Summer 2010 Newsletter

Dear Sangha,

Katchie and Joshua’s wedding

Saturday, July 10th, 2010, was a very auspicious day. Not only was it my late mother’s birthday, but this year Joshua, my partner of six years, and I got married.

To speak truthfully, I had my doubts about marriage. Julia Butterfly, who is known among her friends as the “B.S. detector”, recognized my hesitation and got me to focus on why I actually wanted to get married.

What came out of our discussion was a unique, unrehearsed and beautiful ceremony of two people who love each other and want to be in a committed relationship.

It was unexpectedly powerful, especially once Julia opened with a blessing that made us all aware of just how much Joshua had to sacrifice, since he would have rather eloped and gotten married on the sly. And there we were, in the midst of our community. To make it short – she got Joshua to cry. And as he himself remarked, this was perhaps one out of two or three times (the last time being when he was a child) that he cried in public. Needless to say, that got everyone else going too!

It was a short ceremony, with my dear friend angel Kyodo williams presiding as the wedding officiant. In addition, for me, the most powerful aspects were the blessings we received from my teacher Jack Kornfield, Julia’s opening and John Robbins’ wise words.

Milena Moser, my only Swiss family member present, since we are going to celebrate again in Switzerland, summed it up beautifully in her recent article in the Schweizer Familie. “Joshua embodies all of the virtues associated with Switzerland: he is loyal, dependable and real. He is Katchie’s piece of home away from home.”

Check out some wedding pictures here.

In other news, John Robbins has recently written one of the most viewed articles on the Huffington Post. It’s a worth-while read! Check it out: huffingtonpost.com/john-robbins

Geneva Yoga Conference
September 10 – 12 Soluna Paquis Geneve, CH

Yoga, Music & Inspired Action in Switzerland.
During this weekend you will sweat, meditate, dance, sing, inspire and be inspired with positive visions for our planet.
You will practice with unique and powerful teachers experienced in Jivamukti, Anusara, Iyengar, Hatha and AcroYoga.
Not just skilled teachers, but seasoned and constantly evolving practitioners who have cultivated the ability to transform their yoga practice into an effective tool for creating positive change.

Skill In Action
October 9 &10
Jivamukti Yoga Center
NY, NY
I am super excited to be teaching a workshop back at Jivamukti in NYC. This is where I really got my start so many years ago, Co-teaching with with Jules Febre. More details will be posted on my website as they become available.

Anusara yoga Immersion in the Fall
The Anusara Yoga Immersion program is a 100 hour training designed for the enthusiastic student who wishes to delve into the practice of Anusara Yoga in a playful and expansive way.
It also meets the pre-requisites of Anusara Yoga certification. In this comprehensive training, students will study every aspect of Anusara Yoga in detail. This includes: all asanas from the Level 1 and 2 syllabi, yoga philosophy, all components of the bio-mechanics and the opportunity to be with great company and in the circle of friendship.
Saturdays and Sundays 1 – 7pm
Dates:
Weekend 1: Oct 2 – 3
Weekend 2: Oct 30 – 31
Weekend 3: Dec 11 – 12
Weekend 4: Jan 8 – 9
Weekend 5: Feb 5 – 6
Weekend 6: Feb 26 – 27
Weekend 7: April 2 – 3
Weekend 8: May 7 – 8
The eight-weekend program will be held in Berkeley & San Francisco, CA at YogaKula

Upcoming workshops in Europe
Nov 8 – 13 Ansuara Immersion Level 1 w/ Michael Thurnherr Airyoga, Zurich CH
Montag, 8. November 2010: 9:15 biis 11:45 Uhr und 13:30 biis 17:30 Uhr
Diienstag, 9. November 2010: 9:15 biis 11:45 Uhr und 13:30 biis 17:30 Uhr
Miittwoch, 10. November 2010: 9:15 biis 11:45 Uhr und 13:30 biis 17:30 Uhr
Donnerstag, 11. November 2010: 9:15 biis 11:45 Uhr und 13:30 biis 17:30 Uhr
Freiitag, 12. November 2010: 9:15 biis 11:45 Uhr und 13:30 biis 17:30 Uhr
Samstag, 13. November 2010: 14:15 biis 17:45 Uhr
Nov 15 – 20 Ansuara Immersion Level 3 w/ Michael Thurnherr Airyoga, Zurich CH
Montag, 15. November 2010: 9:15 biis 11:45 Uhr und 13:30 biis 17:30 Uhr
Diienstag, 16. November 2010: 9:15 biis 11:45 Uhr und 13:30 biis 17:30 Uhr
Miittwoch, 17. November 2010: 9:15 biis 11:45 Uhr und 13:30 biis 17:30 Uhr
Donnerstag, 18. November 2010: 9:15 biis 11:45 Uhr und 13:30 biis 17:30 Uhr
Freiitag, 19. November 2010: 9:15 biis 11:45 Uhr und 13:30 biis 17:30 Uhr
Samstag, 20. November 2010: 14:15 biis 17:45 Uhr

Fall 2009 Newsletter

My Dear Sangha,

I have just returned home from an amazing journey abroad. Returning to my homeland to offer the gifts I have learned over the last 20 years here in America was especially precious to me.

And, after 20 years, I have just become an American citizen! I aced my test last Monday and I will be sworn in some time next month.

Some of the highlights of this trip were my visit to Grindelwald, a small city located high in the Swiss Alps where I met up with Jack Kornfield, my teacher. Having made some loose plans to go paragliding before the Vipassana retreat in Beatenberg started, everything came together and we spent a most marvelous day in each other’s company. It was a beautiful day filled with hiking, eating fondue (only Americans eat fondue in the summer time), and flying through the skies together. During our flying adventure, we caught some amazing thermals (in paragliding speak that means columns of rising air). Spending almost an hour in the high up mountains, at some point I looked over to Jack and saw that he had caught a thermal and, literally, had his head in the clouds! My teacher with his head in the clouds – I laughed out loud.

Visiting my homeland with a foreign friend, I see things with different eyes. The familiar becomes special and I am able to appreciate everything anew. From that day with Jack, the theme of my trip was appreciation. It turned out to be a very appropriate theme, indeed.

The nine days spent teaching with Jack in Beatenberg was both wonderful and intense. Adjusting my skills as a yoga teacher to suit the silent tone of a Vipassana retreat proved to be a great learning experience, throughout which I felt touched by Jack’s confidence in me. The yoga classes I offered were very simple and quiet. It was great to see the power of yoga once again.

The next event in my Europe schedule was teaching an Anusara Immersion in Zurich, and I attempted to do so, in German no less. On the third day I hit a wall and said to my students that I would never speak another word in German again! I think it was very daring to try to convey such a complex and sophisticated system in a language that I haven’t really spoken in 20 years! Nevertheless we managed, in part because my assistant, Michael Thurnherr, a wonderful and mature teacher, helped out a lot. The immersion was packed and successful in that everyone moved through a week of personal transformation.

Following all of this good work, I enjoyed the pleasure of a 10-day vacation with my beloved friends Julia Butterfly, Alissa Hauser and Milena Fraccari. We traveled across Italy in a tightly packed car, from event to event. We had all been on the road for some time. Four girls and one car made for too much luggage. Every time we had to leave for a new destination, Julia chased us all away so she could get into the “zone” to pack the car. It was amazing that she managed to fit everything, including stuff that was given to us along the way.

I had an especially powerful time at a conscious community named Damanhur in northern Italy. I have never seen anything quite like the temples they constructed, by hand, into the heart of a mountain! For many years they built them in secret and once the authorities found out, they went there to shut them down. Instead, the Damanhurians invited the officials to view the temples who were so overwhelmed by their beauty that they couldn’t destroy these works of greatness and, thus, promptly granted them a permit! It has been called the ‘Eight Wonder of the World’.The official greeting of the Damanhurians is “Con te,” which means, “with you”.

In Florence I co-taught an event with Julia, which was organized by Damanhur. I know I will return to this industrious and sweet community very soon! If you want to check it out, here is their website: www.damanhur.info

I wish you all a wonderful and blessed Fall.

Fall 2008 Newsletter - Grist for the Mill

Grist for the Mill

According to the Buddha, we can evaluate the quality of a society by observing the way in which its most vulnerable citizens are treated. If this is indeed an accurate determinant of our society’s well being, we are in trouble! So, how exactly do we treat those who are most vulnerable? Say — women, the elderly, children and those who have made mistakes and are serving time in prisons? How is it that most yoga practitioners in this country are women, yet the most successful, renowned yoga icons are mostly men? How about all the unpaid work that women do raising children and keeping house? And how are our children doing? Children in middle class and poor families are getting less and less of a chance at having a decent education these days. Children whose parents are forced to hold down three jobs in order to make ends meet (a fact that President Bush seemed quite proud of in one of his speeches), are suffering from inadequate care at home. Other vulnerable populations in our society include: the elderly, who are conveniently tucked away in old-folks’ homes; and today’s enormous prisoner population – who, once released, end up all too often back in prison. In part, this is due to the lack of opportunities for rehabilitation that would enable them to lead a normal life.

Perhaps looking at how we deal with our personal vulnerability and weaknesses can shed light on how our society got itself into such a mess. Mainstream society teaches us to hide our weaknesses and our vulnerability. Consequently, we have learned to spend our time and energy hiding, fighting or fixing these aspects of ourselves. When faced with our personal weaknesses, we find that, as in society, we are unprepared to manage what we have inside of us. We judge and treat our vulnerability viciously.

The Dalai Lama noticed this trend when he first began teaching how to cultivate loving kindness in the West. A practice that traditionally begins with feeling loving kindness for ourselves first, His Holiness was shocked by how many of us Westerners are judgmental and loathsome of ourselves.

Thankfully, there is a remedy to this! Yoga and related practices promote a different approach to managing these universally shared aspects of being human. Through Yoga, we can realize that our weaknesses are in fact a means to a deeper connection to ourselves and also to each other. Once we find ourselves walking on this path, we learn to recognize our vulnerability and weaknesses as grist for the mill. I propose embarking upon an exploration of the tendency to deal with ourselves so harshly. We begin by asking questions of ourselves, and answering them honestly. What is our habitual way of dealing with our weaknesses? Is our main strategy to hide them? Fight them? Fix them?

In our yoga or meditation practice, we can start to pay attention to what happens when we encounter our weaknesses. When we sit the body down in meditation, or start to mindfully breath into our body while moving, those weaknesses will show themselves quite quickly. Instantaneously, the body will respond based on how we have conditioned ourselves to hide, fight or fix.

Instead of expending so much of our energy in this way, we could just make space for their presence. In doing so, what becomes apparent is that in each weakness is also a hidden gem, waiting to be uncovered.

As an example, I would like to use myself. When I was younger, I was somewhat of an arrogant yoga teacher. Coming from a background in dance, the advanced yoga poses came relatively easy to me and because of this, I had little compassion for stiff and slow students.

Later, I suffered a number of injuries. Initially I viewed these as a bother and an obstacle to “true yoga,” a weakness of which I was ashamed. Finally, I accepted them, and listened to the message these injuries were bringing to me. The hidden gem was revealed: Humility, compassion and a deep connection with all those who suffer.

I also became somewhat of an expert in all kinds of physical injuries, since I had journeyed through most myself. Often our weaknesses are blessings in disguise, ideally leading us to tenderness, wisdom and compassion.

Another insight into this occurred for me many years ago during a weeklong activist camp with Julia Butterfly Hill. She gave a talk. As she came to a particular place in her story, she started to cry.

I immediately felt uncomfortable. There she was, exposing her vulnerability in public. I expected her to be embarrassed, maybe even pull away or stop talking. None of this happened — in fact, quite the opposite. Her message became clearer and stronger. She remarked that she always had to cry when coming to this point in her story, leaving me with the impression that this was a powerful person with a message who was unafraid to share everything, including her tears, to communicate that she really CARED!

This experience changed me. I realized that caring, which often causes our emotional vulnerability to arise, is a form of strength and not weakness. I also learned that when we reveal our caring, vulnerable selves to each other, we fuel our message. Imagine that as a society, we translated our vulnerability and weaknesses as strength and power, and used these new definitions to protect what is good, and, to step up, making even more good in our lives and therefore in our communities.

In the upcoming immersion that I will co-teach with my dear friend, Madhuri Martin, at Yoga Kula in Berkeley, it is my intention to create a safe environment in which my students can explore these very things. It is such a delight to watch people transform vis-à-vis access to the ancient teachings of Yoga and the Dharma, in tandem with receiving the loving support of a community that is learning together to use the incredible tools offered by the Yogic tradition.

I am excited to co-facilitate and witness another powerful group get in touch with who they really want to be! If you are interested in joining, please read the information below. There is one non-negotiable requirement — that is, I am asking for each individual’s full commitment!

Summer 2008 Newsletter

Dear Sangha,

I hope you are all well and happy. The conscious cultivation of happiness is perhaps the most radical practice that we can do in such a troubled world. I am engaged in just that, as I have recently moved into a beautiful house located in a sweet neighborhood in Berkeley. For the first time in many years I am living in a neighborhood where I can bike everywhere and go for a stroll whenever I have the desire. What a pleasure it is to not have to drive — to decrease my carbon footprint on this earth. Not to mention, the welcomed absence of nightly gunshots we heard from inside our previous home in West Oakland, some of which were literally outside our door, and, the occasional driver who tried to run me over when I went outside! I don’t think I have slept so well since I left Switzerland at the age of 20.

I don’t know why it took me so long to move out of West Oakland. Perhaps it was some underlying guilt about the privileges I enjoy, along with the belief that, “I can get by and make anything work,” which my beloved friend Julia Butterfly pointed out to me.

So lately, the theme appearing in my classes has been recognizing where in our lives we hold ourselves back, where we keep from moving into something greater which we have created for ourselves, and, how when we do allow ourselves to exist in our fullest form at any moment, we expand into a new level of being, and, finally, how to maintain this new space. It is so easy to come up with reasons for why we don’t deserve something we have achieved, even when it is a goal for which we have been striving for ages. As a result, we may sabotage good things that happen to us!

Yoga gives us the tools to shed light on these unconscious patterns, in which we all engage, and offers to us a way of breaking these habits. Yoga is like the proverbial wrench thrown into the wheel of Samsara, translated as the never-ending cycle of suffering. I am learning to enjoy the benefits of my own hard work, welcoming success into my life instead of shying away from it. However, I do not forget another facet of the practice that is so vital to my every day life – the social, or spiritual activism that yoga inspires within me.

When I reflect on my life, I see that engaging with my community in the form of volunteering has been a constant for me. For example, when I was living on the outskirts of the Morro de Santa Marta Favela in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, I was deeply involved with the people and the environment around me. Daisy, the woman who lived downstairs from us, often cared for kids from the slum while their mom or dad went to work. We cooked for, and fed those children.

Today, I continue to acknowledge and serve the varied communities around me. While Berkeley is a beautiful haven supporting and nourishing me tremendously, in the surrounding environs, there is much work to be done. This commitment to living with my eyes wide open to my community has led me to the most inspiring Karma Yoga practice at San Quentin Prison. Besides having a green card, which means I’m a “legal alien” of the United States, I am now also the proud carrier of a brown card, which gives me access to San Quentin without supervision! Every other week I teach yoga to Trust participants — 15 to 20 men in San Quentin serving life sentences — to help them with physical discomfort, health issues and, of course, to offer spiritual counsel.

My incredibly talented friend and filmmaker, Tamara Perkins, is shooting a documentary about the Trust, a program at San Quentin that focuses on rehabilitation and re-integration of the men in prison. The trailer is quite moving. Please take the opportunity to see the group of men (outside, I call them affectionately “my guys”) to whom I have been teaching yoga:

http://www.trustcommunity.org/TrustCommunity/trailer.html.

May you be well and full of happiness, and may you find the fulfillment you deserve, Katchie Ananda