Question: What circumstances originally led you to yoga?
I was always interested in yoga, even before I understood what yoga meant. I can remember that as a kid, I would see pictures and images of yogis and Native American shamans. They were very mysterious and interesting and I was intrigued by them so I wanted to know more about them. When we were very young, my sister and I would have shoulder stand contests, even though we had no idea it was actually a yoga posture. I think my early interest in yoga was because of a strong samskara that came with me into this life. I can’t recall a time when I was not interested in these things, but it was not something I could have spoken about at such an early age. I began meditating at the age of sixteen and that was my link to knowing more about what yoga really was. I meditated for many years, and I was also reading books by Krishnamurti, as well as books on a variety of philosophies.
When I turned thirty, I sold all my possessions, bought a one way ticket to London, and traveled around the world for four years. About a year and a half of that was spent on a kibbutz in Israel where I met several very interesting people who were on spiritual paths, and that had an influence on me. My job was working on the farm where I learned how to drive a tractor, and other agricultural skills. I learned how to harvest bananas. They come in big, long bunches weighing about 70 pounds. Harvesters would walk down the road and someone had a pole knife that cut the bunch of bananas at the neck in such a way that they would fall down on the person’s shoulder. I was young and strong and had something to prove, working with all the guys. I did everything that they did.
When I returned home, as a result of the banana harvesting, I learned that a lot of damage had been done to my spine. This was before yoga was well known, but in my town, there was one self taught yoga teacher who was also a meditator. After the first class that I took, I felt like I had come home; I knew that this was the thing for me and I continued to take her classes for a couple of years. During this period, I also practiced at home and it got to the point where my yoga teacher gave me individualized instruction as she taught her group class.
When her father became ill and was dying, she asked me to teach her classes while she was away. At first I didn’t feel I could, but she had also become a close friend after so many years, and I felt I couldn't say no. That went well and when she came back I asked her about becoming a yoga teacher. I still knew very little about the whole yoga movement. I had never heard of an ashram or any yoga magazines such as the Yoga Journal. All I knew about yoga was from my classes and a book by Richard Hittleman that I found in a used bookstore. This was in the mid- eighties when very little was known about Yoga in the deep South where I am from.
My teacher discouraged me from taking a yoga teacher training course; she said I didn’t need it and that I should get my training in Transcendental Meditation, which I did. I received a Sanskrit Bija mantra from them, but I also continued to meditate using the mantra I had previously chosen and had been using for many years which was, Be Still And Know That I Am God. Something was still missing for me and finally, my teacher suggested that I look in the back of a Yoga Journal magazine for a Teacher Training course. There, on the first page that I opened, was a picture of Sri Gurudev. The effect that this had on me was phenomenal. I knew that I knew him. It was not that I recognized him as if I had once seen or met him. It was something different; a very deep knowing. At that point I decided to take the Teacher Training Course that was advertised under his picture. This was probably in 1989, and I took my training at Yogaville in 1990. We were taught by Swami Asokananda and Rev. Durga, Rev. Jaganath and Swami Karunananda and I feel I had the best of the best in regard to my basic training, both in asana, and in yoga philosophy.
It was at this particular visit to the ashram that I met Sri Gurudev in person for the first time. As was the custom, after Satsang, individuals could wait their turn to greet him as he sat in his chair. When it was my turn, I presented him with a bag of handpicked blackberries and a big beautiful red bow that I had found on the ashram property. I don’t recall anything that I said, but I remember just wanting to crawl up right into his lap! The photo that was taken of the two of us, with his arm around me, holding the bag of berries, is still on my altar. It was during this interaction that I knew I wanted to accept mantra initiation. I found it interesting that the mantra I received during initiation with Rev. Jaganath, contained the same bija sound found in the Transcendental Mantra I had received earlier.
Question: Am I correct that after Mantra Initiation, you had an impact on the Teacher Training at Yogaville, and that you created an Integral Yoga Community in Georgia?
After my Basic TT, I came back home and opened an Integral Yoga Studio in Georgia. I spent several months out of each year at Yogaville, serving in the Teacher Training programs. During those times I assisted Swami Asokananda and Rev. Durga. Later, under their guidance, I became a Teacher Training trainer in the Academy, and served in that capacity for over 20 years. I was on a Hatha and various other committees. I also took every teacher training that was offered. During the last eight years of that period, I was mainly assisting in the Advanced Teacher Training programs with Asokananda. I stopped teaching the Basic TT, and more or less assisted him wherever he gave an Intermediate or Advanced training program.
Question: What does your ministry look like now?
Before Covid, I had two yoga studios; one was an Accessible Yoga studio in a doctors clinic, and one was at home. When Covid hit, I closed both studios and didn’t want to teach on zoom. I just became a farmer on our 20 acres of land, and got more deeply into my own practice. I loved how each day unfolded in a natural way, without having a schedule. Previously, my husband and I traveled to and taught at the Sivananda Ashram in the Bahamas for about 10 years. During Covid I tapped into their existing online classes and found that to be very helpful and inspiring. I still participate in their online satsangs and morning meditations. I have taken courses over and over with Swami Brahmananda on the Bhagavad Gita and the Upanishads. These courses have been very enriching for me.
My ministry during the Covid years had to change. I served locally with some people from Amaji’s organization, who were making hot meals for all the homeless and tent communities. I missed being serviceful and this opportunity filled the need for me to be useful. It felt just right for me. We cooked the food and then some young college students went into the very difficult areas to deliver the meals.
When that service ended, people had begun to get more comfortable living with Covid, so I started teaching again. My ayurvedic teacher who lives in San Francisco contacted me because her husband fell off a high scaffolding and this resulted in a serious head injury. She asked me to work with him. I taught him on Zoom and I’m still working with him. He’s doing great.
I still felt I was missing the ‘service piece’ of my practice. I had been studying Jnana Yoga but really, Karma and Bhakti Yoga are kind of the mother, the foundation of Jnana Yoga. People were contacting me but I was still not interested in teaching large classes so I began to teach individual students on Zoom, with people who had a wide variety of issues. Someone who was one of my students before Covid, contacted me. Her Parkinson's had advanced and she asked if I could get a few teachers together to work with her. I found three teachers, all who had been previously trained in my studio with Swami Ramananda and Lakshmi Sutter. We each worked with her
but her condition worsened. Her husband was doing the class with her to be of assistance. He was also having personal issues and so I began working only with him, and the other three teachers worked with Kay.
Currently, I am teaching one small class of three, and I still see individuals, as well as teaching again at the Accessible Yoga studio classroom. I’m also, once again, teaching a large therapeutic class.
Question: You’ve been serving, practicing and meditating many decades. What words of wisdom can you share with our readers?
I have no ‘wise words’ to share. What does come to my mind is a prayer that I love sooo much:
That is full, this also is full
This fullness came from that fullness
Though this fullness came from that fullness
That fullness remains forever full
There’s a feeling of connection; the cyclic feeling of flowing into the truth, into the bliss, into what I don’t even know how to name. It can be called God, or whatever you want. But I feel that the continuous flow into That, and receiving That, is the key to the end of suffering.