So, so powerful. Thank you for sharing your experience and wisdom. I absolutely LOVE the “lineage” you’ve shared through pictures at the top of this post. Amazing. I’m so happy to get to absorb and learn from you 🙂 I’ve been thinking about doing a deep dive into purity culture for a long time. This inspired me to add it to my editorial calendar! What especially resonates with me is that this idea of purity doesn’t hold up in nature. We have a beautiful blooming tree in our backyard and I love to go out and look at the gorgeous flowers. But up close, there is no such thing as perfection and certainly with time, the blooms fall away until next year. Rather than worrying about being perfect all the time, we must operate with the wisdom of the seasons, that cyclical nature that evokes the circular shape as a metaphor for continuance, sustenance, and honoring and respecting the energy of life. Thank you for sharing your wisdom. I’m so glad to have found a true, wonderful elder (said with great and deep respect) to learn from.
I am so touched by the warmth of your response, Ashley. Thank you from the bottom of my heart. ❤️ Yes!! I remember the first time I looked down at the floor of the woods with new eyes. MESSY!!! Not a perfect anything anywhere to be found. And yet...there may still be a question about whether there may be a certain perfection in the imperfection? Haha!! Kind of a koan...
Thank you for your stated respect. I am very grateful to be here with you.
Not out of touch at all! We need to keep working on teaching and learning from a more circular, creative and cooperative place rather than a strict top-down one. And place more value on the community-as-guru model as opposed to the guru-as-know-it-all model 😜
I love this: "Let’s replace the podium with the use of the circle. Let’s invite our students into real self-respect by embodying it ourselves." I really appreciate this post as an important reminder that yoga is always evolving and that it hasn't fully evolved to meet the lives of women, at least not on a grand scale. I totally click with all this, and it all reaffirms why I write about yoga here on substack. Thank you:)
Patty, 👏👏👏 I love the richness of speaking one’s truth, no apologies necessary. You made me smile and nod my head in totally agreement. April 8, I join you in celebrating 72 years on this planet…😎
Wow, Darlene! 72 on the eclipse. How wonderful. Yes, I am hearing from many that they also agree with us - the elders - the culture of yoga still has a lot of work to do and we will all do it together!
Patty I love this and love and respect you, and I see you as a beautiful, intelligent wise Elder Yogini and NOT a rambling elder lady lol. But more importantly for naming what is important and what is so. After 2 decades I am finally in a YTT 200 hour program and will graduate this June. While I love and respect all the required reading I do slightly cringe at the male dominated terms and slight misogyny but I get it is the time period too and do respect the lineage. Especially as a queer lesbian gay asian american I am even more sensitive to the Maleness of it all. So thank you for lending your strong powerful eloquent voice for more of a feminine paradigm! Please lead the charge!! Namaste, xoxo Camellia
The texts that we have all read for so long are "good"...and...they are usually so male centered. I know many texts are now being written by women and are female focused, but we have yet to have our perspectives well presented in a thorough way. Things will continue to grow and change. We are just in the beginning.
I LOVE your ramblings, Patty! Ramble away. I love the image of a circle as a teaching tool. No more platforms! My intention in teaching is always to guide students to the wisdom of their own mind-body-spirits. I can't remember who said it, but I like this quote: "Your body is the best book on health you'll ever have the opportunity to read." And we each get our own lifetimes to learn to read it.
Thank you, as always, for sharing your thoughts, insights, and wisdom! Love you!
Love you too, Linda! I love that saying and I had never heard it before. Good one! Another one still love to say and think about is, "Your body is the best toy you will ever have! Enjoy the play!"
Thank you for this honest & insightful post Patty. The circle image is perfect and having experienced hierarchy both in my church career and in the yoga studio I greatly appreciate your call for soul searching & reform 🙏🏻
I'm glad to hear from you, Pat. The church and yoga. Yes, similar paradigms for sure. Thank you for being here and sharing the space and the inquiry. With love.
Hi Cynthia!! So nice to see you here. I have thought about you many times over the years. We had some good laughs together back in the day. It was always fun to have you in class. ❤️ Hoping you are doing well!
Ahhh Patty, this long Journey. This dedication and devotion. This love. This way that we inhabit our skins, our mat-walking bodies, our interchange of breath and exhale of earth. Our ongoing enquires of soma and soul. Hymns, all. Namaste, my dear colleague 🙏🤍
Thank you, Narelle. As I'm contemplating 'ceremony' this morning I am intrigued to see/feel your interesting use of 'hymns'. That inspires a lot of inquiry for me right now. Hymn is sound. Hearing is the element/level of space and space is theopen door to the vastness.
I'm very grateful for your images, always, and now for your words as well. 💖
Hymn is indeed Sound. It reminds me of our chants, Patty. It reminds me of ‘in-tone’; to literally in-tone and in-form ourselves, marinate ourselves in the sub-cellular wash of the All. We ARE Sound. We are conscious (as you well know), experiencing itself in the fractal of this expression: our Body. Sometimes consciousness writes its sound in sand 😉. Which impacts our fascia (since I experience sand as part of the connective tissues of Earth). And then we remember: BOOM! Who we are. This, is the essential vibration that you see in the images 🤍🙏 Namaste dear Patty, and this amazing eclipse day.
So, so powerful. Thank you for sharing your experience and wisdom. I absolutely LOVE the “lineage” you’ve shared through pictures at the top of this post. Amazing. I’m so happy to get to absorb and learn from you 🙂 I’ve been thinking about doing a deep dive into purity culture for a long time. This inspired me to add it to my editorial calendar! What especially resonates with me is that this idea of purity doesn’t hold up in nature. We have a beautiful blooming tree in our backyard and I love to go out and look at the gorgeous flowers. But up close, there is no such thing as perfection and certainly with time, the blooms fall away until next year. Rather than worrying about being perfect all the time, we must operate with the wisdom of the seasons, that cyclical nature that evokes the circular shape as a metaphor for continuance, sustenance, and honoring and respecting the energy of life. Thank you for sharing your wisdom. I’m so glad to have found a true, wonderful elder (said with great and deep respect) to learn from.
I am so touched by the warmth of your response, Ashley. Thank you from the bottom of my heart. ❤️ Yes!! I remember the first time I looked down at the floor of the woods with new eyes. MESSY!!! Not a perfect anything anywhere to be found. And yet...there may still be a question about whether there may be a certain perfection in the imperfection? Haha!! Kind of a koan...
Thank you for your stated respect. I am very grateful to be here with you.
that paradox is the essence of yoga, to me 🙂 I love getting to sit with it.
Not out of touch at all! We need to keep working on teaching and learning from a more circular, creative and cooperative place rather than a strict top-down one. And place more value on the community-as-guru model as opposed to the guru-as-know-it-all model 😜
Thank you for this. I so appreciate your comment. We are definitely sisters in practice! I do love, "community-as-guru"!
Insightful thought provoking post. Thank you.
Thank you for reading and letting me know your found it interesting. Always good to meet new people on this format. I appreciate your reaching out!!
I love this: "Let’s replace the podium with the use of the circle. Let’s invite our students into real self-respect by embodying it ourselves." I really appreciate this post as an important reminder that yoga is always evolving and that it hasn't fully evolved to meet the lives of women, at least not on a grand scale. I totally click with all this, and it all reaffirms why I write about yoga here on substack. Thank you:)
Thank you, Jacquie! I appreciate your support so much. I’m looking forward to checking out some of the posts on your site. Looks good!
Patty, 👏👏👏 I love the richness of speaking one’s truth, no apologies necessary. You made me smile and nod my head in totally agreement. April 8, I join you in celebrating 72 years on this planet…😎
Wow, Darlene! 72 on the eclipse. How wonderful. Yes, I am hearing from many that they also agree with us - the elders - the culture of yoga still has a lot of work to do and we will all do it together!
Patty I love this and love and respect you, and I see you as a beautiful, intelligent wise Elder Yogini and NOT a rambling elder lady lol. But more importantly for naming what is important and what is so. After 2 decades I am finally in a YTT 200 hour program and will graduate this June. While I love and respect all the required reading I do slightly cringe at the male dominated terms and slight misogyny but I get it is the time period too and do respect the lineage. Especially as a queer lesbian gay asian american I am even more sensitive to the Maleness of it all. So thank you for lending your strong powerful eloquent voice for more of a feminine paradigm! Please lead the charge!! Namaste, xoxo Camellia
Thank you for sharing this Camellia.
The texts that we have all read for so long are "good"...and...they are usually so male centered. I know many texts are now being written by women and are female focused, but we have yet to have our perspectives well presented in a thorough way. Things will continue to grow and change. We are just in the beginning.
I LOVE your ramblings, Patty! Ramble away. I love the image of a circle as a teaching tool. No more platforms! My intention in teaching is always to guide students to the wisdom of their own mind-body-spirits. I can't remember who said it, but I like this quote: "Your body is the best book on health you'll ever have the opportunity to read." And we each get our own lifetimes to learn to read it.
Thank you, as always, for sharing your thoughts, insights, and wisdom! Love you!
Love you too, Linda! I love that saying and I had never heard it before. Good one! Another one still love to say and think about is, "Your body is the best toy you will ever have! Enjoy the play!"
Thank you for this honest & insightful post Patty. The circle image is perfect and having experienced hierarchy both in my church career and in the yoga studio I greatly appreciate your call for soul searching & reform 🙏🏻
I'm glad to hear from you, Pat. The church and yoga. Yes, similar paradigms for sure. Thank you for being here and sharing the space and the inquiry. With love.
Hi Cynthia!! So nice to see you here. I have thought about you many times over the years. We had some good laughs together back in the day. It was always fun to have you in class. ❤️ Hoping you are doing well!
Ahhh Patty, this long Journey. This dedication and devotion. This love. This way that we inhabit our skins, our mat-walking bodies, our interchange of breath and exhale of earth. Our ongoing enquires of soma and soul. Hymns, all. Namaste, my dear colleague 🙏🤍
Thank you, Narelle. As I'm contemplating 'ceremony' this morning I am intrigued to see/feel your interesting use of 'hymns'. That inspires a lot of inquiry for me right now. Hymn is sound. Hearing is the element/level of space and space is theopen door to the vastness.
I'm very grateful for your images, always, and now for your words as well. 💖
Hymn is indeed Sound. It reminds me of our chants, Patty. It reminds me of ‘in-tone’; to literally in-tone and in-form ourselves, marinate ourselves in the sub-cellular wash of the All. We ARE Sound. We are conscious (as you well know), experiencing itself in the fractal of this expression: our Body. Sometimes consciousness writes its sound in sand 😉. Which impacts our fascia (since I experience sand as part of the connective tissues of Earth). And then we remember: BOOM! Who we are. This, is the essential vibration that you see in the images 🤍🙏 Namaste dear Patty, and this amazing eclipse day.
Hi, Patty...it's Cynthia P! I love this and especially love hearing your voice. Thank you for the inspiration!