"The transformation is in letting go and beginning again.  And what an amazing thing that is.  We can always, always begin again.   The healing is in the return, not in never having wandered to begin with. So no matter how many times you might have to let go and begin again, it's fine.  Its why it doesn't matter even if it's just one moment of awareness. It's enough." - Sharon Salzberg 

After a sleepless night surfing the low grade anxiety that’s rolling in the collective unconscious (in other words, ALL of us on the planet) right now, I got up early and decided to try to take advantage of what I was sure would be an empty laundry room to get a load done, go to CVS and see if I could score some goodies, aka currently known as Lysol or Chlorox wipes (the shelves are lined with lonely green wipes, sorry Method) and hand sanitizer or alcohol (I already have toilet paper, can I get a hallelujah?!).

As I walked in, confident there would be no one there, not only was there someone loading one of the three machines, but she had two large baskets and was clearly planning to use the others as well.  Annoyance flooded me.  My plan was going down the drain here, no pun intended.
Still, I asked “Are you going to use all three?”  Expressionless and tired and maybe a little annoyed (I could have been projecting) she lifted her gaze to meet mine and mumbled “yeah”.  In turn, I felt my irritability spike and mumbled under my breath, reactively, “fuck.  dammit. fuck”

I stormed out of the laundry room and out into the cool Spring air, when I felt Awareness run up from behind me and tap me on the shoulder. She cleared her throat to further get my attention, as I was walking faster trying to get away from her, and she asked “What happened there, kiddo?”   

Suddenly, Judgement came at me sideways and hard, “Hey…YOU…what DID happen there?  We’re in a global pandemic, people are sick, dying, scared, stuck…and you’re mad because you couldn’t get a machine in the laundry room when all you have right now is TIME??  WTF is WRONG with you?  And you call yourself a yoga teacher, a yogi, an empath, a good person? You probably really made that woman’s day so much worse with your tantrum.  You’re such a phony.”

Shame and Guilt gave me side eye.  That’s all they have to do before I feel their heaviness drag me down.

And then I looked up as a figure appeared in the clear blue sky- was it a bird? was it a plane!? - no, it was Compassion flying down to me, like the Superhero she is, and landing square in front of me, soft eyes, soft voice:  “You could have handled that better, but we are in a pandemic, and you’re anxiety has been knocking you off course from time to time despite all your good intentions and daily yoga and meditation and writing…you slept poorly, you hadn’t had coffee, and you’re not a morning person remember?  Plus, you fell into the illusion that while you can’t control a pandemic, you can control some things in your life, except you forgot that the only thing you can control is your reaction to things, not anything external like pandemics or on a much smaller scale, where the delusion of control can really get out of hand, if someone beats you to the laundry room.  And it’s ok. We forget, and we remember.  You’ll go back, and you’ll likely catch your neighbor unloading her laundry, and you’ll apologize and offer reparations of kindness.”

Judgement rolled his eyes but turned around and walked away, street swag style.  Shame and Guilt did a hair toss and checked their nails, but then followed Judgement.  Compassion gave me a hug and a smile and then took off into the sky, “till next time” I heard her say as she disappeared into the blue abyss.

Awareness took my hand and walked with me, fingers interlaced to CVS where I was told to come back in an hour as they were unloading the truck with the fresh delivery of the things so many had gathered anxiously to get.  There were about 6 or 7 of us, bleary eyed, a little desperate, waiting with me in the cleaning/toilet paper aisle.  When they heard this ‘come back in an hour’ business, they grumbled, sucked their teeth, and cursed "fuck. shit fuck" under their breath too…and my heart ached with empathy for them.  “I get it.  We are all doing the best we can” I heard my True Self say, now able to be heard above the constant chatter from the others, since their voices inside me had been quieted. 

I walked back to my building, back inside my laundry room, and lo and behold, my neighbor walked in a couple of minutes after I did.  Before I could open my mouth, she exclaimed “Oh I’m SO glad to see you again.  I’m SO sorry.  I felt SO bad.  I only ended up using two machines and I felt so terrible for you.  I haven’t had my coffee and I’m not a morning person and I thought I said ‘hi’ but you only asked me about the machines and maybe I didn’t say hello—- ”  I interrupted, “It was ME! I was SO rude and I’m SO sorry.  The cursing was uncalled for and not directed at you but still, so so rude and I TRULY apologize. I felt SO bad as well and its just that I didn’t sleep well and also haven’t had coffee and I’m not a morning person and well, this thing is tough right now.”

We went on like that for a while.  Accepting each others apologies, sharing our current experiences of stress and concern.  “I’m Donna”.  “I’m Judi”.   Donna told me she felt she’d made a new friend through teary eyes.  My heart tenderized to a pulp.  We “air hugged” from 6 feet away.

Gratitude woke up from her slumber, and morphed into Love, AKA: God, and embraced us both.
I put my laundry in.  I remembered, this yoga and meditation practice business works, not because it is perfect, or makes me perfect, or even because it is the only way because Donna is not a yogi and clearly got to the same conclusion I did around our encounter…but it IS one way, MY way of cultivating relationships with myself and others through  1) Awareness,    2)Compassion.

What else do we need to do?  To heal?  To forgive?  To accept?  To have faith?  To trust?  To know God? And in knowing God, know our true nature, which is limitless, essential, always triumphant because it is eternal and free.

This is why I practice.

Sharon Salzberg says that the most important moment in the process of practice is the next one, where we realize we’ve lost awareness and we bring ourselves back. 

I practice to “bring myself back” gently, to remember when I forget.

And, I practice right now for the world, for the collective conciousness, to remember it’s humanity, to remember compassion and forgiveness ahead of fear and greed, to remember to respect and honor the planet, because it will defend itself and rightfully so, to remember divinity and faith, and to bring ourselves back gently to the only thing that counts, matters, helps, heals:  Love.

(This blog was inspired by the Sharon Salzberg talk linked in the button below.)

“I’ve got an elastic heart….” - Sia

Just the other day, my mother’s cousin was visiting from North Carolina, where she has retired after living most of her life between the DR and NYC.  She’s my mother’s “prima hermana” or cousin-sister, as they grew up together, and like a second mother to me since I spent a year of my very young life in her care in Santiago, and bonded so much with her that apparently I started calling her Mami.  She was a support system to my mother during the last, very stressful, very sad year of my grandmother’s life.  I share this to drive home the point that she is a beloved member of my very small family, a wonderful woman, and someone I appreciate deeply. 

She is also a conservative.  During dinner, despite best efforts, our conversation inevitably turned to the upcoming election, and all the issues that are on the table for our collective consideration.  Our view on all of them were polar opposite- and that was not new, but the intensity of the opinions expressed was so much harsher.  As things intensified, my heart beat furiously in my chest, every thud aching with disappointment and sadness.  This is a common story these days.

Our heart is the hardest working organ in our body, on average pumping 6000 liters of blood through our veins and beats about 100,000 beats a day.  Metaphysically, it is the keeper of our most intimate emotions, the home of our soul.

 And as such…sometimes it aches and breaks.  

We are living in particularly heart-achy times, our minds in disturbia, spinning from the constant barrage of twitter feeds, strongly divided opinions, newly licensed hate and bigotry, and so much self righteousness on all sides.  

How do we love in these times?  

The reality is, despite all the rose colored, Instagram worthy quotes about love being the answer, love is also some real work.  It’s easy to love those who think like us, and are good to us, but how do we love people that we don’t agree with, or even dislike?  And if you want to really get deep with it, how do we love ourselves in the face of our shortcomings, mistakes and regrets?  I’m convinced cultivating this kind of love, the hardest kind, is the answer to every existential question about life.  We are here to love: beyond the romantic and easy kind too- we are here to love it all back into love.

I’m also convinced that now more than ever, there is an urgency, you might even say a pressure to explore this loving business.  We are being put to the test, I feel.  And I know one thing to be true, every heartbreak and loss I’ve ever experienced has left a scar and a crack,  but has expanded my heart, given it the super power of elasticity to hold more. 

So as I sat there at dinner, considering how someone I loved, someone who lived with so much love in so many areas of her life, could see things so differently, in my opinion, so love-lessly, I practiced something I like to call compassionate indifference.  I listened to the degree that I could, and I stated my feelings and views and drew boundaries around what I would tolerate, and then agreed to disagree, respectfully.  That’s the indifference part- not getting caught up and torn up by the differences and staying connected to the compassion.  

It was awkward.  It was messy.  But it was my best expression of love in that moment.  

It isn’t always rainbows and hearts.  Tough love is love too.  Speaking your truth. Not backing down but not putting down either.  This business of being human is a life’s work and love is its teacher and its main practice. 

And I think that’s why I believe in other lives, because I don’t know that we get there in one lifetime…but the point is to keep striving.  

Even when I look at the place we are in history, we’ve been here before, and each time we expose the shadows that are still lurking around our collective psyche (fear, bigotry, otherness, mysogyny), that will always lurk because we are light and we are dark, but if we don’t look and have that awareness we can’t act  from our more loving, higher selves.  So in many ways, we’re in a time of reexamination, which is necessary. 

What I love about yoga practice is that basically:  at its heart, is this act of cultivating awareness through examination be that asana or meditation or practicing the yamas and niyamas.  Beyond these shapes we make, often over and over again on our mats, we’re being asked to examine them each time, honestly and lovingly, and sometimes they aren’t pretty or smooth,  but if we’re in that work, we’re expanding our capacities physically and metaphysically.  And an expansion of that capacity to build awareness, to be mindful, often spills into other areas of our life and beyond into the world.  It is not about perfection, or achieving the pose, but about that striving with awareness.  Same for everything else we’re holding in these times:  it doesn’t have to look perfect, we don’t have to agree, but can we strive for unity and mutual respect?  

We may get there, or we may come very close.  Either way, we’re developing elastic hearts, integrated souls, and embodied existences.  And that’s how we grow collectively beyond this place and time, which will shift.  That’s how we keep moving the needle towards the real hope and prize:  universal love. 

 "The basic story of the hero's journey involves giving up where you are, going into the realm of adventure, coming to some kind of symbolically rendered realization, and then returning to the field of normal life." – Joseph Campbell

When I was a little girl, my mother and her best friends would hang out in the living room listening to bolero, a genre of Latin American music that I would best categorize as blues meets Michael Bolton love songs on crack.  They would sit on the floor, drink Hennessy and Coke, smoke cigarettes, share secrets, laugh, cry, all to record after record (and I do mean vinyl) of Jose Jose, Julio Iglesias, Rocio Durcal to name a few of the stars of bolero.  They would also clean the house to this music on FULL BLAST, as if doing so was somehow a bit of brujeria, or magic, that would purge their toxic love affairs from their hearts. The songs were about love, hate, hope, loss, betrayal, revenge. Sometimes the lyrics were about sex, veiled in the most romantic metaphors …honestly the stuff was and still is hawt!, and subconsciously, it was a huge part of my formative years and who I became and still am to this day.

The first book on Eastern Philosophy I ever read was “My Lord Loves a Pure Heart” by Gurumayi Chidvilasananda.  It BLEW.ME.AWAY.  And also intimidated the hell out of me.  It is still one of the most important spiritual books I’ve ever read; one of those that flips a switch in your mind about another way to think and be and changes how you see everything.    But it is literally about "divine virtues" and its message, while amazing, felt SOOO lofty and out of reach. 

At the time, circa 2004, I had already been practicing yoga on and off for about 7 years, and it was recommended to me by an Anusara teacher named Cari Friedman, who I totally idolized.  Lying in savasana at the end of her classes, I’d have these huge insights and aha moments, linking patterns in my practice with patterns in my life.  Sharing the experience and insights from class and the book with a friend, she suggested I consider yoga teacher training but I waved it away immediately:  ME?  No way.

I should pause here to say that by this point, my life had become a bolero song.  It was now me sitting in my studio apartment kitchen, listening to Jose Jose  or Luis Miguel, smoking cigarettes and polishing off a full bottle of cheap merlot, calling my best friend crying about my toxic love affair.  This is part of what had brought me to Cari’s classes in the first place.  Wanting a respite from my mind and my overwhelming emotions.   

So, in my head, to be a yoga teacher, you had to be gentle and zen like Cari…or lofty and "good" , full of the virtues Swami Chidvilasananda described. Definitely not the hot mess, passionate, romantic Latina child of bolero I identified as:  reactive, emotional, addicted to drama, attached to material things, to my love affairs, to my habit of binge drinking among other things- and really just TOO MUCH.  And even though the promises of yoga- peace and enlightenment for starters- definitely pulled at my soul strings, I could not see how I could ever reach them, let alone teach them. 

Full disclosure:  I wasn’t ready.  I needed to hit rock bottom, and that wouldn’t happen for another 8 or 9 years or so of total attachment to this idea of myself as the Latina Carrie Bradshaw, looking for love in a lot of wrong places, partying to escape any hint of my traumas, and honestly, having a good time for a lot of it which is why the rock bottom took so long.

When it arrived, I was so, so lucky that the universe pushed me back on my mat again. It was one of the only places that allowed me to get away from the darkness that threatened to swallow me whole.  And it placed me before teachers who were authentic and encouraging, like Sarah Granato…and later in teacher training, ones who were transparent about their flaws and yet so so brilliant- like Kelly Morris who I ride hard with for life because she changed mine, and then Livia Shapiro whose work nourished me so profoundly and continues to inspire me on the daily, and now Christina Sell, whose teachings challenge me physically, but more than that, the real challenge her teaching offers me is to embrace wholeness instead of perfection, a feat easier said than done, but one that saves me literally everyday. (read her book https://hohmpress.com/books-hohm-press/A-Deeper-Yoga.html and have your life changed). 

Thanks to the grace of the divine forces that led my heart to want to learn from these amazing women, I learned that contrary to what I had thought for so long, it isn't about being one thing or another, or about yoga as a cure to all that is "wrong" (and please insert any other spiritual path or word in place of yoga, as I think we do it with many things in life).  I learned that while you may experience states of nirvana, periods of “zen” and may even come very close to moments of perfection on the spiritual path, there is no arrival at some permanent state of any of these and in the end, the real work and gift and blessing is in finding, amidst regular everyday life, with its regular every day cycles and ups and downs, that wholeness my teachers talked about, that integration or union that is the definition of the word yoga; that coming back to "normal" life after the hero's journey, that Joseph Campbell describes. 

I learned that there isn't some road to  “good enough”, because we are, innately, already there.   And more importantly, I learned that I could still be the passionate, romantic Latina I had always been, in fact I could be her more fully, more wholly, and more lovingly because of the tools of this practice.  That I didn't have to be one or the other- but could integrate both.  

That enlightenment can be many things and among them, it is as simple as, what Tara Brach calls, Radical Acceptance of ourselves and our lives in the moment, with deep compassion.  That the heart of this practice lies there.  Not in standing on our heads or meditating for an hour- not in some temporary “zen” state, though there is great wisdom and skill to be explored in those practices and experiences- but that without the acceptance and compassion for self, they are empty.  And ultimately, that I DID have something to offer others in my teaching: example and service.  That same example and help I’ve gotten from my teachers and from this practice, I can now, as a Latina yoga teacher, offer to others, and especially to other people of color who might also be thinking: “that’s not for me…I’m too______(fill in the blanks).”

​So here I am.  20+ years of practice, and 5 years of teaching later, and I have been known to give a really crazy aggressive driver the finger a time or 2 as opposed to all the time, which is what it would have been years ago.  I’ve been known to react at the Thanksgiving table when I get triggered, but I’m no longer storming out with a giant chip on my shoulder and a closed heart.  Sometimes I have one more drink than I should have on nights out but that happens less and less.  I still believe in big love and hope it finds me, and I still listen to bolero music on rainy nights and remember my love affairs with rose colored glasses. 

​I also recover more quickly from bouts of depression and think a hell of a lot more before I speak.  I ask for help when I need it.  I give help when I can.  I try to choose more carefully and considerately. I forgive more easily.  I try really hard to be kind. I fail more than I'd like, but I don't punish myself for it and I keep trying.  I let go A LOT.  Over and over.  And I find gratitude constantly. 

So am I zen?  Nah! But I like to think that I'm better than zen: I'm real...I'm whole.  

“I live my life in growing orbits which move out over this wondrous world, I am circling around God, around ancient towers and I have been circling for a thousand years. And I still don't know if I am an eagle or a storm or a great song.”  Rainer Maria Rilke  (From Rilke's Book of Hours:  Love Poems to God)

Every year, when winter arrives, I find myself having the same conversation with people:  “Can you believe how DARK it is and so EARLY?  I mean…it’s only 4:30pm!  Ugh, winter is here!”, we say, in resigned shock.  As if, we, North Easterners, had never experienced the season before.  As if, this was something new and unnatural and somehow we expected the following year to be different.  As if, the Earth didn’t move through her timeless spiral dance with the sun since the beginning of time, way before any of us even dreamed of existing.   

The truth is, though, we are always surprised when the seasons change.  We feel those energetic shifts as both, familiar, and yet new and different because it IS a new cycle, a new year, a new phase on the journey of our lives however they unfold.

I’ve been on a path of commitment to living from a place of spirit for the past 5 years, ever since I dove into the teachings of yoga to become a teacher myself.  It has been the single most beautiful and challenging decision of my life thus far.  And so…I find myself having a similar reaction when I feel I fall short from the teachings, or the ideals I’ve set for myself about who I “should” be.  Kind. Compassionate.  Patient. Loving.  Non-judgemental.

When I experience annoyance, anger, impatience, dislike, judgement…and more importantly, when I REACT from those places, I’m always stunned and disappointed in myself.  Much like the darkness returning in Winter, the behavior is familiar, but I am different- have more tools, and so it feels surprising when it happens. “Ay, ay, ay!   Why did I say that?  Why did I DO that?  I KNOW better.  I’m a yoga teacher for goddess sake!  I… MEDITATE!  I’ve had transcendental experiences of connection to spirit and I know the answer is LOVE always.  So…how can I still be struggling with all this BS!?!?”  

The answer is, it’s a circle, not a line.

The circle as a symbol of life and God is found in almost every ancient civilization and teaching and for good reason.  Our lives both personally and collectively move not in a neat, linear formation…but honestly often in a chaotic, rounding of the bases returning over and over to home, to the place where we begin and end, to our trauma and our healing, where the truth of who we are in all our messy perfection revisits itself and if we’re doing our work, repeats the lessons of forgiveness, acceptance and love that, day by day, season by season, breath by breath and trip around and around that spiral of energy we call life, have been shifting to evolve and elevate us both personally, and collectively, to our highest and best.

Its round, not flat.

The shape of this great mother, her movements and cycles over and over again reflect our individual process, our collective process.  She’s got hills and valleys, still deep waters and rolling oceans, hot dense deserts and unimaginable jungles of wilderness.  She create and destroys.  And it’s ALL a valid and a necessary part of her wholeness.  The seasons revisiting us, familiar and new… every year that flower dies and is reborn.  When it returns that bloom has a slight variation in color, size, fragrance…it isn’t the same flower it was the season before even if it grows in the same place.

When I think of our current political and cultural landscape here in the US:  Trump, Black Lives Matter, Me Too, Social Media and the Wellness cultures…it is jarring and feels new and revolutionary as indeed it is.  But 40 years ago, there was: Nixon, the Civil Rights Movement, the Women's Right Movement, Television, and “hippies”.  So it is that we’re just in the next cycle, evolution, circle…the next phase of growth, revisiting our wounds and our healing to take another leap closer to more light and love…like a checking in… and it feels…familiar, and yet is brand spanking new.

On a personal level, when I snap at someone because I’m tired, drained or n the desert of my emotions and soul, hot, dense and dry…so that I fall off my practices or my hopes for who I want to be  in that moment, it does not erase the 10 other times I’ve wanted to snap but instead found my breath, my still water of calm centeredness and responded with patience or compassion.  Every time around those emotions, if I’m going consciously, I’m evolving and learning and growing.  And also, it’s ok to be the desert AND the river because that is wholeness…and it’s precisely the duality of that essence of who we are which keeps us compassionate and forgiving. 

If I never snapped I wouldn't understand when someone snaps at me.   But because I do, I can instead remember when I snapped at someone, and see beyond the moment to what might be really going on with them with compassion, forgiveness, and love.  So my annoyance and my kindness are both necessary. Because they define each other, they keep me connected. 
​
Yoga, is this way too.  Downdog feels different every time I come to the mat, and yet familiar.  Old physical habits can creep up, and the inhale just reminds me to be in the moment, to do the pose from the now. My mind sometimes wants to check out or check ahead...and that exhale empties all the clutter and invites me back to the weight in my hands and the energy in my legs. Each time, familiar, because I've been in this shape before, and yet its the first time that day, in that moment, which is new.  And there was a time I thought I was going no where in it, and now it is finally, a rest pose...progress through circling back over and over to the shape and fine tuning.  

I find, as I continue on this path, that this is why practice is SO important.  Whatever yours is.  Because we easily forget.  We forget how dark it gets in winter.  We forget that winter passes, and Spring returns again.   That this too shall pass...whatever it may be for you right now- joy or pain...everything shifts, and goes around and through itself.  That we are all on the same journey and want the same thing-to be loved, to matter, and be witnessed.  Practice, whatever it may be- yoga, writing, painting, singing, praying, knitting, running- is our way to remember as we ride this wheel of life.

It’s a circle, not a line. It’s round, not flat.  Its a remembering.  A coming home over and over again to ourselves to each other…JUST AS WE ARE.

Keep circling back to yourself with forgiveness, acceptance and love.  Offer it to others as they dance with their light and their shadows.  That pure unconditional love is what lies at the heart of the spiral, and what, whether we know it or see it or believe it, keeps us here, and saves and will continue to save us, over and over and over again.

“Change is not something that we should fear. Rather, it is something that we should welcome. For without change, nothing in this world would ever grow or blossom, and no one in this world would ever move forward to become the person they're meant to be.  Transformation is sustained change, and it is achieved through practice.“  - BKS Iyengar


Tibetan Buddhist World View One:  Everything is always changing.  It is obvious and undeniable.  Some change we seek, and some happens to us whether we want it or not, but what is our relationship to change?  How do we respond and navigate the route, especially when the destination feels uncertain?  

The older I get, the more I feel this is the heart of life, the essence of reality.  Just when we think we’ve got it, something new arises.  Just as we think we’re about to touch land after a long journey, a hurricane comes and blows us back out to sea.  The scales are always dancing as they strive to create balance.  When we start to live that, world view one makes deep sense:  accept that everything is always changing and you’ve got the compass to sail through life in all it’s flowing beauty as well as through it’s chaos and storms.  

The accepting part is where it can get slippery.  Even when the change is sought, welcome and joyful, we might still worry (will we lose it?) or sabotage it (are we worthy?).  Sometimes it is easier to stay with what we know, even if it is not for our highest and best.  It’s safe.  And when the change is not sought or pleasant or perhaps is full of risk and uncertainty, we can create a cozy little home for fear, anxiety and negativity to burrow in.  And we chase our tails trying to control and guarantee the outcome. Finally, and this is the toughest one, when the change is completely unexpected and unexplainable (illness, loss, death), the darkness comes  and climbing out of it’s hopelessness can feel impossible.  

The main ingredient of the recipe of change is uncertainty.  Will it last?  Will it work out?  Will I be ok?

Looking back at my life at the places where I’ve been the happiest and the places I’ve been the most wretched as a result of change, I’ve experienced all of those scenarios and asked all those questions.  I’ve sabotaged relationships and opportunities out of fear of losing them down the line anyway.  I’ve experienced loss in various forms, but none as painful as the precious parts of myself I cannot get back.  And yet…

I’ve learned from my mistakes.  And this doesn’t mean I don’t still make them.  I just make them much less frequently and I catch myself while I’m in them sooner so I don’t prolong and extend the problem.  And I feel wiser.  Wisdom stems from change.

And those parts of myself that I can’t get back, I’ve mourned them, blessed them, and thanked them for coming and for going because in their place, new skin and flesh and limbs and breath and perspectives and heart rhythms have grown and flourished that nourish and are strong and supple and adaptable.    Alchemy stems from change. 

Finally, change that involves trauma and loss can be the most challenging to transmute.  And my experiences in this area are still in process, my healing still evolving.  But I think healing sometimes can look like living “with” our pain and grief and not “from” them.  And this builds strength.  Endurance stems from change.

Our body holds these lessons for us as well in it’s bones and in the energetic realm.   Just when I think I've got an asana down, I realize there are more nuances to it...or a new one rises up in it's place that calls me to explore and let it change me from the outside in.  Much like life- we figure out one thing and another mystery moves in to solve or explore or get through.  If this wasn't the case, the rhythm of the universe always changing beat, how stale and predictable the dance would be.  

My yoga practice has been an invaluable metaphor for change and it’s transformative powers.  I’ve been practicing for almost 19 years now on and off.  When I began, I had no interest in challenging poses.  I wanted the relaxed movements.  I loved Hatha and Restorative and I wanted to bliss out in Savasana.  And so I did and that led my bodies (physical, mental and energetic) to Kundalini yoga, which expanded my awareness and consciousness and self connection to understand that I was ready for Vinyasa and Ashtanga.  And without realizing it, I had a yoga practice that ranged from Supta Baddha Konasana to Kriyas to headstand and crow.   This did not happen overnight and the journey was fraught with self doubt, resistance, stopping and giving up, and then starting over again.  There were some injuries to both body and ego:  19 years worth of unearthing and dragging up and out all the complicated emotions, thoughts and patterns of my being through movement and breath and meditation.  Sometimes without me being cognizant - I just showed up and trusted the process and the work happened almost behind the scenes until one day, the ultimate transformation came by way of life and commitment to my practice when I became a teacher. Transformation as practice. 

​It is not easy.  It is life’s eternal practice this acceptance of change as inevitable and reality as uncontrollable but if we can sustain the trust that it is all happening as it should for our highest and best transformative experience; if we can keep showing up and opening to a willingness to make space for it to be whatever it needs to be, we will have one of the keys to living with more peace and ultimately joy. 

In Spanish, when a woman gives birth, we refer to it as “dar a luz” or “ to give to the light”.    I never thought about the significance much until I got more in depth with my prenatal yoga studies, and for the past few months, my soul has been singing that phrase to my mind and heart like a soundtrack on repeat in both languages “Give to the light, dar a luz…give to the light, dar a luz…give to the light, dar a luz…”

The reason behind the use of this phrase is layered.  Some explanations say it has religious connotations around the birth of Jesus and how he was the light of the world.  Others say it’s because of the darkness of the womb, and the baby emerging into light.  And still another perspective is that children are lights in the world and specifically in the life of their parents and loved ones.  

My own interpretation is that a baby is a new soul, entering the world as a spark of divinity, and adding its unique brilliance and gifts to the big collective light, the source, the big kahuna- God, Universe, I really don’t care what you call it (see my December 2016 blog for more on this topic).  

I don’t have children and when I was doing my prenatal studies, I worried about how my students would receive that, until a very wise teacher and doula reminded me that most OB-GYN’s are men.  This cured me immediately and forever of any concern.  I was also reminded that giving birth is something that isn’t taught or learned- it is just KNOWN, natural and innate, and that whether I have children or not, I know how to do it.  It was such an empowering thing to hear since usually, women are trained to believe birth is this mystery and terror the pain of which their frail sensibilities will not be able to bear, so they must load up on epidurals or better yet, schedule the c-section in advance.  How liberating and amazing to know that in fact the opposite is true:  we have this incredible and powerful privilege, this exclusive ability and otherworldly strength to bring life forth. 

The training tapped into something primal in me, as a woman but more importantly as a divine spark in my own right.  There are so many ways to give to the light, and never a more important time to do it than now.  In these times that feel mad, uncertain and opaque.   

We can feed the darkness of this new reality through doubt and fear, or we can nurture our creativity and compassion and give to the light.   

All you need to give to the light is the courage to march in protest, raising your voice in support of love and equality.  You can give to the light with pen to paper, or fingers to keypad, or camera to image, brush to canvas, hands to drums, feet to rhythm, body to mat, knees to altar, voice to chant, words to speech, hearts and souls in hand.   You can give to the light by putting down the drink, choosing the kind word, doing the right thing, taking time to help, smiling, forgiving, apologizing, listening, and starting over again and again and again.  Each time you start over, you give to the light.  Birth is not just a physical experience, and in this way it is not exclusive to any gender.  It is creativity, it is kindness, it is moment to moment, choice by choice, breath by breath.  
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Unfortunately much like the powerful experience of giving birth has been demonized and dramatized negatively by the entertainment industry and media, so too have creativity, compassion and the courage to start over been viewed as weak, unglamorous and unrewarding in our culture.  Even though they too are our true, natural states; even though from the moment we are born, everything we do is looking to find our way back to that innate simplicity of being.  As long as I can remember,  we’ve been told and taught to be right, win at all costs, be perfect or at least pretend you are, make more money, buy a bigger house, and get a good zinger in on that asshole who crossed you and if you can do it in public and cause humiliation even better.  The heartbreaking, terrifying and deeply demoralizing thing is that it this is now being propagated from the very highest office in our country and arguably the world. 

So we MUST give to the light.  NOW MORE THAN EVER, this must be our continual work.  To re-birth ourselves through the awakening these recent events in history have stirred.   We all came into this world as these crystal, clear rays of brilliance with our own kind of loving and beauty to contribute- and maybe life trauma or the narrative of our families, or the times we live in have buried or dimmed that offering…it’s time to find it again, time to heal and do the work to restore our radiance and SHINE it out like gangbusters.  Tiempo de dar a luz.  Because the only way out of this mess is through it with a high-beam flashlight to illuminate the way out of the stench and into a new era of justice, peace and love.  We can and must do it together.  GIVE TO THE LIGHT. 

"There is only one reality, but there are many ways that reality can be interpreted."  BKS Iyengar

I was raised between the Catholic church on my mom's side, and a protestant Menonite church on my dad's side.  Also, I liked church.  I liked the Catholic church's rituals, architecture, art and color but most importantly that mass was short!  When I went to church with my father, it was a whole day event starting around 9 and ending at 3pm.  But what I liked about that church was bible study and the sermons.   When there was a good preacher, usually a guest preacher from another church or sometimes from another city, I was riveted: moved to my very core and often to tears of hope and faith. To this day, I LOVE a good sermon.  

In bible study, I was always somewhat of a troublemaker though because I COULD NOT accept the idea that only Christians would be saved and everyone else would burn in fire and brimstone.  It depressed me deeply because I had friends who were not Christian and were, in my young estimation at the time, good people and I often said to the teacher that I couldn't believe in a God that would condemn good people.  I was lucky that our teacher was young allowed for open discussion.  And I was lucky to grow up in this great city, New York, where I had friends in school that were Jewish, Muslim, Jehova Witnesses, and even what at the time we called Wiccan. 

I always believed in Jesus (and still do in his teachings and his love) and I always believed in God because...I felt her energetically, but I was also always curious about how other people believed and why everyone felt they had it right without any clear evidence one way or the other.  I always felt so sad at how much judgement and sometimes hate or disdain was expressed between different religions. To me, intuitively, God was God was love.   I remember hearing about Ramadan with fascination, and about Yum Kippur with reverence...when my best friend began to explore the feminine divine aspect of God through the old religion, or what at the time was called Wicca or Pagan, I was resistant (that Christian fear and guilt) and yet also totally fascinated by the idea of God as a woman.  

When Yoga came into my life, it resonated so deeply with me that it opened up my spiritual heart in a way that I began to see that it doesn't matter what you believe- every path has commonality and every belief system, value, and they all lead to the same place: a universal source that is part of us as much as we are a part of it.  Whether you call that Jesus, Mary, Ganesh, Buddha, Mohammed, Jehova, Durga...doesn't much matter to me because they all tap into that same center of love and compassion.

During teacher training, my teachers would explain and educate us on the Sutras and Tibetan buddhist philosophy and even Shamanistic principles and our discussions reminded me so much of bible study in church with my cool, young and open teacher, except without the condemnation.   My teacher, Kelly Morris, would give us dharma talks about the subtle body and the feminine divine that were so eloquent, passionate and heartfelt, they would move me to tears of faith and hope, not unlike those sermons I used to hear as a young girl.  And we would often burn sage and create nature mandalas and chant, remininding me of the ritual of the Catholic church my mother had baptised me in.  

I know many people who don't believe in God, some who only believe in fact and science and evidence so vehemently and emphatically, that it reminds me of the fervor and fanaticism of those who do believe in a higher source.   And so in the end, they too believe in something larger than themselves and in that way, have more in common with religion and spirituality than they realize.  

One of the best trips I've ever taken in my life was to Spain.  I visited Toledo when I was there and left with the energetic imprint of tolerance of that place where once upon a time, three major religions, Christianity, Islam, and Judaism coexisted in peace for hundreds of years.  To see mosques besides temples besides churches was for me, a feast for the soul.  

I find myself praying a lot these days and thinking about how and what we believe and what that means given the current state of affairs of our country, and the world.  I find myself examining my own prejudices and fears, and shifting out of them to love.  9/11 created a lot of fear and bias in our country, including in me, but I'm releasing it because what I've learned since then is that working from fear only leads to more fear.  And I worry about our country and how much fear is ruling our choices and how much it might even rule our government.  

I look at the horror in Syria, the conflict in the Middle East, and the fear and judgement against Muslims now right here in our own backyard and I pray that we all find tolerance and respect for each other.  That we try to listen and open our hearts and see that all of us are just trying to love and be loved.  That if our belief system is tinged with fear or the need to be "right", we reassess because God is not fear- God is ALL love and love doesn't deal with right or wrong, it just is.  Love is an energy we can tap into...and that energy is what I personally believe God IS.  When we are attuned and aligned with it...we grow and thrive and present ourselves in the world from a divine center that is infectious and connects us all.  I think that if we can do this more, we can save each other.  If we can align with that energy of love, that universal divinity in our own way and through our own paths and respecting that different things resonate and move us closer to that divine source, then peace on Earth and goodwill toward men (and women) will actually not just be something we say, but something we live.