Namaste.  My highest self greets your highest self.

A few weeks ago, as I settled into my yoga class taught by a substitute, a soft-spoken tattooed transgendered person named Raven, I had to admit I was having one of those “How Totally Vancouver” moments.  It was a great class.  My shoulders went places I never knew they could (and probably shouldn’t), and I left feeling very “grounded,” as I do every time I walk off the mat.

Though technically I think my first yoga classes were at my gym in LA in the early 1990’s, I started going to yoga classes in earnest in the late 90’s with my friend Norene, when we were both working for a social venture start up in San Francisco called Education Partners.  Our office was in the KQED building in a funny part of the city, wedged between Potrero Hill and the Mission, but with no real neighborhood identity of its own (at least at the time).  Norene was going once or twice a week to a yoga class just down the block and I decided to give it a try too. Continue reading →