The Blog

Dearest yoga community, if you’re receiving this writing it’s because of a special place you hold in my heart. You are the reason I became a yoga teacher or more broadly why I stepped into a path of greater awareness. This year in particular, when there are so many online choices for streaming yoga classes, I am particularly grateful that…

Back in the day when I was in the throes of my yoga training, I would travel across the country following my teachers to workshops and weeklong trainings. The intense self-study and deep connections formed with fellow students often meant re-entry to family life and the quotidian was challenging…

The end of this decade marks the start of a new journey for me. Come January, I will be overseas on a three-month exploration of Mediterranean culture, family heritage, travel, writing and of course, yoga. Expect some blogs on my experience. I will be tracing my father’s roots in Greece and my mother’s in Israel. All the while, yoga will be supporting and expanding this long-awaited opportunity.

A few years ago I owned a community studio in lower Westchester. I called it Be True dreaming lofty goals of creating heightened consciousness and spiritual awakening. Thanksgiving Day was our busiest, brimming full to our 35-person capacity—shoes and jackets spilling out onto the hallway. Four years after our closing, and now relocated to New York City, I am reminded that the mission of the studio was accomplished but not necessarily in the way I had envisioned.

I had to look down at my sneakers. What brand was I wearing? I was so buoyant it was as if I was running on a cushioned surface rather than the unforgiving concrete pavement. My breath was smooth and free.

No revelation on the footwear. I was sporting the same Asics sneakers I’ve been wearing since my marathon days 20 years prior. When I hit my customary 4-mile mark, I kept running. I started tracking in my mind what was different. And then, I realized...

Good enough. I would say it to myself every time I opened my website these past two years. I updated my classes, workshops and retreats, swapped out photos of my prior studio, Be True (ok, most of them). And then four months ago, while on retreat in Costa Rica, I shifted. Good enough was not enough. Elena Brower invited us to explore a photo session with Australian photographer Pete Longworth and I answered YES…

We gathered shoulder-to-shoulder in a circle, the constellation of the Costa Rican sky above, the sand under our feet, a burning fire before us.  The shaman instructed us to blow on a wooden stick and toss it into the fire as an offering to burn our teachers. Burn our teachers?  Images of The Crucible began to dance in my brain.  I love my teachers, even the ones I don’t like…