My Decade of Beauty – Building the Palace Within.

Douglas with the Dikshitar Priests during the Homa, Chidambaram, Dec 2010 - photo Frank Andolino

How deeply do you wish to participate in your life?

To my teacher Douglas Brooks

Ten years ago today I sat in a room with 26 other people and listened as you said to us: You are sufficient unto yourself. Everything you truly need is present. The question is: How deeply do you wish to participate in your life?

This was day one of my Anusara Yoga Teacher Training, and I could say that I didn’t know then how much my life would change, which might make for a better story or at least build more drama for a later moment of epiphany, but the reality is that I did realize in this moment that my life had just shifted. I had no idea of what was to come, but I knew that I had stepped into something seismically upending.

My Eka Pada Koundinyasana by the Luxembourg Gardens, Paris, July 2011

What I did not know was that throughout the next decade I would begin to shift my identity away from the Susanna whose life revolved around the art world, organizing my weekly schedule around openings in Chelsea and my annual schedule around my residencies and exhibitions. I did not imagine that I would walk away from a highly coveted position at MoMA in order to teach yoga classes in the East Village and Soho, then in Paris and in Rome. At that point I could not have pictured myself meditating in a temple in South India and wanting to be nowhere other than exactly where I was. This paradigm-shifting moment ten years ago was not something that I had consciously sought out, yet clearly, beneath the surface, I had cultivated an internal space for it to take root and blossom. And I recognized it when it happened – that’s the thing.

Dancing on the steps of Palani Temple, Dec 2010

At this time last year I was returning from pilgrimage in Tamil Nadu with you. In an article I wrote upon my return, I proposed this: Make a pilgrimage within yourself. Treat this year like a journey. Visit every place you can find that resides within you. And then honor your experience, regardless of what you find along the way.

Dikshitars Priests at our Rudra Homa, Chidambaram, Dec 2010 - photo Frank Andolino

I had just moved through the humid and darkly ecstatic interiors of Tiruchendur. I had climbed past waves of camphor smoke, pressing the folds of my sari against my leg to mount the hundreds of steps to the top of Palani. I had woken up day after day before dawn in anticipation of the cacophonous temple music that preceded each sunrise, then stained the soles of my feet red with the spilled kumkum at Tillai Kali Amman Temple. I had craned my neck toward the Cit Saba in Chidambaram, my body sweat-soaked and immobilized by so many other bodies, all of us yearning for a glimpse of the dancer’s face gleaming behind the flames of the arathi, and pressing against the grate to see the rahasya as the Dikshitar priests drew open the curtain.

The external experience merged with my internal process, which was sometimes ferociously passionate, and at other times sweetly bewildering. I have written about all this and more, but the sensory experience still inhabits me so thoroughly that I soften my eyes and I am there with you now as I write these words.

During the Homa, Chidambaram, Dec 2010 - photo Frank Andolino

I have another teacher who showed me how people like me, whose minds are ever moving, ever flickering, sending off sparks of energy in all directions, can build palaces within ourselves with rooms upon rooms in which to meditate. In those rooms I can arrange things to create particular environments. Then I can go back and change it all around, redecorate to structure my meditations and to expand them. I have different rooms for different purposes and the content of the rooms gets rearranged when it suits me. Everywhere I’ve ever been and everything I’ve ever done resides in this inner landscape, my interior palace. This is the site on which I broke ground that day ten years ago. Although I was never not building it, that day was when I cut the ribbon and walked in. That was the day I began to lay claim to the palace within.

Roof of the Cit Saba (Hall of Consciousness), Chidambaram, Dec 2010 - photo Frank Andolino

I have already written that once you have been to Chidambaram, the temple takes up residence within you. And so it has. My friend Harrison Williams told me a couple of days ago that he dreamt of the temple, walking endlessly through its elaborate corridors. He remembered, with precision, where certain stones were cracked and loose and he could feel them beneath the soles of his feet in his dream as he made his way through, pausing to offer mantra and mudra at Ganesh, then Subrahmanya, at Dakshina Moorthi, and at the feet of Nataraja, just as you showed us.

Chidambaram Nataraja Temple Corridor, Dec 2010 - photo Frank Andolino

You have told us how in the north, the traditions tend to revolve around Tirtha – a place such as a river or mountain as a site of pilgrimage, whereas the southern traditions invite us to the temple to pay homage and to receive Darshan, the exchange of glances between the deity and ourselves. Inside of me I have temples, I have palaces, I have forests and fields. As I traverse my inner landscape, I wander across dry clear plains, rest in dense green thickets, and wind my way through the labyrinthine temples that have assembled themselves within me.

Tirukalakundram-view while walking up to the temple, 2010

There are so many places to pause, so many reasons to bow down. Nothing has become simple and streamlined in my creative and spiritual practices. On the contrary, everything has become infinitely more complex and so wildly beautiful. This is our tradition, which utterly suits me. And for this, on our tenth anniversary of study together, Douglas, I thank you again and again and again.

Satsang with Douglas Brooks, Swamimalai Dec 2008

Special thanks to Frank Andolino for the his beautiful photos of our time in Chidambaram.

My Double Life (or…Doing the Yoga of Art)

My Hummingbird Sky installation at Studio Salon – With Eastern Eyes  Nov 2011

"So you're not going to make art any more? You're just going to do yoga?"

I said something out loud about myself the other night that surprised me. It wasn’t that I was unaware of its truth, but the fact that I articulated it is as precisely and as forcefully as I did was somewhat arresting. I was perched on a stool at an art opening just in front of an installation of mine that ran along the side of a wall. I had been included in an exhibition called Studio Salon – With Eastern Eyes in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. Four of us had work in the exhibition and I was speaking with another one of the artists who, like me, had spent time in India and who combined her life as an artist with her life as a yogi. This was clearly reflected in our work and we immediately found that we had volumes to talk about.

We were discussing the art world and I was remarking upon the ways in which my relationship to it had changed since I had become a yoga teacher. I said, At this point, my artwork serves my yoga. I paused and looked at those words hovering in the space between us, startled that I had said them out loud. And then the funniest thing happened – some taut internal sensation gave way, and I felt utterly happy.

My Pink Victorine installation at  Studio Salon – With Eastern Eyes  Nov 2011

What I had said was some sort of art world treason. Most people in the art world don’t even want to hear that you have a day job. You are supposed to do whatever it takes to make your work and the work is the point. But any job you hold is supposed to be disposable, as opposed to a career or a lifestyle choice. Artists work as art movers, as waiters, as temps. There’s a good reason for this since all of these jobs involve marketable skills, but minimal commitment. You can take off for a residency or an exhibition in another city, knowing that you can find a new position when you return. Your job is supposed to serve your work.

Art is something like a religion involving sacrifice and single-mindedness. This works for many artists, and it functioned well for me for many years. But at a certain point in time, in the midst of my deepening involvement in yoga, this way of being and thinking ceased to sit comfortably for me, and somewhere in there a significant shift happened.

MoMA Sculpture Garden Garudasana

I have spent years trying to keep my yoga life and my art world life separate. I have told myself the story that the art world doesn’t want to have anything to do with my yoga life for a long time, and that I somehow wouldn’t be taken seriously as an artist anymore if I revealed the depths of my commitment to yoga. The link to the yoga part of my website is slightly hidden in my belief that the yogis will happily dig through the artwork to find it, but that it’s probably best if the art world doesn’t see it.

And frankly, there are good reasons why I’ve nurtured this separation (or dodged the connection), namely because this assumption of mine has proven art world conversation after art world conversation to be accurate, and also because there’s a lot of terrible yoga-driven art out there. I have huge issues with the rainbow-y aesthetic and low-end psychedelia of much of the art I see in the yoga world. It makes me cringe.

In front of Les Demoiselles d'Avignon (the best painting ever)

I spent years lecturing and writing for the Museum of Modern Art, and unabashedly still worship at the altar of Picasso. I made highly cerebral and conceptual work for years until yoga smoothed its brittle edges and filled it with both color and a greater physicality. I continue to be a tough critic of art that I see in Chelsea Galleries and can analyze in seconds what concepts artists are exploring, while being wildly over-opinionated about whether or not it seems to be working.

For the most part, the art world seems to find it interesting and vaguely provocative that I can organize my body parts into interesting shapes and patterns, and certain people ask my advice about beginning a yoga practice, but a number of my friends continue to be perplexed about the extent of my involvement in it. I was asked just a couple of years ago by a good friend, So you’re not going to make art any more? You’re just going to do yoga? I was taken aback and scrambled uncomfortably to explain that no, this was not the case AT ALL. But now if someone said that to me, I would just shrug it off, because beneath the question is a belief system that is simply different from mine. How do you debate in two different languages? Additionally, I’m so deeply in love with my yoga practice that I simply don’t care what people think about it anymore.

Puja with Dakshina Moorthi - with Douglas Brooks, July 2011

So how does my artwork serve my yoga? First of all, what needs saying is that yoga for me is far more than a physical practice. In addition to asana, my philosophical studies, meditation, pranayama, mantra, and mudra practices are huge parts of my daily life. The ideas that I explore and encounter in my studies of Hindu Tantra are mind-bendingly complex and can be applied to every conceivable aspect of my life. They are fascinating. And moving. And beautiful. And aesthetically ecstatic.

Inner Landscape #6 - one of my drawings

It is from this place of delighted inquiry and close attention that I make art now. This is how the art serves the yoga. The yoga is the thing that connects every aspect of my life – every breath, every gesture, every moment, every creative impulse, every line inscribed on paper, every delineated form. When I create from this place, I offer my best self. Everything that I am making right now is emerging from a fullness that was not previously realized or acknowledged, but now constitutes my center. And for that reason, I am making the best work of my life.

Hummingbird Sky Bakasana at Studio Salon – With Eastern Eyes  Nov 2011

Smashing Coconuts at Dawn

Morning, Chidambaram Temple, by the Shivaganga Tank

When I was in South India this past summer, one of my favorite things to do was to smash coconuts on the stone steps of the Ganesha Temple. We were visiting the Shiva Nataraja Temple complex in Chidambaram, Tamil Nadu, which houses many smaller temples inside its thick walls and elaborate gopurams. We would go there several times each day to wander, meditate, and to participate in the rituals and events surrounding the 10-day seasonal Ani Festival.

Inside a Shiva temple complex, you can find what I’ll describe as a Shiva family gathering, meaning any Shiva-related deity may have its own shrine. The shrine might be a tiny nook in the wall, a little side corridor, or its own separate enclosure. In enormous complexes such as Chidambaram’s approx 40-acre temple-village, there are sizeable individual temples located throughout the extensive courtyards that range from the modest scale of my downtown New York City apartment to the size of a large city block.

Walking toward the Shivakamasundari Temple at night

Shiva’s beloved, Shivakamasundari, has the biggest private temple on the grounds, followed by Shiva’s sons, the much-adored elephant-headed Ganesha and the Tamil favorite, the sly warrior Subrahmanya, who majestically rides a peacock. These two are well represented in multiple small shrines throughout the complex in addition to having their own free-standing temples in the courtyards surrounding Nataraja.

One evening we went as a group to the small Ganesha temple, and after moving through the rituals of mantra, mudra, and arathi that had now become comfortable, we descended the slight staircase back outside, then took turns hurling coconuts at the stone steps of the temple. Slam – Crack! So satisfying.

As each coconut shattered, gushing water and scattering its shards across the courtyard, a few children and one woman ran around gathering up the pieces. It felt simultaneously like an act of aggression, an amusement park activity, and a physical form of prayer.

Temple Offerings

We were walking quietly back to the Hotel Sharadharam later that evening and my friend  Zhenja LaRosa  suddenly said, I need to do that thing again with the coconut. We’re getting up really early tomorrow morning and doing it again. I agreed. There was something profoundly cathartic about the coconut smashing. Each of us had been dealing with a lot of change in our lives, which had been both challenging and exciting, and there was something in this act that felt like an acknowledgement of a real break with the old and an embrace of the new, which is at the heart of the Ganesha paradigm.

Ganesha is often described as the remover of obstacles, but he also happens to be the one who places obstacles before you so that you have to confront something in your life. He is heavy and sedentary, yet can balance while dancing on the back of his little mouse, Musaka. He is complex and contradictory, just like us. He is that part of us that invites us to dare to create change, to be audacious enough to step over known thresholds into new places within the temples of our lives.

Little niche Ganesha, Meenakshi Temple, Madurai

Is this level of change scary? Yes. Is it exhilarating? Yes.  Do we sometimes need to break one thing down in order to build up something new? Absolutely. This is why Zhenja and I found our selves back at the temple steps at dawn, smashing coconuts on the warm stones and stepping through pools of their sticky and satisfying water.

Do this: Set an intention this fall. Choose a specific aspect of your life that you wish to dramatically shift or transform and write it down. Commit to taking specific steps outside of your normal habits and comfort zone. And every single day this fall, have a chat with Ganesha, Lord of Thresholds, symbol of new beginnings and of infinite possibility.

Om Gam Ganapataye Namaha
 
As a final note, my July coconut smashing gave birth to Writing Your Practice, a writing course designed specifically for yogis through the Yoga Teacher Telesummit. It begins on Monday, October 2. For more information, click   Writing Your Practice

Saying Thank You - A Love Letter To My Teachers

 

Nataraja, Bristol, NY, July 2011 

Yes...That. I am that. That I am.

My Two Teachers
I have many teachers, but the two who are really the great teachers of my life are the ones who, when I first heard them speak, seemed to be voicing the contents of my brain. If you have had this experience, you know exactly what I am talking about. You are surprised, and think – wait – how did you…? but I…  and then – yes and yes again. Then the surprise gives way to a magnetic compulsion that makes you want to scrunch your chair or yoga blanket or whatever you happen to be perched on …right…up…close.

It makes you want to travel around the world to study with them and precipitates dramatic shifts in how you order your time and with whom you wish to spend it. Your initial amazement and delight pool into a profound sense of gratitude for this glimpse into the mysterious synchronicity of things. Resonance and Recognition. This is what happened when I met my teachers John Friend and Douglas Brooks.

To Backtrack for a Moment – Paris and Proust
I keep thinking about the first time I read Proust. I was studying in Paris and as I tackled the dense text, I suddenly realized that I was being moved by the quality of the language and by the beauty of the prose. For the first time reading in French – instead of translating in my head, instead of it being about comprehension – I had moved into a place of profound aesthetic appreciation. That was something.

The writing seemed strangely familiar. As I read, it felt as if someone had transcribed the phrases and ideas lining the inside of my brain. I was seeing myself reflected in his words – not just things I had thought about, but patterns of thought – an underlying structure that said – That is me! The differences between myself and a neurotic French writer born in 1871, who closeted himself in a silent cork-lined room so that he could write all 3000-some pages of his book were evident. Yet, the startling sense of recognition triggered a sensation of deep connectivity to the world around me, which is actually what he was writing about. And this experience is what I’m now talking about.

Post-practice with John Friend - Anusara Grand Circle-Wanderlust, VT, June 2011

On Recognition and Moving through Things
Many years later, I was going through a challenging period in my life – I had lost 3 people I cared about in 3 months in unrelated violent deaths. I was toughing it out, trying to be there for other people while I just barely kept it together myself. I felt as if I was held in place by lots of little overlapping pieces of psychic tape and messes of determined glue – a shifting collection of pieces.

I had been studying with John Friend for about 5 years, and had already had the above-mentioned recognition experience with him. He was in town teaching a series of workshops in Soho. Usually when I studied with John, I was like an excited puppy  – exponentially more bouncy and chatty than I normally am. This time I was in a place where I just wanted to find some peace – to stop grinding my teeth for a few hours and feel happy again. We put down our mats and gathered toward the front of the room.

As John began to speak, something in the tone of his voice shifted something for me, and my carefully taped together self began to come unstuck. I spent most of the morning crying and sweating in the bathroom, finally managing to fit in about 30 sniffling minutes of practice. He came over to me immediately at the break and I recall spilling some incoherent mess about what I was dealing with, as he took it in and held that space for me.

Exhausted, I went back to my apartment, showered, scrubbed everything off of myself, and when I returned for the afternoon session, I was on the other side of it – clear, clean, and actually slightly happy for the first time in months. The tone of recognition and acceptance within his voice had triggered a profound alchemical shift within me. He had invited me more deeply into a particular part of myself so that I could process what I needed to move through.

Great teachers speak to you from where you are. They don’t try to yank or push or pull you into where they want you to be. They remind you to move into the fullness of your experience, to embrace whatever rasa, or flavor of experience, you are in so that you can best figure out how to align with your current reality.

With Douglas Brooks - Swamimalai Subrahmanya Temple, Dec 2010, photo-Diane Stone

On Reflection and Thatness
I was in upstate New York studying with Douglas this past week. Near the beginning of a meditation practice that Douglas was guiding, there was a moment near the beginning when one thanks one’s teachers. He let us know that this was what he was doing and that we were welcome to do the same.

Look way back – he suggested – go to 2^nd grade. I decided to really go for it, and it was amazing how many people I genuinely wanted to thank. I tried to pare it down to my parents, my high school English and Art teachers, my college Art History professor, several of my Anusara mentors, and Douglas and John. But then I thought about all of my teachers’ teachers, and that kept multiplying as well – lines and lines of them extending in every direction. It was endless.

I met Douglas when he was invited by Amy Ippoliti to kick off our Anusara® Teacher Training in January 2002. I have extremely vivid memories of being floored at every single thing he said. It was brilliant. And totally new. And yet utterly familiar. To conclude one evening, we were asked to give one word or phrase summarizing our experience. People said, inspired – intrigued – exhausted – perplexed – blown away, and more.  The one thing that I could truly say, was Yes…THAT. I am that. That I am.

You know in a minute flat when someone is going to be a great teacher in your life. You can learn from many, but the great ones – that is always clear. And there it was again and again, and here it still is again and again: the vimarsha shakti, which can be loosely defined as the energy of you being reflected back to you. Being around my teachers makes me a better person because of this endless mirroring and self-reflection, this sense of recognition, the inescapable resonance, the sweet invitation to that.

Jet-lagged but happy - with Douglas - Tirukalakundram Vedhagirishwar Hill Temple, Dec 2010

Saying Thank You
I was away traveling for much of this summer – Vermont-India-Paris–Boston-upstate NY, and had intended to write something like this for Gurupurnima, the traditional time of year to honor one’s teachers, so this is slightly late. But I honestly think about my teachers every day, which somehow blended with the nostalgia or longing that kicks in for me at the end of summer and the fading august light, so I felt compelled to write this belated thank-you note.

So here it goes  – thank you to Mom and Dad for being the most ridiculously fabulous parents anyone could wish for, to my sister Jen for being a model of integrity, thank you to my academic teachers who believed in my creativity and my skills – thank you to my yoga mentors and inspirations – Sianna Sherman, Elena Brower Amy Ippoliti, Lois Nesbitt, Vishali Varga, Ellen Saltonstall, and Sue Elkind. You have all given me so much.

And thank you John. Thank you Douglas. I thank you all for offering me myself.

With John - Anusara Grand Circle, VT June 2011

Every reader finds himself. The writer’s work is merely a kind of optical instrument that makes it possible for the reader to discern what, without this book, he would perhaps never have seen in himself. ~ Marcel Proust

Sweat Pray Write

Nataraja, Shivakamasundari and Subramanya Rathas, Chidambaram, July 2011     photo-Jagannath Babu

I am sitting in the 100º heat of the lobby of the Hotel Saradharam typing. No AC but Wi-Fi, so I try to perch on the edge of the inappropriately plush cushions of the couch beneath two whirling fans that busily attempt to dry out my contact lenses. I’ve soaked through layers of my sari and my computer rests on my thighs like a portable oven. There are a couple of tiny ineffectual mosquitoes flirting with my neck and arms – so sluggish in their movements that I easily swat them away before they manage to settle. I’m fantasizing about what it will feel like to peel off the layers of my sari to take yet another cold shower, about consuming a cool lime soda and a dosa. Yet, I’m determined to write.

I have come to Chidambaram in the South Indian state of Tamil Nadu with my teacher, Dr. Douglas Brooks, and some friends for the annual Ani Festival, which marks the seasonal transition. This is one of the only times that the temple’s presiding deity, Nataraja, is removed from the Cit Saba, the heart of the temple, and brought through the streets in the most spectacular way imaginable: towering and elaborately carved carts hosting Nataraja and several other deities are draped with thousands of flowers strung into garlands, while surrounding the carts are burning ghee-torches, music, fireworks, and innumerable pilgrims. Hundreds of us pull the carts’ giant ropes to move them through the streets around the temple complex. We have come to honor our friend Kirubakaran, one of the temple’s Dikshitar priests. Kirubakaran was chosen to lead the festival this year – a once in a lifetime opportunity for him, for his family, and for us.

Selvaganesan, Greg, Susanna, Kirubakaran, Pushpa, Vishali, Harrison, Vasu, and the kids at the temple entrance, photo-Jagannath Babu

Take a profound religious ceremony, cross it with the ultimate street fair, add the 4^th of July, and you’ll have a sense of what it is like.  The way in which I’ve described this 10-day opulent visual extravaganza to my friends is “Fellini on acid” because I don’t know how else to evoke the wild sensation of it all. The truth is that it is deeply sweet and ecstatically beautiful. It makes you want to bow down. And you do so again and again.

Inside the Temple-Kirubakaran after the Homa, July 2011, photo-Doug Neal

So it is in this context that I find myself wondering about the urge to write, to record. I’ve actually written less this trip than I have in any of my previous trips to India. I wanted to just be in the experience instead of continually engaging in the meta-cognitive process of thinking about what I’m doing while I’m doing it, evaluating what I’m seeing and experiencing, processing what I’m receiving through my senses so that instead of just sweating, I am thinking about writing about sweating, and then revisiting my wording and revising it in my head until I think, “Yes – that is perfectly evoking this moment of sweating.”

A few years ago, my parents decided to stop taking photos when they traveled for this very reason. They didn’t want their trip to be a step removed from the actual experience by having every view mediated through the camera lens. I understood and admired this decision, yet I can’t seem to utterly commit to it. I am proud of myself when I put down the camera for a couple of days and let my friends document the experience. But I happen to be a profoundly visual person, who learns and recalls through my own process of documentation. My art history notes from college were outrageous – outline form with thumbnail sketches. I retained amazing amounts of information.

Ideally I would be able to do the trip twice – once just sinking into the tough lushness of it all, into the realm of the heightened sensory experience that South India has to offer – and then a second time with my camera, my notebooks, my pens, my computer and its satisfying clicks and taps. This is my fantasy. But, of course, it is the fleeting quality of the experience that makes it so precious, that intensifies it and makes me yearn for what has already occurred yesterday or an hour ago, even as I sit here typing these thoughts. The visceral feeling of the experience slips away, leaving an evocative residue captured by my words, my images, my overflowing notations on my life.

Ani Festival, Chidambaram, July 2011, photo-Jagannath Babu

Eversomuch More-So

Sianna Sherman and Douglas Brooks - Paris, May 2011

Yoga is virtuosity in becoming yourself
~ Douglas Brooks

There was a story I loved when I was little called Ever So Much More So. The story, written by Robert McCloskey, revolves around a stranger who comes to town selling shakers full of a mysterious product invisible to the eye and without smell or taste.  Everything sprinkled with it seems to become more essentially itself. The name of the product is Eversomuch More-So.  The people of the town shake it over everything, and are amazed to find that their water gets wetter, a squeaky spring becomes squeakier, and people’s individual characteristics such as a stutter or a tendency toward pomposity become more pronounced. Everything touched by Eversomuch More-So becomes its heightened self.

Two curious boys finally open the product’s container, which appears to be empty. Of course the stranger is long-gone, and the townspeople wonder if they have been swindled, but one older man pours it over the earth, and celebrates as the grass becomes greener, the birds sing more clearly, and the world becomes more profoundly itself in every way. So is it suggestion or is it real? The story ends ambiguously, leaving us wondering: how does something become eversomuch more itself?

I spent last week in the company of two of my favorite people –Douglas Brooks and Sianna Sherman – both of whom have distinct and powerful voices. I was assisting Sianna with her Paris Anusara teacher training, which included people from 17 different countries. The range of cultures, languages, and life experiences was impressive. I listened and gave feedback as everyone brought their particular sensibilities to the conversation, refining the structure and the poetry of their teaching.

Speaking to the group one night, Douglas stated: Yoga is virtuosity in becoming yourself. For yoga teachers in the process of honing their skills, this was particularly meaningful – essential, actually. If you parrot another teacher or take on a persona, your lack of authenticity will be evident.

But virtuosity in becoming yourself is about far more than teaching asana. This is about how you want to be in the world.  This is about gazing inside to recognize that you are the sum of your own individual particularities, and that no one else can speak from your experience, your voice.

Live fully in your strengths and vulnerabilities to sing the song of you. When your song comes from this place, it moves people. You have become eversomuch more-you. Your virtuosity becomes an opening, inviting others to sing their songs.

If you want fluency and depth in your life, you must cultivate a state in which you are always becoming more profoundly yourself. If you want to inspire people – to move people – to offer people a taste of their deepest selves, you have to step into your own virtuosity. Like attracts like. This is the yoga.


How can you invite your green to become greener, your water to become wetter?
How can you inspire your voice to arise from that fertile place of your identity?
How can you cultivate your virtuosity in becoming Eversomuch More-You?

The Beauty of Alignment II

Once, in the town where Krishna lived, a venomous multi-headed serpent named Kaliya took up residence in the local river. Kaliya’s poison had polluted the water so thoroughly that any of the townspeople who went to take a drink, bathe, or even wash their clothing became sickened by its toxicity and died. The poison had begun to creep up the riverbanks, leaving a trail of dessicated grass and plants in its wake, and the cows eating the grass collapsed beneath the withered trees. Everyone was in a panic.

The young Krishna, realizing that he had to take action, leapt into the water, and as the stunned villagers watched, vanished into Kaliya’s thrashing, swirling, vortex at the center of the lake. They waited, fixated on the water’s surface. A few minutes went by in silence. Nothing. No bubbles. No ripples. No movement. The townspeople began to cry in despair. Krishna’s mother fainted and his father began to weep.

But then, in the midst of their tears, the townspeople heard a sudden splashing noise. As they lifted their heads, peering toward the river’s surface and pointing, a smiling Krishna began to rise up out of the water, balanced on one of Kaliya’s poisonous heads. Krishna began to play his flute and dance, hopping from hood to hood, as the dazed serpent slowly swayed, mesmerized by the rhythm. Subdued and remorseful, Kaliya apologized for his violent behavior, explaining that it was his nature, as a serpent, to be venomous. Krishna, acknowledging that it is difficult to control one’s nature, forgave him, requesting that Kaliya move out of the river and into the ocean, where his poison would be less damaging. And so he did.

Invite the story within. Kaliya is a thing out of place – a misalignment. A thing out of place can be toxic, but when placed properly, can be harmless or even advantageous. This is an essential tenet of yoga, and one that both of my teachers, Douglas Brooks and John Friend, emphasize. Douglas frequently points out that it’s called earth outside, but dirt inside. That stuff that looks so rich and fertile in your garden is simply a mess when it’s on your rug. One of John’s key concepts in Anusara Yoga is your Optimal Blueprint. The point of a pose is not to make it look like the version of it you saw on the poster, on the magazine cover, or even like the person practicing next to you. The point is to apply the alignment principles to yourself, building the pose from the inside out in a way that honors the particularities of your own body and lets your mind and heart sing. The point is knowing where to put things.

Alignment is a continual process of negotiation and renegotiation. Even when the waters of your everyday life seem still, there’s going to be something underneath – a thought, an incident - that will bubble up. And if it doesn’t emerge from the muck within it’s going to surprise you from riverbanks. The big question is: How are you going to align with the challenges? How will you choose to negotiate the vicissitudes of life so that your challenges lose their toxicity and take a more appropriate place in the landscape of you?

The Beauty of Desire

Morning Skies (II)

Desire is not a problem – it is our very nature. This is one of the first things that my teacher Dr. Douglas Brooks said when I met him nine years ago in the big kick-off weekend for my Anusara® Yoga Teacher Training. His statement continues to resonate as powerfully for me now as it did that first icy but exciting January day.

Desire is our nature. For me, this exuberantly exploded the popular trope that we are trapped and bound by desire - that we are mired in a cycle of always wanting more and that we can never be satisfied until we somehow free ourselves from that inclination. I listened and thought yes! The fact is that I enjoy my desire. I love that longing, that yearning, that delicious notion that there is always more to do, more to feel, more to accomplish, more to taste…and that my desire can take infinite forms, pointing the way toward a multiplicity of experiences and possibilities.

Desire is what gets me out of bed in the morning – the memory of how much I love that first flowery taste of my hot milky tea, that initial yawningly satisfying stretch of my morning Surya Namaskar, the promise of plans and conversations with friends, the excited wait for that satisfying press and scratch of pencil on paper as I draw. Desire is what motivates me, excites me, inspires me. Desire makes me care passionately about things and about people. I love that I can be moved to tears by a Picasso painting or a Fellini film or the taste of a distant hillside in a great glass of wine. I feel incredibly fortunate that I am so deeply connected to my desirous self that it repays me with joy on a daily basis.

I want to become ever more in touch with my desire. I want to step deeply into the flow of passion that moves through my everyday life. Join me: close your eyes, go inside for a moment, and reconnect to that glowing ember called desire that constitutes your very core.