This weekend I was blessed to spend time with my teacher, Mary, along with fellow IAY teachers Bob, Kim and Madeleine, and extended studio family Donna, Cecile, Jessica, Silvia, and Tami.

We all attended a workshop in Ukiah on the Spring Equinox—celebrating beginnings, how to find balance in through the shifts of life, and what equanimity means to us.

Another woman in attendance, Susan, was visiting from out of town. She was new to Mary’s teaching.

During a partner discussion exercise, she shared with me that she was a little taken aback by the “lack of breath instruction” from Mary. She’s not telling me how to breath, when to breath.

Susan was also a little woozy over all of the permission and invitations to find your own safe and meaningful place in the poses. Create the shapes from the inside out using your sense of inner space, your breath, your instinctual sense.

She has been a student of This is how we/you do it. All of the time.

This is not how Mary approaches Yoga.

It’s not how I/we approach Yoga.

The brightness in Susan’s eyes, the wonder in her voice, the refreshing feeling she said she had, were all so exciting to witness.

I forget that not everyone has the experience of intuitive inquiry and permission and responsibility that Mary offers through asana. That I believe we offer at It’s All Yoga.

It made me so thankful. For lots of things:

Thank goodness not all yoga is the same.

***

A favorite poem…

Love Does That

All day long a little burro labors, sometimes
with heavy loads on her back and sometimes just with worries
about things that bother only
burros.

And worries, as we know, can be more exhausting
than physical labor.

Once in a while a kind monk comes
to her stable and brings
a pear, but more
than that,

he looks into the burro’s eyes and touches her ears

and for a few seconds the burro is free
and even seems to laugh,

because love does that.

Love frees.

~Meister Eckhart