Chris Dwyer leads yoga classes at SunWater Spa in Manitou Springs, Colo., with a sense of ease and humor. On and off the mat, Chris offers honest evidence of his practice. By how he shows up. By how he teaches, writes, engages in the community. That’s what has drawn me Read more…
I engage in yoga daily. But I do not “do” yoga. Millions of others do “do.” Same-same? Semantics? What’s it matter? It doesn’t matter. Maybe. But as a word guy, I use writing to process the world, to help it make sense. To me, words matter. Clarity and precision of Read more…
Note: This is an excerpt of “Seva, Karma + Karma Yoga.” The original post has been re-published in full at Humanitou Yoga. With Veterans Day approaching, and my being a U.S. Army veteran, I’ve been contemplating the concept of service. It will be the theme that guides the Rooted in Seva Read more…
The images we see of yoga largely are a limited view of a Western trend. It emphasizes the physical practice of asanas. Bodies bending and stretching into shapes on a rectangular mat. Defined minutes of a class conducted within the defined walls of a studio. But the ancient spiritual practice Read more…
Love is a subject that has come up in many Humanitou conversations. I often am the one to bring it up, or at least to grab hold and ask for more of it when it does. I have a lifelong question and quandary about love. There is love in my Read more…
Judith Hanson Lasater cited a passage (book 2, verse 44) in the Bhagavad Gita in her book, Living Your Yoga: “Krishna explains the nature of success, emphasizing that all those things obtained in the world are transitory and are not ultimately success. When we define success in a worldly way, we Read more…
When things derail and we get agitated, we often say we’re not feeling centered, we’re not feeling grounded. We’re just … off. If we don’t have a specific go-to practice, an awareness of when we need to return to center — and why and how — it’s tough to get Read more…
Christine Kathryn recently turned the microphone toward me for her Creating Space podcast. She brought the questions and I gave up the answers. I am used to being the one behind the questions and the camera. It’s a rare experience for me to see how other interviewers connect the dots, Read more…
It’s easy to get swept up with the mountains. I love ’em lots. They are dynamic, imposing, inspiring and, seemingly, something more than the lands of their non-mountainous cousins. That contrast is stark and can have us feeling disinterested, even ungrateful, for the non-mountainous territories we experience. Hiking on the Read more…
A tall teenage boy looked at me from the street corner as I neared the intersection in my old VW bus. He had no crosswalk. I had no stop sign. He looked hard at me and then plunged into the street, his body language dripping defiance. White earbuds filled his Read more…
There can be a follow-the-leader quality to yoga classes. Like going into an aerobics class and doing whatever the instructor says without giving it thought. I’ve done it. I’ve followed the instructions of yoga teachers and not connected to the deeper purpose. Now, after several months of intensive study in Read more…
“The moment that you feel, just possibly, you are walking down the street naked, exposing too much of your heart and your mind, and what exists on the inside, showing too much of yourself … That is the moment you might be starting to get it right.” ~ Neil Gaiman Read more…
There is a line in sanskrit, the language of yoga, that acknowledges the one true teacher of yoga in each of us as ourselves. Om bolo shri satguru bhagavan ki — Jai! The teacher within is the one true teacher — Right on! Turning within and tuning in leads us Read more…
At the end of June I completed a 230-hour yoga teacher training with Root Center for Yoga and Sacred Studies. I’m about to add to that intense 32-week swim into the broad and endless ocean of yoga. I will continue with a 50-hour apprenticeship during the coming months. It’s a Read more…
I recently wrote, in a post called “Time to Grow,” about breaking conventions from the busy-ness of our days, from the norms society puts on us to just do things, rather than take time to think about the things we do. One way I apply that time to think and Read more…
As I huffed my way up a muddy mountain trail, out for what I will generously call a run, I tried a new approach to motivation. Rather than let my mind dig in with the “It’s OK to walk” talk … Rather than try to drive myself with ideas of Read more…
Off the Mat: Writing Yoga Many are familiar with yoga as a physical practice, or asana. The power of yoga, however, is in how we walk with it when we’re off the mat. Actually, many of the practices occur wholly away from a yoga mat. I use writing as a Read more…
Life is a practice, action ever in progress. Whatever loops we live, the habits we reinforce, are our practices incomplete and always in motion. Good or bad. There are many forms of practicing our best selves, and they are not mutually exclusive. Sing with what rings to you. Speaking to Read more…
Introducing Echoes of Oms Patanjali’s Yoga Sutra I.1 atha yoganusasanam “Now this is yoga as I have observed it in the natural world.” There are nine short poems in the Echoes of Oms chapbook. These, and the monochromatic photographs that accompany them, come from experience in the natural Read more…
The Yoga of Morning Pages Buckle up. The bus is about to jump the curb. Morning pages, as popularized by Julia Cameron in “The Artist’s Way,” are for brain letting, getting out what holds us back — doubts, goals, joys, fears — at the beginning of our day. They are Read more…