Don't Forget Yoga! My Journey of Remembering.

Stay present, but don’t forget the past, and don’t forget the future! For me, it’s all about not forgetting yoga.

In the spring of 2011 I found myself at the Omega Institute in upstate NY, sleeping in a tent, and spending twelve hour days immersed in the Jivamukti Yoga Teacher Training, along with 118 other students from all over the world.

In the months leading up to the training yoga had helped me heal from the worst breakup of my life, while creating a sense of ease in my body, and peace in my heart. I found Jivamukti Yoga in New Orleans at the Swan River Yoga studio. It was one of the most respected lineages of yoga, influencing much of the vinyasa yoga teaching that we see in the world today. I loved the way it included the chanting of mantra, an exploration of Hindu philosophy, a call to be kind to animals, and a very challenging method of asana practice. I was hooked.

My desire was to become a teacher so that I could pass this gift on to others. I marveled at how my favorite yoga teachers seemed to effortlessly teach classes that opened my heart physically, mentally and spiritually. It was like magic. I wanted to be that kind of magician.

Now I was in the thick of the training, and realizing the amount of information expected of a yoga teacher was daunting. We had experts in anatomy and Sanskrit come teach 3-day modules that barely scratched the surface of those disciplines. In addition, we were studying the Yoga Sutras, Bhagavad Gita, Haṭha Yoga Pradipika, dozens of mantras, vinyasa sequencing, yoga assists (huge in Jivamukti), meditation, creating themes for classes, and more. It was overwhelming!

How could I possibly remember it all?

Teaching yoga is not as easy as it looks!

At the end of 2011, 300-hour yoga teaching certification in hand, I migrated back down to New Orleans for the winter. I was blessed to be asked to teach at Swan River. I took advantage of the fact that all of the teachers were taking a week off for the Christmas holidays, and got permission to teach one class per day during that stretch.

In those halcyon days of my teaching I did not worry so much about how many students showed up, but I had lots of anxiety about being able to give the ones who did a great experience. I had serious imposter syndrome. There was so much to remember in each class! The class theme, the sequence, the names and anatomical foundations of the poses, the names of students, etc; I would look out at the student’s faces, and no one would be smiling. I perceived each serious student face as a personal failure. Shouldn’t they be smiling?

Over that week I worked through my insecurities. There was a student named Sara who kept coming back. She wasn’t smiling, either, but she was consistent. She was my lifeline. This was helping someone, even if it was because I had the only class on the schedule. Yet after the other teachers came back, Sara still came to my class. I still feel so much gratitude for her.

My brain is not a fried egg, but I might have scrambled it.

My momma talkin' to me tryin' to tell me how to live. But I don't listen to her 'cause my head is like a sieve. ~Cheech & Chong’s ”Earache My Eye”

About the time that Cheech & Chong were at the peak of their popularity, I was a teenager smoking way too much pot. First Lady Nancy Reagan’s “Just Say No” campaign and the this is your brain on drugs commercials only made me want to smoke more. It was obvious to me that the dangers were being overstated, and I would neither become a heroin addict, nor the stinky part of a breakfast sandwich. I just wanted to fit in with the cool kids who hung out in the woods behind my house.

If I could, I would go back and say to that younger self, “hey buddy, wait until you are in your twenties.” Science is finding that pot is not good for the developing adolescent brain. I don’t know if it was the weed I began smoking regularly at 15, or just the brain I was born with, but now I have a really hard time remembering things.

I forget faces, for example, a mild and self-diagnosed case of prosopagnosia (facial blindness). It happens when I see someone I know in a place where I don’t expect to see them, like seeing a yoga student at a hat store. They will start talking to me and I will be frantically trying to figure out how I know them, and why I am in a hat store.

Of course I forget names easily, which is more common. I forget large swaths of my life; friends tell stories about me that spark no memory. I forget the details of almost everything I read. I forget the dialogues in movies. My mind truly is like a sieve.

For most of my life I have been very self-conscious about my memory. I use humor and wit as the smoke and mirrors that disguise my memory deficits. I lean heavily on the parts of my brain that work better. I have good pattern recognition and excel at puns and rhymes. I am intuitive with placement of objects in space. I am a great listener, and don’t get annoyed by people who tell the same story over and over. It’s all new to me.

Knowing all this, it is no surprise that remembering all of the intricacies of a yoga teaching practice is a challenge.

The song that began my journey of remembering.

In the United States we just can’t help ourselves. As much as most of us hate standardized testing, it is still a model that most educational systems use to validate a student’s progress. The Jivamukti Yoga Teacher Training was no exception. We had a written portion of our final exam that we needed to pass in order to be certified. My ally in the quest to conquer the test turned out to be the ukulele that I carried around with me everywhere I went.

One of the skills that I have developed in the place of memory is the ability to make up songs about whatever is going on around me. And so it was that I wrote my first mnemonic song, the Shatkarma Kriya Song. The Shatkarmas are six yogic techniques to purify the body, outlined by Svatmarama in the Haṭha Yoga Pradīpikā. We all knew they were going to be on the test. I played the song for a couple friends, and soon I was playing it for little groups of students wherever I went. I was on to something! Music helps us remember.

Here is the song I wrote to help remember the shatkarmas:
(My friend Helida recorded this video in a canoe the day after the test)

The Shatkarma Kriyas song recorded at the 2011 Jivamukti Yoga Teacher Training.

Without going too far down the shatkarma kriyas hole, here is a quick overview:

There is a lot more to know about the shatkarmas than the one-word descriptions in my song, but single words can remind us of larger concepts. They are the seeds for memory.

• Dhautī is washing the digestive tract.

• Basti is cleansing the colon.

• Netī eliminates mucus from the sinuses (using a Neti Pot, for example).

• Naulī is churning the abdominal muscles.

• Trāṭaka is fixing the gaze, most famously by staring at a candle’s flame without blinking.

• Kapālabhātī is a breathing technique that “shines the skull.”

• Agni Sara, literally fire wash, is a pranayama technique that purifies the organs of the abdomen.

The yoga of memorization

Thousands of classes later I am an accomplished yoga teacher. I have learned to manage the challenges of remembering. My best classes are journeys that begin with my harmonium and chanting of mantras. We then flow through philosophical themes, storytelling, playful sequences, anatomy tips, and demonstrations.

My advice to new yoga teachers. Be humble. We can’t be everything to everyone.

Svādhyāya, besides being fun to say, is the Sanskrit word for self-study. It’s the key to success in business and in life. Trying to see ourselves clearly is really hard. I didn’t want the world to know I have a hard time remembering things. To my ego, it feels like admitting I am stupid. Yet wisdom and intelligence take many forms, and we all are wise and intelligent in our own unique ways. Understanding what those qualities are, as well as our weaknesses, is svādhyāya.

The clarity that comes from self-inquiry is useful. It is useful to know what we are passionate about in the yoga realm, and who we want to serve. Then we can stop putting energy into learning the things that don’t serve our mission. If your goal is to teach trauma-informed yoga, then perhaps learning the Sanskrit names of the poses are not as important.

I personally love beginner to intermediate-level vinyasa, chanting mantras, meditation, and yoga philosophy. I don’t spend much time learning the gentler forms of yoga; yin yoga, restorative yoga, chair yoga, trauma informed yoga, yoga nidra. I am also not obsessed with doing complex arm balances and super advanced asana. Those are all incredible practices, and I have some familiarity with all of them. But I actively pursue deepening my knowledge in the forms of yoga I am passionate about. If a student wants something different, I refer them to another teacher who can help them.

Cutting out the parts that don’t serve me, there is still a vast ocean of knowledge I immerse myself in. To help me navigate those waters, I have developed a strategy of remembering.

Mnemonic Methods of Mastering Memory (mmmm…)

1. Decide if it’s worth remembering. Use svādhyāya to ask yourself if something is truly worth putting extra effort into remembering. I think of my brain as a hard drive with limited space. If it fills up with spam then there is no room for important data. I enjoy dad jokes, but I don’t really want to spend my precious time remembering them.

2. Establish a connection to something already remembered. Our brains create neural networks that strengthen over time with use. This is helpful with remembering names, for example. When someone tells me their name, I will think of other people with that name, or something it reminds me of. Connecting a visual image is powerful here. If you meet someone named Matt, imagine them rolled up into a yoga mat. Let them go when you get to your next yoga class.

3. Use wordplay mnemonics. I love words. Rhyming, acronyms and alliteration are all great tools. Music is the most memorable way to remember for me. If there is a song that has a chorus I can swap out words with, it is very helpful.
   
   For example, I had a hard time remembering how to pronounce “mnemonic,” because the ‘m’ at the beginning would trip my mind up. I began practicing the mantra “Kali Durga Namo Nama” by chanting “Kali Durga Namo mnemonic!” Now I say mnemonic the right way most of the time! Kali helped me overcome the demon of mispronunciation!

4. Through repetition, the magic will rise. My teacher Sharon Gannon loved to tell us this. She said it so often that I easily remember it. The more we repeat something silently or out loud, the more likely we are to remember it. But remember, it takes time.

   
   We have all studied for an exam using flashcards. This is a type of repetition that is helpful. If you are like me, most of the facts and figures you crammed into your brain like that have probably slipped back out. The element of time is the other important factor. If you circle back regularly to those flashcards, or to your journal, or to a book you love, and remind yourself of the facts and figures, you are more likely to remember them in the long term.

The transformative power of remembering

After my teacher training, I got a job orking at the Jivamukti Yoga Center in NYC that lasted for six years. During that time, there was a teacher there whose classes were always full, in a room that held over 75 yogis on their mats. Her name is Rima Rabbath. She has great dharma talks and her vinyasa sequences are imaginative and challenging, but not more so than the other Jivamukti teachers who taught there, who had smaller followings. There was one thing that I noticed about her that really set her apart. She remembered everyone’s name.

Because there were so many people in her class, the first part of the class was spent moving mats around (fortunately she had assistants helping her). Whenever a new face came into the room, she would ask them their name, and repeat it back. She would find out who they knew, how they got there, making connections. At some point in the class she would say their name again, giving them encouragement. She would mention lots of people during the class. In a sea of students, we were each made to feel special. Even if it was our first time there.

“I’ve learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.”

-Maya Angelou

As I evolve as a teacher, what is most important to me is that I give my students an experience. I want every class to be a journey. It begins with letting them know that they are part of the journey, that I remember their name. When we are meeting someone, we often get overwhelmed with the emotions they spark, and their name sometimes slips through. So the yogic practice of breathing and being present is powerful. Remembering names will revolutionize your teaching practice, especially when it’s a student’s first class and they are deciding whether they want you to be their teacher.

All of the great yoga teachers I know have their own unique method for teaching. If you pay attention, you will notice they repeat themselves. The repetitions will show up in their alignment cues, the philosophy they share, the way they pronounce Sanskrit words, the themes they choose. I used to see this as a personality quirk, but know I realize it is a sign of mastery.

A great teacher follows their passions and leaves out the parts of the practice that don’t serve them. Through repetition they create an experience for the students that is reliable and that becomes familiar and comforting.

By letting go of trying to remember everything, I have become better at remembering some things quite well. I use all of the tools in my Mnemonic Methods of Mastering Memory toolbox to help me.

I use it to plan my classes. I can now tell stories that continue throughout the class, so that the climax of the story happens around the time the students are moving into the peak pose. I can connect elements of philosophy to specific poses, or parts of the story. I have songs about anatomy that help me remember muscles and their connections to bones.

Being able to manage memory, and apply it to your teaching practice, is powerful. I have been able to overcome imposter syndrome by realizing that I have lots of gifts and wisdom that I can share. I have befriended with my brain's limited capacity for memory, and instead of seeing it as a handicap, I see it as the catalyst for this unique journey I am embarked upon with mnemonics.

I have even gotten much better at remembering students’ names, and can usually get them to smile when I mention them in class. To be yogic about it, their smile and mine are one and the same. I wish the same for you.

The Don’t Forget Yoga Podcast

If you are a new yoga teacher who struggles to remember all of the aspects of teaching, check out my new Don’t Forget Yoga Podcast, helping new yoga teachers absorb yogic wisdom with music, mantras and mnemonics. I will be diving deeper into all of the ideas mentioned in this blog post, and talking to other teachers and memory experts along the way. I hope you will join me on this journey!

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Yoga & Vegetarianism by Sharon Gannon

Yoga-Vegetarianism

A synopsis of Yoga and Vegetarianism: The Path to Greater Health and Happiness by Sharon Gannon, adapted from an essay I wrote for the 2011 Jivamukti Yoga Teacher Training. 

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Sharon Gannon’s book Yoga and Vegetarianism: The Path to Greater Health and Happiness is a look at the connections between the title’s two practices and how they benefit the individual yogi as as well as the human species. It deals with an issue that most western books on yoga seem to ignore or gloss over, that of vegetarianism as a necessary part of yoga practice. It also delves into vegetarianism from a spiritual and yogic perspective that is lacking in most books on vegetarianism and animal rights.

The book is organized around the yamas (restraints) that Patanjali laid out in the Yoga Sutras. The first yama is Ahimsa - the non-harming of other beings. People who subscribe to yogic and other eastern philosophies often misconstrue this restraint to be only applicable towards other humans. This is a moral laziness that helps those who enjoy the taste of flesh continue on in their ways without conscious guilt. Some yoga teachers apparently go as far as to say it is a directive only towards not harming one’s own body. Sharon points out that if that was the case Patanjali would have listed ahimsa with the niyamas, which all refer to “observances one should maintain in regards to oneself.” The yamas all deal with our interactions with others.

Ahimsa is the first yama and the other four seem to be refinements of it. The second is satya, which means ‘truthfullness’. Lying is a way of harming other beings, albeit sometimes not as obviously. The same can be said for the final three yamas; asteya (nonstealing), brahmacharya (respecting sexuality), and aparigraha (greedlessness). To be unskillful in any of the yamas causes other beings to suffer. To cause suffering not only hurts others, it also creates karma that eventually brings harm to oneself. If we instead strive to be compassionate and kind to others, we will bring benefit to them and to ourselves.

Sharon says that “through compassion, you begin to see yourself in other beings.” It could also be said that to put yourself in the place of other beings should bring about compassion. Our culture has tried to suppress this natural instinct of our imaginations through religious and scientific means. In western religions animals are often denied a soul, and Cartesian science has warned us against ‘anthropomorphizing’, or trying to know what an animal of another species might feel. The practice of yoga is an antidote to these false ways of perceiving the universe. Yoga means ‘union’ and moves us towards realizing the oneness of all life. Through the practice of ahimsa we realize our interdependence and begin to create peace and harmony around ourselves.

The second yama, satya, is a very powerful. As the book states, “lying is the foundation of culture.” On the personal level we have created a category of lie that we give a moral loophole, the so-called “white lie”. This is a type of dishonesty that is supposed to spare its subject the sting of the truth, but often leads to further deceits that cause harm. On a cultural level meat eating can be seen as the great white lie. We have created layers of deceit around the way we perceive and treat the animals we consume. It begins with the indoctrination of our children at home and in social settings, and continues on through adulthood. It includes the images of happy cartoon animals offering themselves to us as food, the myths of the nutritional superiority of animal proteins, the violence towards animals imbedded in our language (killing two birds with one stone), and on and on through every level of culture.

As with the personal white lie, cultural dishonesty disguises the harm we do to ourselves. The lie about the health of animal products causes us to suffer preventable diseases. The lie about happy animals offering themselves to us causes us to be disconnected from our food and our violent relationship to other beings. Because the farmers and corporations who provide our food keep the intensive confinement systems that enslave animals hidden from us we do not know the truth. Even when animal activists expose the truth with video documentation people refuse to believe, saying that the examples are extreme and not the norm.

Yoga is a spiritual path that seeks to root out the truth. Just as our bodies need adjusting to be in proper alignment, so do our minds. To eat meat and claim to be on a spiritual path is a great contradiction, an improper practice of satya. As Sharon eloquently states “how can we ourselves hope to be free or happy when our own lives are rooted in depriving others of the very thing we say we value the most in life -- the freedom to pursue happiness?” Lies are a form of self-imprisonment because we are forced to live within their confines, kept from the light of truth that is self-liberation.

The third yama, asteya (nonstealing), is particularly relevant. We steal mother’s milk from cows and goats, eggs from chickens, and the very lives of all food animals. The theft occurs not only at the slaughterhouse, but all through the animal’s lives. We steal their happiness and their freedom, confining them to situations that could only be described as slavery and torture if applied to humans. We practice unskillfully the yama of brahmacharya (respect for sexuality) during this confinement, controlling the reproductive cycles of animals in order to get the most meat, eggs or dairy out of them. We castrate, artificially inseminate, forcibly impregnate, and genetically manipulate the animal’s bodies. This would be called genital mutilation, rape, or worse if done to fellow humans.

The disregard of the final yama, aparigraha, is the reason for all of the above mentioned atrocity. While Patanjali calls for greedlessness, the harm we inflict upon the animals we raise for food is all out of greed. It has been proven scientifically that humans thrive on diets devoid of animal proteins, and therefor it is but for pleasure that we consume them. One of the best quotes in the book is from Shantideva, “Whatever joy there is in this world comes from desiring others to be happy, and whatever suffering there is in this world comes from desiring myself to be happy.” The deeper we look at the havoc wreaked by animal agriculture the more we come to understand that our greed for animal protein is depleting natural resources, toxifying our environment, creating a health crisis, and laying a foundation for continued violence towards one another.

Yoga and Vegetarianism: The Path to Greater Health and Happiness  is a wonderful book and should be read by every yogi, animal rights activist, and human being on the planet. It is a truly insightful look into the causes of suffering and the path towards liberation for individuals and for humans as a species. May we all “pull the wool from our eyes”, the meat from our plates, the eggs from our muffins, and the dairy from our glasses. This truly is the path towards yoga and liberation.

Jivamukti 2011 Teacher Training at Omega

Jivamukti 2011 teacher training graduates

It was a short, strange trip to get to the 2011 Jivamukti Yoga Teacher Training at Omega. I started with no money only a few months before it was to begin. It cost quite a bit, but it was the path I knew i belonged on. These things choose you, and what are you to do? You put your faith in the wisdom of the ocean that holds you until you become the waves and the water. Otherwise you slowly sink out of the light into some unknown depths.

The time between deciding to go and somehow actually being there was spent trying to change my relationship to money, by changing my perception of money. Magic, i learned, is a change of perception. I followed the advice found in The Diamond Cutter, and gave generously of what i had. I tried being kind to everyone i met. I tried my best to see everyone as holy.

As the due date for paying for the course approached, New Orleans became increasingly otherworldly to me. A necklace of special significance to me exploded on Mardi Gras day, while i was hula hooping, with a crowd of people watching me dancing to the pounding pulse of African drummers beating their animal skins. I bought the string of beads and skulls on my 39th birthday in San Francisco, spun out to infinity on some tainted molly. I had to have my friend translate my desire for the object to the woman selling it, who I perceived in that moment as a voodoo priestess. I think I freaked her out a bit. As the necklace burst into pieces it all came back to me, how two years after haggling for the necklace i fell in love , got my heart broken, and ended up in the Big Easy. I remembered lying on my back in my first Jivamukti class with tears pouring from my shavasana bespeckled eyes, pain and happiness intricately intertwined.

After that, on the day of the supermoon this march, my Jivamukti teacher had a baby girl. I had a vision of a girl coming into the world, sometime before the necklace broke. The Mississippi River kept getting higher and covered the beach in the Bywater we called 'the world's end'. I would walk with my roommate Aviva's dog Irie and do yoga by the missing sand, playing my ukulele as she ran beside me, unleashed. I took lots of pictures and met lots of people, and grew ever closer to my teachers and the teachings. I made and lost a beautiful friend, held faith strong and close for weeks and months, and then thought for a long moment that i had failed. I let all go. as soon as i did it all happened.

Jeffery Cohen and Sharon Gannon at the Jivamukti Yoga Teacher Training

When i think now of the following month spent at Omega, with my Jivamukti class, it is like another dream. The teachings were so deep and profound. We got them day after day and hour after hour and still wanted more. We would practice asana and meditation and chanting every day, which gave us the stamina to absorb the yogic philosophy. We were blessed to be taught by Jivamukti founders David Life & Sharon Gannon, advanced Jivamukti teacher Jeffrey Cohen and seven amazing mentors. Everything was thought through and put together with so much care. The course was professional and prestigious, but more importantly transcendent.

Jivamukti teacher training graduates Helida, Chelsea, Karina and Linda

Every night we would all dress in white, 125 ethereal angels trying to relish such perfect impermanence. I smiled and smiled and everyone smiled back. I remember at Burning Man feeling a similar feeling. "oh, the world can be like this!"  It does not need to be the way that we perceive it, in fact it isn't. Together we agree upon the world that seems to be. There is always the possibility of other worlds based upon other agreements.

My training group, with mentor Jules Febre

We studied sanskrit with the saintly Manorama, who inspired the light of this ancient language in our beings. she taught with such spiritual wisdom and compassion. The first night she sang us Sanskrit chants and i cracked open. it hit me at once how this was all given to me. I felt so blessed to be there. such gratitude. So humbled i could not begin to describe the intensity of it with my native tongue. Through the kindness of my friends, family, and teachers i was here, experiencing this. The only way to repay such generosity is to spend my life giving to others.

This year has placed me at the lotus feet of the divine mother. It was my beautiful birth mother who gave me the last amount i needed to get to the training. My mother who is a devout Christian and believes in only one religion, but still has love for me as her yogi son. I offer my heart to Sharon-ji, the divinely inspired co-founder of Jivamukti, who guided me through the process of applying for a scholarship and encouraged me even when I faltered. And to my beloved Jivamukti teachers in new orleans, Keith Porteous, Michele Baker, and Libby Bryan, who believed in me so much that it was easy to believe in myself, seeing myself through their eyes. This self I perceive, ever changing, genderless beneath this life I was born into. Or perhaps genderful. I have given birth to this new me. Pashupa.

Jeffrey Cohen, David Life and Sharon Gannon share a giant vegan cupcake

i write these prose to honor all of you in my satsang. I am remembering the sound of our voices as we sang. We were one for that month, and we will be one for always. Now we know that the changeless part of us can only be known by observing what changes. What doesn't change is what we are, all of us as one. We have been given some foothold in the mountain of this understanding. We have experienced something together beyond the ordinary. I miss you all so much. We can be reminded of one another through this familiar Vedic prayer:

Sarve bhavantu sukhinah
sarve santu niramayah
sarve bhadrani pashyantu
ma kaschid duhkha-bhag bhavet

May all be happy may all be free from sickness may all look to the good of others may none suffer from sorrow

 

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Gratitude for my Jivamukti Benefit Class

Jivamukti benefit with Libby Bryan (giving assist) and Jacksun Slaughter (standing in background)

This morning I was blessed to have a yoga class at Swan River Yoga's Mid City Center given in my honor. I do not have any words to fully express my gratitude to my teacher and mentor, Libby Bryan, for organizing the class. She has been a champion of my cause, a light who gives me hope and strength, and the example of what I aspire to be as a yoga teacher.

Libby Bryan

This class was led by Libby and her friend and fellow yoga teacher Jacksun Slaughter, who I got to meet through this process. Jacksun is an activist and gave a beautiful dharma talk before the class, about the power of giving and the emergence of a gift economy that we are all pioneers in creating. The proceeds from the class are to go to my Jivamukti yoga teacher training. I am but a monk holding out a begging bowl at this point in my life, taking a giant leap of faith and believing that the universe will catch me.

I used to wonder about the spiritual seekers of the East, wandering with their begging bowls seeking alms. To the Western mind this seems like a selfish way to live, expecting others to support you while you follow your bliss. In the East, however, there is the wisdom that we are all connected by our karma. When we help another person on their path we receive benefit on our own. The more selfless we are, the happier we become.

We will play with a child or scratch a dog's belly because it gives them pleasure, and also gives us pleasure. It is much the same with helping each other in more profound ways. For example, when playing music, we can become shy and nervous when we think of how other's perceive our talent. If instead we play with the thought that the music will bring happiness to others, or that we are playing in devotion to the divine, then we lose the inhibition and our hearts open, and our music becomes beautiful. It is in selflessness that we reach our highest potential.

Jacksun Slaughter

I have a gift inside of me. I am a teacher, a healer, and a visionary. I say this with an inevitable tinge of ego, certainly, but also with infinite humility and gratitude. I follow this path of a yogi to temper my qualities and teach me to be a peaceful warrior. I have found such a wellspring of love in this community, and hope to give back. To deepen and share my wisdom, to honor the sacred web of life that connects us all. To save the animals, the humans and the planet.

This morning's class was so amazing. I hardly knew anyone that showed up. At first I felt a blue note that none of my closest friends were there to support me. Then I realized how auspicious it was that this room full of strangers had come on my behalf. My friends support me every day in my happiness. These people came to help a stranger. Between the two I am infinitely blessed.

At the start of the class I sat to the right of Libby, with Jacksun to the left, to sing kirtans. Libby said that when we help one person amongst us on their spiritual path it lifts us all up. I am humbled to be in this position, and hope that I will uplift those around me on their path. I hope I can return the support I have been given exponentially to this community. I am in love with all of you. My heart and life for you. I am your warrior and servant, your friend and companion. I bow to the light in you, and am here to help keep it burning bright in all of us. Namaste.

Om Bolo Sat Guru, Bhagavan, Qi. Jai! (God is the only Real teacher, Alluleulia!)

Libby and Jacksun, thank you so much for all you do.

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