needing to serve

This coming weekend, Satellite’s first teacher training begins. Kourtney and I are busy with the prepwork. It’s overwhelming and exciting. The exciting part is that we'll be helping our students to teach yoga modalities to people other than those who go to a studio and pay for yoga training. Oftentimes, one of the first things that I need to teach is the “need”: making people aware of the need for stillness of mind; of the need for self-empowerment over stress; of the need for proactive healthcare that involves nutrition, exercise, and a positive mental attitude; of the need to realize what feeling good really feels like. I always like to end my
sessions with this thought: we need to serve, for our own personal healing and to feel our connectedness with the rest of humanity. This is karma yoga, a spiritual path that we can walk on with our clients.

serving with my love

serving with my love


This title is twofold.
I always ask God to help me respond to any situation (personally or professionally) that arises in my life with the highest love, trying to model my behavior from what I understand has been written by or about the great masters: Baha’u’llah, Jesus, Krishna, Buddha… Trying anyway… Hopefully learning and maturing with each interaction. A new unfolding today brings gratitude, service and love to new dimensions for me: My dear boyfriend of two years asked me to share his life with him today. It was romantic on his part and dramatic on my part. We were overlooking valleys of fall on the Wildcat Ridge in NJ, he got on his knee, proposed, o so gentlemanly like, and put a ring on my finger. A surprised me cried a lot, managed to get and audible yes out, cried some more and finally managed to smile and laugh. I asked him to propose again on the road home so I could behave a little calmer and just because it felt romantic and fun. I am so honored to live, love and serve with this wonderful man. Now our prayers can include asking God to show us our path of service together.

serving a cup of tea

This week both the jail work and the women's shelter work were easy. No one had any big issues. The biggest issues had the simplest most tender solution. A dear small woman, coming off some pretty potent drug use, asked me for some help today. She thought that some breathing exercises would help with her anxiety. It turned out though that she was too distracted by how cold she was to do any breath work. We went in the kitchen,I showed her where the tea and teapot were and I made her a cup of tea. I was hoping to find some honey to put in it. I ended up putting sugar so that she would have some fuel to burn to keep a little warm. She is scared to eat and doesn't seem to have enough get-up-and-go to help herself. I encouraged her to let the other women help her - get a bath ready - make her some food. She nodded and said "you care..

setting up business

I’m feeling a little manic. I think that it is a combination of sooo much work to set up a new business/non profit and hormones. Sunday I was trying to take a nap and I kept dreaming that my dog was doing her quiet polite barks to be let out. I am having a hard time getting my brain to calm down. Working to Serve, Serving to Work. After many hours of talking business today, it felt good to teach a class. We worked on feet. Getting really grounded - and the awareness of feeling that groundedness. I love to teach and I really like business. I hope that I can make this business work.

Reflections on my Yoga Journal Experience

Its September, its snowing, I’m at the yoga journal conference in Estes Park, Co.  Hoping for some NEW INSIRATION.   I was running late, trying to fight my annoyance and not be unyogilike.  Kinda like unladylike, but more green.  My business partner Kourtney is here.  She is in charge of the registration. She knows everybody.  I’m so excited to know her that I almost feel famous.  But the real reason that I’m here is to experience Desikachar. There he was on stage.  I had to sneak in because of my lateness, sit in the back.  Look yogilike. Sit still. My knee hurts. Prop it .  I’m trying to figure out what tradition these people in the room come from.  I assume that  all the people with their mats straight are Iyengar trained.  I’m stereotyping again.  I also think that I’m probably wrong.  Definitely  unyogilike.  Time to pay attention.  I’m having a hard time understanding him. I drop into being in the moment…

Ya hoo!  He gave it to me:  Find God in the koshas.  It pulls our teacher training together. And I got some quotes from him that are perfect “do you believe in yoga?” and “Everything must be adapted.”  It is fun to find a new teacher.