s the point of it.

This question will most likely create instant body based reactions like sick tummy, butterflies, a feeling of wanting to run, or maybe warmth and peace.

HERE:

Is my little self feeling safe and taken care of here/with this person?

It helps if you have a specific “little self” in mind. I use the one in this photo. Look at that silly/happy/open face. She’s my perfect go-to wise woman.

Now I know that a lot of my students experienced awful trauma, even at a very young and tender age, but that actually doesn’t matter with this question.

This question will STILL help you tap into your wise and knowing self. It will tap into the part of you that even at that young age knew what and who was wrong and bad and unsafe. It will tap into that part of you that even at that young age was developing coping mechanisms to protect themselves.

Ask the question and slow your breathing and keep asking it until your answer becomes clear.

The second part here is important…

THEN ask your ADULT self, what do I need to do to take care of this little self in this context, relative to their answer to that first question.

Because it’s your adult self that that little self was waiting for all along. You can do this.

Joy List

This selfie photo series about rebirth in that Phoenix way is freaking AH.MAZING. Taken at the perfect spot… an active volcano in Iceland. (Done safely as is pointed out.)

This habit tracker app is my favorite I’ve ever used. SO SIMPLE and clean. It’s really upped my movement and meditation. And though I just purchased premium for super cheap, the free was working just fine.

One of my greatest joys this year has been my renewed obsession with great novels, and wow… I just keep reading one amazing work after another. I’m focusing mostly on works by women of color to fill in the hole in my literacy created by undergrad/grad work that, of course, focused on the traditional white man canon. ((Extreme rolling of eyes.)) My most recent fave was this (though it’s hard to pick).

I’m starting to obsess over paint colors to redo some of the spaces in our new to us very old Victorian home. And I’m especially loving this green for the kitchen. I mean… even just the name!

While I’m walking, I usually — or lately — listen to happy happy music, but I’ve started inserting a bit of Sadhguru here and there for the first part of my work to work on some mindset issues I’m having and this is extra good.

When I go to a cafe to think and write, I’ve started listening again to this Max Richter. It makes my brain work at a higher level, I swear!

Roses. I keep finding more roses that I want in front of our house. Here are two frontrunners: this and this.

And finally these silly little messenger figures… so silly but they bring me so much delight to even just look at them. Which one would you love to have on your desk?

I would love to hear from you! What books/movies/music are you really geeking out over right now?