Greetings and Happy New Year,

First let me offer you a small gift of a visual delight: Underwater Astonishments

I hope this auspicious year, 2012, is the beginning, a new beginning, of a fabulous period of growth and fruition for you. To that end, you might consider what your intention or sankalpa might be for this beginning. Yoga teaches us to use discrimination, viveka, to understand and discern the root of past suffering and happiness and to look with a cool eye toward the truth of our lives. Then, based on this clarity, we begin to envision what our next direction, our aspiration might be. Next is the practice of doing the work, be it poses, breathing, meditation, job, family, whatever, and release attachment to outcome. That’s the yogic formula and you might just want to drink the champagne of intention, practice and detachment this year (or sankalpa, abhyasa, viagraghybham). 

I’ll be on a short silent retreat this year for the beginning of the new year, at a beautiful spot, Esalen. As you know, this is a year of change for YogaNow, and me, so I felt that a slight pause before jumping into the year would be correct. I’ll return on January 5th and happily, voluntarily, joyfully teach at YogaNow until March 31st, and then at various locations around town. I have already found some beautiful spots but if you have a spot let me know, too, please!

The schedule has ungone some necessary changes, please be sure to check it out. For example, I’ll be teaching Monday and Wednesday at 545 pm and there isn’t currently a Thursday night class (though a class may begin there shortly). We have two YogaNow teachers who are traveling in India in January, Aparna and Mike. Aren’t we lucky to have such committed and sincere teachers? So we have subs for Aparna’s morning classes, Cypresse and Lori. For Mike’s classes, Mikiala is teaching the noon ones and we, Meta and Mikiala, will share teaching the Tuesday 545 pm class. The Saturday Ashtanga class will be on a hiatus until Mike returns in February.  Okay, so that’s a lot of information, so you can definitely check the web: Class Schedule.

And now for some inspiration, check out this link of another Ted talk: Amy Purdy:Living Beyond Limits
with so much love and looking forward to meeting on the mat!

Happy New Year! Meta.