There are moments in my life when I have felt like all was right with the world. I can remember vividly, watching a sloth in Costa Rica. My ex and I must have caught this gentle being in its one-hour of activity in the day. It moved with such tender, quiet ease, reaching its arms…
Category: yoga
Give your heart back to itself
Give wine, give bread Give your heart back to itself. Give wine, give bread Give your heart back to itself. To the stranger who has loved you all your life And whom you ignored for another Who knows you by heart. To the stranger who has loved you all your life Whom…
Roll and Release
Since my husband first proposed that we move to Europe so he could enroll in a doctoral program in France instead of the United States, I have felt the unsteady groundlessness of limbo even more acutely than ever before in my life. It’s odd because I have always made the choice to try something new,…
Return to Love
I recently participated in the Saturday portion of a weekend workshop at the Tree of Life Yoga Studio in Tervuren, Belgium. Bill Mahony, a gentle, brilliant soul, led the workshop, titled “Return to Love.” The focus of the weekend was a deep study of the Bhakti Sutras, an ancient yogic text. When I told…
He(e)l the world
I often tell my yoga students to take a moment to honor their choice to practice yoga because they are helping to make the world a better place. While I tend to share the comment in a lighthearted manner, I believe that the meaning runs deep. I have personally experienced a complete shift in my…
Do unto others
I offered a yoga class this week where I spoke about the idea of walking your talk. I live and teach in Belgium, and I am often curious if sayings that are commonly used in the United States are found here in Brussels, so I sometimes bring them up in conversation. At the beginning…
I am now
Over my three plus decades on this planet, I have learned the unproductive behavior pattern of worrying about all that might go wrong in a given situation. I have become an expert in what a friend has referred to as “industrial grade worrying.” This is to say that I worry about emotions I might experience,…
Anything but stasis
I have heard many of my yoga and meditation teachers describe how meditation quiets the mind and how it can be easeful and grounding. My experience with meditation in the past year and a half of daily practice has been anything but soothing, however. I read about people’s initial struggles with meditation. They sit and…
The tie doesn’t have to bind
For many years, Alaska has maintained a remarkable and impressively solid hold on me. I have been physically and financially tethered to the state by virtue of the house I have been renting and attempting to sell since moving from Alaska to Massachusetts in frigid conditions in January 2012. Alaska has held onto my psyche…
Don’t hide your heart
In my life, I have always been drawn to help people. This propensity has sometimes been to the detriment of my own wellbeing, and it has afforded me many opportunities for learning to create healthy boundaries between my self and the people I wish to help. Over time and with bumps along the path, I…
Be the puzzle: Reflections on life, learning, and yoga with Jaye Martin
I have a kind of love-hate relationship with the public transit system in Brussels. I love how easy and affordable it is to get around the city. I don’t like waiting outside on freezing cold winter mornings (though I did wind up investing in a super long, warm down coat this past winter, which is…
Living on my edge
I have applied to many jobs and programs of study in my life. Written applications often include an essay section with questions that ask the applicant to describe the experience that inspired them to pursue a career or course of study in that particular field. Suffice it to say that these were not my…
Howling Wolf Yoga 