I remember being a little kid, on one particular day, I wanted to play Hide and Seek with the seemingly “bigger” kids.  They let me play, but it meant I had to be IT…they left me with one instruction, they told me to count for one minute.  I remember that I didn’t know how to do that but I didn’t want to tell them…they were the big kids...

Yoga has become a very loud, very obnoxious industry.  It’s everywhere a person looks…yoga studios, yoga pants, yoga bras, yoga bodies, yoga videos, yoga accessories…yoga yoga yoga.  This is the gleaming industry of business…the industry of people who like to make money and know how to make it, through exploitation and through feeding human insecurities.  The yoga industry is the same as any other….the cosmetic industry, the vitamin industry, the oil industry, the carpet industry...

Always remember your humanity…for good or for bad…you will fall, you will blunder, you will do things splendidly, and you will rock the boat…but to love and be kind is the best we can do with it all.  Our best is really all that things ever come back to…and our best is better on some days than it is on others. But our intent behind what we do is what makes it all count. From our intent we bring our heart, and from our heart we acknowledge our humanity...

Upon seeing a yoga class from a view at the door, my eyes wide, my mouth gaping, a foreign world of thought tumbled forward:  
Look at all those people! How do all those people fit in one room arms in the air, front knee bent? What is that teacher offering them that they want to crowd into a room like that? How does this happen?...

“I just want to be ok”…we can often think this about ourselves when we practice Yoga.  It’s a harsh thought, no matter how quietly we might hear it. Yoga is about greater self awareness and the acceptance that comes from that; but sadly, we naturally apply our culturally developed thinking as a framework around it.  Almost like we try to catch it in a net that is already familiar to us...

Cocktail Umbrellas are more important than we realize.  Usually accompanied by a maraschino cherry and a slim slice of orange, those bright little, paper decorations are always found in a cheery coloured cocktail drink in yellow or pink. Innocently, and unbeknownst to them, these umbrellas hold a lot of power...

Racism, sexism, sexual orientation, and world religions are the most heated topics globally as fuel for disagreement; all of them relating to something “different” from our own self.  This difference seems to be about a lack of understanding of “the other”, and not so much about anything based on truth.  We’re uncomfortable when we don’t understand...

Out of the mouths of babes, there it was: “YOGA WORKOUT”…words spoken innocently by one of my Yoga students but which, hit me like a roll of thunder. Everything about me felt like it morphed into Van Gogh’s “The Scream”.  How had I failed her as her teacher?...

I have often felt betrayed by the Yoga “community”. What I had thought would be a true Sangha, a community of wise souls, has often turned out to be a group of popular “yogis” who hang out with each other and socialize.  I’ve learned that it is rare to find a loyal community of supportive people, who are willing to connect deeply and in a mature way…a Sangha that is non-competitive and non-exclusive...

My plane was to be in Bangalore, but I was standing at the baggage carousel in the partially constructed airport in Chennai.  Three days to go and an email had landed in my Inbox from Air India, notifying me that I would be flying from Bali to Chennai instead of my expected Bali-Bangalore...