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This smart green fellow who
showed up in my house
made me remember this
poem by Rudy Francisco.

I'm also reminded of the yogic
principle of ahimsa, non-violence.

Bring your merciful self
to the yoga mat this week.

"What better way to understand
a society's workings, I thought,
than to study what it forbids."

This, from anthropologist Manvir
Singh's new book Shamanism -
The Timeless Religion. If this topic
even slightly interests you, I
recommend this work for new
ways of understanding how
culture and religion adapt to
the contours of the human mind.
My borrowed copy will now be
in circulation again at the
Nashville Public Library.

But this anthropological lens
of noticing what you forbid
as a way to understand your own
inner workings fascinates me.

If I look back at my life in yoga,
I've had teachers with all sorts
of hard and fast rules that seemed
most interested in, well, control.
No free form expression allowed.
Conversely, I've had teachers for
whom yoga was all about freedom,
and I was told to embrace this
theme in almost every class though
for me, this had absolutely nothing
to do with why I was practicing.

If I look at my life's path in general
and all the very fervent ideas
I've held fast to, there's much
to glean from what I forbid in my
various phases of certainty.

I'm looking now, too, as I am
very much a work in progress.
And a messy one at that.

Try this lens for yourself.
And maybe notice if there's
anything you forbid yourself
in your yoga practice. Why?

Or, if you're brave, cast this
question wider into your life.
(It strikes me our country
could benefit from this type
of introspection just now.)

To each her own.
Come to yoga
to find what you need.

__________________
photo credit: Joshua Rondeau

The researchers could identify behavior, traits, and BMI based on breathing patterns. (Soroka et al., Curr. Biol., 2025)

While we know that each of us are
wildly differentiated biologically,
no one else has the same genes,
microbiome or traits that you do
(let alone experiences, which in
turn may alter you biologically),
scientists now realize that we each
possess "a respiratory fingerprint."

New technology allowed them to
obtain crazy amounts of information
on the respiration of individuals,
which they were then able to use
to identify those individuals with
97% accuracy. Can you believe
breath quality is that individual?

You can read all about it in the
study published in Current Biology

They also see how respiration markers
can be predictors of disease and are now
curious how changing breath patterns
could actually affect disease.
Ancient yogis are smiling knowingly
having figured this out eons ago.
Contemporary yogis, like us,
are happy every time western science
widens their lens enough to look at
the body's systems as a whole.

Come tend to your breath
on the yoga mat this week.

a past September at Virgin Falls in Sparta, TN
(yes, you should go)

For me the door to the woods
is the door to the temple.
-Mary Oliver

Write it, sister.
The wonderful Mary Oliver
helped me name the peculiar
sort of wonderfulness I felt
when in the forest.
For me, there's no better place
to feel your insides thrum
to the steadying rhythm
of something sacred.

No better place to keen your senses,
catch the feeling of a turning in the air,
know that you are part of
a greater story that is unfurling
far away from city busyness
and well beyond political drama.

Connect with something that matters,
is greater than yourself,
and will nurture your becoming.
It may be your most important job.

Yoga does this too.
See you on the mat this week.

"It is through your body that you
realize you are a spark of divinity."
– BKS Iyengar

I found my way out of this
Vermont sunflower maze,
headed back to the southland,
and am eager to reconnect
with my sweet yoga tribe.

Gosh, a month of filling myself up
with reading that expanded my mind,
painting that let color bloom,
a lake and skies and a full moon
that made me feel like a tiny
part of something far greater
left me thoughtful, quiet, and grateful
for the opportunity to take space
and the knowing I had friends
to come back to.
I hope to see you
for some yoga this week.

Love,
Taunia

Klimt (1918)

In a world that rewards hustle,
rest is a kind of holy defiance.
-Kate Bowler

Come August 1st, I disappear.
A long road trip up north.
Some Vermont hiking.
A pile of books.
Some yoga in Massachusetts.
A long road trip back south.
Then my favorite - a stretch of
solitude and quiet at home.

I'll be thinking of you. I always do.
And after a time of rest,
quiet, introspection, and study,
I'll be ready to join you on the
yoga mat in September.

Find your own riot of rest
where you can as summer
winds down, yogi.

Hope to practice with you
once more in
this last week of July.

I recently read a study that
proved sporadic conversations
with strangers can have
powerful positive effects
upon stress, pessimism, and
emotional resilience.

Rather than head down/phone on,
to stand tall, fully present, and
take in one's surroundings is a
mindfulness practice in itself.
Noticing opportunities to engage
with other humans trains your
brain to scan for connection,
rather than for danger.

This strikes me as rather important
these days. I feel a little ouch every
time someone around me chooses
earphones over roaming free and
well. . . acknowledging my existence.

Social friction is social fitness.
(I read this somewhere.)

Try it. Say something nice to
someone you don't know this
week. They won't be the only
one who suddenly feels good.

Then come to yoga!

I recently read a list of Ten Commandments
that Bertrand Russell wished to promulgate
in his teaching. I think I would do just fine
to try and tackle the first alone.

1. Do not feel absolutely certain of anything.

I am a woman of strong opinions.
I like to know things. I like to feel
like I know things. And also to feel
that I quite understand the why of
what I purport to know.

Growing old. . . or is it up?
or is it out? Maybe all three
- is proving otherwise.
Some of my bedrocks are
shifting. Is it scary? Yes.

But I'd like to let myself flow
a little. Past my sureties.
Beneath my long honed notions.
Over my staid positions that
now look a bit like boulders
I no longer need be tethered to.

Nailed down.
Clinched.
Sewed up.
Sealed.

Instead, I might
loosen my grip a bit to
see what comes.

I think I'll take growth
and uncertainty over
stagnant surety.
I can taste a tiny bit of
transformation here and
there. Me like.

How about you?
Yoga helps.

You've heard the quip
"sitting is the new smoking."
We know moving is good for us.
Our bodies are made for it.
Moving makes us stronger, sleep
better, less anxious and stressed,
boosts immunity, and improves
functioning of all our internal systems.

But, you may ask, what are the
consequences of more sitting?
Buckle up and read on.....

Get a move on, dears.
Take a walk, catch a groove,
play outside, or better yet
do some yoga!

The great Arnold Lobel wrote his
Frog and Toad books in the seventies.
Charming and progressive in that
these two woodland animals were
of the same sex and devoted intimates.

I remember each of the stories
feeling sweet, true, thoughtful
and often poignant. Frog and
Toad often encountered
trying situations, but they could
always rely upon each other.
As a girl,I was delighted by the
muted tones of the illustrations and
the sense of easy going realism.
It was a way of seeing the world
that I later shared with my son.

Lobel's daughter believes creating
these stories was an important part
of her father's emotional processing.
Lobel came out as gay in 1974, four
years after his first Frog and Toad book.
He was 41 years old.

Storytelling is a magical way for us
to see the world through another's eyes.
And honestly, even with stories I dislike,
I come out richer from taking them in.

The more stories let loose in the world,
the richer our understanding, and
the wider our hearts.

Crack one open, yogi.