Shakti Rising Yoga

Swaying charred boards hanging from rusty cables……remnants of the historic Dewey Bridge. In an instant the curiosity of a child and a spark of fire set into motion the metamorphosis of a desert icon from “permanent” fixture to a wisp of what was, reminding us that the only thing constant is change. The desert landscape has a way of inviting us into conversation with her about the transformation and exchange of energy.

Further down the road a Great Blue Heron rests for a moment, preening, on an exposed tongue of sand, jutting from the bank of the Colorado River. A tongue of sand that will eventually shape shift as the spring progresses into a mass of swirling particles which may or may not reconnect on down the river. The heron seems unconcerned that its current perch will most likely be washed away as the spring melt ensues. A puff of dingy foam floats past, another momentary fixture in this river ecosystem reminding me to bring my sights to the road ahead. I pick up speed, shift into fourth gear and wind on down River
Road towards my retreat in the desert.

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Brown’s Hole has the familiar comfort of an Appalachian Mountain “hollar”, yet at the same time evokes the powerful rawness that only the desert can. Coming from the mountains of North Carolina and now deeply in love with the desert, I am content in the artful blend of past and present that this little piece of land just south of Moab brings me.

My friend purchased acreage in Brown’s Hole a few years back which now provides many fortunate friends willing to swing an axe or dig a hole for a few hours a retreat spot or even a place to live if your willingness extends beyond a few hours. For me it’s a place to be reminded of a simpler, more sustainable way of life……..and all the hard work and devotion it takes to create it. It also affirms my communal nature, an evolving piece of myself that I gravitate towards more and more with each passing day. Here a very small group of people live and create community through an off-the-grid self sustaining lifestyle-food is grown on site and cooked in a wood fired stove, electricity is collected from the energies of the sun and water, small abodes are built from the immediate earth and local hay and vehicles are run off recycled grease.

I arrive in the late afternoon after a peaceful desert drive excited by the sounds of the Polyphonic Spree. Immediately I launch into helping plant fruit trees which are being delicately grafted onto root stock and then it’s on to digging a fresh bed in the garden and planting asparagus. I enjoy chatting with friends, my hands sifting through the freshly churned earth. Springtime in the desert is always sacred, but somehow knowing that my energy is a combined effort with those around me to create sustenance in a land that asks for so much trust and devotion in order to provide bounty brings an even more sacred nature to the experience.

As a yogini making a career out of being a yogini, my mind often wanders into the dichotomy of how can I live a life this connected to the earth and still follow my passion of teaching yoga as a way of earning a living. And how can I live this kind of life and still have my internet connection. Well, really that’s just a matter of $150 a month and satellite internet. I suppose that’s the easy part.

The following day is spent mostly getting sunburned and trading philosophies with a girlfriend while the freshly grafted fruit trees bask nearby in a constant cooling mist from the sprinkler system. After awhile I wander up the dirt road with The Hound and up the hill for some time spent on a rock pondering my yogini conundrum. I keep thinking back to the Dewey Bridge and the heron on its momentary sandbar watching the puff of foam float by. Then I drift off into a light sleep next to a purple flower. I wake a bit later to the conversation below between a rooster and a hen on an property adjoining my friend’s. I see my friends on the roof of the straw bale peanut shaped community house tacking on new metal sheeting for the roof and off in the distance on another property a hammer is swung over and over reverberating it’s song off the short cliff walls that cradle Brown’s Hole. Brown’s Hole has always seemed so vast to me, but from here it looks so small as my eyes regain full focus and are able to discern the miles of red rock canyon land off in the distance. I remember again the bridge, the heron, the foam and reconnect with the knowledge that the only thing constant is change and that in the big picture the current assumptions I am working off probably have only a fraction of relevance. So perhaps I don’t have the answer about finding my midline between the continued development of myself as a yoga teacher and living more sustainably in the vision that I currently have. That’s what moving toward the unknown is……it’s about not having answers laid before us, trusting that we live in perfect chaos and having compassion and love for all the processes that take us to the next moment of our amorphous realities. Tomorrow the bridge may not be here and the foam will have blended itself back into the bigger collective of the river’s currents.

I can only make choices for my present moment. My present moment finds me happily situated before my internet connection before I take off to teach my next yoga class in a community that I adore.