The Ode To Joy Podcast
Welcome to "The Ode to Joy Podcast," a thought-provoking and uplifting show dedicated to exploring the transformative power of creativity, self-expression, and the pursuit of joy. Join us as we embark on a journey to discover the hidden depths of the human spirit and the boundless capacity for personal growth and fulfillment.
In each episode, we dive deep into the stories of remarkable individuals who have embraced their internal muse or genius. Through their trials and triumphs, we explore the obstacles they faced in nurturing their muse and the strategies they employed to share their personal genius with the world.
We believe that every person possesses a unique wellspring of creativity, waiting to be tapped into. Our guests share their firsthand experiences, guiding listeners through their own creative journeys, and providing invaluable insights and inspiration along the way.
From artists to entrepreneurs, writers to musicians, and thinkers to dreamers, our diverse range of guests offers a kaleidoscope of perspectives on embracing one's passions and cultivating a life of purpose. We delve into the pivotal moments that sparked their creative awakening, the challenges they encountered, and the profound transformations that occurred when they wholeheartedly embraced their authentic selves.
"The Ode to Joy Podcast" celebrates the joy of self-expression and the extraordinary beauty that unfolds when we dare to follow our creative impulses. Through engaging conversations, we explore the importance of cultivating resilience, overcoming self-doubt, and persisting in the face of adversity.
Whether you seek inspiration for your own creative endeavors, encouragement to embark on a new path, or simply a dose of positivity and upliftment, "The Ode to Joy Podcast" is your go-to destination. Join us as we embark on a voyage of self-discovery, where the pursuit of joy and the celebration of personal genius reign supreme.
Tune in, open your heart, and prepare to be inspired as we uncover the remarkable stories of those who have embraced their internal muse and illuminated the world with their personal genius.
"The Ode to Joy Podcast" is available on all major podcast platforms. Subscribe today and embark on a journey to unleash your creative potential and find your own Ode to Joy.
The Ode To Joy Podcast
The Alchemy of Stillness and Motion: Sondra Loring on Transforming Lives Through Movement and Mindfulness
Have you ever witnessed the transformative magic of movement, or felt the intricate connection between your creative spirit and the ancient practice of yoga? Sondra Loring, our esteemed guest, embodies this synergy as a queer witch, interdisciplinary artist, and the Director of Sadhana Center for Yoga and Meditation. Her life's work weaves a stunning narrative that connects the fluidity of dance with the grounding practice of meditation, offering a revitalizing perspective on trauma-informed yoga through her impactful program, Moving Potential.
This episode is an intimate exploration of the threads that bind yoga, creativity, and the joys of living a mindful life. Sondra's candid recollections—from her early days as a ballet dancer to a beacon of hope for those dealing with the repercussions of incarceration and addiction—paint a vivid picture of a journey rich with learning and humility. Her stories serve as a guide, revealing how we too can integrate movement and meditation into our daily rituals, fostering spaces where sorrow is met with gratitude and personal growth is achieved through the mentorship of brilliant minds from diverse disciplines.
As we bid adieu to Sondra, we find ourselves wrapped in the warmth of community and self-care, embracing the simple pleasures of vibrant attire, morning candle rituals, and the comfort of our shared human experiences. It's a heartfelt reminder of the resilience found in the fabric of our collective narratives and the beauty that arises when we honor our individuality within the tapestry of life. Stay with us as we continue to bring forward voices that resonate with the soul's longing for connection, creativity, and, of course, a dash of joy.
Get in touch with Sondra:
Visit Sadhana Center for Yoga and Meditation
Moving Potential
Follow on IG: @sadhanacenter
Buy your copy of Elena's book "Grieve Outside the Box"
Follow on IG @elenabox
Welcome to the Ode to Joy podcast, a show where we talk about joy how do we cultivate it, how do we maintain it and what are the things that get in the way. I'm your host, elena Vox, bringing you another part of our Season 2 series, talking all about the interviews, and this week we are talking with Sandra Lorring, queer Witch, interdisciplinary Artist, choreographer and Director of Sadhana Center for Yoga and Meditation. I hope you enjoy.
Speaker 2:Hello, my dear listener, and welcome back to another episode of the Ode to Joy podcast. I'm your host, Elena Vox, and with me today I have the sincere pleasure of inviting on my new friend, Sandra Lorring. Welcome, Sandra.
Speaker 3:Hi Elena. Thank you, I'm so honored and excited to be here.
Speaker 2:Such a pleasure to have you here on the show. So for our listener, can you just lock us into? Where in the world are you joining us from today?
Speaker 3:Yes, I can. I am on Stockbridge, Mohican, Muncie Land, Hudson, New York, near the Hudson River, which flows both ways.
Speaker 2:I actually didn't know that. Does the Hudson flow both ways? Yes, it does.
Speaker 3:It's a river in estuary. It's quite amazing. And the original caretakers canoed and fished and honored and had a relationship with the river very deeply.
Speaker 2:I'd love to spend more time learning from that river. That's really beautiful. I only know a little bit about it and I know that it's gone through quite a journey, in the last few decades as well, of coming back to life.
Speaker 3:Yes, that's right, and it gives life in so many ways.
Speaker 2:Well, where you are is one of really the most beautiful places I have been to and it's for our listener who's joining us. It's about a couple of hours from New York City. I'm joining you from Long Island right now and I had the pleasure of going up to Hudson my first time this past New Year's and my partner and I went up. We rented a little cabin right in sort of in this little offshoot of the river and, of course, we wanted to go to some yoga classes. And he's showing me all of these studios and we find Sadhana and I was like, oh yeah, that's the real deal. And we got a chat and we found you and I saw your picture and I was like I need to go take class with Sandra. So, for our listeners, sandra is the director of Sadhana, which is a Center for Yoga and Meditation. She's 20 years old, which is amazing. Congratulations, thank you. We made it so far and I have so many questions about that journey.
Speaker 2:A little bit more about Sandra amazing, amazing person. Sandra is a queer witch. It's interdisciplinary artist and choreographer, your movement and somatic yoga instructor. Lover of compost, which is phenomenal, and the upside down also very cool. An enthusiast of herbal medicine, which I'd love to hear more about as well, and a steward of a fox and bird sanctuary also amazing. And Sandra is an active community organizer, and I'd also love to hear a little bit more about your work with moving potential, which can you give us a little sort of description of what moving potential is as well?
Speaker 3:Sure and the potential. Quite one of the loves of my life is a program that brings trauma-informed yoga and mindfulness and dance to those impacted by incarceration and addiction and trauma. So we work in local jails, prisons, recovery centers, we work with children with an incarcerated parent and we work with people that are reentering after being incarcerated.
Speaker 2:Very, very important work, and I'm very I mean awe that this is also something that's so crucial and very important that you're bringing that to the world. So thank you, You're welcome.
Speaker 3:My, it gives me so much. I could go on about that, yes.
Speaker 2:Well, we have so many, so many avenues Talk about like this. It's like we're like the Hudson River there's so many places to go, which is absolutely wonderful and a very like juicy, delicious place to be in that lived so much life and that you have so much wisdom that you carry with you. And so the topic of the day is the intermuse, as we're talking about on season two of the oh To Joy podcast. And I guess, like my first question right off the bat, when I talk about, when I'm thinking about you and what I know of you from just taking classes with you, would you say like what part of your yoga teaching would you say is how do I say? Would you say it's like the number one avenue that your intermuse and your creativity comes out of and flows out of, or would you sort of center a different element of yourself, or is it kind of all woven in together?
Speaker 3:Yeah, thank you for that question. I think it is woven in together. I am a dancer, choreographer, before I began the yoga journey, so there's always been movement in my life. And then I stumbled into a yoga class when I was on tour with a dance company and I was like, ah, this is great.
Speaker 3:And I tend to be very impulsive and I dove in very deeply and went to India many times and immersed myself and I used to try to really keep things separate, like this is dance and this is yoga. And then at some point, I think with the evolution of yoga which I'm very happy about they merged and I became less concerned about boundaries of these things. And I think that's where many of us are now, that somatics, trauma-informed practices, yoga practices, movement practices are all in a piece, you could say so. They inform me, they inspire me, they're always catching up with each other and leading each other on to new rabbit holes. I love to dive deep into topics and explore and continue to be engaged, and that would be the answer. I think that it is definitely interwoven.
Speaker 2:And I feel that just in the practices that I got to have with you, that it's sort of like this living, breathing organism of a practice that invites people to really be in their own experience and experience themselves as this human animal in a body. And I was telling my partner and he's really one year into his yoga journey, which is very cute because he's so excited I remember those were the days but it's so cute because he'll see some kind of wild arm balance and he's a strong guy and he wants to do all the fun fancy stuff. And I'm so glad that I was able to bring him to your class because I was trying to explain to him, because your classes, the way that you teach, is so I want to say, like delicate and specific and strong in a way that I say you really are a master teacher, because you know, I tell him when we get this opportunity to practice with these master teachers, as you've learned the form so well enough that you know how to break the form.
Speaker 3:Yeah, thank you for saying that. It's so kind.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and you bring in. It's not just okay, ladies and gentlemen, we're doing warrior one okay. And making people kind of fit into this box right, it just becomes this free flowing kind of movement that is, I think, so nourishing and I think, allows people to discover themselves in a practice where they're not trying to fit themselves into my body. Supposed to look like this in this pose, but more about how do I feel?
Speaker 3:And I think because I've been doing yoga for so long that I want to teach a class that I would want to take. So that's a tall order, because I'm picky. I'm like I learn a lot from classes that I don't like and don't usually return.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, as they say, the only practices you regret are the ones you don't do, so even the ones we're going, you're like okay, so that wasn't my favorite, but we learned things and, yeah, I think what you serve is is what I call like gourmet yoga. Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3:Oh yeah, I don't know exactly what does that mean?
Speaker 2:it's just tasty and delicious. You know, it's the kind of practice where it's very similar to the kind of practice that I teach, where it's like a conversation with the breath and the body. And I love also your queuing because it gives people the opportunity to get curious about how their body wants to be in a shape, and I love your suggestions. It's, it's, it's never Okay, we're going to 100% do this and put your foot here and the alignment. You know, your hips must be squared and which, again, I think it's important perhaps to learn certain forms, yes, in some ways, yes, and then to just give people the permission to, yeah, treat it almost like a dance and also just the permission that you allow really the entire room to be in their experience. So you know, when I'm teaching, people kind of make fun of my friends, make fun of me. They're always roasting me. They're like we're always moaning in your classes.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah.
Speaker 3:Well, we are definitely kindred spirits. As soon as I saw you, I was like who is that? And then you helped me. When I was like wait a minute, we left something out and you did it, I was like thank you so much.
Speaker 2:Because it's the stuff of yoga teachers. Nightmares when we're laying in bed at night. We go oh, we forgot to do that.
Speaker 2:That was on that side. Yeah, yeah, so it's gourmet yoga and I just, I highly recommend anyone who's listening if you're in the New York area, 100% get yourself up to Hudson. It's accessible by train. Go, yes, it is what's on. I would welcome you. Wow, ok, so let's. I'd love to bring it back to your origins in dance and can you give us a little bit of a story of of how you got into dance? Like, bring us into baby Sandra zone. Like when did you first, kind of when did you feel the muse on the wind that you you heard the call and you might want to move my body.
Speaker 3:Well, it is a little funny in that I took a few ballet classes I guess there's a picture of me as a rabbit and when I was four and I came home one day and I said to my mother, I'm not going back, they don't ever let us rest. So then I never went back until I was working with a beautiful company in California. Those were the days when California gave a grant to artists to teach and then the grant was also for young people to take their classes. So I was in class with a man named Michael Gonzalez, beautiful artist who's no longer with us, and he has a company called the Mime Caravan and invited me to be part of the Mime Caravan. And we did in the style of bread and puppet and Meredith among giant puppets and fantasy.
Speaker 3:We started a parade in Santa Barbara, the summer solstice parade, which gave. We then gave to the city and I think they're like ten thousand people that come every year. Now it's continued since and one of the women in the company said come and take this dance class, he's really cool. And I went and I was like that happens once in a while, like lightning strikes, and I'm like this is it. And I studied with him, richard Burroughs, and he left Santa Barbara to. He got a job at UC Riverside teaching dance and I said I'm going to follow him. And so I went because I had been taking a gap period from high school. I was like I'm not going to college. And then I was like I'm going to college now Because rich is there. And I danced with him and I'm very impulsive again.
Speaker 3:I did one semester and I moved to New York. I'm going to be a dancer. And New York said no, you're not, we don't even care about you at all. And I cried a lot. And then he we were talking on the phone and rich said I started a dance company in California. Do you want to come back? And I said I'm on the plane and I finished my degree and I danced with him around Southern California and then I moved back to New York and the experience has started flowing. I got into different companies. I'm a very magpie person, anything that shiny. I danced with many, many choreographers I'm very grateful and they they have an imprint on my body to this day and I then became an organizer. So I started an improvisation festival and I started underground dance and I never looked back. You know, I'm still making work, I'm still choreographing.
Speaker 3:And then on tour, like I said, I stumbled into this yoga class. It was called a stronger prep. Oh my, you know, they weren't really allowed to teach a stong unless you were given permission. And I was like this is amazing. And she was Australian. And she said, yes, it's very beautiful. And I said do you know if there's anything like this in New York? And she said yes, there's a man named Eddie Stern. And so I found Eddie. All this was underground, you know, there wasn't a yoga studio on every block. There were no yoga teacher trainings. I found Eddie very impulsively. I studied for a little bit. I went to India and to study with Patabi Joyce and just, of course, those of you in the know, I do not condone the behavior of Patabi Joyce. The practice is beautiful. I did it for a few years and then I'm too much of a magpie, so I just went out from there and started piecing things together and exploring. I did a lot of different styles of yoga while I was still dancing.
Speaker 2:Oh yes, You've introduced a lot of really beautiful little rivulets that I'd love to go down, because, well, it's very interesting, I think, when it comes to someone's yoga journey is how people come to it and then sort of the paths that they take and how it really informs them and their movement practice.
Speaker 2:And I love how you said that you're this magpie, that you just kind of find the next shiny thing and you follow it, and I think it's really beautiful to continue to follow that sort of inspiration.
Speaker 2:And then also just the fact that you were there, you were like boots on the ground before yoga became what it is, and that I'm super, super, super interested in, and I hope that we're able to kind of like follow this and flow down this river in a way that is really nourishing to talk about for you and for me. I'm just so curious really about you know, you were on the scene, like you said, when there wasn't a yoga teacher training and there weren't. You know you had to really find the teachers. And then the teachers I'm curious like the teachers that you found, because they were so few and far between they. I'm assuming that they must have had to have been very highly vetted and had really put in the work, and was it? Was it kind of more of like a like you had to sort of knock on the door to be let in, kind of a thing, or yeah, you had to go sit outside the door for a while until they let you in.
Speaker 3:Basically, yeah, yes, it was like that and there I didn't know that much but I, because of my movement background and dance background, I knew what felt right in my body. So I would trust people because of that and I had a certain amount of faith and confidence about trusting that transmission which is so magical to me. How do you transmit a physical practice from one person to another? And the Ashdanga tradition you know they're not showing you, they're speaking and guiding you through this practice that you memorize and then it becomes your own, which was very rich, so I could take it on tour and I could do it in hotel rooms and it really informed a foundation, I think, for a practice, because a lot of people are like I'd like to do things on my own, but I don't know where to begin. And I totally relate and it's it's a learning things by heart. You know that saying is very powerful. It's like you learn it by heart and then you, then it becomes part of you.
Speaker 2:Yeah, people talk about muscle memory, but I love that even more. Like you learn it by heart and then it becomes a part of you, so that, like I said, you've learned the form and then, once you've built this deep connection with your body, then you can sort of begin to color outside the lines a bit.
Speaker 3:A bit for sure, and I think, because I've always created movement and art and made up songs as a child, and I love how, as a child, you go into this imaginal world that everybody supports and then, as soon as you get to be an adult, it's like oh, by the way, that's over, it wasn't real, it's like what? So I definitely rejected that, but that creativity took over. It's like I'm not. I'm not one to to repeat. As you know from taking a few classes, I don't repeat myself much. I mean, of course, there are things that always are the same and you're different when you do them. But love to put things together in new ways, shake things up, novelty as a practice of mindfulness.
Speaker 2:And I love that you've also maintained this sense of enchantment with life.
Speaker 3:I have Wildly. So I don't know why, but I'm just as excited about teaching now as I was when I started. And when I started, I think back again, there was no yoga teacher trainings. I'd been teaching dance. So I was like, well, I'm going to teach yoga, started in the gym at NYU and the cold basement with fluorescent lights, and I don't really know what I was teaching. To be honest, I look back and I'm like, but I think I probably knew a little bit more than the students who came Right, and then the chanting went along with that too.
Speaker 3:I'm a person that loves to sing. There's a song that I hear from the universe as well. So I began chanting without any accompaniment and I just had to do it and people were like, oh boy, we were doing the Gayatri mantra and, I think, loving it. I think there was a longing that people have. I think there is a longing that people have to be connected, to be connected to the animate forces in the world, to sing back to the universe, which is always singing to us, and that idea you mentioned about the inner muse. I'm kind of a person that loves to understand the word that I'm trying to figure out. So I was thinking about what is a muse, and I want to kind of tease that apart a little bit. I was thinking that a muse, is it a person? Does it have to be a person to be a muse? I think it's a place where there's creativity, where there's a shared interest and an exploration of falling apart, of dissolving, of floating and then remembering. And there's an offering about feeding the muse. Like you would feed your demons, you could feed the muse. And if it isn't a person, if it's more than a human, then the trees become a muse and the river becomes a muse and the breath becomes a muse. However it could be, then anything. So it doesn't have to be limited to that small definition of there's a person that becomes your muse. That's my reflection on that.
Speaker 3:Teasing that apart a little bit, I love that, yeah, and when you invited me, you said something about genius and I really wanted to dive into that word. What does that mean? And in the ancient times, genius was something that was other than human. It was like a force that went through you. So you don't have to be so narcissistic about your creativity that there was another force that you could want either share credit with for your wonderful creation. Or you could also absolve credit and say I guess my genius was lame. Today, and also the definition for me of genius would be that it's something that one loves, that to be loved, to feel love, is genius. Or it could be the traditional definition of that. You get so good at something that other people notice your genius. They're a genius. Well, we're all geniuses.
Speaker 2:Thank you. Thank you for teasing that apart and yes, that's very much part of the conversation and I'm always curious to see how my guests kind of interact with this idea, because I like to view it sometimes as sort of like something outside of myself, something to inspire my artistry, my creativity, and I'll kind of get on these concepts or ideas or feelings. I'm like a Francophile, so I love the French language and then I'll kind of go into French art and film and then I think it has the ability to sort of transport you and put you in a different mind space and, from that place, creating from there. And I love also what you said about using nature as a muse, because it's constantly having a conversation with us if we, I think, can get quiet enough to understand that we're always in this co-creation with it. Right In the moment we are. Yeah.
Speaker 3:Being able to listen. Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:And sometimes I think people find that a little funny.
Speaker 1:Of course, you know what I?
Speaker 2:Of course. So I talk about sitting beneath a tree or having a conversation with a tree or a leaf, or breathing with a tree and listen, don't knock it till you try it, because they have things to teach us.
Speaker 3:There are ancestors they're way older than we are, first of all and they I often go to a tree and instead of asking a question, I'll say what do you want me to know? I guess that is a question, but just listening, and they always are so generous, they're like think about this, feel this here now. How can I age gracefully like you have? That's a big one for me at this point in my life. It's like I need some guidance.
Speaker 2:And how interesting also, just that the trees have different wisdom for us at different times in our lives, different aspects of nature. But I mean the trees, they really get me. I mean I remember when I was going through the process of providing support to my father during his dying process. I remember sitting in the backyard and everything around me. There was so much how do I say? It was a very nebulous space because there was no clear cut time of well, he's definitely going to die on this day or anything. You know, he's just kind of in this waiting period and this.
Speaker 2:Liminal space yeah, liminal space, for sure. And I remember just staring at this tree and looking at all of its leaves and seeing that the leaves were moving and they were interacting at the wind, and then just looking at the trunk and seeing how still it was and knowing deep down I had this sort of like it's a very simple yet profound revelation that, even though it looked as if it was completely standing still and nothing was happening, that in fact there was a lot going on inside, that there was still growth, even in the pause and in the stillness, and even if it looks like there's nothing happening, there's always I know I'm like why do drugs?
Speaker 3:I mean, I'm tripping just sitting under that tree.
Speaker 2:You heard it here first.
Speaker 1:Yes, you want to have a good time? Go find your local tree.
Speaker 2:So good, it's so true, it's so true.
Speaker 3:And I wish that everybody and everybody deserves to have that access, which isn't so, and that is a sorrow that I feel about this world. Not everybody has access to green, to space, to trees, to water, and I definitely want to share my heart sorrow with the situation in the world right now. The brokenness that we've known has been there for a long time, but it's still shocking and saddening about Gaza and all the places that are at war and the world right now, where it's a tragic and beautiful world. Is it not broken and beautiful?
Speaker 2:And you've brought up something that I was just about to go down as well, which is sort of like how do you in your life, how do you maintain that sense of enchantment when there's this sort of juxtaposition between that and the reality of what we're facing right now in this world? And have there been times in your life where you didn't feel the sparkle and you didn't see the shiny thing as the magma and the world seemed bleak and all you were in was it? It was sort of the darkness of it, which I think is also valuable for sure. And how yeah, I guess sort of how have you navigated that and to kind of get that almost sprinkling of like fairy dust back in those times?
Speaker 3:Yeah, thank you for that question. It's a challenging question, for sure. I definitely believe that I started teaching yoga and I was offering this practice that I loved and I was receiving so much from, but over time I realized that my students were teaching me about love, and that was a revelation. And so there's such a commitment and, I think, a responsibility, perhaps a little harsh, but I feel that I always want to be there for them and hold space and co-create this experience, which is going through the yoga fairy door, so to speak, going into the woods and going through a little fairy door, and then it's different. The light is different, how we listen is different, and coming together to be able to fall apart, coming together to be alone, these are very inspiring ways of being for me. So I'm always it feels like each class is new again sharing what is lighting me up and then asking them what do you think of this?
Speaker 3:So we have some talks, sometimes in yoga class, which is usually unheard of. You ask a question. Everybody's like deer in the head, like we're supposed to speak. I don't do that every class or anything, but every now and then I'm like who's with you today? What are you bringing in and people have a lot to say. They always have a lot to say and that interaction is how we grow and how we feel connected to each other, because it's very lonely this period of time, perhaps all periods of time to be in this human form. It's so mystifying. So I'm trying to find the mystical without it being mystifying, if that makes sense.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think you've touched on something really important, which is that crucial need of community as we go through life in general, and definitely these times where there is a lot of really heartbreaking contrast, where we need community to be able to fall apart, to be alone in and I think that's what's so special about a yoga class a good, good, nice container of a yoga class where you can go and it's something that I've found during my travels, no matter where I am in the world to find a yoga class, and then I know that I can be there and I can witness and be witnessed without having to say a word and then, if I so choose, I can interact. But I think it's something very, very special to be in that space and to be in spaces like that.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I think it has the components of ritual and rhythm and rigor. And I'm interested that you said something about the classes are strong. I do not generally teach a gentle yoga class. I teach a strength building, mobility enhancing class that's got rhythm and it's a ritual to me. We come in, we chant om, we go through the yoga fairy door, do this ritual together. We come out, we center ourselves because it's very vulnerable in that place. We center ourselves before stepping back out onto Warren Street. So there's also protection involved. The mantras are protective, the idea of that everything isn't okay and we want to be aware and hey, hamdukam anagatam, see the trouble to come and cross the street.
Speaker 3:Grateful sorrow is a term Dave Smith used. He's a meditation teacher and I was really moved by that that our sorrow holds so much about pointing to what's meaningful to us. So there's always space in my classes for people to feel sorrow, to feel grief, and often there's this toxic positivity which I really gets my hackles up Open your heart these platitudes that teachers say without really really thinking about. Well, if you open your heart all the time, it's too much. You need to close. If you're doing a chest opener, the back of your heart is closing. So what are you talking about?
Speaker 3:Very particular, there's my word thing I want to say things that are accurate. I want the cues, I want them to be inclusive. I want the student to have agency, but there's still a form there, so it's not free for all, which I love, but that's a different time. So those are some thoughts about the gifts that yoga has, that the sadness can, what I've lost, are also what I'm most grateful for. And to avoid that, to control that, to try to push that away, I think we lose a lot of information about being human and the sorrow, as we can imagine, could then be matched with joy or appreciation. The body and mind very, very wise given a chance.
Speaker 2:Beautifully said. I'm looking forward to listening to that again. Yes, I think something you said Wow, yeah, it's good, it's really good. It's something you said also is like when we think of heart openers is you know, have you created a space, are you in a space where, if you do crack open your heart, does this space that you're in, does it have the capacity to hold what's in there as well? Does it have the capacity to hold the grief, or is it like, hey guys, we're just going to do a monster heart opener, right?
Speaker 3:And you're going to cry. Oh, good luck to you. You know, crying for three days and the teachers nowhere to be found.
Speaker 2:And this is something I'd love to sort of lead into, if you feel ready and open to sharing your piece of writing about ritual, because you've created what you create in your yoga spaces is a place where people can come together and have that sort of sense of safety. And then, yeah, I am curious if you would like to just share a few words on sort of the importance of safety and then how you can kind of create this space of ritual for me.
Speaker 3:Thank, you I would love to. I wrote something entitled Ritual Instructions. One be still for a long time. Two fetch the basket, your favorite one made of dark reeds, oblong in shape, big enough to swaddle a baby inside and float it down the Nile. Three it's too heavy to lift like there are river stones waiting it down. Peering inside, there's only emptiness.
Speaker 3:Four make a fire in the basket. Add the red sky of the morning, mahakasha, dripping, sweet water melted from the recent snowfall to create smoke. Five see how is it much lighter now, light enough to drag to the cleared patch of earth. Brush the ground. Six lay sticks in a pattern, leaves and flowers, if it's spring, summer or fall. Seven add your wildness, queerness, longing, desire, dreams and lie face down beside the basket, listen to the birdsong and the tree speak. Eight add your sister's, parkinson's, your addictions, your fears, hatreds, cravings. Basket is heavy again. Are you surprised you forgot to add love? Do it now, it's never too late. Nine begin to hum and then sing from some adivistic place, deep and guttural. Add rocking or swaying. Sing forever and a day. Ten sit still in the quiet for a long time before you leave. Pray to the dignity in your spine, the connection in your ribs, your ancestors at your back, the unknown before you Rest in your heart.
Speaker 2:Really beautiful. Thank you so much.
Speaker 3:Thank you for sharing. It's my life raft. Honestly, people say how do you keep doing it over and over? I'm like I don't know. It's my life raft. It's not altruistic, I'm sorry to say, but I'm in this too, like Mary Oliver, you stand around and you open your arms, not like standing around, but maybe something will come to you some leaf or coil of wind, some tree, because they're in this too. It's a fairy door. Now. There's a lot of joy and laughter and making fun of. It's all there.
Speaker 2:It's all there and that's part of the reason I'm just so. I feel so blessed that we've been put in each other's paths, because I think there's something truly special about holding the wisdom that you do and maintaining such an amazing sense of humor and not taking yourself so seriously. Wow, so good, because it's like the more we learn, the more we realize we don't know and the more we realize we need to learn. Maintain that sense of continuing to learn and continuing to be in conversation, because you're a part of the ride. Yes.
Speaker 3:Thank you, right, right, thank you. So some people it's to take yourself out of the center and some people do that too much and it's like put yourself in the center for a second. That's why being prescriptive is very dangerous. There isn't one way. Even though we have a lot of similarities, our different experiences demand that we taste things and try them and then, like a goat, they don't eat everything. Actually, if they eat something they don't like, they spit it out.
Speaker 2:Speaking of which, this is something I'll bring us back to earlier in the conversation, if you're willing to go down this little rabbit hole with me. I'm curious about your experience in the role of a mentor in your life, because it's really beautiful, I feel, in many ways. Now you are in this role of mentor to so many people and I'm curious about your experience in taking on being sort of the student and the role of mentors in your life. And I'm really curious about this for other people, creative people, which is really just all people, people who are willing to kind of listen to the voice and follow and how in other people's lives I like to study other artists, people who inspire me, and I love to sort of see, oh so they study with that person, they study with that person.
Speaker 2:And I'm curious to hear because you did share a bit about the mentors that were in your life, and I guess I'm sort of curious about your experience in having mentors in your life. Perhaps also what can happen what has happened in my life too of sort of when you reach that point where, as the goat, it's kind of like you're eating, eating, and then you kind of get to a point where like, okay, then you go, okay. So now my path here has changed and I have to have to move on to perhaps a different mentor or shift gears which, yeah, I'm just curious about your experience in that, as you've been on this lifelong journey of having this conversation with your inner genius, with your muse and, yeah, the role of the mentor in your life, oh it's big.
Speaker 3:I have to say I'm always at the feet of so many different people. A lot of them they don't know that. It's like I'm your friend but you don't know that. So definitely women, in particular women writers. I did a three-year program with Judith Schmidt and Alexis Johnson about trauma and neuro science and they really were mentors to me. I looked towards incredible black women and black farmers in my region as mentors working with the land, and it goes on. It kind of goes on and on. You know, like I'm always.
Speaker 3:I'm an eternal student, as many of us are. I study all the time. I read. Pandemic was really a time when I just I love the library. I would have this. They have the thing where you could order online and then they would put it your books in a paper bag and you can go pick them up and they would draw little pictures on the bag. It was very cute and I would order like 10 books and of course, I wasn't going to read them all, but I would just like hold them. I would just hold one and then I would give it back. So books are a mentor to me.
Speaker 3:Writers, poets, mary Oliver, those that many of us follow, but my own study with a fan of Ritual, josh Schreie. I love Iyana Young and her podcast for the wild, so you know that's an endless question. I'm always at the feet of someone and giving them credit, because I have very few original ideas in my humble opinion. I just am caught by people's brilliance. I mean, thinking gets a bad rap and meditation, I'm like thinking, is what created these incredible things, so let's not throw it all out with the bathwater, if you know what I mean. And I just received the grant dance grant where the grant is for process, meaning I don't have to make a piece, but I did have to choose a mentor. So I know I'm so excited. Ann Carlson, and an incredible choreographer in this country, has agreed to be my mentor. So I'm looking forward to the next bit of time, having my process shaken up ready. Shake me up.
Speaker 2:That's it. That's it. It's like the moment we sort of feel that we're becoming too rigid, it's like, oh, we got to break the form again, add in something.
Speaker 3:Yeah, challenge me, challenge me, and then I'm going to turn around and challenge you. I'm going to pass on that gift.
Speaker 2:Beautiful. I'm curious. Also, in your work of passing on your gift, I would like to hear a bit about the work that you're doing with moving potential.
Speaker 3:Yeah, see, now that's where I just light up like a recent incandescent bulb. Again, I went in because I thought I could be useful and share yoga and then I learned so much about love with these elegant, eloquent, enthusiastic people that have been thrown away. The system should be abolished and, in the meantime, trying to make it more humane, create a space where people can feel they can say, without fear of being punished, what's on their mind. We write a lot, we do these wild dance improvisations. I'm working with men in a medium security prison teaching them dance. For goodness sakes, I can't even get men to come to class that aren't incarcerated. So I am in love with them and we, I think, might eventually make a piece, but they teach me and we have created, created, co-created this space where one of them said this is the only place I don't feel like a convict and it breaks my heart open in the best way.
Speaker 3:Every time we do meditation, we talk about grateful sorrow, we talk about everything, and they write beautifully and we share, and then they do authentic movement and they do trust falls and they learn a phrase and they walk around and then they crawl around the floor and it's just wild to me, and every Thursday I can't wait. I'm like what's going to happen today? What's going to happen today? But then now there's a team of us, so there's teachers in recovery. We did the first in the nation yoga teacher training for women in a mandated recovery center. There have been trainings in prison and jail perhaps, but not in a recovery center and so far eight women have graduated with their teaching certificate and that is huge in terms of confidence and raising their, their wrestling with their self loathing and self worth. So it is, I'm just running along behind it. I did start it and it's just been growing and growing. And it's still just small, it's local, but I'm excited and honored and have yet to see where it will continue to go, but I'm there with it.
Speaker 2:I'm curious was there anything about diving into this work initially that surprised you, having been a teacher of yoga and dance for so long and then being sort of in a different environment? Was there anything that surprised you or anything that you had to sort of unlearn or learn in this new space?
Speaker 3:Sure, and that reminds me. We do a yoga program at my studio and it's called the Untraining Reframing, because we really are untraining ourselves a lot. Honestly, I thought I would go into the prison and that everybody your worst nightmare would sit there with their arms crossed and be like, yeah, and that was so surprising. They weren't like that at all. They were like hmm, and asked me good questions, what do you want from us? And they push me like why are we doing this? And then others will chime in because she's the teacher and she said so.
Speaker 3:That might be true, but I have a better answer for you here. We're doing this because and it surprised me how much they let their guard down and I realized that that's not what's happening outside of that class the rest of their day in that institution, it's about breaking people down and it's not about rehabilitation, although these programs are changing that and helpful. But there's a lot of resistance, a lot of pushback from inside the system Like why these people should be punished, they shouldn't have these programs. So it's something, it's really something.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I feel like there's a lot of depth in that conversation to have and I'm hoping perhaps we can revisit this in another conversation as well.
Speaker 3:That sounds great yeah there's a lot.
Speaker 2:There's a lot there.
Speaker 3:Yeah, thank you so much for having me. Thank you what?
Speaker 2:an absolute pleasure. I sort of interesting as I was thinking of closing questions for you. I'm always interested to hear from others about sort of what's kind of on their sort of inspiration board of their minds, of their hearts at this time. If you could sort of picture like these are the things that light me up, like if your heart and mind were like a Pinterest board of textures and sounds and tastes and colors and languages or anything like this, could you pull a few that are really lighting you up, like what's something?
Speaker 3:You. You're lighting me up right now. Your sweater is lighting me up. I love great wild clothes. I love textures like velvet and crushed velvet, lighting me up thinking about seeds and what might be planted this year. Lighting me up about what am I going to do with this movement process. That's supposed to shake me up. So, and to be honest, there's a certain flatness I feel right now with when I have to titrate the news and I read I'm not turning away, but, wow, I read the news and then I feel flattened and I just have to go lie down. So I've been lying down a lot, resting, doing yin yoga. So it's complicated. It's complicated. Yeah, my son is an inspiration. He's in school and he's talking about all this stuff and learning and quite, quite fun. So I'm blessed. And then I have a rascally dog. That's a trauma dog. She's really something. So we have quite a connection when we're just alone together. But that's some of it, I think. Plants and water.
Speaker 2:I love that you've included it all. I love that you included the shiny bits and also shiny but different, different, different color of things, and also just sharing the fact that you're giving yourself that permission to digest and to rest. It's really really huge, and I think it's very useful right now as well, as let's not let's not turn away from it. How can we witness it to the degree that we can and then also make sure to take care of ourselves as we?
Speaker 3:right, how could we not be exhausted by this? Yeah, yeah, but somehow we get up and we try again we try again. You know it's like every morning I light my candle and I bring the light in.
Speaker 2:That's it. I'm going now and it's just that one little bit of light that I have in the morning and in the evening.
Speaker 1:It's like let's just have a little bit of light illumination.
Speaker 3:Yeah, we'll have to sing together sometime.
Speaker 2:I can't wait. I love to sing. I love to. So, that being said, do you have anything you'd like to share of upcoming programming that we can let people know about? Anything coming up that you want to keep people in the know about?
Speaker 3:Yeah, thank you for asking. I don't have. I have a retreat that I'm doing in Mexico but it's full, which is exciting, very exciting. And then how to be thoughtful about going into another country and another culture more like a pilgrimage than a tourist trip, so thoughtful about that. And then, just, I'm just regularly teaching and teach a lot. And yeah, the website you could see, there's the website for moving potential, there's the website for the studio.
Speaker 3:And there's a lot of other people doing stuff at the studio. I just can't believe how much activity is happening again after those times we were shut down.
Speaker 2:Yeah, which is a whole other conversation. I want to hear what you're talking about, like your studio and your studio, yeah, Nice. There's just so much to talk about, but there is. You've really created a beautiful space. That I think is just very welcoming and what you're offering is truly special. And it's if anyone is like kind of wants to, I don't know like have a taste of what I call, I mean, what is real yoga? What's a real yoga? Like listen, this is it.
Speaker 3:Give a shout out to my parents and my grandmother, who were community builders, and you know my mother would drag people off the street, basically, and say you want to come over for a Friday night dinner. So that was instilled in me. That that's all for one and one for all.
Speaker 2:And that's definitely what you've created is something truly special where, like the moment I walked in, people are hugging each other. You know, we were only there for three days and they're like I don't know. I was like, yeah, you know, it's just.
Speaker 3:You don't have to hug anybody when you come, but you could.
Speaker 2:It's available to you if you need a hug. If you need it imagine there's someone there who will give you a hug. That's why it is. And it's very much to themselves, and we respect that, of course. Of course and that's I think it's something really beautiful is that people have the opportunity to just be who they are, come as they are, and to be welcomed and accepted just as they are.
Speaker 3:Yes, likewise.
Speaker 2:We could just keep going. We could just keep going for an hour or two.
Speaker 3:We're on podcasts.
Speaker 2:We'll definitely have you on again because there's so much more I'd love to hear from you, because you really are someone very special. So I very much, I bow to you and all of the wisdom that you carry and thank you so much for coming on and sharing that. Thank you, take good care. So much love. Yes, and to our dear listener, we'll have all of the information in the show notes so you can check out the website. There's a lot of practices you can also tune into that are on the website and also you do the classes on Zoom as well. So that is available. Thank you, all right, sandra. Thank you, thank you so much for coming onto the show. It's been a sincere pleasure. Thank you for inviting me. Be well, all right and my dear listener, this has been another episode of the Ode to Joy podcast.
Speaker 1:Thank you so much for tuning into this latest episode. Dear listener, it is my sincere pleasure to be bringing you these conversations every week and, hey, if you enjoyed the show, I would so appreciate hearing from you. If you have a moment, why not go ahead? Leave us a review, let me know what you think and, if you're feeling generous, perhaps you throw in a couple of stars. I'll talk to you again very soon, sending you so much love.