If you’ve ever been to my class, you know that I always end it with a chant from the Zen Buddhist tradition.  It is a chant that was taught to me long before I became a teacher and it reminds me of where I am and where I began. Life and death are of supreme importanceTime passes swiftly and opportunity is lostLet us awaken, awakenDo not squander your life.This prayer or offering has so much depth and can be interpreted in many different ways, but truly it has one teaching.  A teaching I cannot teach.  I[...]

This summer I did something I’ve avoided for a long time: I picked up Wheels of Life by Anodea Judith and committed to studying the chakras. I’ve spoken about them in trainings, and they’ve occasionally made their way into my classes, but I’ve always kept them at arm’s length. At my core, I’m a farm kid. I grew up running through the bush, knees scraped, hair tangled, learning from the land around me. Words like transcendence, clairvoyance, and liberation always felt out of step with that grounded[...]

Well this is tender.  We’ve arrived on Vancouver Island. The ocean feels like home, and Leif already has a best friend next door. There’s something very grounding about walking along the ocean knowing this is now a permanent (ish) home I've dreamt of since I was a little girl. And still, I find myself sitting in quiet moments with a lump in my throat, fully aware of a truth: I miss Whitehorse. I miss the community we built, the people who held us.  And I'm so excited to be back in a place where so many[...]

Well this is exciting.  When I was in my early 20s I watched a TED talk describing how most of us will never retire at 60, that we’ll likely continue working into our later years and for that reason, we should be factoring in periods in our 20s, 30s, 40s and 50s where we take large chunks of time off to redefine who we are and where we are going.  Most of us do not get this luxury.  If stepping away from the Yoga Lab never happened, I would have never been faced with this opportunity.     But life[...]

Okay.  This is the deal.  Can we all acknowledge that each day we wake up and our level of happiness is somewhere on a spectrum between bitchy and don't want to get out of bed; all the way to ecstatic and skipping throughout the day?  Some days are good.  Some days are bad.  But they are all just days.  When we attach ourselves to this notion that we will only surround ourselves with people who never illicit any emotion other than good vibes only, we are removing the opportunity to fully accept othe[...]