You know yoga has arrived when yoga teachers are up at the mic giving a TED talk.

This past October, the Bay Area’s very own yoga teacher-rapper-extraordinaire MC Yogi took the stage at Madrone Studios in the Mission to address a room full of movers, thinkers, and shakers as part of an event called TED X City 2.0. The event was created to bring together bright, urban visionaries to speak about how to create more sustainable cities. I caught up with the MC Yogi this week to ask him about the experience, and how yoga teaches us in the Bay Area to be more sustainable.  

Read more »

If you are part of the yoga community, here’s what you probably see when you log on to Facebook: invitations to expensive yoga retreats in exotic locations, photos of friends or teachers modeling seemingly impossible yoga poses atop striking mountains, snippets of inspiring poetic wisdom that have garnered varying amounts of likes, and YouTube videos of 95-year-olds, sexy young things, and domesticated animals doing yoga.

The yoga community definitely has a strong presence on Facebook. But is it a good thing for the spiritual path?

During a discussion in a meditation group I went to last year, a woman confessed that Facebook was ruining her life. Every time she’d hop on to the site, she never ceased to become anxious, depressed, and lonely. Why wasn’t her life as cool and exciting as that of all of her “friends”? Why was she just sitting at home, viewing this unrelenting news feed of her acquaintances’ accomplishments, international sojourns, and glamour shots?

Read more »

Humans are funny creatures. We don’t need to be reminded to complain or judge someone else (or ourselves)—that’s so easy. I mean, things always go wrong and people are constantly screwing up, right? So who needs a reminder to begrudge or kvetch? But to feel deep appreciation for what you have in this moment … that’s hard. We need reminders for that. In fact, we need a holiday. 

Why is a simple thing like gratitude so difficult? It’s not because we’re self-centered people who are intentionally fixated on what’s wrong rather than what’s right (though certainly this is what it often feels like). It’s because, and recent research by neuroscientists supports this, our brains are simply wired to solve problems. And if your brain really wants to solve a problem, and a problem does not currently exist, your brain will create a problem to solve. You’re probably trying to solve a problem at this very moment. You just can’t help it.

Read more »

I’ve heard it said that the best test for how enlightened you’ve become is to see how calm you are while spending an entire week living in your parents’ home. I think election time is an even better test. All of the non-judgment and non-violence we’ve been cultivating all year in our yoga practices seems to go out the window once politics jumps in.

Though politics has become a 7000-watt Technicolor light show of power play and ego (and maybe it always was, short of the glowing billboards and the nationally televised verbal gladiator-style showdowns), it is not inherently corrupt or evil. Government, at its best, is an attempt for all of us earthlings to live peaceably together. To create some kind of system that will help us co-exist on this planet from which we sprung sans guidebook (or even, apparently, access to more than 10 percent of our own brains). Politics, stripped to its bare essentials, is a way for us to determine who writes that guidebook.

Read more »

If you’re a goddess or know one, this is your week. Not because the presidential debate on Tuesday night revolved around (devolved into?) a two-ring circus of male presidential candidates each trying to out-woman the other. That was just comedy. I’m talking about Navaratri.

Navaratri is an Indian holiday that worships the divine feminine. The nine-night holiday actually happens several times a year, but the one that occurs in autumn is known as Maha Navaratri. (“Maha” means “great” or “the biggest, baddest one.”) It’s a Hindu holiday, but it’s celebrated by yogis everywhere—because, let’s face it: There are few better ways to spend nine days than worshipping goddesses.

We’re all about girl power in San Francisco, but what does it really mean to celebrate the divine feminine? It doesn’t mean we all get our nails done and read People magazine for 9 days straight (though if that’s your thing, no judgment). The divine feminine is neither flighty nor fanciful. Rather, it’s fickle, fabulous, and fierce.

Read more »

Yoga can be so serious. Ever look around class while people are doing backbends or pressing their quads to their bones in a standing pose? Wrinkled brows. Flared nostrils. Gripping toes. You’d think we’re all training to go into battle. Not that I have an issue with intensity-- in the right amounts and on the right occasions. But if we don’t balance passion, dedication, and hard work with lightness and ease, we may be doing warrior pose but we’re not doing yoga.

So, play. Play means different things to different people. When I was a child, play meant begging my older brother to let me cavort with him and his friends while they played fighting-soldier-shoot-out in the backyard. My brother let me play sometimes, but only if I would take on the secret code name of Mop Top.

That wasn’t the most delightful kind of play.

Read more »

I’ve been practicing yoga for 12 years. Over the years, my practice has changed depending on the basic conditions of my life: my age, my health, my schedule, my location, my physical and spiritual interests and needs, my romantic relationships, my relationship with chocolate chip cookies. Each time I’ve come to a point of transition in how I practice, or where I practice, or with whom I practice (and, more recently: how I teach, where I teach, and for whom I teach), I start to question why I’m doing what I am doing and what is the ultimate goal. 

The questioning is uncomfortable—who wants to question a thing they love? 

Read more »

It’s no surprise that we have days and weeks and months that are specifically designated to honoring things, like MLK day or Breast Cancer Awareness Month. To honor something, you have to name it and then give it some space in your life.

Sometimes we forget to give things space. I used to think days like Mother’s Day were just crafty inventions of the greeting card industry, but that’s too simplistic a view. Mother’s Day reminds us to show our mothers some love, and the sad -- or maybe just practical -- truth is that most of us need that reminder. Sure, we should be doing that every day, but we get all caught up in whatever it is that we get caught up in. If we want to say anything about the greeting card (and mega-billion-dollar gift) industry, we can say it capitalizes on our lack of day-to-day presence with the ones we love.

But it’s ok. We’re human, we need reminders. And if we’re smart, we’ll remind ourselves of lots of things, and often.

Read more »

Local yoga teacher and writer Karen Macklin's new weekly column on SFBG explores yoga, meditation, and conscious living in the big city.

Let’s talk about yoga. Ten years ago, when it was starting to gain momentum in the US, lots of people predicted it would be a passing fad, like Richard Simmons or the Moonies. No way this thing of stretching, breathing, chanting, meditating could stick in modern society. Remember Cabbage Patch Kids? Rollerblading? Reliable health insurance? Yeah, me neither. That’s the way Western yoga was supposed to go.

Read more »