The Branches

The most surprising and joyful moment of my first Burning Man was this: I was biking past some tents when someone held out an icy pink snow cone to me. It was so quick that I couldn’t even stop cycling; they simply put it in my hand. I whooped my thanks and saw them hand another snow cone to the cyclist behind me. I was overjoyed to have been given a cold treat and delighted by the silliness of how it happened. 

Everyone loves to sh*t on Burning Man, but the ethos of gift-giving at this yearly festival changed my life. Along with Leave No Trace and Radical Inclusion, Gifting is one of the ten principles that shape community and culture at Burning Man. People bring gifts of massive art sculptures and experiences, gifts of food and drink, gifts of music and dancing, gifts of giant shaded spaces with hammocks to swing in. There is no money exchange in the entire festival (well, you can buy ice for your coolers) and everyone is welcome everywhere.

This is me at Burning Man in 2019, greeting people arriving at the event.

When I returned from my first Burning Man in 2014, I was bursting with gratitude. I was so inspired by what I had been given – dance workshops, incredible music, sculptures that I could climb and play on, and a warmth from strangers I hadn’t expected. And my way of bringing the culture of Burning Man to my everyday life was to give little felt heart pins to everyone that I met.

For several years, I surprised everyone from grocery store clerks to bus drivers with my hearts. Queen Street Yoga (our name before we became The Branches) was a hub of heart-giving activity. Most folks had them on their yoga mat bags, or sweatshirts. I always had a stash of hearts in my pockets, ready to give.

The hearts took a pause during the pandemic, but for several years they were my everyday invitation to look at people and offer a gift. It was a small thing – a piece of felt, and a pin – but more often than not, people responded with huge appreciation. It was a tiny gift, but reaching past our cultural norms and offering a touchpoint of connection was truly meaningful to people. Their responses were a gift to me, and kept me cutting hearts late into the evening. 

Burning Man taught me to lead with generosity, to seed the culture that I want to live in by giving to others. The hearts taught me that generosity doesn’t have to be flashy or expensive – it was the simple act of giving something that created connection and sparked gratitude both ways. 

In our current cost-of-living crisis it can feel challenging to feel generous or grateful. We might feel like we need to hold on to everything we have, and that even that isn’t enough. I don’t deny that we are at a crux in our country right now, and that change is badly needed. And, I also want to remind myself of that old lesson of leading with generosity, of sharing something simple, and finding my way back to gratitude and connection.

In October we’re going to be focusing on growing our gratitude, and to lead the way, we’ve created a number of special gifts for you. We hope you make it into the studio in October to participate and see what we have in store for you.

Thank you for all the ways you show up in our community.

With heartfelt appreciation,
Emma

A thoughtful post from our meditation teacher, Danette.

Home to moist cobwebs and well-fed centipedes, the cement basement is not a welcoming space for beings with fewer legs. In one room, the washer and dryer stand shoulder to shoulder, stoically among the arachnids and arthropods waiting in the dark to be useful. In two others, repurposed shipping pallets have been turned into shelves that keep boxes of forgotten mementos and seasonal items off the floor and free from their fear of spring flooding.

Looking under the lids of dust-covered boxes, I rediscover tokens of a life that seems to have happened a lifetime ago. Each thing I find, I hold, reflect and remember. Then I decide if I will hold onto it, share, donate, sell or discard. Each emptied box creates space on the shelves for new possibilities and ultimately less sorting work for future generations to do after my demise.

What if I used a similar sorting process for my emotions? Holding onto and storing them in my body without much reflection has been my default for as long as I can remember but a recent dental appointment had me wondering about the wisdom of that automatic response.

At the onset of a tooth extraction procedure, as the anaesthetic was taking a long time to kick in, I felt a familiar fluttering in my chest and twinge in my jaw that signalled tears looking for a way out. My emotional auto-pilot kicked in. I held the tears back with a freeze response that included clenching my fists and holding my breath. This contracted bodily response felt like necessary protection for me in a room that was too bright, noises that were too loud, along with the urge to flee the impending discomfort and then having to make small talk with a dental surgeon I had just met was too much.

In my frozen emotional state in that dentist chair, my basement-clearing episode came to mind. I experimented with a new response. I cried. Slow, quiet tears rolled down my cheeks to my ears in my reclined position. My fists relaxed and I felt my breath in the gentle rise and fall of my belly.

The young dentist asked me to keep my anaesthetized tongue out of the way while he wrenched out a fractured molar and inserted an implant with what felt like considerable force. I could tell he was uncomfortable with the moist trickles running down my cheeks and the inner voice telling me to close up my tear ducts was intrusive.

Letting those tears out in light of the sensation overload was more refreshing than I could have ever expected, especially in light of my perceived, socialized expectation to keep my tears to myself or else. I felt a lightness walking out of the office and realized that I would not need to hold onto any elements of that specific uncomfortable event any longer. One and done.

On a recent flight to the east coast, the sensations of the take-off and landing along with the non-stop noise in the cabin, the tears knocked on the door again. I answered. Like bookends, tears flowed for a few minutes at the beginning and end of the flight and, in between, my body mellowed in response. When I respected my nervous system’s need to process my overwhelm with tears, I didn’t experience any post-event exhaustion, intolerance or meltdowns that were frequently a result of my extended freeze response to stress.

Pausing long enough to notice my learned automatic response has given me the gift of hearing what my body wants and needs. And noticing my resistance to resourcing myself even if it makes someone uncomfortable has shown me how entrenched the learned responses are.

But, I’ve decided that it’s my nervous system (and the nervous system of the young child version of me who had to rely on the freeze response to survive) so I’ll cry if I want to.

When greater grief comes calling, I’m hoping my tear ducts will be in good working order and that my nervous system will be the grateful recipient of the spaciousness, the softness that comes from a thoughtful, self-resourcing clear out.

Like Danette’s vibe? She’s teaching two courses this fall – Mindful Movement & Meditation starting Mon Sept 18, and Meditation for Resilient Living starting Mon Nov 6.

Spoiler alert – I can’t.

Leslie here.

Despite personally experiencing direct and life-changing benefits of meditation, I struggle to maintain a solo home practice. To help myself out, I have been seeking a local meditation group to keep me accountable. This process has been… complicated.

In my search for local organizations, I’ve found lots of valuable offerings that aren’t for me: kirtan-singing groups, groups who chant mantras, monasteries that offer culturally-grounded ritual celebrations, and centres that focus on trademarked pranayama and kriya methods. All worthwhile, just not what I was looking for.

Then, excitingly, I found a local group that aligned with my goals, was affordable, was connected to an established tradition, and worked with my schedule! Finally, I wanted to know: who are the teachers, and what’s the state of the lineage?

Well, it turned out that the lineage was problematic at best. I did my due diligence and dug into the history of the separation of this particular sect from a more well-established Buddhist lineage. I found leaders whose actions appeared to be driven by religious ego and a desire for power, and teachers who were trained to completely reject all other Buddhist wisdom and authority outside of their sect.

Unfortunately, controversy in spiritual communities is nothing new, and I keep discovering more of it. Last year, seeking inspiration for my own practice and teaching, I picked up a book of contemplative reflections on yoga philosophy by a popular teacher, only to find out about their blurry boundaries and cult-of-personality style of teaching – making me seriously question the legitimacy of their thoughts on spirituality and shelf the book. I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve seen that underneath the popularity of a method is a leader whose spiritual, political, interpersonal or sometimes criminal conduct puts the whole operation into question. 

Our own history at the Branches is not untouched by this unfortunate trend. Years ago, some of our more experienced teachers (Leena, Emma and Carin) were trained in a school called Anusara Yoga led by John Friend. He turned out to have sloppy boundaries, and engaged in ethically murky sexual and financial relations with some of his students. As an organization, the school moved on without the leader, but none of the Branches folks stuck around to find out how it went. Too messy.

When I think about my own commitment to yoga, I question whether I should expect ethical perfection from a lineage or tradition? That’s unreasonable – lineages are made of people and people clearly aren’t perfect. Of course a teacher’s poor behaviour undermines and can even negate their authority to teach. But does someone’s behaviour negate the teachings themselves? And if the teachings still have value, how can the rest of us care for, preserve and perpetuate them during gaps in guidance from elders or teachers we respect?

The team here at the Branches has had more than a few conversations about the lack of trustworthy elders in our own yoga community, particularly in the aftermath of leaving our most influential yoga school behind. We don’t follow a guru, and some of us look to teachers we admire and learn from online rather than within a face-to-face relationship, or to teachers who aren’t necessarily connected to a lineage either. Scholars deem this “post-lineage yoga,” but traditionalists decry the lack of respect for tradition and authenticity. It’s not perfectly clear how to proceed. 

That said, I will keep looking for a good meditation teacher. 

And as an organization, we will keep trying to become the elders we wish we had. One way we try to do this is by creating the community that our senior teachers originally sought in the Anusara world. Teaching movement, sharing yoga, and stewarding a community shouldn’t be a popularity contest, an ego-boost, or a power-play. We aim to be teachers who work alongside our students on the path, rather than performing like pop-stars on a stage. We aim to teach from a place of humility and genuine commitment to study and practice, rather than forefronting charisma. It’s hugely important to us, then, to offer the teacher training that our senior teachers, Leena & Emma, wish they could have had and to platform guest faculty who embody these values.

To those who love to practice yoga, but are struggling with how to engage beyond the damage done to various communities, I extend compassion and a wish for perseverance. Yoga is bigger than all of us. May we all find a way to relate to it and each other in a good way.

With care,

Leslie

Last fall, I bought a book called The Trauma of Caste and intended to read it in preparation for this year’s yoga teacher training. This book sat on my bookshelf all winter. I looked at it from time to time but I didn’t pick it up.

Earlier this spring I was having some major climate anxiety, really stressing about the state of our planet. For some reason, I picked up The Trauma of Caste and started reading it. And once I started, I couldn’t stop. I would put my baby in the carrier, go for long walks and read this book. 

For some reason, though reading this book was devastating and complicated, it put my climate anxiety into perspective. This book spoke of an impending genocide, yet it was inspiring. It reminded me of how resilient and beautiful people are, even in the absolute worst of circumstances. It reminded me that we can still act out of and embody love, for ourselves and for the world.

I am sharing this because yesterday was International Day of Yoga, and while yoga is very much worth celebrating as a cultural and spiritual gift to the world, there is a dark side to this day, linked to caste apartheid. In India, yoga is being used as a tool by the current BJP government to push a larger agenda of Hindu-exclusive nationalism that tries to justify violence and imprisonment. It is too complex for me to summarize in this newsletter, so here is one anti-oppressive action you can take on this day: read this article, “Why I Don’t Celebrate International Day of Yoga,” to inform yourself about the dark side of International Yoga Day.

The author of “The Trauma of Caste”, Thenmozhi Soundararajan, writes with such a sense of love. Though the subject matter is beyond dark, she brings light to it. She writes, “I am a daughter of a people who have been oppressed for thousands of years, I am also the artifact of centuries of their love and resilience. In that there is a hope for everything. May a thousand flowers bloom in your heart and in mine for our liberation.”

The world is so much, but grappling with it all with a sense of love is my spiritual practice. On some days I call that yoga, on other days I’m not sure what to call it. But I’m grateful to be part of a community taking steps every day towards equity, love and justice.

With gratitude,
Emma

P.S. I’m thinking of restarting our anti-racist book club to discuss The Trauma of Caste. Get in touch with me at emma (at) thebranchesyoga (dot) com if you’re in.

If you’d like space to process and discuss issues like these in community, consider our Yoga Teacher Training Program, starting in October. The Trauma of Caste will be on our reading list this year.

Learn more at our next Info Session, happening on Monday, July 10 at 8:00-9:00pm (virtually). Sign up here to attend.

Leena here. A few months back I heard a great segment on The Current interviewing some local university researchers about their work on ageism. I’ve been mulling over some of their findings ever since. 

In the dominant North American cultural context, most people consider it a high compliment to gasp when someone shares that they are 70, and to say “wow, you seem so youthful, I thought you were a decade younger!” Celebrities often gloat, “I just turned 60, but I feel better than I did in my 40s”. On the CBC, the researchers discussed the concept of subjective age, which is the age you feel inside. In their research in North America, having your subjective age be younger than your actual age – for example being 65, but mentally feeling like you’re 45 – has measurable positive health outcomes. This mindset is adaptive in an ageist society that undervalues or even neglects our elders. And conversely, negative attitudes of aging have been shown to cause adverse health outcomes for North Americans.

But, here’s what I really found fascinating: The researchers described that, “It’s not necessarily a bad thing, in terms of your physical health and psychological wellbeing, to feel older. It’s when it’s coupled with negative aging attitudes, that’s when it has the negative consequences” for a person’s health. They described that in societies where there is stronger valuing of elders – as is the case in many Indigenous cultures, Eastern cultures and more collectivist societies – there are not the same positive health outcomes for having your subjective age be younger. In those social systems it can be advantageous to be older, and so maintaining a mindset of “feeling younger” isn’t necessary. 

How does this all relate to the yoga industry? In so many ways yoga gets co-opted by capitalism and by our mainstream culture that reveres youthful and thin bodies above harder-won life experience and the wisdom that may come with aging. We see this in studios advertising “yoga for weight loss” and in marketing that promises yoga will help you look and feel younger. As a studio director and someone who believes strongly in physical, mental, emotional and spiritual gifts that yoga and asana can bring to our lives, it’s a fine line to tread. 

I cringe whenever I see lofty promises, or when youthfulness is put on a pedestal. But, I do believe that yoga can have tremendous benefits to help us maintain mobility, physical independence, coordination, and mental stability as we go through various seasons of life and age. 

As a budding yoga teacher in my 20s, I had a number of students in their 60s. (And it’s an honour that a few of these students still practice with me today!). I learned so much from these folks as together we figured out how to make yoga asana practice useful and relevant to their lives. After a few months of classes, one of them shared how getting down on the floor to play with her young grandkids was feeling less painful and more comfortable since starting yoga. Hearing this brought me so much joy, and since then I’ve always been passionate about sharing yoga with folks in their golden years. Through our YTT programs, I love mentoring older teachers who want to work with their peers. It’s why we’ve developed courses for all ages from Parent & Peanut all the way to Yoga for Dynamic Aging. 

Maybe you’ve noticed the mission statement that we share on our home page: We’re here to create a better world with Yoga as our common ground. We lead down-to-earth classes, expert teacher training, and an engaged intergenerational community.

When Emma, Leslie and I were writing it, I was adamant that I wanted the word intergenerational to be included. I want to intentionally and publicly cultivate an anti-ageist community. The “better world” that I’m hoping for is one that deeply values all ages, and that recognizes the special gifts and wisdom that elders bring to our communities. Maybe we can help to shift our culture so that it’s no longer adaptive to have our subjective age be younger than our actual age. Maybe someday I’ll be lucky enough to say, “I’m 75, and I feel and look like I’m 75”, and feel great about that. And, just like it’s been there for me for the past 22 years, I know my yoga practice will be my companion as I journey through that stage of life. 

Here’s a link to the CBC segment I mentioned. 

With care

Leena

Leena here. It’s Victoria Day, which has got me thinking about colonization (and decolonization). It’s something I think about often in relation to my work, as discussions of decolonizing yoga have become more mainstream in the past few years.

A few weeks ago The Branches hosted a historian and yoga teacher named Indu Vashist for a workshop entitled “Yoga History & Cultural Appropriation: Building Conversation Stamina”. There was a moment in the workshop that stood out to me, because it was a slightly shocking moment for most participants. Someone asked about how something Indu was presenting related to cultural appropriation, and Indu replied,

“Well, this might be controversial, but I don’t really believe in cultural appropriation.”

The room went quiet. Um, wasn’t that term in the title of the workshop? …

Indu clarified, “I think to believe in cultural appropriation, we’d have to define culture. And I have a really hard time doing that, drawing boundaries around culture. So it might be an unpopular opinion, but I don’t really navigate by thinking about cultural appropriation.”

The workshop continued, but that declaration seemed to loosen things up for the participants. People spoke up a bit more, wondered aloud a bit more often, and asked more questions. It seemed that turning assumptions about cultural appropriation on its head freed people up to think in new ways. 

What I was freed up to think about was this; Is the conversation about cultural appropriation actually distracting us from addressing racism and inequity? If our focus moved to taking action around racism and inequity, and things shifted there, would the conversation around cultural appropriation look different?

And…has cultural appropriation in yoga has become a mainstream discussion because it’s less scary to talk about than racism? Are “we” (white yoga practitioners and teachers) stuck on trying to get cultural appropriation “right” rather than getting into the crucial work of actually transforming a racist culture? Is discussing whether we should or should not say Namaste actually part of dismantling white supremacy?

It could be. But Indu certainly had me thinking about yoga, history and authenticity in new and different ways. 

I’m sharing this to invite you into the discussion. Indu is returning for a second opportunity to engage in community learning: She’ll be teaching a 4-week virtual course starting May 30.

Learn more about Yoga History & Cultural Appropriation: Building Conversational Stamina here.

I am so glad that I crossed paths with Indu, and that she’s joined our faculty during our upcoming 250-hr Yoga Teacher Training, which kicks off in October. Learning with Indu has been invaluable for me to question and clarify my thinking around how I relate to yoga as a practitioner and a teacher. 

With commitment,
Leena 

Emma here. I want to tell you about two stand-out experiences of body positivity that I’ve had in the past year. 

The first was a sold out Lizzo concert at the Scotiabank arena in Toronto.

That was no surprise – Lizzo’s songs are anthems of body positivity, and her concert was a crush of virtuosic big-bodied dancers hyping up the crowd. It was a delight to see an arena of people worshiping Lizzo; a fat, black female artist who won Record of the Year at this year’s Grammys. I had some transcendent moments of feeling that perhaps culture was shifting, that the hierarchy of people and bodies might be crumbling, that maybe we could love and celebrate each other rather than trolling or controlling one another. 

The second experience of body positivity was at a very unassuming venue; the foyer of a curling club in Guelph. A friend had invited me to see her perform there in her first ever burlesque show. I was pumped; this friend had been on a tumultuous journey of body acceptance, and performing burlesque was a triumphant step in the direction of self love. 

There were probably 200 people in the audience, so compared to 15 thousand people at the Lizzo concert it was humble. But once the show got started, the vibe was similarly ecstatic – we were encouraged by the drag queen host to hoot, holler, snap, clap and cheer for the burlesque performers, showing our appreciation through sound. There were professional burlesque dancers as well as newbies; people who had signed up for their first or second burlesque class and performing this show was their “graduation” of sorts. 

It was a joy to see so many different bodies being celebrated in that space. Fat, thin, big boobs, small boobs, bellies of all kinds, trans bodies, elderly bodies. There were comedic performances and sexy performances, silly numbers and sacred ones. It was a privilege to witness people doing this incredibly vulnerable thing; a few were clearly nervous, but they wrangled their nerves and did it anyway. And in the intermissions (of which there were several, included, I think to encourage mingling and chatting) there were such big hugs and congratulations and celebrations happening between the performers and the audience. I looked around and felt again that perhaps culture was shifting. 

I promise this relates to yoga. 

When I first came to the practice of yoga, two of the main reasons for practice were taught to me as chit and ananda. Chit has many translations; one is consciousness, another could be remembrance. Ananda is often translated as eternal bliss, happiness or celebration. Many of the teachers I studied with linked the two; we practice to remember ourselves as part of a divine whole, and once we’ve reconnected with that, we can celebrate that wholeness. We go back and forth between remembrance and celebration.

The Lizzo concert and the burlesque show felt like outward expressions of jubilant celebration, and oddly enough, they reminded me of my yoga practice. They reminded me that celebration comes after the slow and steady work of reconnection. That getting on my mat, showing up for myself and my body however I am, with kindness, appreciation and acceptance, is a building block to celebration. 

And it’s not a one and done deal. We don’t just remember our wholeness and launch forever into a state of celebration. It is a practice to remember our innate worth, beauty, belonging and yeah, I’m gonna say it, because I believe it; divinity. Especially in a world that privileges some bodies and oppresses others. 

So while my practice is nothing as exciting as a sold out concert or a sexy striptease show, it is also a part of shifting our culture. Me showing up to the quiet, subtle work of reconnecting with myself is part of the revolution. Every time I show myself kindness in my practice, every time I soften and allow myself to reinhabit my body is part of the shift to loving and eventually celebrating myself. 

I feel so lucky and privileged that a great deal of my job is facilitating spaces for you to do that too. And I’m so glad to be slowly returning to work and practice at The Branches. I missed you. 

With love,
Emma

P.S. Here’s my favourite Lizzo song. Put it on loud. This song makes me both dance and cry HARD. 

P.S. #2 If you are curious about the Guelph burlesque scene, you can learn more here.  

When it comes to engaging respectfully with yoga – a practice that originates in a culture other than our own – it doesn’t take long to get coiled into an ethical conundrum.

Leslie & Leena, Branches Co-Directors

For example, a question we’re currently mulling over is about language. Perhaps it’s best to use Sanskrit terminology and chanting in class out of respect and reverence for the main original language used in codifying and passing on yogic philosophy and practice. But maybe we should actually set Sanskrit aside until we can get the pronunciation right. Or, thinking further, it might be best to abandon Sanskrit completely for its association with the history of caste-based oppression, where some caste-oppressed people were barred from hearing or speaking it (alongside other forms of oppression and continued discrimination).

Hmm.

You already know there isn’t going to be a correct answer here, and that approaches to the above question (and questions like it) will impact various individuals and groups in different ways, both positively and negatively. While we care deeply about our impact and reducing harm, short of closing up shop and never sharing yoga again, we’re aware that our actions will never be perfect and acceptable to all.

The temptation to give up

When faced with the reality that there is no right answer, it can be tempting to throw up your hands and say, “I’m damned if I do, and damned if I don’t, so I might as well just do what I want.” That mentality is an excuse, and we think it indicates a lack of mental and emotional stamina.

If you identify with that attitude and feel a little hurt by what we just said, we get it, because we’ve been there. Conversations around cultural appropriation can be overwhelming and tiring. We know that underneath defensiveness, there is difficulty in sitting with the fact that cultural appropriation is harmful, and there may also be shame or guilt for things you’ve done, or anxiety about what you might do or fail to do in the future. It is hard (though not as hard as having your culture looted). 

Working out our learning muscles

But (of course there’s a but!) like anything else that requires stamina, we can train to maintain our mental and emotional strength for the endless and endlessly complex learning process.

Over the last nine years, we’ve noticed a gradual improvement in how this conversation goes within our yoga teacher training. If this life-long learning process (undoing the harms of cultural appropriation and relearning respectful engagement with yoga) were a marathon, many of those in our first cohort needed to be cheered on to take even just a few jogging steps. Cultural appropriation was a brand new topic, and we didn’t get too much further than reading an article and having a discussion to debrief it.

In our most recent cohort, many participants had already begun to think about how cultural appropriation might be harmful. They had their metaphorical running shoes laced up, and some had even run a 5k or 10k race before. The learning our program offers has also deepened and broadened, incorporating Susanna Barkataki’s book Embrace Yoga’s Roots, and inviting four different guest faculty of diverse South Asian heritage to explore history, philosophy, Sanskrit, and more.

Respecting the process

We keep calling it a conversation – this is on purpose. You can’t just read an article about the Dos and Don’ts of cultural appropriation, and close that book forever. Real conversations, the type that go back and forth, never really end, and include multiple perspectives, allow for more nuance and complexity. A conversation isn’t a test or an exam – there is no final answer. In fact, it’s the not-knowing part that can feel the hardest and be most worthwhile. It’s vital to rest in your humility and really listen before jumping into action just to prove you know what to do so that you won’t offend anyone (which is impossible anyway).

This isn’t the first and won’t be the last time we talk with you about cultural appropriation. Here’s a letter from Emma we sent in August, 2022, as a recent example. We consider it part of our job to perpetually refuel, trade in our worn-out runners for new ones, and stay hydrated so that we can keep going. If and when overwhelm shows up, we take it as a cue to slow the pace down, walk for a bit, or take a water break before continuing.

We welcome your responses and thoughts on this topic as an ongoing venue for conversation.

Yours in life-long learning,

Leslie, Leena, and the whole TBY Team