{ sunday free yoga } yogini. austin, tx

Wanted to let you all know I am teaching this Sunday 10:00 am at Luke's Locker on 5th/Lamar in Austin. It's a free class for all levels. We will be focusing on core, legs, and smiles. I really love the playlist and sequence and I look forward to sharing with you and starting Sunday on our mats together. Peace and sweet dreams lovely souls.

{ paddle + myth } yogini. water baby. austin, tx

I've been paddle boarding a few times this summer. I was hooked after my first time out, which was a paddle board yoga class at 7:45am on a sunny Friday morning.... For those of you who might not be familiar with stand up paddle boarding, I will enlighten. You are sent off on your knees with one paddle on a board that is similar to a surf board. Once you are away from the dock you stand up and paddle around, kind of Huckleberry Finn style.


Photo credit: SUPATX, Austin, TX 2012

Today I went alone and paddled far, I wanted to paddle away all my stress and frustration. I began with the mission to paddle until I felt a change in myself and then I would practice some yoga. Truly I thought I would be paddling far, really far, before I sensed some relief. What actually happened was that I began to look down, I started to notice all the life and beauty just below my board. Maybe 10 minutes into my quest and I started to write...

I was floating above the thicket of the water world. Brushy wild flowers swimming and growing at the same time. A mesmerizing home for those who live below the surface of the water. Turtles ducked behind aquatic dandelions who hold wishes because they can't ever be blown away. Mermaids must surely be lounging in the cool of these magical pink and amber bristles. I didn't want to let me paddle touch the water and disturb this sacred place. I glanced up and all around me other's seemed unaware of the miracle that began 3 inches below the warm rippling water. I don't know how far I went, it felt like I was above them for a year, then it was gone. I looked for this place on my return, but they felt my awareness and vanished. I saw many of the turtles relocating, they winked at me and dove back to their hiding place of wonder, back to their moving world that I was momentarily allowed to see.

{ uniquely alike } yogini. writer. austin, tx

I saw this flower on my trip. This lonely, strange flower. She is kind of a daisy, only not quite because her heart is blue, she has secret pains that make her a special kind of lovely. She confuses those who come close enough and look long enough for her oddities to unfold. White petals make her seem pure, untouched and pristine. Where she lives tells a different story, this flower has known a life of struggle, to grow up and bloom through thicket and thorn must not have been a simple way to reach the sunlight she now soaks up. Still, she is there teasing the chain link fence which threatens to hold boundaries and she lends her beauty to amuse and cheer the traveler such as myself. We are alike this flower and I.




Mulholland Dr., Los Angeles, CA. 2012

{ mirroring. } yogini. witness. self student.

I'm writing today because I need to. Because I want to. Because if I don't write something today I feel like I might drop into silence for another few months. I am grateful for the people, books, and situations in my life that are making me a more loving person. Some days it is very difficult to accept that this is my work, that all friction and pain is for my benefit and growth. There are some days that I just want to cry, some days that I do, and some days that I just want someone stronger to give me a hug and say I'm doing a good job.

When I read the paragraph above I recognize the girl that is sharing, she is me. She is much younger, but still me. I am finally beginning to see and process the stories that I pushed away from my past. Funny how what hurt me when I was a child is still what hurts me today. Even though I should look back through the eyes of an adult, there are certain things that send me spiraling back into the past, to my daybed with the farm animal comforter where I see me curled up in tears. Things that scared me then I find at the root of what scares me today. What I know about that little girl is that she makes it, the very things that hurt that small version of me don't hold her back from living. In fact, every tear that falls is met with compassion from the Universe and from me.