Besides blaspheming, I work as a carpenter. I had an epiphany about Jesus during my carpentry apprenticeship, and have finally decided to share it. My insight is that Jesus became a great spiritual teacher once he put down his tool belt. Allow me to explain.

I came to carpentry late in life, thanks to the pandemic. I left NYC in 2019 to lick my wounds after being “let go” from the job I had moved there for, and then let go again by my fiance. I landed in Colorado, heart full of sadness, just in time for Covid.

Blessed are they who mourn, for they will be comforted. ~Matthew 5:4

Prior to the plague I made a living teaching yoga and photographing people. Those in-person occupations were disrupted by lockdown. As a man of many pivots, I went to work in the UPS warehouse and soon was driving the brown truck, exploring the winding roads and gated communities around me.

I found the slowing down of normal life to be comforting. In my free time I sat by an irrigation creek behind my apartment playing my guitar and singing to the animals that gathered to listen. None of us wore masks, and it was good.

Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God. ~Matthew 5:8

A friend of mine in Massachusetts (let’s call him Matthew) called me up one day looking for the phone number of another friend. His carpentry business was blowing up because everyone was stuck home looking at their walls, yearning to tear them down. Fortunately, or not, the other friend wasn’t available.

After some consideration I said to Matthew, “Lo if you shall put your faith in me, I will help you build.”

A couple months later I landed in the land of the Puritans. Matthew gave me a tool belt and a screw gun and began patiently teaching me the ways of the carpenter. As the weeks passed and his patience began to wane, each board that I cut too short was added to the cross I bore.

To repent, I gave myself daily mental floggings while repeating the mantra, “Measure twice, cut once. Measure twice, cut once. Measure twice, cut once.”

One day, after repeating the measurement mantra 108 times, I received a vision. I was in ancient Rome and there were three Pharisees hanging out on a newly assembled wooden bench. Suddenly, there was a creaking sound, and the whole thing collapsed. They fell to the ground, startled. One of them cried out, “Jesus Christ!”

A bearded young man with long hair and a toolbelt appeared, a look of embarrassment on his face.

“What in Abraham’s name happened?” the eldest Pharisee grumbled, indignantly.

“I skimped on the nails,” Jesus muttered.

Son of a Carpenter

For want of a nail, the bench was lost. For want of a bench, the dignity of the Pharisees was lost. For want of dignity, the respect for Jesus was lost. For want of respect, Jesus quit being a carpenter. For lack of a carpentry skills, Jesus began his search for meaning. For want of meaning, Jesus found deeper truths and started a religion. And all for the want of a nail.

As I pondered the meaning of my vision, I began to realize that there wasn’t a record of anything Jesus built. Christians will say he built the church, but that is a metaphor that turns out not to be true.

If Jesus were truly god in human form, wouldn’t he have built something spectacular? Something that would still be standing, or at least referenced in the Christian bible?

The direct biblical references to Jesus being a carpenter are actually quite limited.

Mark 6:3 is the primary verse where Jesus is directly called a carpenter. When Jesus teaches in his hometown synagogue, people respond: “Is not this the carpenter, the son of Mary and brother of James and Joses and Judas and Simon? And are not his sisters here with us?”

This is the only place in the Bible where Jesus himself is explicitly identified as a carpenter.

Matthew 13:55 gives a parallel account of the same incident, but with slightly different wording: “Is not this the carpenter’s son? Is not his mother called Mary? And are not his brothers James and Joseph and Simon and Judas?”

Here Jesus is called the carpenter’s son rather than a carpenter himself, referring to Joseph’s occupation. Whether by Yahweh or by Joseph, was not Jesus, after all, the ultimate nepo baby?

Interestingly, the original Greek word used is “tekton” (τέκτων), which is often translated as “carpenter” but could more broadly mean a craftsman or builder who worked with wood, stone, or other materials. It’s all Greek to me.

Parables

Jesus loved speaking in parables. His parables tend to draw from other aspects of daily life in first-century Palestine: agriculture, fishing, shepherding, household management, business and finance. Jesus offers only two parables from a builder’s perspective.

“Therefore everyone who hears these words of mine and puts them into practice is like a wise man who built his house on the rock. The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house; yet it did not fall, because it had its foundation on the rock. But everyone who hears these words of mine and does not put them into practice is like a foolish man who built his house on sand. The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell with a great crash.” Matthew 7:24-27

Perhaps Jesus was speaking from experience. Was he still feeling shame over that house he built in the sand? Jesus revealed another embarrassing moment from his time as a contractor later in the New Testament.

“For which one of you, when he wants to build a tower, does not first sit down and calculate the cost, to see if he has enough to complete it? Otherwise, when he has laid a foundation and is not able to finish, all who are watching it will begin to ridicule him, saying, ‘This person began to build, and was not able to finish!’ Luke 14:28-30

Jesus’ miscalculations lost him a few contracts. Life happens. His peers besmirched his name, for carpentry was a cut throat industry even then. Fortunately, the fortitude Jesus gained from these experiences would help him out later.

After Jesus laid the foundation for a tower and ran out of funds, he went for a long walk. As he shuffled his way along the Jordan River he encountered John the Baptist, and decided he could use a bath. Carpentry is a dirty job.

John dunked him in the water and washed away the masonry dust. It was then that Jesus realized he wasn’t meant to be a tradesman. He decided to spend forty days in the wilderness to figure shit out. The rest is His story.

Turning the other cheek

Growing up in the United States in this era, I can make jokes about Jesus, and probably won’t be crucified for them. There have been plenty of other times and places where my words would be considered heresy and I would be tortured and killed.

(As you may have noticed, fascism is making a comeback here in the USA. I may be crucified soon enough.)

There is an irony in Christianity. It is a religion built around the life and words of a compassionate and forgiving teacher, and yet the religion itself has been the cause of untold oppression, bigotry, hatred and war.

Jesus laid the foundation for the tower that would become Christianity, and then he ran out of time. The Romans came to collect, built him a cross, and without irony, nailed him to it.

If Jesus had built his own cross, it would have fallen over and the story would be different. Alas, the Romans were skilled carpenters.

Better (not) call Saul

Misogynists and slave owners find their saviour

The tower of Christianity was listed on Desert Zillow for many years before a Roman citizen named Paul came along to buy it. Paul was a devout Jew in the Pharisee tradition, known as Saul, and he got off on persecuting the Christian sects that had formed after the crucifixion.

One day, on his way to Damascus, he allegedly had his own vision. He saw Jesus, who asked, “Saul, why are you persecuting me?"

And lo, after his self-reported seizure in the desert, Paul decided to completely reinvent Jesus. The other apostles said ‘wait, that’s not what Jesus meant,’ but Paul had a vision. Was it divinely inspired? Based on his actions, it is highly unlikely.

Saul/Paul “converted” to Christianity and became its biggest proponent, but he lacked the compassion and wisdom that Jesus embodied.

Unfortunately for us, he was better at spreading his distorted version of Christianity than other early Christians. Here are some reasons why:

• His Roman citizenship allowed him to travel freely and eventually appeal to Caesar

• His Pharisaic training gave him deep knowledge of scripture and theological argumentation

• His persecution of Christians gave him credibility in regards to the reality of his conversion

• His status as an outsider to Jesus’ original disciples created some tensions but also gave him freedom to interpret the gospel for Gentile audiences

Interpretation is where the trouble starts, and continues into this present moment. Jesus was a masterful teacher, and if modern Christians were just to live their lives by his teachings then the world could be a more peaceful and compassionate place. Instead, they live in the tower of Christianity whose foundation was laid by Jesus, but from the ground up completed by the bigoted and sadistic Saul/Paul.

Blessed are the Misogynists, for they shall inherit the oval office.

According to Paul, in his letter to the Corinthians:

The women should keep silent in the churches. For they are not permitted to speak, but should be in submission, as the Law also says. If there is anything they desire to learn, let them ask their husbands at home. For it is shameful for a woman to speak in church. ~1 Corinthians 14:34-35

Got Patriarchy? Jesus spent three years breaking down gender barriers. Paul spent three epistles rebuilding them.

Jesus was a Jewish prophet focused on social justice, caring for the poor, and critiquing religious hypocrisy. He never claimed to be founding a new religion or dying for humanity's sins. That’s all Paul’s improvised story.

Paul never met Jesus. His conversion was likely either psychosis or a megalomaniacal plan to gain stature. He claimed divine revelation, creating doctrines that served his own vision. He had conflicts with Jesus' actual disciples (like the Jerusalem church led by Jesus’ half-brother James) who saw him as distorting the message.

Saul was a role model for president Trump.

Blessed are the slave holders, for they shall inherit the Republican party.

He also loved slavery.

Slaves, obey your earthly masters with respect and fear, and with sincerity of heart, just as you would obey Christ. Obey them not only to win their favor when their eye is on you, but as slaves of Christ, doing the will of God from your heart. Serve wholeheartedly, as if you were serving the Lord, not people, because you know that the Lord will reward each one for whatever good they do, whether they are slave or free. ~Ephesians 6:5-8

To be fair, slavery was common in those times. It’s hasn’t really gone away in ours; it just shifted form. Nonetheless, a holy man would know it is evil. A god in human form would certainly speak out against it. A false prophet like Paul would find ways to justify it.

Paul was a Biggus Dickus.

Similar to the way that our president is making America great again by destroying all the pillars of democracy set forth in our Constitution, Paul's letters (thirteen epistles that became books in the New Testament) are notable in their failure to mention the ministry, teachings, and miracles of Jesus. He never quotes the Sermon on the Mount, never mentions Jesus' parables, healing miracles, or interactions with people.

There is a meme in Christianity you have probably heard, “What would Jesus do?” If you asked Paul, he would make something up. Jesus led by example and told us to feed the poor and visit the sick. Paul changed it up, saying all we really need is faith.

It all revolves around Paul’s alleged visions of Jesus long after Jesus was dead. There is no fact checking, just a leap of faith based on the ravings of a lunatic.

“Let every person be subject to the governing authorities, for there is no authority except from God, and those authorities that exist have been instituted by God. Therefore whoever resists authority resists what God has appointed, and those who resist will incur judgment.” ~Romans 13

Paul wrote in Romans 13 that all authority comes from God and people should submit to governing authorities. Jesus was literally executed by the government for challenging authority. Ironically, Paul ended up getting murdered by the Roman government as well.

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Jesus rejected worldly power. Paul fetishized it. Constantine militarized it.

The Ship of Theseus, also known as Theseus’s Paradox, is a paradox and common thought experiment about whether a ship is the same object after having all of its original components replaced with others over time.

Christianity is like that, there is not much let untouched. Every age and empire has had its way with it.

It’s probable that some of the letters attributed to Paul were written by someone else. The words of Jesus have been remembered in a telephone game, then written, then translated, and then used by each new sect and government to say what they need him to say. Religion is the opiate of the masses, and the crowbar of the elites.

When in Rome…

Centuries after murdering Jesus and Paul, the Roman empire went on to embrace Christianity. At least their own version of it. Constantine legalized Christianity it in 313, and Theodosius made it the state religion in 380.

Pagan holidays were mingled with Christian beliefs; Easter and Christmas, both originally set apart for worship of pagan deities, were assimilated and rebranded to reflect Christian themes.

Wars of the Empire became holy wars; church leaders looked for civil sanctions to back up ecclesiastical judgments; rulers began to convene synods and intimidate their proceedings; the church learned to invoke state coercion against heretics.

After legalizing Christianity, Constantine remained Pontifex Maximus, keeping his title as high priest of the pagan Roman religion throughout his reign, never fully abandoning pagan practices. He waited until his deathbed to be baptized, a practice that became common - people would delay baptism so they could commit “necessary” sins as rulers, then wipe the slate clean before death.

This pattern of Christian “seeking the loophole” behavior wouldn’t change much throughout the ages.

Medieval Manifestations

Over time, empires came and went. The church grew stronger. By the medieval times the Catholic church was selling indulgences, preaching purgatory, punishing people for translating the bible into languages that common people could understand, and creating massive wealth for clergy.

In the 1500’s the Reformation set out to fix some of the most obvious problems. Martin Luther translated the Bible into German, and then others follow, translating it into common languages. This led to the many sects of Christianity we know today, each believing that they have the right interpretation of Jesus. Lutherans, Calvinists, Anglicans, Anabaptists, Baptists, Methodists, Pentecostals, etc;

Forgive them father, they know not what they do.

Christianity today is not what Jesus set out to create. He was not a skilled builder.

Today it is astonishing how easily people are falling in line with the MAGA movement and Trumpism. Even saying our president is divine, and that the wars he fights are holy ones.

A combat-unit commander told non-commissioned officers at a briefing Monday that the Iran war is part of God’s plan and that President Donald Trump was “anointed by Jesus to light the signal fire in Iran to cause Armageddon and mark his return to Earth” ~Military.com

If the actual Jesus was here to see it, he would no doubt be horrified.

The teachings of Jesus were clear and simple. Love your neighbor, do unto others as you would have them do unto you, turn the other cheek. The kingdom of god is here and now, within us. Practice peace, humility, and service. Love god.

Paul created “wishful thinking” Christianity, where we could be forgiven for our sins by accepting Jesus into our hearts. We could hate and persecute others, especially women, slaves, Jews, and anyone not like us. Paul’s Christianity is a war between God and Satan for control of the world.

Over the centuries, sculpted by empires and corrupt clergy, the teachings were weaponized. Racism, bigotry, and misogyny find shelter within the fundamentalist churches. Politicians hide behind scriptural nonsense that has nothing to do with what Jesus taught. They reference the Bible and the Constitution constantly, without understanding the spirit of either one.

And so it is now, as throughout human history, that those in power use religion as an opiate for the masses, to control and divide us.

In the United States, religion and partisan politics have become increasingly intertwined. The rising level of religious disaffiliation is a backlash to the religious right: many Americans are abandoning religion because they see it as an extension of politics with which they disagree. Politics is also shaping many Americans’ religious views. There has been a stunning change in the percentage of religious believers who, prior to Donald Trump’s presidential candidacy, overwhelmingly objected to immoral private behavior by politicians but now dismiss it as irrelevant to their ability to act ethically in their public role. The politicization of religion not only contributes to greater political polarization, it diminishes the ability of religious leaders to speak prophetically on important public issues. ~The Perils of Politicized Religion by David Campbell

Catch 22

I have come to believe there is a proclivity among “the faithful” to accept the interpretations of Jesus put forth by the churches. The narratives are compelling, the black and white simplicity of good versus evil gamifies our time here on Earth. Surrounded by other believers, it is easy to believe. We are social and tribal creatures.

There is also the clever catch-22 in Christianity, that to question your faith is to surrender to Satan. It keeps believers from pulling too many strings. For centuries, the barrier of understanding the Latin language kept the masses in check. But is it any different now? The state and mega churches interpret the bible, pick out the lines that keep us at odds with one another, and preach it to the masses.

What if the Christian’s are right?

"It's better to believe in God and be wrong than not believe and be wrong" ~Pascal’s Wager

Perhaps Pascal was not a skilled gambler, he only had the generic Christianity card in his hand. The deck of religions is 4,200 deep. There are as many ways to believe, love, and honor god as there are people. Even plants bow towards the sun. What monster of a god would fill the world with such confusion that we have to be born in a specific time and place to even have a chance at escaping eternal damnation?

One that loves to hear his own name, have it placed on buildings and billboards, tacky knick knacks, and in the mouths of bigots as they commit atrocities in his name? Sounds like our president. There is a connection there, for sure. Believe in one lie, and it is a short step to worshiping another.

Forgiving Jesus

As a humble carpenter, I forgive Jesus. He wasn’t the son of god, just a child of god like the rest of us. He did his best to bring a little kindness into the world.

If some of what he said in the first four Gospels of the New Testament truly came from his mouth, he truly was a great teacher.

In carpentry, there is a set of skills passed down through generations. The materials change, the structures evolve, and skilled carpenters bring pride and attention to detail to the job. There are maths and geometries that stay consistent.

What if loving god and living a spiritual life was like that? We have so many wisdom traditions to draw upon. We have the scientific method to add to them. So much of the trouble in the world comes from believing we are right, and that truth is black and white.

We need more space for uncertainty. We need more space for diversity. Trees and flowers rely on the sun for life, but they have many different ways of showing up in the world. If they all appeared and behaved the same way, our lives would lose multitudes of beauty.

People are like that, too. Most of us agree that god and love are closely related. Instead of asking, “What would Jesus do?”, perhaps we should ask the question, ‘What would Love do?”

Love would not lead us into wars, or deny brown people freedom and justice. Love would not hoard money or land. It would not dump toxins into our sacred waters. Love would not talk endlessly about itself, or post angry comments on social media.

Love would forgive Jesus for not creating a perfect religion. Love would still love Jesus. I certainly don’t want anyone to give up their love of Jesus. I only pray for us to all widen our circles of compassion.

Love would forgive Saul, too. I’m not sure I can go that far, but I am working on it.

Happy Easter.

I remember the last time we had cold and ice like this. I was driving north on the slippery roads between Brooklyn and Massachusetts, headed home to be with my kin. The city had taken as much of me as she could, and spit me out into the relentless night. After three monotonous hours I escaped the highway and followed familiar secondary streets into the emptied small towns of New England. As I got closer my heart softened.

In the quiet of that winter night I imagined that the photons falling from the yellow streetlights were making tiny shushing sounds as they were absorbed into the snowy ground. Icicles dangled from the wires amidst leafless trees encased in shimmering cocoons of translucent winter glaze. Every visible surface was reflecting and refracting particles of light. The town’s denizens hid behind their walls, hovering around the heat sources they had conjured.

Finally I arrived at my destination. My car slid gently to a stop in front of my friend’s house, and I stepped out. There was a thin crust of ice on top of several inches of soft snow, and the souls of my boots broke it open with every crackling step I took toward the front door. The power grid was down here, but the moon was kind enough to illuminate my way.

Everything was covered with the winter glaze. The neighborhood felt like a frigid Pompeii, where the volcano had churned up snow and ice instead of ash. It was truly magical, but too cold to stand outside and appreciate.

Inside the house I was greeted with flashlights and candles, friendly smiles and voices. We rely so much on sight that it is a relief when we can let the eyes rest and just enjoy our other senses. I love my friends. It is pure comfort to be with them even if we are huddled and layered in a home without municipal heat. Our ancient souls can find a way to the warmth.

Memory is a funny thing. I write this all down poetically because that is how the neurons in the old mainframe of my mind present the past. Neurons fire and keep my memories warm. Meaning is what we make of it.

A few days ago I was in Walmart, and the customers were all pretending it was a minor armageddon. The storytellers and weather prophets had gotten us all riled up. Amidst the anxious shoppers, I found it a comfort to worry about a snowstorm. Much better than worrying about the other ICE. If the weather could just distract me from the news for a couple of days, it would be medicine.

Inside that ugly corporate box the bread shelves were empty. There were plenty of Chinese-made sweaters and knick knacks talking about Jesus, but the good Lord wasn’t there to help make more loaves. I’ve heard the ocean is running low on fishes, too. Jesus Christ.

I was there because my partner had suggested I find a generator or propane heater to protect myself from the coming uncertainty. Alas, there was nothing left. Walmart was the third and last store I visited. I bought a frozen vegan pizza and some seltzers instead.

Riding the storm out. Remember that song? Here I am, sitting on the couch with my dog and my keyboard, waiting for the fallout.

Memory reminds me that so far I have survived everything that life has thrown at me. Even the Marines couldn’t kill me with their poison water. Some kind of weird luck. I want to get anxious about this storm, but my nervous system isn’t sympathetic with my desire.

Instead, my mind is on the other ICE storm. The one in Minneapolis. I’ve heard it said that history rhymes. ICE certainly rhymes with storm trooper and jack booted thug. In this story the boy who cried wolf is now the liberal who cried Nazi. We said it too much when it wasn’t quite true. Now they are really here amongst us and it feels like no one is listening to our cries.

Or are they? The brave resisters of Minneapolis are out in the streets by the thousands despite their city being enveloped by freezing cold weather. The ICE monsters are there in the cold, too. They are cruel and racist. I feel like fascist has become too cliche of a word, but I am not sure what else to call them.

I am a yogi and I want to see their humanity. I want to find a soft spot to sink my love and compassion into. They make it so hard. What kind of trauma creates humans who lack decency and humanity?

On my yogic journey I often thought the demons in Hindu mythology were cartoonishly selfish and evil. Yet those qualities can thrive in people’s ICEy hearts. In one of the great Indian epics, the Ramayana, the antagonist is an asura (evil spirit) called Ravana. In the story Ravana kidnaps the protagonist’s wife (Ram and his wife, Sita) and thus starts a chain of events which will eventually be his undoing.

This is the list of “qualities” ascribed to Ravana:

• Arrogance and Pride - Ravana’s ego was his greatest flaw. He considered himself superior to the gods and invincible due to his boons.

• Lust and Disregard for Consent - His history includes forcing himself on women. Thanks to a curse placed by one of his previous victims, he wasn’t able to rape Sita.

• Blind Attachment to Family - He values family pride over dharma and wisdom. I suspect he liked to put his name on buildings.

• Stubbornness - Multiple people warn him of the consequences of his actions, yet he refuses to listen or change course, even as his kingdom faces destruction.

• Cruelty - His rule, while prosperous, was maintained through fear and domination rather than righteousness.

These flaws illustrate how even great knowledge and power become dangerous when divorced from humility and dharma. It perfectly describes our president 45/47. And yes, Ravana also has a love of opulence.

His capital city Lanka is described in vivid detail in the Ramayana as having buildings made of gold, silver, and precious gems. The city was architecturally magnificent with towering palaces, beautiful gardens, and streets that gleamed. It wasn't just wealth but ostentatious display of it.

This colorful story from another culture’s past gives me some hope. Monsters rise and fall throughout history. Like school shooters, they want to have their names remembered, if only for the terror they reap. They are the slippery slopers, the boiling frog-potters. Our congress-people are their demon kin, watching it all go down, applauding it for money, trying to brainwash their own consciences. A glorified gangle of horrible monsters.

I often ponder how god would let this all happen. The Christian original sin explanation seems to only lead us back to this horrible place again and again. The people talking about how much they love Jesus are often the same ones committing or permitting atrocities. The Christian religion got hacked early on, and it’s been run by the worst amongst us ever since.

We need to simplify. Love each other. Love people who come in different colors and have different sexual desires (is that soooo hard?) There is enough of anything and everything to go around. We choose daily between infinite love and infinite suffering.

The arc towards moral justice is long, longer than the ICEy nights we struggle through holding our loved ones tightly to our skins. In my beginner’s mind interpretation of reality there are spiritual tools that help me keep my equilibrium.

The first is the message of the Bhagavad Gita in regards to karma yoga.

“You have the right to perform your duty, but not to the fruits thereof.” — Bhagavad Gita, Chapter 2, Verse 47

A simple example; we can vote for the best of the worst, but who wins is not our decision. If we look around at everyone who may have voted differently and feel only hatred, then we have lost our own souls. We should still serve them at the soup kitchen, or in their five star restaurants, and feel compassion for the journey that led them to see a different world than we do.

It is not surrender, we can still stand up with shaky voices and speak truth to power. It is for sanity’s sake that we give up the notion that the arrows from our quivering voices will hit their targets. Perhaps they will, perhaps they won’t. Perhaps what we hit instead will make a difference only after we have shaken off this mortal coil.

Simple, but not easy.

The second is the problem of evil. If there is a god, then why this? The answer from the east is that an almighty, all knowing consciousness would become bored and need to forget itself. Eventually it would end up divided into tiny variations of itself, engaged in individual struggles that distract one another from the truth of their oneness.

Another way of looking at it, this realm we inhabit is meant to be just as it is. There may be other realms and lifetimes where justice prevails, where the fruit falls from trees into our outstretched hands, where we all just love. Here in this life, we are meant to struggle and yearn. Coming to peace with that is the spiritual path.

Here in my home, the night has turned to morning. The lights are still on. The heat is still flowing from the vents, and the the espresso maker is doing its job without complaint.

Having this chance to write has unburdened my soul for the moment. My eyes are now both open and my sparks are all contained.

I love writing so much. If you have made it to this last paragraph, I thank you. I hope something that came through me finds purchase in you. There are particles of light bouncing around the universe trying to find us. Keep the soft landing pad of your heart open. Speak up, and live your truth.

Being a yoga teacher I have a critic in my psyche that reminds me of all the tools I have to deal with my anxieties. Whenever my anger rises, it tells me I should know better. What if my students saw me acting like this? Imposter!

“Don’t forget to breathe, Pashupa. Let go. Let go. Let go.”

My therapist friend left me a voice message the other day. He is working with the idea of visualizing how he wants to show up as an ancestor to future generations.

“What are the qualities we want to pass on?”

In my “spiritual” circles there is lots of talk of ancestors. We honor them, give them thanks, sing pretty songs about them, yada yada. Pondering it, I imagine many of them were not so great. Go back far enough and they were primates throwing shit at each other. The prehistoric dawn of social media.

Certainly I can pass on better qualities than the feces I can fling. That’s what keeps me from writing that much about our current president. He is the worst example of a human I have ever witnessed, but saying his name gives him power. Wishing him misfortune doesn’t create a good example for future generations. I don’t want to hitch my fate to political algorithms that circle the drain.

I don’t have any children so I won’t have future blood relations. I am the end of this bloodline. No great grandchildren looking back to learn about me. No DNA passed down to seekers in tomorrow’s Ayahuasca ceremonies honoring me with prayers, or purging the traumas they inherited from me into a bucket.

Instead I think of my Substack readers. You are my literary tribespeople. I hope you will be here after I’m gone.

Still, who knows how long these words in the cloud will last? Someday the sun will expand out and swallow the Earth. Maybe by then humans will have spread across the cosmos, boldly going where no Earth monkey has gone before, delightedly throwing space poo at other life forms.

Do you think I have been a little whiny in my writing lately? Or is it authenticity? I’m not sure, it seems like a blurry line when I look through these old man eyeballs. I have demons to exorcise, or exercise.

My sincere hope is to write in a way that helps you out. Maybe through laughter. Maybe through identifying an aspect of your own humanity. Maybe by giving you a unique perspective.

There’s a perfectionist in me who has been keeping me from writing. Telling me I don’t have enough time to write the post that solves all the world’s problems. Who am I to think I can?

I do have a handful of paid subscribers. The substack gold. I appreciate you. I am recommitting to writing more often. Maybe I can move mountains one cupful of dirt at a time. Start saving up for a proper shovel.

The perfect is the enemy of the good.

I’m going to start writing like an insurgent. Stealing time and writing streams of consciousness. Right now I’m at a coffee shop wearing camouflage and thumb typing on my phone while waiting for a dentist appointment. My deadline and my gum line are on a collision course.

Next time you feel like tossing a turd, stop for a moment and consider future generations. The ones who will, by then, be perfected by AI-based child care, living with quantum computers embedded in their tissues. Or imagine different ancestors. Maybe they are your flesh and blood children who procreate and fill the Ayuasca circles of the future with their own buckets of trauma.

Stop for a moment, take a deep breath. Take several. Hold on to your shit. Flush when necessary. Think before you pass something on that will burden someone else.

BTW, I love you, whoever your are. Thanks for reading to the end. I’m gonna try to do this every week. No promises. No shit.

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Last night we went to see the new Bruce Springsteen biopic, Springsteen: Deliver me from Nowhere. It is a dark and brooding movie about a man struggling to make sense of his past. He returns to his hometown to write some new songs, and finds his soul is haunted by ghosts and demons. It is a Halloween movie for those of us who don’t like blood and gore. Lisa and I were up late.

The morning comes too soon. I teach a 7 a.m. class at Weaverville Yoga called “Bhakti Flow”. I recently extended the class time from 60 to 75 minutes so that I could offer some chanting at the beginning of class.

Today no one came. Our classes live stream so I stay and teach even when no one is there. At 7 a.m. I hit record and sat with my legs crossed, playing my harmonium and chanting mantras. The room echoed with the sounds, each moment of vibration lingering, gently pushing me forward into the river of time.

The movie sat there with me. Deliver Me features lots of black and white scenes flashing back to Bruce’s childhood. His father a mix of sweet and abusive, fearful and beloved. The father and son relationship is often fraught. My own memories of childhood are similarly a monotone ridgeline of mountains and forests I can’t see into or beyond. As far as I remember, my father was a good man. My traumas are hidden by the trees and vines left to grow wild in my psyche.

There was a cameo in the movie by Marc Maron, whose WTF podcast kept me company for many years of long drives and lonesome subway rides. Another man with a difficult relationship to his dad. He comforted me with his rational liberalism while my own mother was carried off by lunatics into the MAGA world. I listened to his heartfelt insights while my co-worker listened to episodes of angry Libertarian podcasts. At times I would take my headphones off to hear those disembodied voices saying things that I know aren’t true, making caricatures of people whose lives are endlessly complex, bemoaning wokeness while not mentioning the authoritarian elephant in the room.

Marc Maron recently decided to stop podcasting. His last guest was Barack Obama. Quite an achievement. Quite a sad moment. It’s like losing a friend. It was somehow soothing to see him on the screen.

There is another podcast-sized hole in my heart. I long to make another one of my own. This month is the 20th anniversary of the first episode of my Vegan Radio podcast on October 26, 2005. I recently harbored some quiet dreams of launching something new this month to coincide. I just don’t have the time. My debts keep me working, trying to keep up.

This morning I was happy to have no students. There is an indescribable feeling when the tone of my voice harmonizes with the reeds trembling in the harmonium. I lead my voice up and down, orbiting around the melody. It is a dance. God is there; all of my past, present and future loves. I was not alone. I began by chanting the beloved last lines of the Buddhist Heart Sutra, “Gate, gate, paragate, parasamgate, Bodhi swaha!” (gate is pronounced gah-tey)

The mantra translates to “Gone, gone, gone beyond, gone to the other shore, Nirvana, rejoice!” I love the metaphor of another shore. That’s where Bruce was trying to go. That’s shorely where we all want to go.

Bodhisattvas who practice the Insight that Brings Us to the Other Shore see no more obstacles in their mind, and because there are no more obstacles in their mind, they can overcome all fear, destroy all wrong perceptions and realize Perfect Nirvana. ~ New Heart Sutra translation by Thich Nhat Hanh

Mantras remove obstacles as we let them enrapture us. From the Heart Sutra I free flowed into other mantras, from Krishna to Radha, from the Beatles and Lynyrd Skynyrd, eventually circling back to Om. Freebird feels as good as the Maha Mantra to a western yogi that calls himself Pashupa. All is one.

Where is the other shore? Throughout the biopic, Springsteen exorcises his demons onto a four track tape machine. The outside world wants him to create an album with hit songs. His heart wants something else. Something needs to get out. The result is the lo-fi album Nebraska.

I am still searching for my Nebraska. My Nirvana. The wise realize that enlightenment manifests in moments, it’s not a final destination (at least not for most of us). It is always right here.

Today I found this little space in my day to write. I know it’s been a while. I apologize to my paid subscribers. Finding the time is a struggle.

There is a fallen angel of guilt watching me now as I write, accompanied by a chorus of obligations. It has been too long and I can’t hold back any more. It feels cathartic, these words need to get out.

There are more words burrowed beneath these words, and still more buried beneath those. My fingers are starting to stiffen with age and hammers, I don’t know how much longer I will be able to hold down guitar strings or press the flesh of my fingertips into the keyboard.

My heart aches to uncover those buried words, the sacred chords, the art that will move you. Or at least to create piles of dirt and empty holes to show you that I tried.

This is not a whoa as me, I do know that am blessed. Lisa and Bodhi look at me with so much love in their eyes. I am somebody to someone. I have food and shelter and carry my singing voice wherever I go. I live each day in gratitude, realizing that much of the world is burning.

The autumn leaves tumble outside our window, now visible in the soft light of this cloudy day. This year’s peak foliage passed like a dream, as it always does. Our sweet little Bodhi is out there running around with her friend Pocket. My ceramic coffee mug is almost empty, and there are people waiting for me to build them things.

So I will say farewell for now, and try to come back soon. Until then remind somebody that you love them, be kind to a stranger, be brave enough to sing, and don’t forget to breathe.

A couple sessions ago we learned a song called Obligation (by Laurence Cole) that sticks with me. Sometimes I sing it while I am teaching yoga, sometimes in the car with Lisa, sometimes when I am in awe of nature. The lyrics are simple:

Everything lives in obligation to everything that lives.

While the altos and baritones sing that, the sopranos, tenors, and bass harmonies sing:

Every, everything in all creation, everything, everything is alive!

Here’s a video I recorded on my GoPro of us performing the song as a flash mob at an Asheville Christmas boutique:

Speaking of holidays, today is the Fourth of July. Sitting on a barstool at my kitchen counter, typing these words into my Macbook, drinking my morning coffee with oat creamer, the song is echoing in my head.

Lots of my friends cheekily call this American holiday “Interdependence Day.” It’s a beautiful sentiment, while simultaneously cringey enough to ensure we get labeled as libtards. As we should.

Without libtards, the MAGA cult would have no enemy to define themselves by. There is interdependence even in adversarial relationships. Without the British empire there would be no American Revolution, and without subjugation no need for a Declaration of Independence.

Still we cling to the idea of independence. It’s a powerful way to manipulate ego. Ego wants to believe it can pull itself up by its own bootstraps. The idea is crazy. Without relationship, there is no up, nothing to pull towards, no boots to strap.

For most of my life my ego has wanted to stand out on its own. Like many of us, I felt so rejected by my peers as a child that I developed coping mechanisms to protect my heart.

I had a paper route and walked the neighborhood with a cloth bag delivering newspapers. It was boring and often miserable when the snow and rain came. There were no podcasts or smart phones back then, so I was left with my imagination.

I created stories in my mind of myself as a superhero or a rock star. In the superhero myths, I lived on Jupiter and was a saviour to my people. That was before I knew Jupiter was a gas giant, of course. The rock star fantasies were more Earth-based. I was a handsome guitar wizard who wrote incredible songs and was adored by my peers.

Oddly, I now get off at the Jupiter exit on Route 26 to get to my house, where I play guitar and write songs. Interdepending with my past.

The ego monster that I grew began to believe the stories I created. Not literally, the way my mom believes that Jesus actually rose from the dead. In a more subtle way, like I was the star of the show and the people around me were supporting actors.

One regret in my life is that I was so independent that I didn’t appreciate teamwork. I wasn’t able to live my rock-n-roll dreams because I never learned to play in a band. I would sit at home and play guitar solos, imagining myself on stage. Then I would go out and get drunk, hoping it would give me the courage to meet my soulmate. The ego monster would emerge and destroy any chance of true connection. Loneliness becomes a feedback loop.

The wisdom that comes with growing old is humbling. Or perhaps humility is itself a type of wisdom. Years of lost friendships have taught me that I am no better or worse than anyone else. I have fallen short of my goals again and again because I try to go it alone. Not recognizing the talents and support in the people around me.

Even now, as I write, there is a voice in my head wanting to be loved by you, the reader. But I no longer put myself above you. I am becoming aware that we are more similar than seperate. It is the sorrow and regret that I share that connects us, more than any unique brilliance in me.

The American ideal of independence serves to isolate us. The libtards and the MAGAs need to come realize our interdependence. I don’t know how and I don’t know when. There is a fascist takeover happening, the ICE agents in masks are just the modern gestapo. The othering of immigrants, the USAID cuts that will cost more lives than the holocaust, the gutting of Medicaid health care and food programs. We are becoming an ugly and repulsive nation.

United we stand, divided we fall. Let’s join hands.

NOTE: I thumb typed this post on a flight home from Boston a couple weeks ago, and when I turned airplane mode off it vanished. It wasn’t in my drafts when I checked my laptop. I let it go.

Today I went to create a new note on my…

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It is said that our childhood self develops coping strategies for the environment they find themselves in, and the recurrence of those patterns define us throughout adulthood. So I keep trying to go back, trying to remember. Where did I develop the strategies that keep me chasing my own tail?

I was once an analogue photographer. I spent hours in dark rooms, fingers dipped in chemicals, holding slippery pieces of coated papers, waiting for images to appear. Bathed in the dim red lights, the images were mysterious and filled with hope. Brought into the light of day their flaws became glaring, every spec of dust a reason to curse and start over.

My childhood memories are like those latent images, clipped onto strings as they drip dry in the dim red light. Perhaps there is a therapy that can help me drag them into daylight, but even before the tariffs I couldn’t afford such luxuries. If I could only get back all the money I spent on booze and put it into therapy...

My relationship with money has been an abusive one. The banks all saw me coming. My student loan debt is nearly what it was when I graduated 30 years ago. I’m the archetypical artist who sucks at financial planning.

The therapist I can’t afford tells me to stop thinking in these negative terms. The analogue photographer in me tells me to shine light through the negatives to create some positives. I know.

I know.

But knowledge is not wisdom; the patterns don’t change without extreme effort.

A few months ago I wrote a Substack about my time in the military, and it really resonated with people. I earned some paid subscribers. A little glimmer of hope that I could use my talent for writing to pay off my student debt. I made a pledge to myself to write every day. And then I stopped writing every day.

One of the haunting patterns from childhood is that I can’t seem to finish anything I start. Every ounce of success I achieve gets amplified by my ego and then I give up.

As a teen I wanted so much to be a rock star. I loved playing the guitar. Once I got better than ninety percent of my peers my ego decided I had succeeded. I practiced less and partied more. I became an expert at addiction, got kicked out of two bands, and gave up. It took nearly forty years to get back into a band.

That’s the pattern. I become decent, my ego tells me I am at the top. I stop practicing, my attention goes elsewhere. The project stalls. I have to spend my time elsewhere to survive, and my passions wither.

It has happened with music, photography, writing, and podcasting. It happened in the Marines. It happens with my yoga teaching. It was the fall of my vegan activism. It happens in relationships. It’s happening with my carpentry work. People around me think I am a renaissance man, but inside I just feel failure all the time. Failure and regret.

Maybe it began with the music. There is no art I love more than music. In the haze of my teenage drug abuse I gave up my dreams of playing in a band to join the Marines. After getting kicked out of the Marines I gave it up again to become a photographer. I never stopped playing. I have always loved it so much. But I never believed in myself enough to follow through.

Here I am now. I’m at the event horizon of my sixtieth decade. I’m bringing all the contact sheets from my past out of the darkroom and examining them with a loop beneath the bright lights, but my eyes are not what they once were. Tell me baby, where did I go wrong?

I love photography, some say I am great at it. It just doesn’t fill my heart like sharing a song does. I can sometimes make a living with it. It’s usually enough. It doesn’t keep the regret from enveloping my heart when I sit alone in the darkroom of my soul.

Yoga has taught me to breathe through it. I don’t complain much. My life is good.

I took a pause from writing here. I feel an overwhelming need to do things that pay because my debt is so big. When the bills come I drop all my creative endeavors. I need all my “free time” to make money. Then again, I need to write or my heart withers and the clouds of regret begin to swarm around me.

So I’ve come up with a plan. Instead of writing well-researched articles with lots of hyperlinks and outside sources, I will just write like this. From my imperfect heart, from my insecure psyche, from my human soul. I’ll find the time. I must.

I’ve been thumb-typing this post on a bus from Boston to Springfield MA. Tomorrow I’m going to see AC⚡️DC with an old friend. Their guitarist Angus Young is living my dream, running around on stage with his long grey locks flowing while Brian Johnson screams out innuendos. My inner child can get lost in it. I’ve been on the Highway to Hell for most of my life, and it still brings me joy.

Meanwhile my girlfriend bought me a Fender Strat for my birthday. I’m learning classic guitar solos from YouTube. Im playing open mics at the local Kava lounge in Asheville. We sing in a hippie choir. We’ve got a kirtan band that keeps getting better. I’m finding my way back home.

I’m going to heal my inner child. Or at least continue to ask his forgiveness. Maybe along the way I’ll earn enough subscriptions to pay for some therapy. Or maybe the writing will be therapy enough.

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My partner Lisa and I moved to Asheville in August, six weeks before Hurricane Helene wreaked havoc and chaos all around us. The bottom of our street washed away, along with a bridge and a house that were near the idyllic little creek we had been swimming in days before.

Zooming out, entire towns were flooded, trees and power lines were down everywhere, and Asheville’s beautiful River Arts District was completely destroyed. We waited a week for our power to come back on, and when it did it felt like a miracle. There were so many people all around us suffering without power and water for weeks and months.

I talked to my mother regularly during those early weeks of recovery, and while Lisa and I felt the speed with which FEMA and other rescue services were being deployed was impressive, my mom was under the impression that Biden’s administration was leaving us all to die.

“I have heard there are no helicopters,” she told me, as helicopters flew over my head.

I love my mom, and I know there is no clever use of logic that will change her beliefs. Beliefs are entwined with emotion. She is a Christian from Kansas, and the seeds were planted long before I came around. So I try to seek common ground and steer the conversations away from the present president.

In Hindu mythology, like Christianity, there is an ongoing battle between good and evil. Hinduism is a bit more nuanced and playful than the western religions. Where Christians have the good versus evil dichotomy of angels and demons, Hinduism has devas and asuras.

In general, devas are beings who do good in the world, and asuras are beings who do harm. They each have supernatural powers, and are constantly battling for control of the universe. Their existence embodies the dualistic nature of creation, where opposing forces are necessary parts of the cosmic whole.

However, devas are not all good, and asuras are not all bad. They are shades of grey. Asuras are generally power-seeking, materialistic, and sometimes malevolent. The devas are generally benevolent, righteous, and followers of dharma (cosmic order).

In Hindu mythology, both Devas and Asuras are considered descendants of the great sage Kashyapa, born to different wives. The Devas are the children of Aditi, known as the mother of the gods, and they represent the forces of good, light, and virtue. In contrast, the Asuras are the offspring of Diti, who represents darkness and ignorance, often associated with negative traits. ~Mythlok

As you might have figured out, the devas and asuras are a lot like us. In fact, they can even be seen as aspects of our own psyches. Within our minds and hearts is an ongoing battle to choose a spiritual path over a materialistic one, compassion over anger, love over bitterness.

It’s my opinion that the western Bible has things backwards. God did not create us in “his” image, we create the myths of god in our own image. If there is a god, or gods, then their ultimate nature is unknowable to our human mind. Perhaps the divine is a little easier to know in our hearts. Whatever glimpses of divinity we are granted, the only way to express them is through metaphor, myth, and story making.

Myths aren’t concerned with historical accuracy or past events. Instead, they delve into hidden realities—the unseen truths that shape human experience across time. They speak to what happens within us, right now and always. ~Dr. Michael Simmons

In the MAGA-verse that my mother inhabits, this must seem like a golden age. The chosen one has inherited the throne and been given a mandate to clear the way for the coming of Christ. God is returning soon. Her beliefs are being reinforced and molded by the algorithms in the online spaces she is connected to. The myths she holds close are not allegorical to her. She believes them to be factual. There is a bridge between us that has been washed away by a flood of calculated misinformation. Evangelical Christianity, in its dogmatic clinging to the veracity of every word in the Bible, has made it easier for all kinds of false narratives to be believed. FOX News and the right wing media propaganda machine amplifies the confusion.

And so it is that I turn to a myth from my tradition, one that I hold dear.

Kali versus the blood demon

As the devas and asuras battle throughout time, there are leaders who rise and fall. By performing acts of reverence and penance to gods like Brahma (creator), Vishnu (sustainer), and Shiva (destroyer), the devas and asuras can be granted boons. Boons are special powers, and for asuras they often have to do with invincibility.

One such asura that gained a boon is called Raktabija. Rakta means blood, and bija means seed. Raktabija’s boon was that every time his blood would spill, more Raktabijas would be created (multiplying like Agent Smith in the Matrix trilogy). In some tellings of the story, he gets this boon from Shiva, and in other tellings, from Brahma.

Raktabija created havoc on the Earth, hunting and killing devas, humans, and animals to feed his insatiable hunger.

The goddess Durga comes to their defence. Durga was created from the combined efforts of male deities who could not defeat an asura demon called Mahishasura, whose boon was that he could not be killed by god or man. In his arrogance, he did not believe that a woman could kill him.

After battling Mahishasura for centuries, the male gods understood what they were up against. Each of the male gods gave Durga their own special power, and she became an amalgamation of their awesomeness.

Durga emerged as a beautiful woman with ten arms, each holding a divine weapon, riding a lion. Every time Durga would come close to defeating Mahishasura, he would change form and escape. Finally, as he transformed from a buffalo to a human, Durga pinned him down with her trident and cut his head off with her discus. Fierce!

But not fierce enough to defeat Raktabija. The blood demon’s replications confounded Durga as she continually killed them and they multiplied. Finally she turned her fury inward, concentrating her brow and clenching her entire body. Kali emerged from Durga’s third eye, her skin black, her body emaciated, her tongue lolling. She wears a garland of 108 skulls and a belt with human arms hanging from it like a Hawaiian grass skirt. The roar of her birth alone destroys hundreds of asuras, as she comes out swinging with her ten arms each holding a weapon.

Kali is wise to the boon of Raktabija, and her tongue grows to cover the entire battlefield. She absorbs the blood of every slain asura into her being, all the while growing more powerful. Finally she is alone with the OG Raktabija. She slashes his throat open with the trident in one arm as she raises him above her head with another, and drains his body of blood, catching every drop in her mouth. She throws his hollow corpse on the ground.

O king, the mighty Asura Raktabija, drained of all blood, lay lifeless on the ground. Then, the gods attained immeasurable joy. ~ from the Devi Mahatmya

Kali then begins a wild victory dance, enraptured in her own power. The blood of Raktabija is potent, and she needs to process it through her system. Her entranced dance shakes the earth and creats vibrations throughout the heavens, threatening all life. The gods, once again, are worried. The go to Mount Kailash to find Shiva, who is deep in meditation.

Waking him from his concentration, they tell him about Kali’s wild dance. Shiva is a dancer himself, so he is not too concerned. He makes his way to the battlefield and calls out to Kali, but she has her cosmic earbuds in, playing psy-trance, and can not hear him. Her eyes are closed and she can not see him, either.

Shiva lays himself down at her feet, and she begins dancing on top of him, pulverizing his body into the earth. He smiles. Kali at last feels the familiar landscape of Shiva’s torso beneath her naked feet, and slows her dance. She realizes she is standing on her beloved, and her tongue falls out in shock and embarrassment. A relieved sigh from the gods cools the Earth, the birds begin to sing, and the animals come out of hiding. Balance is restored.

Of myth and allegory, MAGA and madness

It is wise to remember that none of us are perfect. In the Hindu myths, even the gods make questionable decisions. It is part of the lila, the divine play of creation. If everything was perfect, life would be boring and we would never evolve.

In contemplating the modern world, I see lots of asuras. The cruelty and malevolence of our president and his replicants creates great anxiety. At times, it is easy to feel the inevitability of their rise to power. The return of Nazi salutes is terrifying and unbelievable. It almost seems like the plot of a comic book.

Like Raktabija, the new regime uses self-replication to confound us. Every day there are so many attacks on decency and compassion that it seems impossible to fathom. The ecosystems of modern media helps spread the bad ideas and haunting realities. There are too many fires to put out, and too few of us are fire fighters.

Where is the Raktabija we need to defeat?

Looking for the source of our problems, it is easy to point to our lead narcissist, the master of chaos and lies. But even if the bullets at his rally had taken him out, there is an underlying core of rot that has eaten away at our democracy that he did not create. He just figured out how to use it to his advantage.

The Democrat versus Republican narrative has grown tired. We have to stop seeing the world as black and white. There are asuras on both sides, lusting after money and power, actively undermining the moral arc of the universe in it’s bend towards justice. War has been a constant with either party in power. The rich have grown richer, while the corporations that enrich them are often above the law.

No political party, company, or individual person is entirely good or evil. We are shades of grey.

In the philosophy of yoga the Sanskrit word samskara refers to mental impressions, recollections, or psychological imprints that are formed by our past actions and experiences. These impressions are stored in the subconscious mind and influence our current behavior, thoughts, and perceptions. Cultures, societies, and governments similarly become entrenched in their behaviors. Thoughts and systems get reinforced by repetition, and once established are hard to overcome.

The true battle is the inner one. We have devas and asuras in our psyches. If we give in to the hatred, or the greed, or in thinking too highly of ourselves, then we contribute to the problems of the world. Conversely, choosing kindness, compassion, and service in our daily lives leads to a better world. Our inner and outer worlds mirror one another.

Compassion takes courage. It does not mean being a pushover. As our country slides towards authoritarianism, we need to stand up and fight. Not with violence, not with hearts full of hatred and malice, but as spiritual warriors. We have to overcome the samskaras that keep us frozen in fear, complaining about the latest news stories, feeling hopeless. We also have to find empathy for the people who have been swayed by MAGA propaganda, with their flags and bumper stickers that make us feel ill. People who give away their power to abusers are unknowing victims, and becoming indoctrinated into cults is human.

The current dismantling of the US government is a calculated attack, which benefits the asura king and his billionaire sidekick. They want to take away our democracy by breaking it into pieces and then claiming it doesn’t work, to replace it with an authoritarian regime. No amount of money or power is enough for them, and no suffering created in their wake will slow them down.

However, chaos is hard to control. Parts of our government needed to be re-imagined. There is an opportunity within this moment to reform the system. Creating the new does not begin without dismantling the old. The terrorist DOGE cabal has awoken our inner Kali. We were in a state of comfortable inertia before this, and now we are forced to rise up.

United we stand, divided we fall

It is in the origin story of Durga that we get an idea for how to battle the multiplying MAGAts. Remember how the male gods all got together to create the feminine warrior? It might seem a bit patriarchal on its surface, but it is also the story of a culture moving towards balance.

In the early Vedic period (roughly 1500-1000 BCE), worship centered around elemental deities like Indra (thunder/rain), Agni (fire), Varuna (cosmic order), Surya (sun), and others. As Hinduism evolved, the Shaiva (Shiva-focused) and Vaishnava (Vishnu-focused) traditions developed somewhat independently. Shakta traditions (focusing on the Divine Mother) also have ancient roots, but gained particular prominence around the 6th century CE

The story of Durga being formed from the gods was told in the Devi Mahatmya, which was written around that time. In one sense, it was a way of reconciling the old with the new. Similar to the way that Christianity wove stories from the Old Testament into the New Testament, Hinduism honors the past gods by integrating them into the modern pantheon. The story has greater teachings.

Remember, myths are not facts. They are blueprints and archetypes. To defeat a megalomaniac and the cult formed around him, we truly do need to create great networks and communities. We need to create something greater than our individual selves.

Throughout history, we have seen the democratic party change. There have been glimmers of hope that it will truly represent the people it serves, but money always gets in the way. The idea that we just need to wait until the next election for action is short-sighted. We need to build coalitions outside of the two-party system that will be unstoppable. They should be diverse and rooted in compassion and empathy.

Our neighbors in Mexico and Canada are being attacked, Europe is being isolated, and people living under authoritarian regimes are being forgotten. We have this unique moment in history where we are all connected through the Internet. It is a tool that can be used to create connections, within and across borders. It could easily be taken from us, but in this moment we have it.

The Internet can be an organizing tool, but we also need to get out into the real world and take non-violent actions. Helping one-another in small ways, checking in on neighbors, sharing resources. Gathering in protest, boycotting corporations, creating group art. Reaching out to those who are hurting, even if they are wearing the red hat and shouting nonsense. We can’t win without them.

This is not a time for sitting back and seeing what happens next. It is a time for decisive action. It is time to furrow our brows, clench our fists, and to release our inner Kali out into the world. She is benevolent. She may drink the blood of her enemies, but she doesn’t devour feculence. And neither should you.

What I learned about the heart in school

In elementary school I was taught to put my right hand on my heart as I pledged my allegiance. My heart is on the left, I was told. I have been thinking about this lately, the heart being on the left. The right hand connecting to the heart. The balance of left and right.

I learned from other kids in elementary school how to use racial slurs, how to make fun of people with disabilities, how to identify the other and use their suffering to try to feel better about myself. How to fit in by casting out. I have had fear and shame turned against me, too. Kids are great at that shit.

Call me a dreamer, but I like to believe we can all outgrow othering, in spite of what we see on social media.

I was in fourth grade when the United States recognized Black History Month in 1976. I remember that year mostly for the Bicentennial, because I received commemorative stamps, books and two dollar bills as gifts from my living ancestors. Civil rights were not front and center in my childhood. But we were taught about Martin Luther King, Jr. and his role in the civil rights movement.

“The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.” ~ Martin Luther King Jr.

King’s “arc of the moral universe” quote is second in belovedness only to his “I have a dream” speech. But is it true? Or does it just feel good to believe?

The moral arc of the universe bending towards justice depends on us — to desire, and to strive for, that trajectory. To me, the past election cycle seems to point to an unbending of the arc, if we are to include compassion and empathy as relevant components of morality. Although the margin was narrow, we the people elected an authoritarian who is actively trying to unbend the arc.

I think a good barometer for which way the moral arc is bending is in how humans treat one another. Is it with love and empathy, or with distrust, hatred, and indifference?

We have certainly all heard the “first they came for” quote by now, and perhaps felt a chill when contemplating it.

First they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out—because I was not a socialist. Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out—because I was not a trade unionist. Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out—because I was not a Jew. Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me.

—Martin Niemöller

Have they begun? The promised ICE raids are separating families. The purge of political opponents is chilling. The administration blaming the recent airplane crash with a military helicopter in Washington DC on DEI hiring. They are turning us against positive words in our own language? Diversity. Equity. Inclusion. Social Justice.

When do we speak up? Or, more importantly, how?

I have come to believe that the right hand, without the heart, is a dangerous idea.

An anatomy of the human heart

Although the heart is behind the sternum in the center of the body, it tilts to the left a little bit.

Our heart's left ventricle is larger and more muscular than the right one. It pumps blood to our entire body, whereas the right ventricle pumps only to our lungs. The left is bigger and heavier, causing it to tilt leftward.

The heart also has an anatomical feature called the "cardiac apex," which is it’s bottom tip, formed mainly by the left ventricle. This apex naturally points down and to the left, contributing to the heart's leftward orientation.

Here’s something cool. Our left lung is a little smaller than the right, making room for our heart.

Perhaps god created the human body as a template for our politics. If the right and left don’t work together, the system is thrown out of balance and perishes. We can’t survive in half a body.

So hear me out. For the moral arc to bend towards justice, the heart of our culture needs to tip slightly to the left.

A political history of sides

After millennia of side-lessness, it was the French Revolution in 1789 that brought us sides.

In the French National Assembly, supporters of the king sat on the right side of the chamber, while supporters of the revolution sat on the left. On the right were those who supported the traditional monarchy, aristocracy, and church (conservatives). On the Left were those who wanted radical change, including democracy and secular governance (liberals).

On the Right: Monarchy, Aristocracy, and Church.

How is it that the right today still wants what the right wanted as they were being hacked to pieces in the French Revolution?

“Make America Great Again” is a mantra that conservative-identifying people can project their own grievances onto, a placeholder for anger. For monarch Trump and his aristocrats, “great again” is a return to the era of robber barons. If we get rid of anyone who demonstrates the weakness of compassion, enriching the rich will be far easier.

The church is in cahoots, conivingly convincing its indoctrinated masses that god wants this idolatry and cruelty. The leaders at the top get the benefits of the aristocracy, the rest of us get to believe in a future heaven. The right has hijacked the Christian Bible and weaponized it. To believers it is an authority that can’t be questioned, the actual words of god. The clergy decide how those words are interpreted, and which ones to emphasize to keep their followers agitated.

Every myth is psychologically symbolic. Its narratives and images are to be read, therefore, not literally, but as metaphors.” ~Joseph Campbell

Pretending to be on the side of Jesus, conservative politicians can veil their greed and selfish intentions. Outright lies quickly turn into conspiracy theories. It is a small step from believing everything in a bible to be true, to believing there are lizards disguised as humans drinking the blood of children.

The true coup happens in the minds of the people, not in the buildings where government officials perform ceremonies.

The right has the bigger lung, the louder voice. It has enthusiasm, but lacks heart. Lying and name calling and greed are celebrated. There is a narcissistic child at its center, pulling the levers to see what they do. Or at least, how they will break.

All of that said, a right that is balanced by a left is positive. There are parts of culture and society that we want to conserve. Whatever is great about America’s past is worth saving and celebrating, especially when it is bending our moral arc towards justice.

On the Left: Radical Change, Democracy and Secular Governance.

The podcasts I listen to are left leaning, like our hearts. The voices of people I respect have been telling me that the Democrats (liberals) are rudderless, and have lost their bearing.

Because we have the bigger heart and smaller voice on the left, we have an uphill battle to win people over. Even in an increasingly complex world, trying to convey nuance is a handicap. Yet nuance is a necessary component of stability. Perhaps we just need to convey nuance in a simple way.

Martin Luther King Jr.’s arc of the moral universe bending towards justice is a powerful idea because it gives us hope, perspective, and direction. It may or may not be true historically, but it gives us a rudder. It gives us a compass. It contains multitudes.

The left is losing the battle of words and memes. The words diversity, equity, and inclusion are being denigrated by the right. Words of compassion. The right has compressed these meaningful words into the letters DEI and tarnished them with false narratives. Meanwhile real human lives are being harmed.

Inclusion is what the heart wants. We want to be part of a group. A church, a political ideology, a movement, a sports team. Our anxious, fearful selves seek the exclusion of others. These two parts are evolutionary traits, which can be integrated or exploited.

While the right ventricle is pumping the lungs up with anger, the left ventricle is desperately trying to keep the rest of the body alive.

Corruption runs through the whole political system. Greed is like water, flowing downhill into any crevice it can find. It takes a special person to seek political office and simultaneously be resistant to avarice. Money finds its way into everything, and subverts the will of the people.

Our system forces politicians to rely on money from big donors. The aristocrats. In this conflict of interest, compromises are made. Justice is sacrificed.

When politicians won’t admit who they serve, their word becomes meaningless. I feel that part of the problem with the left is that they are trying to serve two masters, the people and greed. The right only has greed. That means they can feel authentic, even when they are lying. They serve the corporations while redirecting the anger of the people towards the left. The lefty politicians have to thread the needle of serving the people without angering the corporations. They are left with nuance. How to explain the complexity of serving two masters?

The left needs honesty, because the heart is a symbol of truth. Tell us how we can change the corrupt system while being funded by it? Let’s get to the heart of the matter.

The balancing of opposites

As a practitioner, I look to the teachings of yoga for guidance.

Yoga is a practice of balance. In the pop way that many people think of yoga in the west there is, of course, balance in the postures. Standing on one leg while doing something aesthetically beautiful or acrobatically complex with the other, and then posting it on social media. The yoga that we see with our eyes.

Beneath that superficial layer, lies thousands of years of spiritual and philosophical technology and debate. Yoga is alive with conflicting views on how to practice, which form of god to devote ourselves to, whether to be a householder or a renunciate, what enlightenment is. There is a left-handed yoga, and a right handed yoga. The poses we glorify (or deride) in the west are a recent addition.

As humans, there is a conservative side within us that clings to what is, and a liberal side that moves us toward what might be. The seed of one dwells within the heart of the other, as the Taoist yin yang symbol reminds us. A black dot in a swirl of white opposite a white dot in a swirl of black. In a balanced system, the dance of the opposites creates harmony and health.

What would Patanjali do?

In the west most yoga teachers earned certification in trainings that emphasize the teachings of The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali. It is a book of 196 aphorisms that had fallen into obscurity in India for several centuries until colonialist scholars from Great Britain stumbled upon it and translated it into English. A charismatic Indian yogi named Swami Vivekanada created an English commentary on the text and introduced it to the United States at the turn of the 20th century.

The definition of yoga in the Yoga Sutras is, “yoga is the cessation of the whirlings of the mind.” That definition is stated at the beginning of the text, and everything that follows is instructions on how to achieve such a feat. Most of us will find it impossible to quiet the mind, even with an instruction manual. With practice, the thoughts do slow down and we discover much about ourselves.

“To preserve the innate serenity of the mind, a yogin should be happy for those who are happy, be compassionate toward those who are unhappy, be delighted for those who are virtuous, and be indifferent toward the wicked.” ~ Patanjali’s Yoga Sutra 1:33

This is the sutra that may be most relevant to this political moment. At first glance it all makes sense, until that last little bit. Indifferent towards the wicked? To understand that, go back to the beginning of the sutra. The goal of Patanjali’s ascetic yoga is to quiet the mind. Watching FOX news or even listening to NPR will not bring serenity. President Trump’s very existence depends on us paying attention, negatively or positively. He is ego writ large, and without the attention I think he would shrivel and fade away. That obviously is not going to happen now.

In other sutras Patanjali gives us instructions on how to treat others, with non-violence being the very first step on the path to yoga. His teachings, when followed, make us kinder and more self-aware people, which makes for a better society. Cultivating indifference to the wicked is useful, in that we make our best choices when our mind is calm. However, I would argue that the Yoga Sutras is not the yogic text to turn to for combatting injustice in government and politics.

Yoga is Skill in Action

The yogic text that gives us the best tools for fighting a corrupt system is the Bhagavad Gita (Song of God). It is the text that guided Mahatma Gandhi in his struggle to defeat British Colonialism.

The Gita imparts its wisdom in the form of a story that takes place on a battlefield. In the story, a warrior prince called Arjuna finds himself in a dilemma, because the army he commands and the army he is about to go to war with are each filled with family and friends. Before the fighting begins, he asks his charioteer, Krishna, to take him to the center of the battlefield. Once there, he admits to Krishna that he is so despaired by the idea of killing people he knows and respects that he can’t fight.

It turns out that Krishna is an avatar of Vishnu, the Hindu god of sustainment. Vishnu is the aspect of the divine that creates balance in the world, in between Brahma the creator and Shiva the destroyer. The stable center between the two extremes.

Four paths of yoga

Throughout the text, Krishna describes four types of yoga.

1. Raja Yoga - the path of meditation, which is similar to Patanjali’s yoga.

2. Jnana Yoga - the path of knowledge, which includes self-inquiry and philosophical discrimination.

3. Bhakti Yoga - the path of loving devotion, which prescribes complete surrender and love for the divine. It is said to be the quickest path to god, but it is not for everyone.

4. Karma Yoga - the path of selfless action, which is the yoga of warriors and activists and people who want to work to make the world more just.

Because Arjuna has become a hot mess in the beginning of the Gita, Krishna tells him that his dharma, or duty in life, is to be a warrior. To stand up and fight. Arjuna was not born to be a meditator or kirtan wallah, he was born to lead a righteous battle and bring balance to his society. His path is karma yoga.

Many commentators, including Gandhi, say the battlefield in the Gita is a metaphor for the fight that goes on in our minds. Remember, it is dangerous to interpret stories in sacred texts as factual. The Gita is not a text that glorifies war as an answer to life’s problems. The story is a conscious lie told to impart a greater truth.

In the allegorical interpretation of the Gita, Arjuna represents the individual facing difficult choices. Krishna represents higher wisdom/divine guidance/inner conscience. The Kauravas (opposing forces) represent negative tendencies like greed, attachment, ego, and the Pandavas (Arjuna's side) represent positive qualities like dharma, truth, courage. Just as Arjuna hesitates to fight his own family members, we struggle to let go of familiar patterns and attachments.

In the story, the Kauravas are definitely to the right, and the Pandavas to the left. Greed and status quo versus compassion and equity. In the prequel to the Gita (earlier chapters of the epic Mahabarata), Arjuna is given a choice between having Krishna’s entire army join him, or having Krishna as his guide. Arjuna chooses Krishna, heart over power. It turns out to be a wise choice.

The most relevant teaching to our situation now is that of yoga as “skill in action.” Krishna explains to Arjuna that karma yoga involves maintaining equanimity and skillful action while fulfilling one's duties.

Endowed with the wisdom of evenness-of-mind, one casts off in this life both good deeds and evil deeds; therefore, devote yourself to yoga. Skill in action is yoga. ~ Bhagavad Gita chapter 2 verse 50.

Equanimity is the quality we are tasked to cultivate in the Yoga Sutras, in part by being indifferent to the wicked. In the Gita we gain the equanimous mind by performing skillful action and then, importantly, not being attached to the outcome of our actions.

The world is vast and complex, and if there is a divine plan none of us know what it is. The Gita teaches us to use the various paths of yoga to know our true selves, and to determine what our duty in this life is. Then we make skillful choices and take skillful action. We dedicate ourselves and our actions to the greater good.

Remember the heart. Cherish that left-leaning vessel that delivers blood to our bodies and helps bring breath into our lungs. It may lean left, but we need the right. We need to conserve parts of what is while we imagine what can be. The weight of the heart will bend the arc of the moral universe in the direction of justice.

I feel that these times we are in will require a great deal from us to stand up to authorianism, inequality and greed. Posting on social media is not going to be enough. But what we do as individuals will vary. I can not prescribe what will work for you. Demonstrations, phone calls, running for office, donating to organizations, podcasting, placing your body in danger to prevent atrocity. Each of us have our own warrior journey.

What I can tell you is that to prevent burnout or despair, remember that your skillful action is an offering. Like raising a child, you do your best and then let them go out into the world. If you are true to yourself and to the greater good, that is the best you can do. Even if the result seems like a disaster, it may be the cloud that creates the silver lining the world needs.

Maybe the Trump presidency is like that. Right now, the clouds are dark. It will get darker before the dawn. Put on your headlamps and rain gear and get to work.

Most events get forgotten over the years. Some of those events are holidays. In fact, the majority of our favorite Christian holidays were once Pagan holidays. Christmas was once a Roman Pagan holiday celebrating of the sun god Sol Invictus. You know, a god who seemingly dies and then returns, like the sun. Arguably, Jesus did it with more pizazz.

As times change and humanity evolves, so do religions and cultures. Some holidays get co-opted and rebranded from one religion to the next. Many more are gradually forgotten. The Feast of the Ass is amongst those.

The Savage Takeover

As listeners to my Don’t Forget Yoga Podcast know, my memory isn’t the best. But I do remember this. I spent the aughts in Western Massachusetts, where there was (and is) a free local paper called The Valley Advocate that features local stories and events. When I first moved to the area, the paper featured a relationship advice column which I mildly enjoyed. I can’t find a mention of it on the Internet now (and of course can’t remember the name!), but I believe it was written by a woman. (If you know who the author was, or what the column was called, please leave a comment below!)

At the time I lived in Northampton, the home of Smith College and the self-proclaimed lesbian capital of the world. At some point a syndicated sex advice column called Savage Love replaced the other advice column. Savage Love’s author, Dan Savage, was (and still is) a gay guy. His column was a lot spicier, and in my opinion a lot more relevant and entertaining. It seemed to me at the time that Dan Savage’s column would be OK with lesbians. Not so much. The letters to the editor were full of vitriol. The readers didn’t want to hear about butt sex from a man. Butt… I did!

Over time the controversy died down and Savage Love became beloved by most. I imagine it is like that with the holidays. The Sol Invictus worshippers were probably pissed when Rome went Christian and Jesus replaced Sol, but nowadays no one is complaining much. There are bigger fish to fry, especially on Fridays.

The Rebirth of the Feast of the Ass

Over the years Dan Savage took his column online, and then caught the wave and created a podcast called The Savage Lovecast. As an early podcaster myself, I have been a listener since the beginning.

At the top of each show there is a rant that lasts about five minutes, which is often my favorite part of the show. Dan is outspokenly gay, and as an LGBTQ+ activist he keeps us updated on stuff going on in that realm. He spends just as much time advocating for cisgender women and their right to choose, and stepping into the political fray with strong liberal opinions. His advice to callers covers all genders and sexual preferences. I agree with his takes on most issues, sexual and otherwise.

What distinguishes Dan Savage from other advice podcasts are his contributions to the zeitgeist. Even people who don’t know who he is are probably aware of some of his contributions. Here is a short list:

• Following the suicide of 15-year-old Billy Lucas, who was bullied for his perceived sexual orientation, Dan founded the It Gets Better Project. The project encourages adults, both LGBT and otherwise, to submit videos assuring gay teenagers that life can improve after bullying in early life.

• Santorum is a neologism that Dan created based on a reader poll. There is a bigoted politician named Rick Santorum who built his platform on belittling gays and gay marriage, comparing gay sex to bestiality, etc; The poll asked readers to create a definition of the word santorum. The winning entry was “the frothy mixture of lube and fecal matter that is sometimes the byproduct of anal sex.” Dan created a website (no longer live) that went to the top of the search engines for the word, and it became known as Rick Santorum’s “Google problem.”

• GGG - good, giving and game. This is how Dan recommends we behave in the bedroom, in a consensual way. Think "good in bed," "giving of equal time and equal pleasure," and "game for anything—within reason."

• The Campsite Rule. In relationships with a large age disparity, at the end of the relationship, the elder partner should leave the younger in "better shape than they found them".

• There are many more of Dan Savage’s contributions to language that you can find on this Wiki, including: CPOS (cheating piece of shit), DTMFA (dump the motherfucker already), whatever lifts your luggage, monogamish, tolyamorous, saddlebacking, and pegging.

Dan’s contributions to language tend to be either activism against a bigoted politician or church leader, or a way to simplify his responses to the questions he receives from listeners. After listening for a while, I often know what he is about to say. But just as often, I am wrong.

It was in January of 2024 that I first heard Dan talk about the Feast of the Ass, a forgotten Christian holiday from the 1500’s. The original holiday celebrated Joseph, Mary, and Jesus escaping to Egypt to save baby Jesus from King Herod, who ordered the killing of all first-born males in the vicinity of Bethlehem.

The Feast of the Ass checks a lot of boxes for Dan. The name, of course, is perfect innuendo. Dan was raised Catholic, and even though all of Christendom was “Catholic” back in the day, it sounds especially Catholic now. The tongue in cheek nature of the name is certain to cause fanatical Christians to become upset if it crosses into the mainstream. It certainly evokes images of gay sex, which Dan celebrates. But, feasting on ass is not just for gays.

As I do every Tuesday, on Christmas Eve of 2024 I was listening to Dan’s rant at the top of the latest episode of the Savage Lovecast, Prepare to celebrate the Feast of the Ass. This year he went all in, and decided to use his cultural meme magic to bring the holiday back.

In the monologue Dan asks us, “ What do all holidays need?” and went on to explain that they need the four M’s; mascots, munchies, music, and merch.

1. The mascot is easy, a donkey. Dan chose to name the donkey Buddy, and Buddy has a girlfriend named Rose.

2. For munchies, since sticky buns are already taken by Good Friday, Dan chose the bundt cake, for obvious reasons. But NOT a fudge one, that’s a step too far. The Feast of the Ass bundt cake is vanilla with glaze. Mmmm.

3. For merch, the savage.love shop offers a Feast of the Ass hat (ass hat 🤣) and tee shirts.

4. And for music, a contest!

My entry into the Feast of the Ass

As friends and listeners to my Warrior One Podcast know, I found my inner songwriter during the pandemic. Before then I could count the songs I’ve written on one hand. Since then I had to convert to Hinduism so I would have enough and fingers and hands to count with. Many of the songs I write are about love, mysticism, and the search for meaning. Butt I also have a trickster side of my personality, and that side of me loves to write funny songs, and songs with innuendo.

When Dan announced the contest, I knew I had to insert myself into the Feast of the Ass. We had planned some time off to celebrate the traditional holidays, and so I had time to write. I brought my ukulele with me on vacation and started probing my brain for innuendo, scribbling thoughts down in my journal. I had until January 10th to submit the song.

We all have a playlist of holiday music forced upon us, and so I began to think about the common threads between songs. They are typically overly exuberant and naively optimistic, but also catchy. I wanted the song to be suitable for kids, but to have deeper layers of meaning for adults. I also wanted it to have a holiday sensibility, with some references to the original Christian holiday.

What came to me first was the line, “the Feast of the Ass is a holy day, we fill it with good friends and cheer.” And then, “So let’s raise our glasses and toast all the asses we’ve known throughout all of the years.”

For further research, I went to the Wikipedia entry for the Feast of the Ass, which is hilarious in and of itself. Here is a translation of one of the original FOTA hymns.

From the Eastern lands, the Ass comes, beautiful and brave, fit to bear burdens. Up! Sir Ass, and sing. Open your pretty mouth. Hay will be yours in plenty, and oats in abundance.

Was it innuendo back then? I don’t know, but probably. The mention of “pretty mouth” and “drape that ass” in my song both come from the Wiki.

I didn’t actually see Dan’s naming of the mascots as Buddy and Rose until I visited his FOTA page on January 8th. Once I discovered the names, I wrote the verses that my song was eventually named after rather quickly:

There's nobody like Buddy, like Buddy the ass,
But Buddy's sweet-ass girlfriend Rose
At the feast they eat bundt cakes with their pretty mouths,
And lick the glaze off of each other's nose

Come, come, Buddy & Rose,
Reveal to us the pleasures we seek!
And if we're offended when our lives get upended
Teach us to turn the other cheek

I had been trying to fit “turn the other cheek” into the song from the start, so that worked out! Getting the bundt cake in there was also key. For the FOTA, you have to pack it all in!

In the last line, “brings pleasure to all of our ears,” you can carry the R over from the end of our to the beginning of ears, and get a final cheeky chuckle.

On January 10th, the last day of the contest, I recorded my song in Garage Band and sent it off for consideration.

“Nobody like Buddy” makes it into the top 10!

The morning of January 14th, Feast of the Ass day 2025, I waited eagerly for the podcast to drop. Around 8 A.M. it finally showed up in my app. My heart sank as I listened. The rant at the beginning of the show did not mention me or my song. There were clips from other songs, some which I didn’t think were as good or clever as mine. My wounded inner child was angry and sad.

I know Dan loves musicals, and here he also reminded us listeners of his penchant for the songs that go along with our favorite Christmas animations, like Frosty the Snowman and How the Grinch Stole Christmas. Songs that are, dare I say, rather gay. I don’t have that gay music gene in me, although I did once have a musician named Gene inside of me. Butt, I was experimenting. Other than that, my butt and my music have been pretty straight.

Dan’s choice of songs was leaning towards the musicals and Christmas specials. Inside I was cursing Dan, and cursing myself for not writing a musical. Butt, I have to be true to myself. I knew my song was great, and my girlfriend Lisa comforted me. I won’t say how.

I went to my 9 A.M. appointment to donate platelets to the Red Cross, feeling disgruntled. “Go ahead and stick me full of needles, I don’t care anymore,” I thought as the kind workers set me up in front of a TV screen with all the streamers to choose from. I decided to watch Deadpool & Wolverine for the second time. Hilariously, Deadpool mentions pegging (A Savage neologism) in the beginning of the movie as he is confronted by members of the Time Variance Authority with big sticks in their hands. I instantly forgave Dan.

The platelet process takes about 3 hours, while blood goes from one arm through a machine that removes platelets, and back into the other. By the end I felt better, albeit dizzy. At the recovery table on the way out I ate Oreo cookies (which are accidentally vegan!) and checked my email, where I received this letter from Dan:

I was gay for Dan all over again. I made it into the top ten! I could celebrate the Feast of the Ass!

Dan named the song Nobody Like Buddy and posted it on his Feast of the Ass page, along with the other nine songs. I recommend you listen to them, butt you can also listen to Nobody Like Buddy at the BOTTOM of this page.

I was hoping to get this post published on the Feast of the Ass day, January 14th. Butt, “man plans and donkey laughs,” as my Dad used to say. Hopefully it will age well and we can enjoy it for years to come.

Like we do with our birthdays, Lisa and I are spreading the ass feast out over several days. We are going to make a Vegan Hummingbird Bundt Cake with Vanilla Glaze tonight, and feed some of it to the donkeys that live near us in Weaverville, NC. There may be a video to go along with the song in the near future, if all goes well.

Until then, I will leave you with my sweet-ass song: Nobody Like Buddy

The Feast of the Ass is a holy day
We fill it with good friends and cheer
Let's raise up our glasses and toast all the asses
We've known throughout all of the years

Come, come, drape that ass
And bow at the altar with me
With no shame or scorn we can blow in our horns
And tremble in deep harmony

There's nobody like Buddy, like Buddy the ass,
But Buddy's sweet-ass girlfriend Rose
At the feast they eat bundt cakes with their pretty mouths,
And lick the glaze off of each other's nose

Come, come, Buddy & Rose,
Reveal to us the pleasures we seek!
And if we're offended when our lives get upended
Teach us to turn the other cheek

Joseph and Mary they've ridden an ass
And the Magi once rode an ass, too (that’s true)
If you are shy but still want to try
Find someone to share their ass with you

The Feast of the Ass is a holy day
It warms this cold time of the year
Be ye old or young let this song on your tongue
Bring pleasure to all of our ears!
Bring pleasure to all of our ears!
Bring pleasure to all of our ears!

To add to the madness, I had decided to make a vegan cookbook zine for our friends and families. This I did in the late evenings after our bodies were too exhausted to mud, sand, and paint. I get a little carried away with my design projects, and was adding photos, clip art, and stories to each of the recipes.

Somehow I always get myself into impossible situations. If I could afford therapy I would try to figure it out, but I am just too busy (and trying to keep up with my bills) to ever create a situation where I can indulge in self care. If I had a therapist they would disagree with that sentiment. Someday I will get the help I need.

In 2016 I was living in Brooklyn and working at the Jivamukti Yoga Center in Union Square. Marijuana was still illegal in NYC, but I enjoyed getting high sometimes. There were lots of underground delivery services, but I had some connections upstate and would go up and bring back enough to cook down into coconut oil. I found a really great recipe for vegan peanut butter cookies and made batches of them. I had a roommate who loved them, and a few other people around the city who bought them from me, so it was a little side hustle.

The thing about the cookies is that they are so delicious they are hard to stop eating once you have a bite. Sometimes I would make a second batch just to satisfy that craving without getting too stoned to walk. Usually I just practiced self-restraint. Maybe I don’t need therapy after all.

As Lisa and I chose our favorite recipes for the cookbook, I knew I had to include the peanut butter cookies. I wrote a funny version of the story above and had it all ready to go. Lisa looked at it and asked, “are you going to give this to your parents?”

I was. I thought to myself, “I am a grown ass man, its OK for them to know I partake in the kind bud sometimes.” After all, I had been busted in high school and then in the Marines, so it wouldn’t be a complete shock. I also wanted to let my friends know they could make the pot cookies with this recipe.

On the morning of December 29th, I had a change of heart. I could let my friends know without writing about it in the book. So I set out to write a different story to go with the recipe.

I brainstormed all of my connections to peanuts and peanut butter. In my mind I travelled back in time to when I was a young boy, and Jimmy Carter was president. He famously was a peanut farmer, and it was talked about often. All of the political stuff about him went over my head, but the peanuts spoke to me. The president and I loved peanuts.

And so it was that I began writing about Jimmy Carter on the morning of his death. I assume that since I Googled him and nothing about him dying came up, he was still alive at the time (or his death had not been announced at least).

Jimmy spent nearly two years in hospice, taking his time to say his good-byes. He was waiting for the opportune moment, transitioning through the bardo states towards the dissolution of body and mind that ends this round of incarnation. Perhaps his soul was seeking some final acknowledgement in order to let go. He was having an out-of-body experience checking out the devastation from Helene in Asheville when he floated by my house and saw me writing about the Jimmy Carter Peanut Statue in Plains, GA. He knew it was his cue to let go.

I know, it’s a sign of megalomania for me to think this way. Did I mention that I need therapy?

Another theory I have about his dying is that he couldn’t go through another Trump presidency. The two men could not be more different.

Unlike Trump, who stirs up race wars and anti-immigration tropes, Carter was a champion of racial integration in schools in America. He negotiated a peace treaty between Egypt and Israel in the Middle East with the Camp David Accords. He was known for telling the truth, even though his honesty and compassion probably kept him from a second term. He did not get us into any wars, and transitioned out of office peacefully.

Carter was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2002 for his “decades of untiring effort to find peaceful solutions to international conflicts, to advance democracy and human rights, and to promote economic and social development"

It is my hope that he transitioned out of this life peacefully, surrounded by people who loved and cared for him. Maybe one of them brought him one of my peanut butter cookies.

I found out about President Carter’s passing after the cookbook was finished and on its way to the printer, so I did not mention his death in the book. It’s just one of life’s funny synchronicities. The news coverage has brought up a lot of memories of my childhood. I remember the long lines for gas and the Iranian hostage crisis that brought down Carter’s presidency. I remember Reagan taking over, and his ramping up of the tragic war on drugs that put thousands of non-violent people behind bars, mostly people of color. I don’t think we have had as honorable a president as Carter since then.

I finished the remodelling of our home the just in time for Lisa’s daughter to arrive, and got the cookbook printed in time to share it with my family during our New Year’s visit. I am going to send a copy to all of my paid Substack subscribers, you can use the form below to sign up. I have big plans for content this year, and hope you will stay connected. Happy New Year!

“If you think you’re enlightened go spend a week with your family.” ~Ram Das

Like most people, you probably have mixed feeling about the holidays.

Perhaps you are a naysayer. Have you had it up to here with the ghastly inflated plastic Santas, the cringe-worthy songs of joy and peace, the black friday-cyber monday-giving tuesday-broke ass wednesday charade? Maybe you dread hearing Uncle Bob gleefully gloating about Trump winning the election, and you aren’t sure you can keep calm and carry on?

Or, perhaps, you are a Christmas fanatic. You revel in being surrounded by loved ones while laughing, reminiscing, and eating delicious food. You delight in the perfect gift given or received. You are intoxicated by the smell of pine trees, the fresh blanket of snow covering the landscape, and the happy faces of children playing with their new toys.

For most of us, we will weave between the two paths. Our minds will veer drunkenly from one to the other, with our wounded and wound-up inner child at the wheel.

Do you have a strategy for getting through the short days and long nights with your soul intact?

For me, the holidays begin the last week of November. I celebrated an intimate vegan Thanksgiving at the home of one of my yoga students. She invited my partner Lisa and I, along with a married couple we were meeting for the first time. Everyone except me had a little wine, and after the meal we were chatting it up. At one point the wife looked at me and said, “Pashupa has the most peaceful face I have ever seen!”

That statement caught me off guard, but my ego enjoyed it and we all started laughing. Peace face. I carried those words home with me with the leftovers. Ego said to me, “she can tell how enlightened you are, wise yogi!”

“Shut up, ego,” said the wise yogi part of my brain.

When we got home and talked about it, Lisa agreed I had a peace face, but then reminded me of the other aspects of my personality. Those mischievous and feral parts of me. The part of me that yells a prolonged “fuck!” at the top of my lungs, audible to our whole neighborhood, when I ordered a door with the wrong inswing twice in a row. The part that puts a glob of peanut butter on our puppy Bodhi’s nose to amuse myself watching her lick it off. The part of me that somehow upsets Lisa once every day or two.

I have named these parts of myself. Peaceful Pashupa, and Derek the Destroyer. We all have various aspects of personality, and knowing who we are in any given moment can help us determine our best course of action when problems arise.

Yoga for our inner puppy

In the Yoga Sutras, yoga is defined as the “quieting of the whirlings of the mind.” It is not the only definition of yoga, but it’s the one you will hear most quoted in the west.

Our internal and external worlds mirror one another. When our mind becomes agitated, the world around us seems more chaotic. A chaotic world puts our thoughts in a mixing bowl and whisks them into pancake batter. Once we smell our brain burning on the cosmic griddle, we know we are cooked.

Fortunately, the opposite is also true. A calm lake reflecting a shimmering sunrise slows us down to appreciate the beauty of the world. Manifesting a meditative mind truly calms the world around us.

With the physical practices of yoga, we are using our bodies to bring awareness to our mental states. Get into an uncomfortable position, stay there, breathe, notice what the mind is doing, stay present, breathe, stay calm. Change position, start again.

Seated meditation is similar. The body starts out comfortable, just sitting. We watch our breath, or chant a mantra, or focus awareness on an object. Soon the body is uncomfortable, the mind is wandering, we want to squirm or itch, change our leg position, give up until tomorrow. But if we can stay there and endure, we get to know ourselves a little better.

It’s the awareness that makes the difference. The simple path is to let the mind whirl. Ride it back and forth from past to future, with brief stops in the present to make-believe you are paying attention. “Yes, honey, I am listening deeply to everything you said. Could you repeat that last thing?”

The simple path is not the easy path. Simple simply means there are less steps. Complexity is the process of combining several simple steps to achieve something more profound. Complex paths take longer, but bring more ease. Simple, but not easy.

Watching the mind is like raising a puppy. You can put some peanut butter on her nose to keep her busy, but soon enough she licks it all off and starts chewing up the furniture. You really need to create some rituals of attentiveness to get her under control. “Mind, sit!” Mind, stay!” “That’s a good girl!”

And then she runs away and pees on the couch.

Over time, with enough treats, we can train the puppy mind to sit and stay. It is a complex process. In the end, it brings us more joy and peace.

Five ways to not lose your shit this year

I have been thinking about my peace face. Is it a mask to hide the undertow of my chaotic soul? Not exactly. I have been vegan for almost thirty years, and practicing yoga for over half that time. I know some things about peace. I’m also a hot mess at times. I have a spastic face, too. Turns out I’m still human after all these years.

Here are my tips for you to make it to 2025 without losing your shit.

1. Don’t Forget to Breathe. When someone says something fucked-up, or when something fucked-up happens, and you feel the emotions flooding your system, you have a couple of seconds before you lose your shit. Take a deep breath and fill your lungs, then release it while slightly constricting the throat. Repeat until you feel your face becoming peaceful. Then respond thoughtfully.

2. Redirect the Energy. Social media bubbles have increased tribalism and put us all on edge. We have forgotten how to get along. The simple response to subtle (and not-so-subtle) insults and politically-charged statements is to dig in and defend our positions. Uncle Bob’s gonna see that reaction and start throwing tear gas. Don’t dig in! Ask Bob how he came to his beliefs, be genuinely curious about his life. Keep him talking about himself. Maybe you will learn something.

3. Create Boundaries. Sometimes you will have enough. Enough food, enough conversation, enough criticism, whatever it is. Speak up for yourself. In the Yoga Sutras, non-harming (Ahimsa) is the first step on the path to yoga. Truthfulness (Satya) is the second. The wise person will tell always tell the truth unless it causes harm. If you can say, “I have had enough,” without hurting someone else, that is the best path. But sometimes you will have to bend the truth to not hurt someone’s feelings. Remember, lies often come back to bite us. Be as honest as you can, but let people know you have boundaries they can’t cross. Create a safe space around yourself.

4. Be Love. Most of us want the best for others. Most of us have kindness in our hearts. If you resonate with that, how can you manifest it? Do you have a peace face? Try to find a kind thing to say to each person you encounter. Especially the people who trigger you. If you have followed the second item in this list, perhaps you have learned something about Uncle Bob that you respect, or identify with. Tell him. Our ego’s all want to be seen and complimented.

5. Use the Peace Face Emoji 😌. OK, this is the most esoteric on my list. Only for advanced yogis. In researching peace face, I learned that there is a relieved face emoji. As 2024 draws to a close, we can all feel relief. What could go wrong in 2025? When your partner sends you that anxious text message, or you get spam from an unknown source, respond with the peace face emoji (formerly known as the relief face emoji). Teach gramma how to use it. It is the gif that keeps on giving.

Resting Peace Face

One question I am often asked, “Is there a resting peace face?”

The laws of physics say that a face in rest tends to stay in rest. Whatever face you display the most will become your resting face.

The laws of psychics say that behind every face is someone who will pay to know what the future holds, and therein lies the anxious face.

If we look far enough into the future, we will understand that nothing we do will be remembered for long. Don’t sweat the temporary stuff.

In the short-term, it’s not what you say that people will remember, but how you make them feel.

Your peace face is contagious. The woman who told me I have the most peaceful face surely now has one of her own. I have been spreading my peace face around. Although no one knows what is behind my beard. That’s where my turbulent chin and undulating neck rolls dwell.

Wishing you peace on Earth, and goodwill to all the genders.

I just watched the final episode of the heartbreaking four-part series Breath of Fire on HBO Max with my partner Lisa. It is a documentary about Kundalini Yoga told through the lives of its founder Yogi Bhajan (Harbhajan Singh Puri), and the charismatic heirs to his throne, Guru Jagat (Katie Griggs) and Hari Jiwan Singh.

Spoiler alert… Yogi Bhajan was a monster. Like the disgraced Bikram yoga founder, Bikram Choudhury, he used his reputation as a spiritual teacher to sexually assault his students and employees. Like the fallen guru Rajneesh (Osho), he grew a large cult following and manipulated the members for his own gains.*

Guru Jagat, a female Kundalini teacher, was poised to become the heir to Bhajan’s empire (thanks in part to the behind-the-scenes coaching from Bhajan’s right-hand man, Hari Jiwan Singh). She was younger than Bhajan and Jiwan, and became an influencer in the yoga world by harnessing social media and celebrity associations.

In 2020, sixteen years after his death, one of Bhajan’s top students named Pamela Dyer released a memoir, “Premka: White Bird in a Golden Cage: My Life with Yogi Bhajan,” and it began a cascade of revelations about the sexual abuses and manipulations of Bhajan. An Olive Branch, an independant Buddhist-inspired group, was hired by the umbrella group overseeing Bhajan’s legacy corporations and nonprofits, was hired to conduct an investigation and file a report. The resulting 76-page report laid it all out:

The details of the extremely brutal acts of sexual abuse that came forward need a trigger warning for survivors. Reading the report can be retraumatizing.

Around 300 people were contacted by the team of An Olive Branch, half supporters of YB and half reporters of harm.

The report divided the community. Some teachers and trainers distantiated themselves from the community and the organizations. Either they stopped practicing or teaching Kundalini Yoga as taught by Yogi Bhajan, or they chose to go their own way.

While he did not live to see his legacy destroyed, Yoga Bhajan died in terrible health. He had not been practicing the yoga he taught, he was overweight and diabetic. Parts of his foot were amputated. No amount of wealth and fame can protect us from karma.

While Guru Jagat may not have been aware of the sexual abuse during Bhajan’s lifetime, she herself claimed to come to Kundalini for healing because she was sexually assaulted. Much of her popularity was due to her promotion of female empowerment woven into prosperity theology. When the book and the report came out, she had a chance to denounce Bhajan and stay true to brand.

Instead, she took the advice of Jiwan Singh, the Dick Cheney of the Kundalini administration. He was the living parallel to the deceased Bhajan, a bearded old white man with a dark past playing the role of guru. He was also the power and money behind Ra Ma, Jagat’s yoga brand, community, and studio. He certainly had secrets to keep, and Jagat had become a money-obsessed shadow of her former self. She doubled down on Bhajan’s innocence, and in doing so rolled out a karmic yoga mat to practice her own undoing.

Throughout the documentary we watch Jagat become increasingly paranoid and susceptible to conspiracy theories (along with a large swath of the wellness industry during the pandemic years). She gained a lot of weight, and in 2021 broke her ankle in Germany. Choosing to fly back to the US before having it treated may have been her final undoing. Shortly after getting surgery on her ankle, she died of a pulmonary embolism.

*There are many yoga scandals in recent history. Wikipedia has a Sexual abuse by yoga gurus page listing some of them. Check out the Netflix documentaries Bikram: Yogi, Guru, Predator and Wild Wild Country (about Rajneesh) to find out more about two of the most prominent ones.

Full disclosure: my Kundalini connections

My partner Lisa completed the Kundalini Yoga teacher training in 2011, the same year I did the Jivamukti Yoga teacher training. While I was working at the Jivamukti Yoga headquarters in NYC, I noticed there was a significant number of students who practiced both.

Jivamukti is one of the original vinyasa styles in the US. The founders Sharon Gannon and David Life studied Ashtanga Yoga with K. Pattabhi Jois, who invented the vinyasa that permeates much of the yoga world today. Vinyasa means “to place in a special way,” and was developed to link movement and breath in order to bring awareness to the connection between body, mind, and spirit.

Unfortunately K. Patabhi Jois had a posthumous sex scandal of his own. Ashtanga Yoga (and Jivamukti) is known for its yoga adjustments, which are hands-on movement of a student’s body by a teacher to help the student find correct alignment, or get deeper into a pose. There are multiple photographs and videos of Jois touching students improperly, with his hands on their genitals, man and woman alike.

While it seems obvious in a post #MeToo environment, asking consent to give yoga adjustments wasn’t the norm before then. I gravitated to Jivamukti in part because I loved receiving adjustments. As a teacher I loved to give them. I still do, but now I am very careful to get consent and use the techniques appropriately.

Kundalini and Jivamukti both have gatherings where most of the participants wear white. Yogi Bhajan built the Kundalini brand to be associated with Sikhism, appropriating the turbans and mantras of the religion without placing them in proper context. Wearing white at our gatherings was the part of Jivamukti that felt most culty to me, but in day-to-day practice and work we did not dress that way, and never wore turbans.

Jivamukti had its own scandals, but Gannon and Life have never been accused of sexual impropriety and as far as I can tell, the scandals involving other teachers were really about scorned lovers seeking retribution. Of course, being a Jivamukti Yoga teacher who worked as their web editor during those times, I have some bias.

In 2018 I volunteered to photograph the Sat Nam Kundalini Festival in Western MA. My friends were working in the kitchen and it was a chance to escape NYC and connect with them. Being in that environment, surrounded by people wearing white clothing and turbans, with mystical musical performances and strange movement classes, was fun. The people were all very sweet and kind. No one tried to recruit me or manipulate me.

Here’s a funny story. I did not know anything about Bhajan at the time, but I wanted some memorabilia from the fest and bought a tee-shirt with a cartoon drawing of him with the letters WWBD above it. The letters stood for “What Would Bhajan Do?”, a riff on the “What Would Jesus Do” meme. The shirt really tickled my fancy. I wore it at the festival, as seen in the photo above. It mysteriously disappeared after that, and for some time I was vexed that I had lost it. Now I know that there was a higher power looking over me.

Spiritual communities attract predators

There is a larger pattern in regards to spiritual teachers, and it goes beyond yoga. We all know about the scandals of the Catholic church and altar boys. A 2019 Houston Chronicle and San Antonio Express-News report named 220 Baptist pastors, ministers, deacons, volunteers, Sunday school teachers and others who were found guilty of sexually abusing churchgoers over 20 years.

This year in Malaysia, police rescued 402 children after sex abuse allegations at Islamic welfare homes. From the Orthodox Jewish tradition, we have the case of a Brooklyn yeshiva teacher named Yehuda Kolko (David Framowitz), who sexually molested children for decades. New York City changed its laws so that he could be convicted for crimes that were previously sheltered by the state’s statute of limitations.

Even the peaceful Buddhists have their scandals. In 2017 Sogyal Rinpoche, an influential Tibetan Buddhist lama, author of the Tibetan Book of Living and Dying, was accused of physical, sexual, and psychological abuse.

Spiritual beliefs open us to predators. We are vulnerable because we have an innate longing to connect with the divine. The divine is mysterious and unknowable. A psychopath who pretends to have a deeper understanding of the divine can manipulate people who are seeking to know the unknowable.

Bhajan was able to seperate children from their parents and send them to India, where they were starved and abused. The parents believed they were doing the best for their children. They did not perceive that Bhajan was a pedophile, rapist, and child abusing monster.

What comes first, the predator or the cult?

Cults tend to form with a charismatic leader, who may be a predator. Cults that grow large enough eventually become categorized as religions. Religions attract predators to positions of power, giving them access to the bodies and minds of their communities. There are certainly leaders who start out with good intentions and then get corrupted by their power over devotees.

The phenomenon of Donald Trump’s rise to power can be compared to cultish behaviors. He is a sexual predator, and seems to be surrounding himself by other predators. His followers don’t seem to mind. Many see him as a holy man, fulfilling prophecy. To people like me, who see something else, it is disheartening and strange.

The baby and the bathwater

An interesting question that many of us have grappled with lately is whether it is OK to enjoy the works of a person who has done terrible things. Is it OK to listen to Michael Jackson? Can we practice Kundalini, Ashtanga, Anusara, Kripalu, Bikram, or any other yoga whose founders were problematic? Is it OK to teach from these traditions?

What brings many of us to yoga is the possibility that we can connect in a deeper way to our spiritual nature. And many of us do. Modern yoga practice has evolved from thousands of years of spiritual seeking. It contains multitudes, including Hinduism, Tantra, the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali, the influence of Buddhism, Ayurvedic lifestyle, capitalist influence, New Age dilution, and on and on.

I was recently listening to an interview with yoga innovator Judith Hanson Lasater on the Let’s Talk Yoga Podcast (episode here). She was talking about her first time teaching yoga and something she said really stuck with me. It was over 50 years ago and she hadn’t taken a teacher training, back then you taught when your teacher told you to. She found herself frozen in front of a room full of students, but then had a vision of her teacher being part of a lineage going back into the past. Each teacher stood behind the next, passing a bucket of water from one to the next.

…they were handing a bucket of water forward to me. And in a blinding flash of the obvious I realized, “Ah, I am the bucket! I’m not the water.” And it gives me chills. Every time I tell that story, it just gives me those chills up and down my back. Because I took from that, that it’s not me.

It was like an initiation. It was, that I’m now part of this lineage, this sacred lineage, and I want to hand the lineage forward. I don’t want to put myself forward. I am the bucket, not the water.

Understanding our place in the world is a lifelong journey. I admit that many of my actions in the past came out of ego. I often mistook myself for the water. I feel blessed that I never became a super popular teacher at a young age, I may have fallen into darkness. Especially since I was abusing alcohol in those days, and longing for connection and admiration.

Now I understand, I am the bucket. As a yoga teacher and person trying to live with compassion and awareness, I find myself navigating many worlds. Is my love of, and connection to, the yoga tradition a form of cultural appropriation? How do cultures evolve and religions spread, if not for appropriation?

Part of my love of the Jivamukti Yoga method is that we try very hard to follow the teachings in the Yoga Sutras and the Bhagavad Gita. It is not just a workout, or series of poses. There are imperfections, and the yoga I teach now is not strictly the yoga I learned from my years with Jivamukti. But I do try my best to remember my bucket nature, and keep the water I share pure.

Practicing what we preach

The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali is the primary text most yoga teachers and studios reference, but it was written for seekers who would renounce material gains for spiritual attainment.

In the Sutras Patanjali laid out the yamas, five ways that we should treat others if we seek enlightenment. The very first yama is ahimsa, non-harming. The fourth yama is brahmacharya, which early commentaries tell us is abstaining from sex. Modern yogis change the interpretation to be about using our sexual energy wisely. In the Yoga Sutras, the lists that Patanjali makes put the most important concept first. If we do have sex, we should do it in a way that does not harm others.

Fortunately (or not) for modern practitioners, the yoga tradition has many other schools and texts. In 2020 I took my advanced teacher training with yoga innovator Amy Ippoliti, and she taught from a tradition of Tantra, as taught by Douglas Brooks. Instead of trying to escape the world and become enlightened, Tantra is the path to realizing the perfection of life in this moment, using the material world as a tool. It still has moral obligations, but sex and even eating flesh can be integrated. Tantra, is not all about sex though, that is a modern western misunderstanding. Some tantrikas will abstain from sex as part of their practice. Traditionally the teacher will prescribe practices that will help the student evolve spiritually.

What we do know is that yoga practice has helped many people in the west find ease and comfort in their lives. It has helped some people heal from PTSD. It has helped others heal their bodies. It gives us plenty to meditate on, and many technologies to improve our hearts, minds, and bodies.

What Bhajan did was certainly appropriation of the Sikh culture in a dark and inappropriate way. The documentary says he made everything up, but the mantras are from Sikhism. Some of the asana practice is legit, too. There are parts of Kundalini I have always thought strange, like lifting and lowering my arms for a very specific number of minutes and seconds. Kundalini teachers looking at their watches did not feel timely to me.

Interestingly, many of the asanas we practice today evolved from British gymnastic practices (thanks to the British colonization of India, which is also the reason Patanjali’s Yoga Sutras was recovered from obscurity). There has been an exchange of ideas and philosophies going back to prehistoric times. It is what humans do.

Breath of Fire: the practice

One example of a yoga baby we can seperate from Bhajan’s bathwater is the pranayama practice that is also the name of the documentary about him: Breath of Fire

Breath of Fire is the modern name of an ancient breathing technique called Kapalabhati, which translates to “skull shining”.

It is one of the classic kriyas or purification techniques of Hatha Yoga, and it is referenced in both the Hatha Yoga Pradipika and the Gheranda Samhita, the two texts that form the basis of most modern yoga practice. ~Siddhi Yoga

In Sanskrit, “kapala” means “skull,” and “bhati” means “to shine.” Kapalabhati is one of the six yogic cleansing techniques called “shatkarma kriyas” in the Hatha Yoga Pradipika.

Kapalabhati has been reported to improve cardiovascular, respiratory, mental, and physical health on different parameters.

To a casual viewer of the documentary, the "breath of fire” probably seems strange. The creators of the series give us the impression that Bhajan “made up everything,” but that is an exaggeration. He borrowed and appropriated many parts, and made up the rest.

In the end, it’s up to us to seperate the baby from the bathwater.

Final thoughts

Lisa and I moved to Asheville in August, and started practicing at our local studio. There was a Kundalini class which we took a couple times, and soon Lisa was subbing for the class. She is now the primary teacher.

After watching the documentary, we are shaken and wondering how to move forward. The studio owner thinks that the number of people who have benefited from Kundalini yoga over the years justifies keeping the name of the class, and a photo of Bhajan on the wall next to other influential teachers.

Lisa and I took the photo down in a moment of passion, without consulting the owner. We then explained, and returned the photo to them. The photo is now back on the wall. The photo of a smiling rapist who separated children from their families and then starved and abused them. Who groomed underage girls so that he could rape them once they became adults. K. Patthabi Joice is up there, too, with his groping hands. Luckily this wall is over a desk and not above an altar, but still… I don’t believe those men deserve to be honored.

The community at the yoga studio is beautiful. Great teachers, wonderful students. The owner is a good person, who probably didn’t watch the documentary. We are in discussion with them. We can ultimately do more good from within, than from without. Only light can dispel the darkness.

The mantra Lokah Samastah Sukhino Bhavantu reminds us to live in a way that honors all beings, everywhere. Spiritual practice is surrounded by pitfalls, and finding a path that is pure and true is part of the journey. Discernment is the key, and it is the biggest challenge. Our hearts our eager, and our minds can get carried away by our emotions, like bridges in a flood. Fortify yourself, keep asking questions, and don’t be afraid to cut your losses if something doesn’t feel right.

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om tare tuttare ture soha ~Buddhist Green Tara Mantra

In this life we are an amalgamation of stories we tell ourselves and dreams we dream quietly or out loud. Sometimes we can sense the frailty and impermanence of it all, while other times it seems life will always be as it is, now.

My friend sent me a text the other night with a link to a Facebook post. Tara’s sister had posted that Tara was going into hospice. She had hoped to go to Germany to seek out a treatment for the cancer, but time ran out.

I did not know Tara was sick, I hadn’t spoken to her in a few months. She had subscribed to my Substack a couple days earlier, so she was on my mind. She was a sweet soul always supporting her friends. I had no idea that I would never see her again.

The Buddhist Green Tara mantra “om tare tuttare ture soha” is a mantra of liberation. Tara is “the mother of all buddhas,” a Bodhisattva who relieves our suffering. Buddhism would weave its way through our friendship over the years, and it makes sense that she would share an auspicious name with a goddess and mantra that Mahayana Buddhists hold dear.

This photo is of Tara the day I met her. It was April 2nd, 2005, and she was volunteering at a table for Lantern Books at the Grassroots Animal Rights Conference in Harlem, NYC.

I was in the heydey of my veganism, I was at the conference with my camera. The event was a lot more radical in its ideology than most vegan conferences at the time. I liked that.

I was also recently single, and getting crushes on everyone. I definitely had one on Tara after meeting her. She was soft spoken, kind, friendly, and seemed a little shy.

At the time I was living in Western MA and visiting NYC whenever there was a good reason to. I visited NYC a couple months after the conference and went out to dinner with Tara. I remember being infatuated with her, and enjoying a lovely evening. She told me she was seeing someone else and so we said goodnight and promised to keep in touch.

Tara ended up marrying that someone else a year later. They had a fancy vegan wedding and I got to meet Tara’s family and friends. She was a lyricist, librettist, composer, teaching artist, and seasoned vocalist, and so there were lots of theater people there. I was her photographer.

I don’t remember exactly the timeline of our friendship, but at some point I connected Tara with the Vipassana meditation course in Shelburne, MA. I had participated in the 10-day silent meditation retreat around my birthday in 2002, and felt that it had a profound effect on my life. Tara did the course and got hooked, and it became a deep connection for us over the years.

During that time Tara had a beautiful son named Elijah. Her marriage ended and there was weird custody stuff going on that I did not understand. I don’t know enough about the circumstances to weigh in. I just know that Tara was full of love and I could feel her pain. In the end I know Tara and Elijah had a beautiful relationship, but the dad could have made it easier. Taras are known for their unconditional love, and part of that love is patience.

Tara and I remained in touch through the years. It was funny, because I ended up moving to NYC around the time that she moved to Western MA, so we lived in each other’s worlds but never in the same one at the same time.

I find myself now feeling some guilt. Tara was often the one to reach out, to let me know she was going to be in the same place I was, or that she was thinking of me. I am not the best at keeping in touch with people. The last time I saw her we met at an ice cream shop in Northampton in 2023, and enjoyed the vegan “no moo” flavors. It was a quick visit, and I got to meet Elijah as a teenager. I wish I had been the one to reach out more. How could a year go by and I not know she was sick?

Tara made much of my introducing her to Vipassana and being a vegan inspiration with all of my creative activism. She saw the good in me. Sometimes it made me feel a little uncomfortable, I don’t think that highly of myself.

So here I am, thinking about friendship and loss. Limited by time and space, and the business of our lives, it is not possible to always be there for anyone. How can we make each moment count?

I have been reading the posts on Tara’s facebook page, trying to understand the fullness of who she was. She was loved, she was talented, she was kind. She had a life that was both blessed and challenged. She had good friends.

Thank you sweet Tara for choosing me as one of them. Blessings on your journey. I believe we all dissolve and recombine, in the spirit world as in the biological one. I feel your peace and love. I will always think of you when I chant the mantra or see an image of Tara. Or when I am reminded by any number of more mundane things. I send my infinite love.

The Meaning of the Mantra “Om Tare Tuttare Ture Soha”

Om is the sound of the cosmos and the cosmic consciousness — the cycle of creation, sustainment, and dissolution that repeats eternally.

Tare is Mother Tara relieving our suffering, from birth, old age, sickness, and dying.

Tuttare liberates us from eight particular dangers, each of which represents a corresponding human mental problem:

• lions — pride

• wild elephants — delusion and ignorance

• forest fires — hatred

• snakes — jealousy

• robbers — wrong views, including fanatical views

• prisons — greed and miserliness

• floods — desire and attachment

• demons — doubts caused by delusion

Ture reveals the Bodhisattva path, how to liberate ourselves and others from suffering. The Bodhisattva is one who reaches enlightenment and chooses to come back and help others. Tara had this spirit.

Soha is a “may it be so” or “fuck yes!” kind of statement.

Works by Tara Bahna-James (1973-2024)

Ophelia Sleeps

Singing

A couple of days ago an oarfish washed up on an Encinitas, California beach. It is the second time it has happened in California this year. According to Japanese mythology, it is a bad omen.

In traditional Japanese legend, oarfish were known as "ryugu no tsukai" meaning "the messenger from the sea dragon god's palace." People believed oarfish would come up from the deep to warn people when an earthquake was imminent. This myth caused a stir in 2011 when 20 oarfish washed ashore in the months before Japan was struck by the country's most powerful earthquake.

~Livescience

The oarfish is known as the doomsday fish. It lives in the deep sea, and is rarely seen by humans. It can grow to be 30 feet long. It looks scary, but it only eats tiny creatures that it filters through its mouth, and wouldn’t hurt a human (a flea in the sea should be careful though).

As most of you know (or may infer), I am not a deep sea fish. I try to exude an aura of mystery and depth, but I am not overly either. I am a human, and have that same proclivity to recognizing patterns in my environment that you do. But alas, I have never been to the sea dragon god’s palace.

In 2019 I got dumped by my fiancé. I was living in NYC and kinda wanted to get the fuck out of there anyway, so I did. After wandering around the country for a few months I ended up in Boulder, Colorado. It was all mountains and rainbows for a little while, but then 2020 rolled around and the pandemic hit.

I’ll be honest, I enjoyed the pandemic. Or at least the lockdown part of it. I sat by the creek behind my apartment, played my ukulele and sang songs. I made a really great podcast. I drove around in the mountains in a four wheel drive UPS truck. I knew that people were dying, and I felt guilty that I was having a good time. But what kind of harbinger of doom would I be if I was just sad all the time?

Eventually I decided to help my friend Matt in Northampton, MA with his carpentry business. He couldn’t find a skilled carpenter so he agreed to teach me carpentry in exchange for my labor. I moved there in 2021 and began my training.

During my time in Northampton, there were no apparent disasters. But for Matt, there was an ongoing one that looked a lot like me. How much I cost him in bad cuts and damaged property we will never know, but it was a lot.

Matt has always called my by my last name. When I fucked up, he threw in my first. “Jesus, Goodwin!” was a refrain I heard often.

Which led me to realize why Jesus became the savior. He was really bad at carpentry. Think about it, when do you hear about anything Jesus built? You would think the Bible would be full of stories about buildings and bridges that are still standing today. But everything he built was crap. That’s why he began preaching. Every mistake led him to deep introspection, and eventually he found the fountainhead of divinity.

At least that’s my theory.

After three years of causing Matt’s hair to turn grey, I decided to strike out on my own again. I found a wonderful woman named Lisa to share my life with, and convinced her to move to Asheville with me. I never told her I was the harbinger, but I assumed she knew.

We arrived in August of 2024, and it was lovely. Breathtaking mountain views, wonderful vegan food, friendly people. Except that guy that threw a full beer can at Lisa while we were biking. He sucks.

We bought a cute little house on a hill in Weaverville, about 20 minutes outside of Asheville. There was a cool swimming hole nearby, and neglected fruit trees to be reclaimed.

By September 26, we had heard there was a hurricane coming, but felt pretty safe in the mountains.

We woke on Saturday morning after Helene to find our power was out but our phones were still working. We called our families to tell them we were alright. A couple trees had fallen in our yard but it all seemed pretty mild. We went outside and waged war with the poison ivy on our property while waiting for the power to come back on. Then our cell phone service died. Must be some lines down.

Eventually we went down to our swimming hole. The day before it was a cute little creek, but now it was a raging river. The bridge at the end of our street had washed away, along with a neighbor’s house. The top of a car was poking out at the center of a whirlpool of water. Giant trees were washed up on shore, along with twisted I-beams from the bridge. People were standing around shaking their heads.

Lisa asked me if I was the harbinger, and I just nodded my own head and sheepishly grinned.

The weeks since then have been a strange and inspiring time. Strange to live in the wake of a disaster, but inspiring to see how resilient people and communities are. We live close to the town of Barnardsville, which has been a hub of neighbors helping neighbors. I even helped out with my carpentry skills a bit. Sorry, neighbors.

The truth is, every cloud has a silver lining. It’s only in the dark that you see the stars shining. It’s only in love that you can break your heart. It’s only after a flood that you can see cars in trees.

I am planning to stay put for a while, but if your town is in need of a shakeup don’t hesitate to invite me. I will wash up on your shores and create chaos.

I am a harbinger.

Most people remember their time in the service by the wars they fought. Vietnam. Iraq. Afghanistan. I joined in the mid-eighties, and there was no war. Sufficient time had passed since Vietnam that it seemed like the mistake of a different generation. The horrors of the desert wars were still ahead of us. I loved practicing martial arts and playing Rambo in the woods. I was young and drinking too much. But mostly I didn’t know myself well enough to realize I wasn’t cut out for the military.

My father was a Navy veteran, and also enjoyed peace time service. He got to climb Mt Fuji in Japan and to be one of the first humans to set foot on the South Pole while he was in the Navy. He thought the military would be good for me, too. Even though rebelling against authority was my primary impulse as a teenager, I still loved him and took his advice to heart.

I was led to believe that the Marines were the most bad-ass, and that I could get in and become part of the Marine Corps Recon, which are the Marine equivalent of the Navy Seals.

As soon as I arrived at Paris Island for boot camp and had my head shaved I realized I had made a big mistake. I was made well aware that I was now government property. I was not going to be Rambo, I was going to be a nameless and faceless soldier that was completely disposable.

After boot camp was Infantry Training. It was there that I got the first ding on my record, getting caught with beer in my locker. It was the beginning of the “pattern of misconduct” that would eventually get me discharged early.

After boot camp and Infantry Training, I got stationed in Camp Lejuene, North Carolina. I was assigned to the Headquarter Company of the 6th Marine Regiment, 2nd Battalion as a TOW gunner. The TOW (Tube-launched, Optically tracked, Wire-guided missile system) is an anti-armor system that is mounted to the top of a Humvee. Even in the 80’s is seemed like an antiquated system, a missile that was guided by two wires that stayed connected to the cannon that it shot out of. But it was better than being a “grunt,” the ground soldier of the Marines. I got to drive instead of march.

I spent the next two and a half years trying to drink and party as much as I could while keeping the appearance of being a soldier. I got along with most of my platoon, except the super hard-core Marines who didn’t have much respect for me. I joined hoping that I would get to see the world, but we didn’t really go anywhere. Except a couple notable exceptions.

One night while out partying with friends I woke up at a stop light with a policeman knocking on the window of my pickup truck. I had my foot on the clutch and the engine still running. It was my first DUI, and another ding on my permanent record. It earned me a trip to alcohol rehab at a Naval base in Jacksonville, Florida. That turned out to be one of the most memorable times in the Marines. I snuck out to see Iron Maiden, and got to hook up with two female soldiers, one in the Navy and one in the Marines. I also got to check out lots of AA meetings and experience sobriety for a little while. It didn’t last.

Some time later I got to go to 29 Palms California for desert warfare training. I was only there a day or two when I got into a drunken wrestling match with a corporal friend of mine. He body slammed me and broke my collarbone. I spent the next two weeks on guard duty at our barracks instead of out blowing shit up with my platoon. It sucked.

The next ding on my record happened there. I was wearing a cast on my right arm when I walked by a Colonel. Not knowing what to do, I panicked and saluted him with my left hand. Oops! Ding!

Most of my time in the service I was also smoking weed. I had some contacts in headquarters who gave us a heads up when a piss test was coming. I used to keep a warm bottle of Mountain Dew next to my belly and pour it into the cup at the urinal. Finally I got caught. The punishment was to be a month of “Correctional Custody Platoon,” a repeat of boot camp with the added joy of smashing rocks with a sledgehammer. No thanks.

I loaded up my pickup truck and drove to Syracuse, my home town. I hid out with friends for about three weeks, though no one was looking for me. I turned myself in after 28 days, because at 30 days I would become a deserter. I went back expecting a court martial and discharge.

Most people who did anything close to what I did ended up doing time in the brig (military prison) and getting a bad conduct discharge. Somehow I pleaded my case well enough that I got a light sentence. Two months of restriction (couldn’t leave the base, had to check in every hour) and a $600 fine. Better than Corrective Custody Platoon! I was both relieved, and sad that I still had two years left to serve.

Everything went pretty well after that, I didn’t get in any more trouble for about a year. Then one day while on guard duty at our armory, I decided to read a book. It was a book by Jonathan Winters that my mom had sent me. Another Colonel caught me, and that was the final ding. Ding, dang, done!

The Marines decided to give me a less-than-honorable discharge, but I appealed it and got out with a general discharge under honorable conditions. It was a victory, I was out and free!

Since then, I have kept my military past in the closet. I wasn’t proud of being kicked out. It took me a long time to realize I had a problem with alcohol, too. Many years and many drunken nights went by.

In 2019 I moved to Colorado. I didn’t have a job or health insurance, and so I decided to look into whether I had any military benefits. I was pretty sure I didn’t. But there was a question on the VA website form about being stationed in Camp Lejuene between 1953 and 1987 (I was there from 1986-1988). As I went down the rabbit hole of why that question existed, I found out that I was being poisoned throughout most of the time I was enlisted!

During that time, United States Marine Corps (USMC) personnel and families at the base — bathed in and ingested tap water contaminated with harmful chemicals at all concentrations from 240 to 3,400 times current safe levels. An undetermined number of former residents later developed cancer or other ailments including ALS, fatty liver disease, infertility, and Parkinson's Disease, which could be due to the contaminated drinking water. Victims claim that USMC leaders concealed knowledge of the problem and did not act properly to resolve it or notify former residents. ~Wikipedia

Thanks to a bill passed by President Obama, people stationed at Camp Lejuene (both civilian and military) during that time no have VA care for life. During the Biden administration the PACT Act was passed which gives us the right to sue the government should we become sick with one of the related diseases. It also cares for military vets affected by burn pits in Iraq and Afghanistan. Fortunately I have not become sick with one of the recognized diseases, although I have some health issues that began back then.

Looking back, I realize that it was my disobedience and bad behavior that may have saved my life. I got out 14 months early, which saved me 14 months of poisoning (allegedly the poisoning ended before I got out, but I don’t really trust that the water became safe overnight). At any rate, I feel like I served my country and sacrificed my own well-being to be there. I am now proud to call myself a veteran.

On Valentines Day of 2020 I gave myself the sweetest gift of all, and gave up alcohol. Looking back on my life, it has been the single most destructive habit. All of my low points have booze tied to them. I never hit rock bottom, by the grace of god, but I wasted so much time, money, and opportunity and I live with regret. I have seen it destroy countless lives, and hope that in my life I can help others find sobriety to pass the gift on.

In May of 2024 I did a Mindful Resilience for Trauma Recovery yoga teacher training with the Veterans Yoga Project, while living in Massachusetts. In August I moved back to North Carolina, this time in Asheville. I hope to begin giving back to the local veterans (and other trauma survivors) by offering yoga classes and spiritual guidance.

To mark Veterans Day today, I am setting a goal of posting one piece of content per day to help others. I will be offering yoga and breathing exercises, along with music, mantra, and musings. I am not 100% sure where it will take us, but it’s my next step. I hope you will join and support me as I go forward.

Semper Fidelis, always faithful.

After a Humvee accident, the person driving hit a tree and my head hit the metal dashboard. I still have the scar.

Dressed for success.

Do you ever get confused by all of the Sanskrit names of yoga poses? In this episode our guest, Victoria Moran, gives us some fun mnemonics to help remember some of the most common poses. You will also find out about the free space on your Sanskrit Bingo card!

I first met Victoria Moran in NYC around 2013, through our many connections in the vegan community. I had just begun working my new job as web editor at Jivamukti Yoga, and she had just released her best-selling book, Main Street Vegan. At the time I didn’t realize that she was also an accomplished yogi.

In this episode of the Don’t Forget Yoga Podcast, Victoria shares her journey in yoga, which began in 1967, long before yoga became a trendy exercise routine in the west. In those days, the spiritual teachings of yoga were integrated into all of the classes, and vegetarianism was an integral part of the practice.

Victoria picked up yoga in one hand and vegetarianism in the other and created a unique and wonderful life. She is the author of 13 books, a public speaker, a podcaster, film producer, and the founder of the Main Street Vegan Academy, which is a training and certification program for vegan coaches, educators and entrepreneurs. She is currently working on getting a film made from the script she co-wrote with her husband, Miss Liberty, about a fictional cow who escapes from a slaughterhouse and the human drama that ensues. “This capricious tale tugs at the heart and the surprise ending will leave you amazed—that’s a promise.”

Watch the video version of Episode 12 on Youtube!

Show Links:

• Victoria Moran’s website

• Main Street Vegan Academy

• Miss Liberty film

• Indra Devi

• Watkins Bookstore in London

• Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 and animal rights

• Sivananda Yoga

• Rynn Berry

Chapters

• 0:00 Intro

• 03:34 Indra Devi and the Goddess Pose

• 05:42 Victoria Goes Vegan

• 08:05 Rocket Raccoon and Guardians of the Galaxy

• 09:32 A Spiritual Journey

• 13:48 Main Street Vegan Academy

• 17:18 The Seat of the Teacher

• 19:47 Sanskrit Asana Mnemonics

• 29:36 Teaching Yoga Philosophy

• 32:30 Advice for New Teachers

• 34:06 Miss Liberty and the Main Street Vegan Podcast

• 40:03 Outro

In this episode we explore the world of kids yoga with guest Deven Sisler, including

• Ways to teach kids yoga and incorporate lessons from yoga philosophy

• How she got into teaching kids yoga, including her experience working with children after the tsunami in Indonesia

• The importance of authenticity and listening in teaching yoga to kids

• Teaching yoga to families and the importance of meeting children where they are

• Deven's journey to offering kids yoga teacher training and writing her book, The Yamas in Pajamas.

Speaking of mnemonics. the use of nursery rhymes and familiar songs to incorporate movement into kids yoga classes is a great fit for a podcast about playful ways to absorb yogic wisdom. This interview inspired Derek to record his own version of Twinkle Twinkle Little Star with lyrics to choreograph sun salutations for children!

In her book, The Yamas in Pajamas, Deven explores ways to get kids and families involved in yoga by incorporating ethical and spiritual lessons from yoga philosophy. The book is divided into chapters dedicated to each of the Yamas, which are principles of ethical behavior in yoga. Each chapter includes reflections, guided meditations, breathing exercises, journal prompts, activities, and mindful movements for kids and their adults to experientially explore these concepts.

Deven's approach to teaching yoga to kids and families is centered around improvisation, meeting children where they are, and creating a space for laughter, play, and authentic listening. She believes in empowering kids to express themselves.

Deven Sisler is a kids' yoga expert and author. She has been teaching yoga to adults and children since 2005 and acro yoga since 2007. Deven's background in theater, art, and circus has influenced her teaching practice, and she combines these elements to create an embodied teaching experience for those interested in sharing yoga with kids and families. Deven offers kids' yoga teacher trainings and has recently released a book called "Yamas in Pajamas," which explores age-appropriate lessons from yoga philosophy for children.

Episode Links

• Stay connected with Deven by signing up for her newsletter and receive a free "Wiggle & Stillness" Guided Meditation: devensisleryoga.com

• Purchase The Yamas in Pajamas

• Purchase a signed copy of the book &/ start your Kids Yoga Teacher Training journey with Deven's "Online Anytime Intro to Philosophy Course : https://www.devensisleryoga.com/shop Use the CODE DontForgetYoga upon checkout for 25% off

• Here’s a Youtube video of Deven teaching the Twinkle Twinkle Yoga Sun Salutation.

• Learn about the song Twinkle Twinkle Little Star

Show Links

• Instagram: dontforgetyoga

• Youtube: dontforgetyoga

In this episode, we're going to explore ways to simplify our approach to teaching yoga by recognizing the core practices that will help us connect with yoga students and become better yoga teachers over time.

This episode features guest Jeffrey Cohen, who shares with us:

• How to keep it simple with the breath

• Three powerful elements of VInyasa: Dristi, Pranayama & Mulabhanda

• Three Niyamas that will supercharge your teaching practice

• The importance of daily meditation

• A fun way to absorb the wisdom of teachers you admire

This episode also features the song Wake Up, Urinate and then Meditate featuring clips from Jeffrey Cohen’s interview layered into original music and a mantra chorus by host Derek Pashupa Goodwin.

Jeffrey Cohen began teaching yoga in 2002, having completed the Jivamukti Yoga Teacher Training with founders Sharon Gannon and David Life. A couple years later he opened the Jivamukti Yoga Charleston with Andrea Boyd, and began being a mentor at Jivamukti Yoga teacher trainings. In 2011, I met him at my Jivamukti Yoga teacher training, where he was the Head Facilitator. He's currently the owner of Satsang Yoga in Charleston. Hi is a musician who leads kirtans and plays rock and roll, and loves the spaces where they overlap.

Show Outline:

• 00:00 Intro

• 02:02 Namaste

• 07:47 Keep it simple with the breath

• 11:25 Three powerful elements of VInyasa: Dristi, Pranayama & Mulabhanda

• 13:02 Don't Forget to Meditate

• 13:42 Wake Up, Urinate, Meditate

• 15:41 Tapas

• 17:07 Svadyaya

• 19:55 Īśvarapraṇidhāna

• 24:25 Teaching Breath

• 28:06 Outro

Show Links:

• Satsang Yoga Charleston

• jeffreycohenyoga on Instagram

• satsangyogacharleston on Instagram

• Wake Up, Urinate and then Meditate song on Youtube

Don’t Forget Yoga

• dontforgetyoga on Instagram

• dontforgetyoga on Youtube

4 Self Care Tips for Yoga Teachers:

1. Set your Intention: know your "why"

2. Breathe

3. Bring it in

4. Be your own parent

That last one might not be apparent... but its a really good one! You will have to listen for context, but I guarantee it will help you make friends with your struggles.

I met Christine in the 2011 Jivamukti Yoga Teacher Training. She is originally from Switzerland, and spent a lot of time teaching in Central America before migrating back to Europe and then discovering her love of Bali. She new teaches Aerial Yoga in classes, workshops and retreats, and also has a succesful coching business.

Christine can be found on her website CristineFurler.com and as christinefurler on Instagram.

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Don't Forget Yoga Links:

• Website: Don't Forget Yoga

• Youtube: @dontforgetyoga

• Instagram: @dontforgetyoga