YOGA ROOTS

Exactly twenty years ago, in June 1995 I lived in New York City for the summer studying acting. It was nice, but I felt I needed to do something else too. And then I found Crunch Gym on 13th street. Weightlifting didn't bring me into the studio, but the yoga they offered. Jivamukti Yoga. My teacher was Sharon Gannon, one of the founders of Jivamukti. Yesterday after 20-years I decided to go back to my yogic roots. I attended to a class close to Union Square in New York.

I had a terrible headache when I entered to the class, caused by the heat, but even more by absolute craziness of the city. Earlier I was able to take in three months of Manhattan, before I had to leave, but now three days was plenty! I hoped the yoga could help me deal with outer chaos.

In Kundalini Yoga we have one teacher teaching a class, in this Jivamukti class there were three teachers. One was leading the class and others helped to correct the poses of students. Right after we began, one of the assisting teachers massaged tiger-palm on my neck and shoulders. It started to heat up my body, and together with stretching I immediately felt the headache going away. What a relief.

Although I had't done this form of yoga for many years, the feeling of the class took me right back to where I started from in 1995. I felt like I had come home. This is where I PRACTICED to do yoga in my early years. Eventually graduating to DO yoga with Kundalini. This was a valuable realisation I did yesterday in that class. The head teacher said: 'We are not here to do yoga, this is not yoga. We are here to practice to do yoga.' This was great, I finally got it. Asanas and concentration while correcting poses teaches us how to breath deeply in motion. When you learn that, you're ready to DO yoga everywhere and anytime. When I left the studio I felt great in the midst of the crazy Manhattan. My body was breathing in all the wilderness of the city, and I felt happy.

ROOTS

During our life we change and reborn many times. The roots are there, but do we really ever set them down to one place? That is what makes us different from trees. We never settle. That is our freedom. There are manmade borders to fence us inside or outside, but they're nothing but decisions made by people. They don't exist in real life. We believe in borders, we don't question them. These borders keep us away from being free.

I'm writing this in New York, actually in Long Island. It was exactly 20 years ago when I first set my feet on the sand of this country, inside the American borders. I still remember how it felt to drive with a yellow cab from JFK to Manhattan, to see the skyline first time, so familiar from movies and TV. I remember how it felt to keep a styrofoam coffee cup in my hands, bought from a corner-deli, and imagine making a hole in it and letting the coffee run free. Now when I watch old Friends episodes I realise how much everything has changed in twenty years. Taxi cabs are still yellow, but so different. Nothing stays the same. Every moment is a new beginning.

I'm starting this blog because there is an era that is now ending in my life, and a new one is just about to begin. I'm moving forward, leaving this house behind for good, it was never my house, but I lived here during past 15 years for shorter and longer terms, in a way it has been my safe-house in America. Nothing in life is for us to own, they're here for us to borrow and give back with respect. Connection is the reason for our life. To be connected to the Earth, to a land underneath our feet. And to be connected to one another with respect. That's why we are here.

It's Summer Solstice today! Let's swim in Light! In Peace!