Change is in the Air

Aren’t these photos—taken by Clara Gimenez—just gorgeous? To me, they demonstrate both the sweet stillness of a yoga practice, as well as its soaring flight and freedom. How beautiful you all are, and what a privilege to teach this thing called Yoga. There are more coming, too. Clara’s lovely photos will soon be featured on the website. What I love in particular in both these pictures is that they capture that sense I often have in both daily life and while practicing yoga, that time has stopped but simultaneously, is flying by.

 In just a few days, I turn 50, and Upper Valley Yoga turns 11. I contemplate both milestones, and marvel at the mystery of time’s paradox—I began my yoga practice just yesterday, I began it half my lifetime ago. With BKS Iyengar’s death last week, I took my own look back along the timeline of my 26ish years of practice, study, and teaching. There are times I feel like I have learned so much. There are just as many times I feel like I’ve barely scratched the surface of Yoga’s vast landscape.

One thing is certain: I still love what I do, I love how the studio has evolved, the talented instructors who come and stay, or come and don’t, and I am awed by the many ways in which this place, and your part in it, has touched and transformed mine and so many other lives.

 I cannot slow time, but with the help of Clara’s photographs, I can document moments in time that communicate how magical it feels to practice yoga at Upper Valley Yoga.