Today as I sat to meditate, I was so hungry.  My stomach was growling.  My blood sugar was low. I thought about abandoning my meditation and go make some breakfast! Delicious soft boiled eggs kept floating across the backs of my eyelids, tempting me to leave my mat.

Then I remembered the teachings of Richard Rohr and Pema Chödrön.  This hunger I felt was a universal feeling.  Every human has been hungry at some point in their lives.  And some are hungry all the time.

I have never really known hunger.  The long-lasting hunger that comes from a long-term lack of food and nutrition.  So I can bear these tummy rumbles.  I can understand the hunger of humanity better if I sit with my individual hunger.  I move my sense of hunger from myself out into the world and it becomes a prayer. How else can a suburban, middle class, white woman relate to this suffering?  I've never been hungry...

Why, you may ask, do I want to do yoga about Mary Magdalene? 

Because to me, she is the rest of the story.

Growing up in the Christian church meant inheriting a spirituality and faith that was very yang, or masculine.  I saw at the pulpit men telling us what mostly men said and did many years ago and how and why it matters now.  This was enough for me...until I saw another way.

My yoga teachers were women. Wise women. They related all matter of heart-based concepts to our bodies.  We didn't just learn stories and study the way to live.  We placed it on our breath.  We drew from our open hearts in meditation.  We strengthened our courage as we strengthened our core.  We stretched our chest and shoulders along with our capacity for compassion.  For me, it was an embodied faith.  

Mary Magdalene is the embodiment of faith.  She was there the whole time--during Jesus' teaching, throughout his crucifixion, and she...

Bask in the sweetness of life.

Delight in life’s simple pleasures.

Take time to enjoy the good stuff.  

How do you respond to these statements?  Do you think, “Who’s got the time for that?” Or perhaps, “The guilt would kill me.”  “That stuff is for other people.” Or “The last time I basked I hurt my back.”   Maybe you’re even asking, “WHAT good stuff?” 

We’re going to get into this.  So right now, go get something sweet.  Maybe some leftover Valentine's chocolate or a Girl Scout Cookie. Or maybe something savory, like a tasty olive.  Whatever is in your kitchen (or hidden in your hideaway place) that is a delicious treat for you.  Then I’ll meet you back here…

Got something?  Good.  Let’s meditate:

• Close your eyes and take some deep breaths.  Anchor your mind on your breath and body in the...

"To walk with me is to walk as me.” 

These are the words author, speaker, and Harvard-trained scholar of the divine feminine, Meggan Watterson, heard in her meditation when she was contemplating the life and teachings of Mary Magdalene. She describes this in her book, Mary Magdalene Revealed: The First Apostle, Her Feminist Gospel & the Christianity We Haven't Tried Yet. 

This was the inspiration I needed to bring you something very special.

A few years ago I became interested in understanding the Divine Feminine.  I have always felt a deep connection to God, but that image is steeped in masculinity.  I love the men in my life and the masculine side of myself, but I knew I was only getting half the picture.  There’s a yin energy to Source as well.  There’s a feminine side I wanted to know.  So I asked, I learned, I met her, and now I, along with my dear friend Nancy Herlin, want to share...

I'm so excited to get back in the yoga studio for the first time since my brief series last summer.  I'm going to teach LIVE bodies in REAL time, IN PERSON!  And I'm super psyched it will be an opportunity for some yummy fun partner yoga. 

Here's what's great about having a teammate on the mat:

1.  CONNECTION. Yoga is usually a solitary endeavor, even if you are surrounded by people. This is an opportunity for touch that so many of us are starving for these days.  Human touch is integral to health and happiness.  I consider touch the antidote to loneliness and the avenue to joy.  And we know it works in measurable ways! "Touch strengthens your immune system, improves sleep, reduces stress, and ramps up the body’s production of its natural painkillers." -- Shape.com 

2.  RELEASE.  We carry around so much.  We have burdens on our shoulders, tension in our jaw, our...

Several months ago I met someone at a little gathering and she just got on my nerves.  I feel like I've already met her many times in my life in other versions, and I'm just not interested in having this person in my circle.  And this might be a totally valid response, or I might be preventing myself from engaging with, or even enjoying, someone new.   So I believe this deserves some inquiry, since that's what we do when we're in the self awareness game.

Interestingly, the word "resistance" keeps coming up in conversation these days, so I thought it was time to take a look at this issue from the angle of resistance. The kind of resistance I'm talking about is a sense of pushing back against what you know you should do, what you actually want to do, or to what you have to do.  For example,

• you have to make a big change in your life because something just isn't working out the way you had hoped.
• you know you want...

I'm sitting at my little desk in my home yoga studio, and I'm thinking about the mind-body connection.  Nick and I just talked for a couple hours about what chakras are and why I work with them, etc.  And it's not because I was explaining things to him.  He was doing most of the talking, and it's everything I needed to hear.  

You see, I have been learning and thinking about the chakras for so long, I see the complicated interplay, I know the history, I know they're not something to "fix," and you can't poke them with a stick.  And yet there they are.  A beautiful map of...of what? I was having trouble getting to the basic idea of what's going on here and why it works.

Nick said it: mind-body connection.  

BAM.

If you've reached adulthood and have any amount of personal reflection and self awareness, you know you have patterns.  You know you keep doing something that isn't helpful, and is possibly...

Are you feeling that forward motion energy out there?  The New Year brings such new hope and bright ideas to the surface. There's something about flipping that virtual calendar to a new year that feels like a clean slate.  

And yet, we never really are clean slates, no matter what the calendar says.

Our patterns, memories, identities, and ego structures follow us from calendar year to calendar year. This is only a problem, however, if it's a problem. Some of our patterns are really good!  You might have a pattern of stopping and thinking before you respond to someone.  Your pattern might be early bedtimes and rising at dawn to meditate and journal.  You might see yourself for what you truly are (which is perfect, whole, and complete).  You might show up right away when a friend is in distress or there's a pet that needs adopting.  Heck, hopefully you at least have the pattern of brushing your teeth every day.  

...

Last week's Christmas holidays meant there was a lot of family, fun, games, gifts and gluttony over at the Goulding house, I must admit. I hope your holiday time is also charged with the beauty of the season.  And if this time of year is hard for you, I'm sending you love and courage.  You are not alone, regardless of what it seems like out there.  And if you're missing someone special, extra hugs to you as well.  

Frankly, we could probably all use some extra hugs. As we all know, these last couple of years have been a DOOZY, and there’s stuff we could all release from that time in order to move forward better. 

To me, moving forward doesn’t mean running away.  It simply means continuing on with courage, wisdom, and hope.

I think we also realize there’s no “going back” to the way things were, and yet a “new normal” still doesn’t seem quite possible.  This is when yoga is...