Another school year has begun here in Austin. Whether you are tethered to the schedule of a young person, you work in the school system, or neither of these things, you can likely feel the electricity in the air as students, teachers, staff, and administrators head back into the classroom for a fresh start and a new beginning. 

Right now in Online Yoga Membership, we are doing a series called “In One Word.” In this series, the whole supporting theme is one word. Often I use stories, affirmations, quotes, or text as the inspiration for our heart theme, but this is much more concise. It’s one word. How does each word reveal itself through repetition? How does it feel to embody that word? What are the layers of the word as we delve deeper into it through breath, movement, contemplation, and sound? 

The first word was ONE. 

The second word was GRACE.

Tuesday’s word was BEGIN.

It has been a really profound experience to distill full ideas and inspiration down to one word. And...

Are you living “within human scale?” This phrase has been dancing around in my head since I first heard it on Brené Brown’s podcast, Unlocking Us. She tells a funny story about getting her hair done and working on her computer at the same time. It provoked a thoughtful conversation between her and her stylist, and I’ve been thinking about it ever since.  Listen on Apple. Listen on Spotify.

It seems to me that we are indeed living beyond human scale right now. Between our social media feeds, the 24 hour news cycle, podcasts, and online news outlets, we are bombarded with world events and everyone’s opinion of them. 

But we’re not meant to take all that in. 

And if we try, we’re living beyond our capacities to consume, digest, assimilate, and release. We can only overwhelm our systems for so long before anxiety, sleeplessness, agitation, digestive distress, and depression creep in and make us feel less than our vibrant selves. 

So if you’re finding yourself needing a nap, or...

As I was sitting in my meditation this morning, I got to a nice, quiet place, and then suddenly I was flooded with ideas. I was bombarded with thoughts of how this can work, and that can change, and this problem get solved, and ideas just kept interrupting my quiet. I tried to say to the thoughts, “Good, let's think about that later… Let's think about that later.” And then I thought, “Hey! I'm having a creative impulse. Let's just sit with it! Let's let it percolate, because apparently that's what my system would like to do right now.” (I'm convinced there's a difference between distraction and inspiration, and I am trying to discern the difference between the two.)

After my inspiration-filled meditation, I started thinking about creativity itself. If you believe you're not a creative person, perhaps that's because we usually think of creativity as the creative arts. Maybe you don't paint, or sing, or write music.

But believe me when I say: We are all creators.

We all creat...

Holy bluebonnets, ya'll! It's CRAZY out there! If you are anywhere near the Texas Hill Country, you know what I'm talking about. These days I'm super thankful to Ladybird Johnson for making sure our highways were lined by wildflowers, because as she said, 

"Where wildflowers bloom, there's hope." 

For many around the world, this week is a testament to that hope. Nature provides us with the cycles of life, death, and rebirth, as you see in any patch of wildflowers, and as you watch the changing of the seasons. During the Christian Holy Week, this cycle is celebrated through the observance of Palm Sunday bringing Life, Good Friday bringing death, and Easter Sunday bringing rebirth. 

As timing would have it, in this week's podcast episode, Primal Wisdom and Pleasure Activism,  you can enjoy my conversation with Scout Chavers, a doula and midwife here in Austin. She is very familiar with the cycles of life, and she beautifully describes what it is to hold space for birthing mom...

When someone asks you what you do for a living, do you have a good answer? Believe it or not, I get a little stymied. It usually goes something like this:

"What do you do?"

"I teach yoga."

"Really! What kind?"

At this point I kinda just stare and blink and try to come up with a decent answer that doesn't require a whole explanation! The best description I've been able to come up with is "alignment-based, contemplative, and therapeutic yoga."

Then it's their time to stare and blink a little bit.

Usually people know the word Hatha, which is my more succinct default answer. But after teaching for nearly 20 years, it's a lot more than that!

So as I was sitting down to describe the classes that are in the FREE Virtual Open House, I thought it was a good time to lay out the differences a little bit, especially between Hatha and Hatha Flow (both of which are in the Online Yoga Membership, or OYM).

I'd say the difference isn't always clear. Perhaps the answer lies in the intenti...