if it feels comfortable, close your eyes ~ or just soften your gaze. Allow yourself to be, just be.
Notice the softness of being ~ being and breathing. Beautifully soft, beautifully alive. Allow the awareness of gravity, of the way earth is holding you to her. Feel this holding, this anchor in the bones of your seat. Our bones are rich with earth element. You are connected and here is the infinite beauty of you, of earth, of now. Here too ~ breath is flowing, in and out ~ a perpetual reminder of how very deeply you are loved, you are held.
[note: if you simply wish to learn my credentials, who i studied with, those types of things ~ scroll down to the very bottom]
When I ponder what might be ~ what it’s all about ~ the why and how? Possibilities of design and destiny, choice and purpose ~ I often arrive to the image of a luminous tapestry, vibrant and alive. All that exists is held in this tapestry ~ each of us a sparkling, unique thread in the weaving, along with moon, sky, stars, sun, earth, mountains, trees, whales and rivers, rabbits and bumblebees ~ all of life is woven together and what we do, how we live ripples through the tapestry, both forward and backward ~ we are both weaver and woven simultaneously. Interconnected, and one, the same yet also somehow ~ distinct and original. Flowing again and again from the knowing that we are nothing to the knowing that we are everything, from feeling othered to remembering there is no other.
My name is Sierra, my pronouns are she and her. I live in the beautiful mountains of western North Carolina, snug on the banks of the French Broad River. These lands are the ancestral lands of Tsalagi Ayeli ~ the Cherokee Nation. The name of this place is Togiyasdi which translates to “where they race”.
These lands were forcibly seized from the Cherokee, and this acknowledgement does not begin to address or ease the violent history of colonization nor the many attempts to erase indigenous people from land and history.
I am a visitor and to the best of my ability, I live with care and consciousness, aware of the inherent rights of the future generations of all species. I seek to pay my respect in the way that I live and by learning the stories and the ways of the original inhabitants.
“a quick note, but still a love note: practice is holy”
“if it all feels like way too much, find one practice you can commit to every day, even if you start with only one minute, one rep, one bow, one cycle, one lap, one stanza, one page. one cry. one moment of choice. do it deeply, with reverence. or quickly, haphazard…but do it. we become what we practice.”
adrienne maree brown
Mother, daughter, sister, friend, auntie, student, teacher ~ but those are just labels of relationship. Really, I am love-struck awe and wonder, occupying a body that delights in the physical ~ movement, running, yoga, digging into soil, traversing curvatures and chanting mantra, meditating ~ awakening again and again into the truth of our connectedness.
You might already know that I am drawn to the ways in which words give shape and hope, anchor meaning and reveal wisdom. Words of comfort and revelation ~ insight and confession ~ emissaries of ancient teachings and sacred ways. The words of my teachers are sustenance ~ as nourishing and necessary as the lyrical love words from my children, my community.
Love, movement, sacred and holy words ~ coalesce in my yoga practice, my yoga offerings. My relationship with yoga is approaching 40 years and I can still remember my first class like it was yesterday. (I didn’t like it.) My feelings about yoga stayed tepid unitl a friend brought me to a sort of Buddhist flavored Hot Vinyasa with Sarah Powers in 1992. It was that practice, and Sarah too, that lit the candle within me. I give thanks for this flame within me each and every day.
I think of myself as a “yoga universalist” ~ someone who reveres and appreciates the wisdom and practices from all lineages / traditions. I hold multiple certifications ~ a result of both love and curiosity about this huge thing we call yoga. On any given day, my practice could be drawn from vinyasa or restorative, ashtanga or hatha ~ yet always, every day ~ some aspect of my practice is sourced from the tantric tradition of kundalini ~ for this is my “maha” practice, the great practice that resides in my heart and demands some observance each day.
I’ve been profoundly gifted with teachers, each of them leaving a unique and indelible tracing. In addition to Sarah, my most significant influences include Guru Rattana Kaur, Kartar Singh, David Swenson, Tracee Stanley, Shiva Rea, Michelle Johnson, Guru Singh, Yogi Bhajan, Seane Corn and Tara Brach. And, while not a yoga teacher, Joanna Macy has quite possibly shaped and inspired me most.
Credentials … E-RCT500 designation from Yoga Alliance, my certifications include Vinyasa, Ashtanga, Sat Nam Rasayan, Trauma Informed, Special Populations. I teach solo as well as through the Aquarian Training Academy, KRI certified to level 3 in Kundalini.
It is with immense gratitude and respect that I share what I have been taught. At times, it almost feels like an obligation ~ the best sort of obligation ~ for yoga has been the most beautiful light, steady and warming through the darkest and coldest patches of my life.
One of my wishes is to create access where access has been traditionally lacking. This wish became a nonprofit ~ Light a Path ~ an organization dedicate to bring yoga and other somatic modalities to people who are incarcerated, in recovery or experiencing restrictive conditions for any number of reasons, including financial. Volunteering yoga instruction is the prison system has been an incredible source of learning ~ not just about yoga, but about life.
Really ~ to be in the position of teaching is also to be in the position of learning, a reciprocity that is exquisitely inherent in all environments. In addition to teaching weekly classes, occasional workshops and trainings, volunteering and writing curriculum, one of my longest running positions is Adjunct Faculty at Warren Wilson College (25+ years) where I offer several credit-carrying yoga courses.
I am a perpetual learner. I studied Environmental Ethics at the University of Maryland and later, Health Arts & Sciences at Goddard College. My children have been and continue to be some of my most important teachers, along with the trees, the owls ~ the wild earth around me.
