If this were a year like all the ones before, I would open the February blog post with, “This month we celebrate fourteen years of community at 401 N. West Street.” I would proceed to go on and on about how the blue came to be, and what we have collectively created and accomplished in the past year. Full of emotion and gratitude, I would talk about the goodness and greatness experienced in those four walls and the enormous contributions made by all involved to create a yoga home for thousands of students since we opened back in 2007. But this was not a year like all the ones before.… Read the rest
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It was the longest, strangest and most drawn-out goodbye I’ve ever had. It was also the most beautiful. If you missed it, picture this: beloved friends with masked faces- some community members we’d not seen in years- standing in line along the sidewalk at blue to go in one last time and light a candle, pause in the space, touch bare feet to her floor, send a prayer to the heavens and drop a message into the fire. The hawk, the wild wind, the sudden storm. Beautiful souls, getting soaked in the pouring rain, singing. Where does this happen? Who does this?… Read the rest
A couple of weeks ago, a longtime student, fellow teacher and dear friend sent a note to see how I was doing. This is, of course, a bizarre and difficult question for any of us to answer these days. I fumbled through a reply, trying to be as transparent as possible, while acknowledging the wild roller coaster of emotions that I move through in an hour’s time makes a clear answer unwieldy at best. Her response to me was, “you’ll get through this with your usual grit and grace.” Yes, I thought. This is the answer to this most impossible quandary I’ve been faced with since March 16: How will I ever get through this?… Read the rest
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
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
Celebrating the love that grows at the blue
by Jill Sockman
In the same way it’s hard not to write about gratitude in November, it’s nearly impossible for me not to wax nostalgic at this time of year. And somehow this February feels bigger than most. Celebrating our 9th birthday means we are headed into our 10th year of community at blue lotus. And when I look back to where I was 10 years ago, with the exception of a very few most precious near and dear (you know who you are) nothing about my life looks the same now as it did then.… Read the rest
Why yoga?
“Suzanne, why do you do yoga?”
If I had a nickel for every time I was asked this I would be really rich. REALLY rich. I have come to believe that the people who ask are the ones who are looking for one of two things. They genuinely hope I will say something so profound they will immediately see the light and understand what brings me to the practice. Otherwise, they hope I might say something that sounds so outrageous they will laugh and be able to place me in the category of “that strange yoga person.”… Read the rest
Operating in the Present, Committing to Change
by Jill Sockman
I’ve heard over and over again from students, teachers, strangers, and the voices in my own head: it’s been a rough year. Whether it’s in the stars, in our karma, or in our minds, I believe there is something in the collective human experience driving us to make changes. Big changes.
We are out of alignment with the rhythms of nature, with the communities around us, and with the deepest callings of our own souls. If in fact the world outside is a reflection of what is inside of us, it’s no real surprise we’re in quite a mess.… Read the rest
It begins
My blue family,
At about this time every year, I silently (or not so silently) ask the question, “why do we do this?” It’s usually followed by a short list of reasons why a fundraising event of this magnitude is really out of our scope and is, therefore, driving us out of our minds. But that small and whiny voice is always drowned out by the deeper, stronger, louder, and truer voice that answers, “we do this because we can.”
In the words of Albert Einstein,
“Every day I remind myself that my inner and outer life are based on the labors of other men, living and dead, and that I must exert myself in order to give in the same measure as I have received and am still receiving.”… Read the rest