May 30, 1:00 - 4:00 PM Workshop, 4:30 - 6:00 PM Sound Bath and Yoga Nidra
Offering Tier Pricing:
$75, $50 and $25 for the 3 hour workshop and then $15 - $20 suggested for the Sound Bath / Yoga Nidra
The Intersection of Mindfulness and Social Justice: Aligning Your Practice with Purpose
Yoga is a spiritual practice that enables the practitioner to discover mindfulness, balance, and wholeness. It is a practice of self-liberation and healing. But yoga is also a practice that has evolved in a material world, where resources, knowledge, and opportunity are usually assigned to those in privilege, while those in racialized, oppressed, and marginalized bodies often do not have adequate or equitable access to those same resources. One may ask, how can I mindfully disrupt systems of oppression while maintaining a compassionate and peaceful existence? And what is my role as a disrupter? Am I an organizer, a healer, a builder, a warrior, or a cultivator?
Another important question to ask oneself is, how can I take responsibility for my own biases, prejudices, and conditioning, and then actively practice harm reduction (ahimsa) to promote the liberation of all beings?
The answer lies with the heroes of Hindu mythology, who knew that fulfilling dharma meant serving the greater good. Spiritual Warriors always seemed to transcend materialism and waged epic battles against oppression.
In this workshop we will weave together:
• yogic philosophy and concepts
• Stories to illustrate the metaphorical relationship of the contemporary and the mythological
• Journaling for self study
• Discussion in order to gain clarity
Each session will begin with mantra, asana and pranayama in order to embody our practice.
Yoga has the power to draw out the best of ourselves, in order to serve our highest purpose. The practitioner of yoga has to be willing to use their practice to actively dismantle the systems of oppression from WITHIN - fear, greed, judgment, conditioning - in order to move through this world heroically. Our personal practice of liberation is ineffective if it does not support COLLECTIVE liberation, and the end of suffering for all beings.
