Yoga will never be the same for me after this year. I don’t know how it will effect my teaching, but I know that the practice of yoga means something completely different for me than it did just 365 days ago.

Yoga means union.

For me, yoga, just 10 years ago, meant a whole bunch of poses that made me feel peaceful, breathe deeper and look awesome and strong. Little did I know how yoga would effect, change and mold my life. It really is a style of living in connection with all beings and experiences. I didn’t know that yoga would BE my life and how I see yoga in ALL of life.

The challenges I’ve faced over the last year aren’t more difficult than anyone else’s, but for me, it’s important, now that I’m living the most difficult of my trials to date, to liken and unify the two things in my teaching and writing. To do it in a way that can be useful for me and all the yogis that want to understand how to bring that same peace, deep breathing and strength into all of life’s ups and downs.

In addition to all of our own personal trials and celebrations, we as communities and as a country our transitioning into a new phase, historically speaking. It’s my mission, in my own small way, to unify our yoga and it’s purpose in our daily life, besides getting a great workout and feeling good.

Here’s the deal, life happens in ebbs and flows in order to add perspective like a new ingredient to your tasty dilemmas and delights in life. It’s the only way.
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Where am I?

I’m home in LA.

I’m home in NY.

How can you have such a sweet tug to both coasts, loving and feeling so connected to both places.

Home.

I’m at home in my car.

I’m at home in my blog.

Right now, I’m at home at Starbucks in New Rochelle, NY, freezing my bum off and getting caffeinated. I could be anywhere right now. Starbucks, USA. They all look the same and provide the same comfort, of, well, home.

Home is where you are comfortable being yourself.

No matter how long it’s been, NY is home. I’ve forgotten some of the street names. Storefronts are still there, but with different names. Subways are still crowded. The buzz is still the same – intense, alive and remarkable. NY, like LA is always filled with possibility and energy no matter how it changes. I’ve been away from NY longer than when I lived here in my childhood.

Home.

Home, where all my old clothes come to die.

I bring back from LA the things I’m not quite ready to give up but would certainly wear while bumming around the house or working out in the basement gym of my parent’s home.

I always travel light but always bring too much because no matter what, I always end up wearing the same thing, for several days at a time in fact, as I catch up on food and sleep.

I wear a uniform. Snowflake pajama bottoms and my New York Road Runners Club Sweatshirt, cut 80’s style at the neck.

In the summer its shorts and that same sweatshirt.

If I go out, I’ll wear earrings.

I love coming home, where time can stop a bit.

I unpack the bags under my eyes and stop counting calories. The edges of my hips get a little rounder, my cheeks a little pinker and I take care of myself. I indulge. I let go.

NY, where I came to get a reprieve from a difficult year.

NY, home for the holidays.

Holidays, always a time of possibility and magic.

Home, three sisters, a mom, a female dog, a cat and my dad. Poor guy.

So, leave it to my dad to beg for attention and get cancer again.

It’s metastasized to his lung.

His first chemo treatment is on Christmas eve. His second, on New Years eve.

Happy Holidays!

Two weeks on, one week off.

We’ll bring some champagne and fruit cake at the center to celebrate.

We’ll be together.

We don’t know what’s next.

But it doesn’t matter. I’m with them. And I’m home.