My Story

MY JOURNEY TO THE WORK THAT RECONNECTS STARTS WITH WHALES:

I was around eight years old when it came in the mail - a floppy, square record of whale songs tucked inside National Geographic magazine. (does this show you how squarely Gen X I am?) I put it on, and listened to the mysterious and completely engrossing songs of the humpback whale. I was mesmerized, and instantly obsessed with the Save The Whales movement of the early 80s. Joanna Macy calls the moment she first truly felt the pain of climate catastrophe a thunderclap. This was my first thunderclap.

My second was a literal thunderclap. In mid August, 2020, I woke to a terrifying sound - endless lightening with no rain. This lightening caused multiple historic wildfires in Northern California, becoming known as the Walbridge fire. Claustrophobic from early pandemic sheltering in place, and without knowledge yet of how unpredictable wildfires can be, my partners and I rented a house amongst the Northern California coastal redwoods, not far from the fire line. We woke to a blood red sky, but stayed on, compelled to hike and kayak and fall in love with the landscape, even as fire consumed it.

Then, in 2024, a friend shared an episode of “We Are the Great Turning” - a series of interviews with climate and social justice activist Joanna Macy in the final months of her life. In it, the interviewer, Jess Serrante, expresses gratitude that Joanna will be spared witnessing the worst of the climate crisis to come. She immediately disagreed. “I want to be here,” she said - “I want to be with you to fight.” Something in me broke open. I felt Joanna's courage opening me up to be willing to love these incredible creatures - the whales, the trees, in spite of my terror of losing them.

MY JOURNEY TO YOGA STARTS AT THE YMCA:

I had the great fortune of wandering into classes with wonderful teachers at my community YMCA in 1999. In 2004, I enrolled in my first yoga teacher training, at the The Yoga Solution in Sacramento, CA. My second was in 2008, at Yoga Mendocino with Mary Paffard. Both of these programs were rooted in the Iyengar Method. In 2013, I chanced upon a class with Mirka Kraftsow at Westside Yoga in Sebastopol California, not knowing that she had founded the American Viniyoga Institute. Immediately upon experiencing the Viniyoga practice, I knew I had found my yoga home. It was the way my body wanted to move, and the integration of breath, movement and sound felt like a complete and incredibly moving experience.

My first thunderclap in yoga was an awesome and too short-lived podcast called Yoga is Dead, and the first episode in particular: "White Women Killed Yoga." Tejal & Jesal's work found me at a moment I was ready to hear the ways I was getting things wrong. I reflected back on all my wonderful teachers, and recognized that up until that moment, I'd been benefiting from the indiginous wisdom of South Asia while recieving it exclusively through the lens of Western white women. Through the podcast, I became familiar with the work of activist and educator Susanna Barkataki. My second thunderclap was her interview with Melissa Shah during her online summit in 2020, "Honor Don't Appropriate Yoga." Right away, I could hear Melissa's deep candor, authenticity and compassion. Her words were uncompromising in their expression of her truth, and also deeply kind. I knew right away I wanted to study with her, and when I found out she teaches in the Viniyoga tradition? Well, it was game on. I've been studying with her ever since. I'm so fortunate to have all of these advocates and educators working to reclaim and decolonize yoga in the United States. They show me it can be possible as a white woman to engage in yoga in a way that's reparative of the harm that's been caused, and generative of a healing and beneficial collaboration moving forward.

AND IT ALL COMES BACK TO THE OCEAN.

After first falling in love with the coastal redwoods during the that pandemic visit, my family has travelled back to West Sonoma County multiple times a year, to soak up trees, river and ocean and restore our souls. Last year, we got to witness a megapod of humpback whales playing just offshore. These whales take incredibly long migration journeys, and recently they have started making this journey in much larger groups than they used to. For two days, we got to watch them play. Every person on the beach was a child again, shouting and clapping every time their bodies would surface. That day was a full circle moment my eight year-old self could only dream of. I felt reminded of why I do the work I do, and that it's not only work. It's also play - just lifting your great body out of the ocean, and flinging it back in the water for the pure joy and pleasure of being alive.