Be A Yogi

When I graduated from my Yoga Teacher Training at the Integral Yoga Academy, I heard a lot of advice. Make a list of all the potential places you could teach – not just studios, but other spaces. Market your classes in this way or that way. Remember that not all yoga instructors can make a…

Focus: Abundance – Love & Light

I have long believed that people are beautiful beings, inside and out. Our humanness, our perfect imperfection, our state of constant growth gives me faith in the beauty of life as a whole. Tonight a street drunk and I watched a meteor fireball together. I was walking to yoga class when a huge white comet-looking…

Focus: Gratitude – Inter-Faith & Cultural Fusion

Around Thanksgiving, some might grunt and gripe about family dynamics (me included) This year I want to offer huge gratitude to my parents. Because Mom and Dad motivated my passion for fusing spiritual and cultural influences. Mom (rest her soul) was a blue-eyed Church of Christ farm girl born to Irish settlers near Nashville, TN….

In the OM Zone

You can hear the OM sound everywhere. It vibrates every cell in your body. It brings such a nice feeling of peace.  – Swami Satchidananda There are times, at the end of a yoga class, when the closing OM is so sweet I have cried.  And there are times when it is so cacophonous that…

This Too Shall Pass

I just floated home after Ximena Gutierrez’s Jivamukti class at Past Tense Studio (one of the places where I teach yoga).  Today’s theme was “This Too Shall Pass” – a phrase with which I am very familiar from a variety of spiritual paths and programs.  The premise is to remain detached from and have faith…

Wine & Kirtan

I just got home from “The Chant Super Tour” concert with Kirtan musician Krishna Das and spiritual singer Deva Premal.  Although I like her lullaby-like versions of Santeria chants for Yemaya and Oshun, and I don’t mind hearing her music in yoga classes, Deva’s work is a little too soft for me.  Tonight I enjoyed…