An early start

When asked, I typically start my formal search around age ten, reading the Bible cover-to-cover for the second time and deciding on two things: one, that I was not a very good Christian and two, that I was going to be a minister.  In hindsight, since I left the church a few years later,  I can conclude that I was at least correct about the first.

After a twenty year hiatus, during which I pursued my degrees in engineering and worked at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Labs, I encountered meditation in the late 90s while working on my doctorate.  While taking the free “yoga” classes at the university in an attempt to increase flexibility while training for marathons, my daily diligence apparently impressed the instructor and she invited me to her meditation group.  At that meeting, her teacher quickly realized that my diligence was not yet in the right direction and he simply advised me to keep doing yoga.  However, another member of that group presented a slide show that evening about his retreat with Thich Nhat Hanh in Plum Village and I found myself thinking that it looked like fun, immediately followed by the question, why exactly does that look like fun?  Since I had little money at the time, a trip to Plum Village was not possible, but I did end up reading several books, reconciling myself with my Christian roots, and later moved to California to work in Silicon Valley, where I had money, but no time. Continue reading →

Lucy, Head Yoga Apprentice Extraordinaire

So I want to tell ya’ll about being an apprentice at Circle Yoga Shala. Now, I am a city girl, from St. Louis, Missouri, and “ya’ll” is not in my usual vernacular, but it seems contextually appropriate. Besides I like the all-inclusiveness that ya’ll connotes.

The rhythm of the farm

The apprenticeship program flows in the same design plan that everything here at the farm/yoga shala moves: there is a rhythm, and everything sustains everything else. The garden demonstrates this principle of self-sustenance, and it was where I spent much time and energy with Lou Ann, my teacher in all things growing, harvesting, and decaying. For a garden to feed up to 14 people, it has to continually work from within and without. So while one plant may be delicious to eat, it may deplete the soil of certain nutrients, which means another plant has to co-exist there in order to replace those nutrients. (Or nutriments as the Buddhists say). Excrement is an excellent material for composting and feeding a garden, as are food wastes. I became very familiar with liquid and solid wastes, and I can now spot a harlequin beetle or a Colorado Potato Bug from ten paces. With a hearty “om mani padme hum” or an “asalam alaikum” I dispatched many unhelpful garden insects. Continue reading →