Jan Update - 1/1 Free Class Starting Again…..

Dec 27

Joy and Clarity in the midst of chaos…. Let’s see where our yoga can take us this year.
Wanna a give someone a nudge beside yourself? Gift certificates are here

In Person:
1/3 + 1/10, Start Again! - Ukiah
4/8-12, Outdoor Meditation & Yoga Retreat - CA
5/1-8, Gray Bear Presence + Advanced Retreat - TN
7/2-7 Summer Retreat - CA - 4 spots left! Final payments due 1/1-1/31

Online:
1/1 - F REE Class for Everyone

1/3 - Regular weekly classes continue on Tues, Wed and Sat ams
Special Offer for Newbies! One FREE month….

1/23-5 Nature as Guru - Weekend of Yoga

2/1 YOGA SALON begins - 6 month program - Taking Flight! Bird Power…..

IN-PERSON: Start Again!
1/3 & 1/10 12.30-2.15pm
Ukiah, CA
A special 2 part yoga workshop to revitalize your Yoga for 2026 and to give you guidelines and support for ongoing practice at home.
Early bird ends soon. Info

ONLINE YOGA WEEKEND:
Nature as Guru 1/23 - 25/26

The loudest voices around us right now are often harsh, delusional and unsupportive. This weekend is an opportunity to celebrate our place in the natural wild world and to immerse ourselves in imagery, poetry, movement, breath that is inspired by the wisdom and generosity of fellow creatures and plant life. What a relief to be in such tender care! and how helpful in our daily lives as we move on into the challenges of 2026

IN-PERSON:
OUTDOOR at Pomo Tierra!
Meditation and Yoga Retreat
4/8-12/2026

One of my fave photos from the retreat on our collective land in 2024. What a joy it was to bless and be blessed by this land as we practiced together in silence. This is a camping retreat sponsored by Off Grid Retreats, and fellow residents will be practicing with us, and our meditation guide Kirsten Rudestam.
Info here

ONLINE: Yoga Salon 2026
Taking Flight! Bird Power

These monthly gatherings on first Sundays with fellow yoga nutz are a highlight of my year. And clearly significant to past and continuing participants:

”Salon is a beautiful opportunity to dedicate space and time to the depths within and around you. Mary’s guidance invites you into nature’s rhythm, a gift in these times. Time spent in this community has supported my remembering of my true nature and deepened my respect for all of life’s expressions.” Gia B Pleasanton, CA

”The yoga salon allowed me to think more deeply about my practice and read around and discuss how we are part of nature in all its forms. This was not as a teacher but a yoga woman who wants to know and think more about her practice with Mary and like-minded others.” Sue C - UK

“In these times of needing union and solidarity more than ever, Yoga Salon has been a respite and boon - not only for individual solace and renewal, but also as a space where colleagues come together to be inspired and nourished in our service. Mary is a rare blessing!” TJ - Alameda, CA

Deposit due pre 1/1/26 - Small group size so register soon - Info here

WELLNESS AND WILL! - Taking flight in collective and soulful ways……

Rebecca Solnit in a message to Third Act, a climate group of elders and worthy of support!, mentioned that she was asked earlier this year, “How are you doing?” A good question to consider as we move into an extraordinary year to come. Her response: “I was made for this”. And part of the reason she could say this is because she is part of a vibrant community who are meeting challenge with courage and persistence and a sense of possibility. “It’s a democracy issue because we are one species among many. We are only part of the web of life. Native people often remind us that we were put here to be stewards, to be caretakers. We don’t have the right to devastate all of this—because rivers have rights, forests have rights, other species have rights. There’s a kind of democracy of all beings that I believe we’re also protecting as climate activists.” This is what empowers and shapes Solnit and allows her to say “I was made for this” What are you/we made for? What gives you the grist and confidence to enter this new year?

Can I pretend that I am entering 2026 without trepidation after what we have seen in 2025? When battle ships are on the edge of escalating an illegal war in Latin America, and our friends in Cuba abandoned and economically sanctioned for generations, have no idea of what will happen next. And bat-shit loony tunes are coming out of every orifice of government.

It’s times like this that I wonder how it is we loose our collective wisdom and will, and fall prone to those with the loudest voices and the biggest instagram accounts. Are “we made to” meet challenge with discrimination and determination, or do we simply fall prey to those who express confidence when times are wobbly and weird? It appears that it is often the latter, where we confuse clarity and confidence with a deranged sense of individual self empowerment and questionable “facts”.

Cyd and I have been listening to the The Birth Keepers, a podcast series by the Guardian that explores the world of free birthing and the power that 2 women have had, and still have, over many susceptible mothers to be. Their followers, who have helped them amass a many million dollar business, are drawn to the “confidence” of these 2 individuals who encourage women “to be empowered” and to birth without any support from the medical world or regular midwives. As one disaffected follower ruminated, the word “Con Man” arises from the word confidence - we are seeking certainty in a bewildering world of muddied truths. Many of the women involved have either been betrayed by our broken and sometimes disempowering medical system or are drawn to the magic and quasi spiritual elements of what I would call a pastel Q organization, turbo charged during the covid years.

Sadly, when I consider my own birthing experience, I can totally understand why women would be reaching for less over medicated alternatives, and be prone due to poverty or disempowerment to be led into some bizarre directions in the pursuit of the Natural. C-section and mortality rates of birthing mothers in this country are ridiculously high. Cyd was born in an old bath tub, the 2nd water birth that my midwife had delivered - it was a wonderful experience, but I would not have done it alone or without possible hospital back up if needed. And while it was challenging at that time to insist on the most natural of options, many of the encouragements to trust one’s own body a la Birth Keepers would have been welcome when 3 decades ago, I was seeking alternatives.. If you listen to the podcase, you will see that tragedy can occur if these Birth Keepers advice to literally only listen to your own body are followed, and any collective understandings are dismissed. Mathew Remski of the Conspirituality pod have been following these characters for awhile and recently noted that like other powerful wellness influencers, there is a drift into fundamental and more rigid Christian beliefs and away from some of the roots of feminism these women appear to originally subscribe to. Apparently it is very exhausting having the megaphone and at some point, perhaps, they wish to pass on their responsibilities to God.

The so-called “Wellness” industry is rife with people - many of whom began life as yoga teachers! - who proclaim and monetize their proclamations whether they are founded on truth or are a combo or wellness speak and avarice. Consider Candace Owens who is trying desperately to destroy Brigitte Macron, the French president’s wife, with accusations that Brigitte is in fact a man. In these years of cultural polarization, blatant racism, religious extremism, and even pretty obvious eugenic tendencies among many wellness operators, how do we navigate it all and not fall prey to the next dominant voice that undermines our inherent power and compassion?

No easy answers but especially at this time of year, as we creep towards the light, it is inspiring to be around communities of simple togetherness, whether that be family, friends’ groups, community action fellowships or as Rebecca points out among those who are taking on the truly significant truths of something like climate change. It is helpful to be embodied in ways that are independent of hierarchies and commercial monopolies - just you on the mat, may be with others, may be alone, may be with the dog/cat/toddler! Quietly simply building confidence and clarity one breath at a time, one step at a time and extending warmth to all the wonderful murmurations around us that we are not even aware of. Listening to nature as guru. This way we discover and protect our own inner democracy, and our collective engagement with our wonderful planet. Can we say at the beginning and the end of this year “I was made for this” ?

Wishing you many magical murmurations in the year to come and minimal contact with wellness weirdos….

Blackbirds by Julie Cadwallader-Staub

I am 52 years old, and have spent
truly the better part
of my life out-of-doors
but yesterday I heard a new sound above my head
a rustling, ruffling quietness in the spring air

and when I turned my face upward
I saw a flock of blackbirds
rounding a curve I didn’t know was there
and the sound was simply all those wings
just feathers against air, against gravity
and such a beautiful winning
the whole flock taking a long, wide turn
as if of one body and one mind.

How do they do that?

Oh if we lived only in human society
with its cruelty and fear
its apathy and exhaustion
what a puny existence that would be

but instead we live and move and have our being
here, in this curving and soaring world
so that when, every now and then, mercy and tenderness triumph in our lives
and when, even more rarely, we manage to unite and move together
toward a common good,

we can think to ourselves:

ah yes, this is how it’s meant to be