Return Yoga

Return Yoga Non-profit yoga. Yoga is not a business. Yoga is a path of return.

Yoga isn't about standing on your head and becoming vegetarian: yoga is about you, your own life, and what you most want to change or become.

I actually have zeros qualms with the fact folks go to or want to go to ytt.But, the nature of ytt is not to ‘advance’ y...
03/11/2022

I actually have zeros qualms with the fact folks go to or want to go to ytt.

But, the nature of ytt is not to ‘advance’ your wisdom, practice, knowledge, skills.

I do believe in Yoga. I believe it is so much more than what we get in training (or books podcasts blogs).

Scribbles from this morning: a very simplified to make a point list of things folks might want and can learn (but not in ytt).

My point is we can learn. We can heal. We can change. We can have insights. We can cause change.

But not where we’ve been looking, nor how.

Where if not training, you ask?

With a teacher*.

Through your sadhana*.

In deepening your life*.

All the *s require lots of unpacking. They take time. And they ask for more of the student.

One of my reasons for stopping the training is so i can write more. About the above, i suppose. But also about poking your soul with a stick, listening to music, falling in and out of love, looking at stars without knowing where Venus is, and how to make the perfect cup of coffee.

New newsletter, in which i never ever ever have to or will say “sign up for my…..”

Substack. I’ll call it gristle and bone. Link, you know.

and i were just having a chat, and this word came up.Last week in cohort someone asked about teachers - the difficulty ...
09/17/2021

and i were just having a chat, and this word came up.

Last week in cohort someone asked about teachers - the difficulty of finding teachers (as opposed to ryt, fitness guides, or smarmy gurus). Where have the gurus gone, was asked.

I said they are there, but we have to look outside the dominant narrative and studio and training model to find them.

I also asked: where have the students gone?

There is a difference between consumption, getting information or certification, and learning. Practicing. Sitting with and letting it work you over.

Committing.

We tend to knee jerk response away from long term practice and the teachers associated with it. Because spiritual baggage. Because even the word spiritual turns us off and we’ve legitimately spent decades healing from what religion has done to us. So many are taking up yoga/mindfulness/meditation because it feels not religious. But….

Further query: how do we commit to spiritual practices without becoming dogmatic?

Mulls I’m bringing into next week’s teaching. (I never said you had to like it).

Also, is joining us last Saturday of the month. To talk of sadhana and spiritual path.

Its uncanny how things weave.

What are you thinking? Have you unpacked this s**t? Or was it the moment you left because - rightly- something was being pushed that wasn’t right for you?

Ah ye delicate hearts.

Swaha.

What do you call yourself? Of course there are a million more things to be said here. One that i notice as so many peopl...
09/08/2021

What do you call yourself?

Of course there are a million more things to be said here.

One that i notice as so many people have to wear two or three hats to make a living wage is the multiple monikers, which complicates the questions and sometimes makes “yoga” sound like an accoutrement, a side interest, a hobby. And of course for some folks that’s exactly what it is.

While i am interested in all sorts of things, (I am privileged enough) to just teach Yoga. And there is a part of me - perhaps prejudiced- that tends to think Yoga is perfect and complete in and of itself. It encompasses everything. I do not need certifications or qualifications from elsewhere (again, heavy nod to my privelege, as well as a troubling thread to white supremacy’s tendency toward gatekeeping, idolizing the credentials, valorizing “skills” and accomplishments).

Just mullin’ over here. What are you doing?

Image description in comments.

I’m home, newsletter is out, and links are linked. Images: text on mountain background says registration for Bhagavad Gi...
08/18/2021

I’m home, newsletter is out, and links are linked.
Images: text on mountain background says registration for Bhagavad Gita and Sūtra cohorts open. And some stuff about Alaska. Slides 2 & 3 are screenshots of the newsletter. Slide four is the same mountain background with the text newsletter out, link in bio.

Gratuitous headstand on vacation picture. I sank in the snow.Image: karin is on a snowy foreground doing a headstand. ...
08/14/2021

Gratuitous headstand on vacation picture. I sank in the snow.

Image: karin is on a snowy foreground doing a headstand. In the background is a craggy Mt Denali and moody skies.

“Listen carefully…attend with the ear of your heart.” Rule of Saint BenedictSo. I just reserved space at St. John’s Abb...
08/06/2021

“Listen carefully…attend with the ear of your heart.” Rule of Saint Benedict

So. I just reserved space at St. John’s Abbey for a winter solstice together in real space retreaty thing. Saturday December 18- Wednesday December 22.

I want to talk about your birdy soul, read and chant from the Taittirya Upanisad. Thats where the five kosha /layers of the human are first laid out.

But mostly I want us to be together.

Image ids: 1 interior of internationally recognised architecture of St. John’s Abbey Church. 2 stained glass detail 3: late fall golden leaves and a stone arched doorway on the acres of forest around the Abbey. 3: prairie grasses on the grounds. 4: exterior view of St. John’s Abbey Church

Hey. Hey ya.It’s been a doozy of a last few years. The yoga industry has taken a hit. I believe this program is respon...
08/02/2021

Hey. Hey ya.

It’s been a doozy of a last few years. The yoga industry has taken a hit.

I believe this program is responsive not only to the sincere questions of our time, but to the development of its participants. Personal, professional, soulful development.

This is hard work, but good work.

We can, we should, change the industry. We can, we should, develop our practices.

Starts in September, so don’t wait.

Techniques:After years and years of teaching it was obvious that students really struggle to balance or relate āsana to ...
08/02/2021

Techniques:

After years and years of teaching it was obvious that students really struggle to balance or relate āsana to meditation, philosophy, self study, prānāyama. I was asked so often: how do i include the other limbs?

As if they were separate. As if we needed to add. As if anybody has time for that.

I was taught āsana as a breath shift, which leads to breathwork, which helps us meditate, and that we meditate with direction (as compared to just sitting still).

So i make these things. Each week a related but unique inquiry, building. Along the way, you get a heck of a lot of information about yourself. You have insights into the practice. Or, perhaps, suddenly a lot of questions. The idea is that stuff - insights, questions, realisations - are what you talk about with your teacher.

I do them myself, too. For the last several weeks I’ve been exploring confidence, trust, faith, and seeing what comes up.

First: i know my coffee will boil. I trust in certain laws of nature. The next week, a few relationships came up, but i felt a difference between what i want/expect and what trusting in them really means. Hard to word, but i do trust them past my wants and expectations. The next week what came up was writing. When its flowing. As distinct from clarity around when its not (when im trying to write to want and expectation, mostly. When I’m not clear or supported because ive exhausted myself in other drama).

Today: when I’ve made a decision i didn’t want to, didn’t like, but knew was right. The swallowing kind. The okay, this is what it is kind.

Liberation is not what you expected or wanted.

Its better.

Your insights will be wholly different. Im sharing mine to give a sense of how it widens and weaves.

Up on the online studio. Exhale.

It’s Wednesday. Its raining and someone thinks she’ll melt if we go for a walk in it. But also needs to go for a walk ...
07/28/2021

It’s Wednesday. Its raining and someone thinks she’ll melt if we go for a walk in it. But also needs to go for a walk and won’t leave me alone.

It’s Wednesday, which means i get to turn off the internet and read a novel. I will probably also nap. Maybe severally, because this world is exhausting and hard.

I just sent out the email inviting you to talk with and i this Saturday morning. And there is still room in the . If you are a teacher but feel lost, or want to be a teacher but have questions, or wonder how spirituality, self-care, social justice and embodiment fall together, you should come. If you wonder what Yoga is, past the advertising. It’s amazing. And its hard. Bring snacks.

This is my social media update.

I post about the Bhagavad Gita cohort a lot, because its currently happening. And its so lovely. You can join the next...
07/23/2021

I post about the Bhagavad Gita cohort a lot, because its currently happening. And its so lovely. You can join the next cohort of that September.

But i should post more on the upcoming Yoga Sūtra study as well. Also starting September. Gita Monday nights, Sūtras Tuesday nights.

18 months to go through book 1. Then we’ll do 2, 3, 4. And start over.

Which means I wont be offering book 1 again for several years. Time is now, like. (Or not. Readiness is important and if not, thats better than rushing it).

I studied the sūtras slowly with several teachers. When i say slow i mean it took four years the first time around. I leaned into my screen and chanted and talked about the wierdness of this human mind, the questions of yoga sādhana, the possibility of change (at 1 am my time) once a week with my teacher in Chennai. And then I’d chant on my own every morning.

Not popular when you can read a book on your own or take a ryt200 or a CEU course over a weekend.

Nope. Not like that at all.

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