We are not a building

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We are not a building

May 26, 2020 in Blog

I wish I were delivering this news in a room packed with every person who has contributed to and been transformed within the four walls in which we’ve made our home on N. West Street for over 13 years. But, as with so many other things right now, it’s just not going to be that way.

I started the process of renegotiating the lease for blue lotus back in February before leaving for India. A week after returning from that trip, we closed the door and shifted to a virtual platform. The negotiation process was never completed, and our lease will end on July 31.… Read the rest

Process over Product

May 16, 2020 in Blog

“It’s about the process, not the product.” – Jen Davis

As many of you know, in addition to teaching yoga for adults and kids, Jen is a great artist. I have wanted to take classes with her for years- and she has offered to teach me many times. But the time was never right, or I never made it a priority, or my “I can’t paint” voice doused any spark of desire that may have existed to create for the fun of it and try something new. Enter: global pandemic. 

In my first few weeks of classes, I have not been surprised with a discovery of latent artistic talent.… Read the rest

This is Dharma

April 12, 2020 in Blog

I was in a group conversation recently when someone piped in “I didn’t sign up for this!” While I know it was partly said with tongue in cheek, there was also a grain of truth in the statement, as the suppressed grief, fear and disappointment of a life upended welled up and spilled out. We didn’t, any of us, sign up for this. Or did we? Makes me think of dharma.

Dharma means “to support” or “right path of life” and at its essence speaks to the unity and interconnectedness of all things. It refers to that which is consistently in alignment with our highest and best, both collectively and personally and points to a way of being that honors that connectivity.… Read the rest

Pilgrimage

February 13, 2020 in Blog

By the time you are reading this, I will be in India. It is my fourth visit to the subcontinent, and somewhat like the other trips, it just kind of happened. Over the course of several short weeks in the fall of 2018, I had a number of people ask- completely out of the blue- when I was taking a group to India, and that when I did, they were in. Clearly the plan was out there, I just hadn’t heard about it yet. Synchronicity, divine timing and spirit commingled, and I was again swept (with excitement and anxiety in equal measure) into a pilgrimage beyond my own making.… Read the rest

Thank you

February 2, 2020 in Blog

One month each year I get an easy out on trying to come up with something interesting, thought-provoking, or simply readable for the monthly newsletter. But it’s February again, which means it’s the blue’s birthday, or the 13th anniversary of this community we created in 2007. I’m never sure which one is right, but that doesn’t really matter. Let’s reminisce…

Each February, I think back to the first time I crossed the threshold of what is now blue lotus. The original Glenwood South neighborhood hardly resembles its current self. No The West condos, no Smoky Hollow. No Tiki Bar. No traffic.… Read the rest

2020: The Year of Perfect Vision

January 1, 2020 in Blog

Happy New Year! Or in the words of my friend Jonathan, “Welcome to twenty-twenty: The Year of Perfect Vision.” Wow. Now there’s a worthy resolution.

I hid myself away from the many humans for a couple of hours on December 31 to write away the last of the year. I try to do this annually- a summary of what stood out, what was gained, lost, learned. An inventory of sorts, of the preceding twelve months, that I might wrap up the past and truly start anew. In short, 2019 was not a banner year. Not at all. Perfect vision sounds like perfect timing and I’m all in.… Read the rest

Too much

December 2, 2019 in Blog

’Tis the season of excess. In all the ways. Too much doing, rushing, eating, whirling, spending, running, shopping. Too much of too much. Seems to me it’s the perfect time to get back to basics and revisit the foundations of yoga, which set the stage for a shift of consciousness from chaos toward freedom. 

The fifth yama listed in Patanjali’s Yoga Sutras is aparigraha. Breaking the word into its parts, you have: a- a prefix that changes the meaning of what it precedes to the opposite; pari- “on all sides”; graha- “to grab. To grab on all sides (or in every direction) would be parigraha, and that, in a word, sums up how we tend to move through the holidays.… Read the rest

Lessons

November 4, 2019 in Blog

Me: “How did I get here AGAIN?”
Self: “Bad decisions?”
Me: “Very funny. I’m serious. I’ve already learned this lesson!”
Self: “Um, apparently not.”
Me: “But I did. I’ve already been through this.”
Self: “Let me put it to you this way. If you’d actually learned the lesson, you wouldn’t be here again. But you didn’t, so you are. We thought you’d like another chance!”
Me: “Awesome.”

Does this sound familiar to you? While the specifics of your inner dialogue might be a little different, I have the feeling you know what I’m talking about. One morning you take a look around with that unsettling Groundhog Day feeling.… Read the rest

Life is Short

October 1, 2019 in Blog

Last night marked the second time in just over a month that I spent a night in the ER with a loved one. As a friend who has had to do this more than I have commented, “it’s a weird combination of exhaustion and adrenaline.” Yes, it is. I feel like I was the one who’d been poked and prodded all night long. And while my body was not, my mind and heart surely were. The statement made upon leaving the hospital, “Well, I sure don’t feel like I need to be spending any more time at work!” continues to linger.… Read the rest

To know or not to know

September 2, 2019 in Blog

Whether it came from my family of origin or was part of my soul’s original blueprint, I’ve spent most of my life grappling with being okay with not knowing. The fact that there is so much we don’t know, can’t possibly know, can’t plan or prepare for was just unacceptable to me for a long, long time. In my twenties, I really believed that I did, in fact, know. In my thirties, I found out that there was a whole lot missing from my field of view. By the time I got to my forties, I’d come to terms with the flow of life and her wise, yet unpredictable ways- or so I thought.… Read the rest