Welcome to my new website!

Early 2022, I participated in a New Year’s workshop with my teacher, Manorama D’Alvia (www.sanskritstudies.org). I felt full of creative energy, and one of my goals for 2022 was to make a website, so I did!

I also created my new company name - Texas Shraddha Yoga. You’ll see me write this in a few different ways (depending on the font capabilities!) and the technically accurate form has an ‘s’ with a little dash above it and a line over the last ‘a’. The S with the dash above it is pronounced “sh” with your tongue on the top of your palette, a little toward the back. The first a is pronounced “uh” and the second ‘a’ is pronounced “aaaah”. I know this is a little confusing, and it’s a great conversation starter! The first time I heard this word, something lit up inside me - not unlike when you see someone, and you feel that mix of fear and excitement and curiosity - something pulls you in. Shraddha is often translated to mean faith - a word I’ve never particularly liked. Faith, for me - a self-professed nerd - was ignorant. Show me the proof, your references, journal articles, test results - all the things! And, do NOT make it religious if you want me to stay in the conversation. I had been judged and hurt in the name of “God” too many times to count, and “faith” felt like a justification for prejudice.

And, yet, another part of me, she has always had faith in the magic of life. Faith in intuition, love, nature, and the cosmos. This is the faith I leaned into when I found yoga. This is the faith that helped me wade through the muckiest swamps of the hard times in my life. And, this is the faith to which I am dedicating my life’s work. To the beautiful God/Goddess in stillness under the messy dance of religion, the sparkle in a pregnant woman’s eye that gives away her tightly held secret, the forgiveness that is birthed from love, even when you want so badly to hate. As Manorama said once - Shraddha is like a bridge when you cannot see the path forward. In my words, it is the deep breath that keeps you moving forward, pointed in the direction of the heart.

And, I love the practice of yoga - the philosophy, the history, the drama, the conflict, the beauty, and the stillness - I love to share my exploration of yoga in community. My practice has helped me wade through a lot - it isn’t all love and light - it is a path to live and embrace life fully.

I’m hoping that the blog will provide a space for more extended musings that Instagram does not. I enjoy reading, thinking, and writing about yoga-adjacent topics such as psycho-somatic exploration, spirituality, self-healing, and mythology. If any of that interests you, or you just want to stay tuned to where and when I’m teaching, please sign up for my newsletter or follow me on Facebook or Instagram.

Note: I have a minimal idea of how Facebook works, but I think my Instagram posts also show up there! Email and Instagram are the best ways to contact me.