One morning I woke up, freezing cold, in the Himalaya. The clock read 3:15. The room I was staying in only offered one thin wool blanket per bed, and I was grossly unprepared for the winter chill.

I rolled out of bed and went for a hike along the Ganges to warm up. It was still several hours to sunrise, but the moon was out and the river was raging. That far North, the Ganges roars.

Broken Promises: The Trouble with New Year’s Resolutions

It’s now 20 days into January…did you already break your resolution? Each holiday season I get a bit excited to see everyday folk dabble in the world of the yogi. That is, they take stock of their life, notice that something could be changed or improved, and take actions to accomplish it. Trouble is, it usually comes in the form of a vague goal or resolution to be attempted for a few days and quickly put aside.

I’ve hugged Amma. I’ve walked around Mt. Arunuchula under the full moon. I’ve laid my forehead at the sandals of Krishnamacharya, and I survived high school chemistry class only because of the humor and joy of a one Ramzi Farran.

I’ve even opened the hornet’s nest of teaching myself, which makes me a very critical student.

I teach a lot of teacher trainings.  

Usually three to six trainings a year, at the 200 and 300 hour level. At every training I run into expectations, from inspired yogis who want to absorb as much as they can so they can head out into the world and share their passion. They want to learn alignment. Sequences. Variations. Some of them even want to learn anatomy, but only if this particular realm of education requires no reading and can come in pill-form.     

“Now you’re in.” James said to me with a playful smile. The heaviest steel door I’d ever seen, covered in two-inch rivets and decades of paint to hold back the rust, had just slammed behind me and the electric lock mechanism buzzed with a scream. Just moments ago I had been looking out over the San Francisco Bay, waves lapping at the shore. And now I was quite literally locked in to San Quentin State Prison, a maximum security prison and home to nearly seven thousand inmates, most serving life sentences.