Prologue I am a yogi. I practice, teach, and train people in the art of yoga. This was not my dream job, and I hesitate to call it a job at all. It feels more like a calling, as they say, or even my soul’s purpose, at least for now. Though I live in New…
Operating within the juvenile justice system, The Art of Yoga Project provides yoga, mindfulness and creative arts programming for incarcerated and exploited teen girls. I had the opportunity to visit the center last week to participate in the weekly yoga practice and join forces on a visual storytelling project with the girls. After fingerprint tests…
Excerpted from Meditations on Intention and Being: Daily Reflections on the Path of Yoga, Mindfulness and Compassion. A few years ago I went on a ten-day meditation retreat in California’s Yucca Valley. It was very well attended, and each morning I sat at the back of a large room full of people as they…
I want to see a new convergence of yoga, mindfulness, and social justice. Can this happen? I don’t know. I have a gut-level, insistent feeling that it’s possible. But I also feel that if this possibility is ever going be realized, the time to take action is now. Why do I feel such a sense…
Take a moment and think about a time when you were in a community that felt safe. It could be a community of any size 3, 15 or 100. Simply call to mind an experience that allowed you to fully contribute your gifts and talents as you held others in the community in full support.…
The Beauty and Versatility of a Chair Yoga Practice in Institutional and Clinical Settings by Joanne Spence I have just had the great fortune of finishing up a three-week trip to Australia, where I have been teaching some yoga workshops and visiting friends and family. It has been an exciting opportunity to revisit the country…
The Call to Be By Rolf Gates As a result of an addiction to alcohol and the intense suffering I experienced during my early years I seem to have been born to ask the question: What happens when we cant make it work any longer, when we are at the end of life as we…
by Lynne Staropoli Boucher What a difference two years can make. In May of 2012, only two months after I finished my yoga teacher training, I was fortunate enough to attend the inaugural Yoga Service Conference at Omega Institute. Fairly new to the practice of yoga and not knowing a soul at the conference, I seized…
Welcome to our new Yoga Service Blog. We are looking forward to sharing thoughts and perspectives on topics near and dear to the hearts and minds of Yoga Service Council members from a wide variety of trusted teachers, researchers and authors. The Yoga Service Council (YSC) was formed in 2009 at the Omega Institute by…
