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| Cheryl Chaffee |
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I took my first Anusara yoga class in 2004, and from that very first day I knew that I would teach yoga. It was as if my whole life had been leading up to that moment, and a big explosion went off in my mind and in my heart, and I knew that I had found my happy place. As a child, I learned ballet, took piano and guitar lessons, sang in choirs, and acted in the musical theater performances at school. As an adult, I never quite felt like I fit into the "typical" mold, being a strict vegetarian, homeschooling my children, and even taking my family out in the woods to live in a cabin for two years! For me, one of the beautiful things about yoga is that it does not ask you to fit any mold, it allows you to express and celebrate your unique-ness. It helps you to put aside the things you think you ought to be, and helps you accept what is happening in the present moment.
Many people say to me, "Oh, I could never do yoga, I'm not flexible enough." This always brings a smile to my face, since when I first started taking yoga classes, I could not touch my toes! Over the years, I have increased my flexibility as well as my strength, in both my body and my mind. Yoga has opened me to so many possibilities, it has taught me to take on challenges and it has opened my eyes to a more spiritual way of thinking. Recently, I have discovered kirtan, and am so happy to be combining my lifelong love of music with this new spirituality. It is another way in which I can help others to connect with the goodness in their hearts, to raise their vibration and consciousness, and to create more peace and joy in the world. |
| Cynthia Turner |
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I read a book recently that described the celebration of a new life in Indonesia. The culture believes that a baby is a god until the feet touch the earth. A ceremony similar to a christening is performed where a Shaman carefully prepares the baby for existence on earth. The most important part of the ceremony is when the baby’s feet first touch the ground and they are brought into the physical journey on earth.
This led me to wonder if the time that the feet of a baby touch the earth was also the exact time that a baby begins to forget that they are god. It then becomes the life path to come back to the state of full remembering. The goal then would be to find the clearest channel to connect to the source within.
I have found many channels to return to that state of remembering. As a child I would escape a chaotic home life to a wooded area behind our house. I would spend hours in the woods, playing by a creek, hiding in a cave or hiking on an old Indian path. I loved the solitude of these days and know that this is how I felt closest to god as a child.
As a college student and young adult, I became a swimmer. Sometimes I would swim a mile in the morning as well as the evening. I would move through the laps in a meditative state and would finish my swim de-stressed and relaxed. I now realize that this was my way of staying connected and peaceful within.
I have always been active and found exercise to be a great stress relief. About ten years ago, I began teaching group fitness classes at several health clubs. I became very interested in yoga and would take a class at a health club when I could. I gradually found ways to fit more classes in as I felt magnetically drawn to the practice.
Shortly thereafter, I was actually offered an opportunity to teach a class at a health club. I had very little qualifications, but I eagerly accepted the opportunity. It was a clear intuitive lead that this was what I was always meant to do.
I took a weekend certification to get more qualifications. I also started to explore different types of yoga and learned that this was a very deep and varied practice. Eventually, a friend introduced me to Anusara yoga and I felt like everything began to make sense physically, spiritually and philosophically.
I feel the practice of Anusara yoga has become the clearest channel that I have found to the divine. The physical practice keeps me healthy and strong and aware of my physical abilities and limitations. The spiritual aspect based in Tantric philosophy addresses the mysteries and unanswered questions in life. The meditation and pranayama practice keep me centered and in touch with my inner voice. To be able to bring all this to others as a teacher is an incredible gift. It is the best way I have learned to truly remember that I am a part of god and that we are all connected. |
| Donna Wylly |
Rodney Collin of The Theory of Conscious Harmony quotes, "Sometimes, by letting go we allow some grace to enter by another channel, which all our mental efforts have hitherto kept out."
Anusara Yoga has literally brought me back to fully participating in my life again. As I child I can remember grown-ups telling me I was just too sensitive (whatever that meant). I had always felt a little on the ‘outside’ of the ‘norm’ and decided early on I wanted to ‘fit’ into the mold, which I spent many years developing. A great deal of that norm consisted of owning and operating a successful ship yard on 12 acres of land, water, docks and out-buildings, employing more than 60, multi-lingual craftsmen, ship painters, mechanics, carpenters, designers, etc. Hours were long and responsibilities huge. It was quite easy to lose a connection to my beginnings especially with a 65 ft. ship slowly sinking in our marina, or the Coast Guard calling looking for space to dock five confiscated vessels in the middle of the night, or with an employee who has a growth on the outside of his head the size of a golf ball and who does not know what to do or when that same employee lands in jail looking for bail.
Everything that was happening on the outside of my life looked pretty darn good to the observer; however, the inside of me was pretty drained, tired, stressed. My husband and I sold that business. We moved from one coast to another, sea to land with the same business ethics. I had been a runner for many years and all the related physical issues started appearing very slowly. When my husband and I started a comparatively small business in close proximity to GOH, I felt the Universe saying to me ‘give it a go’, and I did.
At first I attended class twice a week, then moved to five times a week; my husband started with one and now does three classes a week. Now when I am walking my dog, Sydney, I remember that sensitive little girl who wanted to fit in, and I realize that Anusara Yoga has helped me to fit-in to all of me. I now feel connected with that awareness that used to be labeled ‘sensitive’ and I am grateful that I was able to re-connect with that little girl, and become integrated with her gifts. Anusara Yoga brings me back to opening my heart because that is where we connect with ourselves and each other. Does it get any better than that? |
| Jaye Martin |
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I've always been physically active. I ran track in HS, swam in college, and have always enjoyed skating, gardening, hiking, and canoeing since I was a kid. Of course, my career as a professional dancer was the most physically demanding thing I've ever done. Being a classical ballet dancer can be very stressful for the mind as well as the body...sometimes performing twice a day, rehearsing, and taking class in order to stay in shape and keep up technical standards. When not performing, sometimes I felt like I was at a constant audition with pressure to always look good and act vibrant and energetic even if I was tired or injured.... This was very important in order to be cast in good roles. In the ballet world it wasn't much about how you felt or whether or not you listened to your inner voice, it was about what you looked like on stage, performing and acting. I did some damage to my body. I was in subconscious denial of this for years. Thankfully, through yoga, the damage is revealed to me, sometimes it's repaired itself! When I look back, I see profound changes in my body since beginning yoga in 1998. These days I almost always feel good! If I don't, I'm very likely to listen to my inner voice and respond in an appropriate way. My body can move and express in ways it never did, I'm a better listener, more compassionate and WAY more balanced than ever in regard to my physicality.
Of course, Yoga is something much bigger to me than the physical. The reason I first came to yoga class was for stress relief. Working as a dancer was stressful enough, but then I was going through a divorce at the same time. I needed to be accepted, loved, just as I was. I needed to believe and know that I was good and worthy of unconditional love no matter what I looked like, no matter how I performed. Yoga has brought all this and more to me. I especially cherish the heartfelt connection to all, the feeling of oneness, and that we are co-creators in this experience...in the universe. What a big blessing it is! And what a wonderful gift it is for me to teach, to help and empower others the way my teachers have done for me. Blessings and all love to all my teachers including the one inside of me! |
| Kimberly Braun |
Coming home…I think we all love the feeling of 'coming home,' it evokes many responses such as belonging, harmony, one-ness, joy, peace, love and so much more, as unique as the person experiencing it. This is, in part, what the practice of meditation does for me, it opens the door to 'coming home' to my SELF. It also establishes me in this abiding awareness from which I never have to leave! Wouldn't it be great if we went to a party and had the best time of our lives and it never ended?! That is what I am looking for and is what I find in the practice.
My first meditative experiences of myself as divine consciousness happened in nature, especially during my walks home from school from when I was 5 onward. On these walks, all the world spoke to me of its eternal unfolding and I felt myself part of that process, that evolution. From these moments I gained insight into why I am here, which left me very happy. In a world of so many directions and so many stresses, I long for others to experience this type of happiness.
Each one of us can live in a joy and freedom that will not be taken away through any circumstance or relationship, ultimately this is the only way we realize our true potential. I know, I truly know, that our own complicatedness challenges us as we strive to live simple, peace-filled, liberating lives…but the many aspects of ourselves can be the very means to learn the lessons that lead to fulfilling our hearts' desires. As a retreat facilitator, keynote speaker, meditation coach and budding writer it is my honor to say I am a seeker of truth and love. |
| Nancy Zampella |
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I think yoga is in my blood. My mother did yoga when I was little, so I had a very general knowledge of what it was and what it could do for you. I “found” yoga for myself in 1992. I felt like I had come home.
Yoga made everything in my life a little more bearable and a lot more accessible. My concentration and stamina improved. It also helped me put the other areas of my life in perspective. I was working really hard, putting in between 60 and 80 hours a week. Before I went to the Bahamas on a yoga retreat one Christmas, my boss asked me to think about whether or not I wanted to continue doing what it took to “get the job done.” Staring at the ocean one moonlit night after doing yoga and meditating, I realized I didn’t. Getting the job done wasn’t worth jeopardizing my health and happiness or demanding my co-workers work the long hours I did. I found a new job and eventually changed my line of work.
Yoga has made me stronger and more flexible, but more importantly, it has taught me to be a little more patient, and to be more of a participant in determining my own happiness. I’m healthier now than I was when I was younger, mostly because I now know there are things I can do to empower myself, steps I can take to make myself well and not become a victim of pain or illness. These lessons I have learned through my study of yoga, especially Anusara yoga. I love teaching yoga as much as I adore studying it. It’s only right that I would try to share with others something that has done so much for me.
My path as a yoga student & teacher has continued, first in New York, and since last April, here in Florida. We moved here for the sunshine, but the warmth I feel has come as much from all of you as it has from the sun. I am so thankful to have found Betsey and my wonderful friends, students and colleagues at Garden of the Heart. The close yoga community we share is what I always dreamed of, only better! I can’t wait to see where our journey on this yogic path takes us all. |
| Randall Buskirk |
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Once or twice a year, when I was a kid, a magician would come to town and do a show in the school gym. My friends and I had gotten interested in magic tricks and gimmicks you could carry around, coins that appeared and disappeared, objects that amazingly changed color. Pocket miracles. Soon we'd be able to read minds and predict the future, reveal or conceal secrets as appropriate. These things always worked at home in front of a mirror, but in performance they quickly turned mundane. Coins and cards dropped to the floor. Suave, adult patter provided with the tricks sounded even more ridiculous from a 12-year old. One day a real magician came who had the same kind of show that always cursed us-rabbits popped up at the wrong place, birds flew away, balls rolled across the floor. But we were out of class, so it was still great fun. After the show I went backstage and persuaded the magician to let me help him pack up his tricks. He relented and said, “Ok, kid, take this box out to the van.” He was surly and smoked a cigarette and argued with his wife who doubled as his lovely assistant. We packed the splintered plywood cases into the van and shut the door. He reached into his wallet and said, “Here's my card, kid.” I kept it for a long time, maybe even wrote him a letter. But no secrets were ever revealed. It wouldn't be the last time I was disillusioned.
I still searched for the magic. I longed to understand the mystery. I knew there had to be something else because I felt it so strongly. I shot basketballs and threw baseballs. I picked up a guitar and dragged it around and said “Show me that song,” or “How do you play that lick?” I read books and looked for the revelation in words. I studied physics and tried to solve the equations. I looked at paintings, at color and form. I drank a lot of beer, worked crap jobs, and had guns put to my head. I played in bands, wrote some stories, wrote some poems, wrote some songs. I searched for love and a place in the world.
And then one day I walked into a yoga class at a gym and practiced in my sneakers. I didn't know where I was, but it felt like home. I went back another time, then finally took my shoes off and dived in. Let me tell you, it's a deep pool. When I emerged I felt clean and good and my breath came easy and I felt alive like that for days. I wanted more of it. I felt connected to that mystery again, that I moved within it and it moved within me. It wasn't the mystery of darkness, but instead the mystery of light. And this light began to shine on those things I was still searching for, so that now they seem almost within reach, and if I stretch just a little farther…. See, I'm not sure how to talk about yoga, but if given a chance I'll talk all day. So just let me say come to the studio, come to the mat. Come home to your heart, wherever you are.
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| Rita Knorr, R.Y.T |
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I first discovered yoga on Negril Beach in Jamaica in the 70’s as I thumbed through Richard Hittleman’s 28 Day Yoga Plan. I had taken a week off with some college friends and decided to learn yoga along with catching up on sleep. Over the next 20 years I’d do a downward facing dog every once in a while, but I was totally immersed into my profession as a civil engineer, which lead me to projects in California, Massachusetts, New York , Kansas, Illinois, and Washington, DC. It wasn’t until the 90’s that I began to practice regularly with Iyengar teachers in Washington DC, New York, and Chicago. I loved the Iyengar no-nonsense approach to alignment and discipline, and pursued teaching in that style with fabulous teachers. I had heard of John Friend, so when I saw a brochure from Siddha Yoga Meditation describing sessions he would be teaching at the New York Ashram, I registered the first weekend I could. At the Ashram I was so drawn to the teachings of Gurumayi Chidvilasananda, and the style of hatha yoga that she inspired John Friend to teach, that I have continued my own studies of Siddha Yoga Meditation for 15 years. When Anusara yoga was created, it seemed a natural stepping stone. Maybe it is the engineer in me that loves the concise and simple Universal Principles of Alignment as guidance in the physical practice, while it is the creative and inspired yogin that continues to thrive on the philosophical teachings. |
| Vesna Petrovich |
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I was introduced to yoga in my native Belgrade, Yugoslavia just after graduating from high school. I was back “home” after spending all my school years in French-speaking Northern Africa. Distressed by the move, I felt out of place in my own country. Somehow, my first yoga class brought me back home to my body. Renewed and hopeful, I left that first class as light as a feather, feeling wonderful once again in my body and mind. It was like a miracle, opening my life to new vistas. Not long after, and probably due to the opening created by the magic of yoga practice, I was on the go, realizing my dream to pursue my university studies in Paris.
My first encounter with yoga in the city of light was not what I expected. While my teacher in Belgrade, trained in hatha yoga in India, practiced vinyasa with no meditation, my first yoga class in Paris was mainly a meditative practice. While I was guided into the depth of meditation in the corpse pose (savasana), I felt a complete dissolution of the body while fully aware of my mind. It felt real and totally frightening. In retrospect, I understand that the guidance was masterfully done but to my unprepared mind, the experience scared me away from yoga for years to come. Intensive university studies and big city life did the rest.
Curiously enough, for my doctoral studies in French Enlightenment, I was drawn to study how the French rational mind of the scientific revolution viewed the “irrational” states such as dreams, dreaming and meditation as possible means of knowledge and self-discovery, and how those “irrational” states found their best expression in literature. During my years as a college teacher, meditation and yoga came back to my life as a way to take time for myself. Inspired by exceptional yoga teachers, my practice deepened and evolved somewhat flawlessly into teaching. From yoga student, I became a teacher, and … a yoga student for life.
The Garden of the Heart Yoga Center appeared on my path as a fulfillment of wish. Longing for yoga training and a community in Sarasota, I was flying around the country until Betsey opened her beautiful yoga center! This sacred space has allowed us to develop our practice and spirituality so we can become fully alive, present in our bodies and minds, and honor the life that we are given. We are also blessed with a beautiful kula, or community of hearts, sharing a vision of a larger life and of endless possibilities. Our Garden embodies goodness, harmony and peace on our path to create a better world.
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| Zadda Bazzy |
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There are times in our lives when we undergo beautiful transformations, when we break out of our cocoon and morph into a beautiful butterfly. For me, that moment was when I found Anusara yoga.
Many years ago I created a sacred space in my home. It was simple really – just a small table in the corner of my bedroom with candles and mementos and a fluffy, white mediation rug. This was a place where I could sit and breathe and remember who I truly was.
Somewhere along my journey I dismantled my sacred space. I don’t remember when it happened exactly, but at some point that space disappeared. I rolled up my meditation rug, put my special knick-knacks in a closet, and built a protective cocoon around my heart. In that moment, I lost touch with my sacred self and didn’t find my way back to my heart-center for several years.
I had studied yoga briefly when I lived in New York City in the mid-1990s, but when I moved to Florida in 1997 I never went in search of a yoga studio. My journey to yoga was suspended in time, and I didn’t find yoga again until I got divorced in 2005.
I am often amazed how the “broken moments” in life can serve up blessings and lead us to our higher good. When I got divorced, I spent a great deal of time reorganizing my home and recreating myself. I remembered the sacred corner I had in my bedroom many years ago, and I riffled through my closets in search of my fluffy meditation rug and candles. I also went in search of a yoga studio.
Spirit led me to Garden of the Heart, and I felt an immediate connection to the kula. What an incredible group of individuals! I wanted to spend as much time as possible at the studio, surrounded by like-minded people who were also on the path to uncovering their true nature. After several years of study, I began the Yoga Teacher Training program, and I feel honored to be able to share yoga with my students and friends in the GOH kula.
As you may have guessed, I’ve reclaimed a sacred space in my home as well. It is no longer a corner, but rather an entire room filled with yoga mats and blankets, bolsters and straps. And, of course, the meditation rug that has been with me through the years, patiently beckoning me to sit and breathe and find myself once more. |
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