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Sacred spaces

The other night we walked over to this twinkly old church for a holiday concert. It was spirited and brassy and singable.

Very few people go to church regularly in Switzerland. The political scene here is completely devoid of the bizarro religious nationalism (aka Christofascism) that’s dominant in the US right now. Needless to say, this is so refreshing.

But it also means that a lot of these beautiful old sanctuaries and cathedrals often sit empty. Many of them — like Basel’s stunning Pauluskirche and Elisabethenkirche — have been transformed into shared public spaces featuring cafes, often used for the arts, lectures, and all kinds of collective gathering.

I love this. It feels exactly like what a sacred space should actually be: an inclusive, welcoming, non-dogmatic community hub thrumming with melodies and bustling with people; a warm beacon in the cold twilight.

I’ve always wanted to teach yoga in a sanctuary space like this, similar to the long-running Yoga On The Labyrinth program at San Francisco’s Grace Cathedral. Maybe 2024 is the year? We’ll see.

Wishing you everything still, quiet, and nourishing on this darkest, longest night of the year. 🕯️✨

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Heart-openers to put in your pocket

Winter has properly set in here in Basel.

Medieval chimneys puff smoke, morning temps hover around freezing, and the Christmas markets are back in full swing. It’s exactly the kind of cold that makes you want to hunch over, curl up, and hibernate.

So in class the other day, we spent a lot of time flowing through poses like this: heart-openers, shoulder openers, backbends. When you can remind your body to stay open and warm and loose, your spirit will usually follow — even when the air outside is bitter.

Raja Bhujangasana (King Cobra) is one extreme example. It really doesn’t matter if you ever touch your toes to your head or not. You can get similar antidotes to winter from poses like Cobra, Dhanurasana (Bow), Bridge, Camel, Reverse Tabletop, and variations of Reverse Namaskar (or just grabbing your elbows behind your back) in Tree or a wide-legged forward fold.

Put these heart-openers in your pocket for the days when you’d rather close off and contract. A few minutes of asana can be the perfect counter to the cold. ☃️

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Kale Chip meditation

I’ve been making kale chips like it’s my job. 🥬

It’s a super high-maintenance pain in the ass and a totally wonderful moving meditation.

Kale is weirdly impossible to find at supermarkets in Switzerland. You can’t get it anywhere. (What I would give for those cheesy kale chips they used to sell at Trader Joe’s.)

So when the community garden up the street set out a few bunches of Federkohl at the little roadside veggie stand, you’d better believe we jumped on that shit. I grabbed both for 2 CHF each, put my little coins in the Kasse, and triumphantly marched home to show my family.

Kale chips take forever to make and you eat the whole batch in like five minutes. They are such an investment. But a worthy one.

🥬 Wash the kale. (Right away, so you don’t get cute garden bugs all over your kitchen.)

🥬 One by one, tear the kale off the thick stems into small chip-size pieces. Put them in a bowl.

🥬 Salad-spin those puppies to get all the water off. They’re still not dry, so you have to lay them out one by one on a towel on your kitchen counter. Because wet kale = soggy chips.

🥬 Leave them out to dry for literally hours.

🥬 Come back later and drizzle a little avocado oil over them. Massage it all over the leaves. Every last bit. (This is where it starts to feel really meditative. Well, the tearing part too.)

🥬 Spread them out on baking trays. Sprinkle liberally with salt and garlic.

🥬 Bake at 150° C (sorry fellow Americans, I’ve gone to the dark side and don’t know what that would be in F. Google it.) You have to check them every minute after about 7 minutes. And then every 30 seconds. Because they go from soggy to burned in a flash.

🥬 Rotate the trays in the oven constantly. Like you would watch your toddler in Venice. Never looking away.

🥬 Finally take them out. Check that they’re crispy. Sprinkle on nutritional yeast to get that cheesy flavor.

🥬 Eat half of them stealthily as you call your family over. Then proudly watch your kid inhale three trays’ worth and bask in the knowledge that for one shining moment you are a superior parent because he is eating something green.

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A quiet corner of Chicago O’Hare

I had a six-hour layover in Chicago, so did what any yoga teacher would do: wandered the terminal until I found a deserted corner and then plopped my ass on the floor for a few surreptitious stretches. Ahhh. A necessary balm for the 21-hour journey.

Des Moines International was quieter. The tiny airport felt like all sky, and old carpet, and silence.

I was in Iowa last weekend, unexpectedly, for a heartbreaking family funeral. There is immeasurable suffering in the world right now — Gaza, Israel, Maine — but this slice of heartbreak was particularly tragic, for its youth. I was so grateful to be able to make the trip, and to spend hours in community and conversation with my family — in the same time zone, for once.

Distance from loved ones is one of the hardest parts about living abroad. I think there’s a perception that expat life is all roses, all the time; so many people have casually remarked about our “life in paradise” over the years. It is often wonderful, yes. And I know I’ve subconsciously not shared a lot about our life here in Switzerland out of fear of people resenting me, especially in those first few years when Trump was still President and we had managed to escape, when so many others wished for the same and couldn’t.

But this is one hard thing. Wanting to be with your people when they’re suffering, and being so damn far away. I was fortunate to be able to return this time around. But I feel increasingly aware of those inevitable realities of life that Buddhist teachings highlight so clearly: illness, aging, and death. They come for all of us. And they are as much a part of life as the highlight-reel moments.

Yoga and meditation are practices designed to work with suffering, both in body and mind. They’ve been largely co-opted by Shiny Happy People wearing stretchy workout gear and spouting bullshit about abundance and manifestation. But thankfully, these practices go so much deeper than that.

I love how portable they are. A towel on the hotel room floor for a yoga mat. Legs up the wall in Terminal 5. Box breathing on the plane.

Atha yoga anusasanam. Now is (always) the time for the yoga to begin.

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Prana

In yoga philosophy, the Sanskrit word prana means “life force.” It’s the spirit that drives you. Energy moving through. 

Sometimes it’s just not there, right? Last week Switzerland roasted under a massive heat wave. We all felt drained and sweaty and blah after endless days of 95° heat and humidity.

When cooling rain finally set in Friday night, it was like the whole country went “Ahhhhhh!!” And now, as the mist continues, our garden looks lush and green and renewed — and my body feels the same way.

PRANA.

We all do things, consciously and not, in our daily lives to feel more awake (or, in yogic terms, to increase our prana). We sing, or eat nourishing food, or dance, or play drums in an 80s band, or hang out with babies, or garden, or paint. And that’s great, because ultimately, we all want to feel more alive. 

Especially if you are currently spending 8 or 10 or 12 hours in front of a computer in a cubicle in some measly office building off a concrete highway.

For me, a regular yoga asana practice makes all the difference — even if that’s just five minutes a day. Paired with walks in the forest near our home, I feel rejuvenated and connected and alive. That time is nature is essential. 

What can you do today to increase your prana? It doesn’t have to be fancy. A quick puddle walk just might do the trick. 

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Five years in Basel

Today marks 5 years since we moved to Basel. FIVE!! We did that. 🥂

It’s a helluva lift to pick up your 4-year-old and move across an ocean to a country where you definitely don’t speak the language and you definitely don’t know what the hell you’re doing.

Driving to France or Germany weekly for groceries? Finding a pediatrician auf Deutsch? Navigating European shoe and clothing sizes? Living without air conditioning or smoke detectors? Finding a studio where I can teach yoga in English? Decoding appliance settings in Italian, French, and German?

Done. ✔️ Not easy at first, but done.

When we took this photo, it was literally the first time we’d been across the Rhine. After about two months, my heart no longer raced every time I had to pay the gas station cashier auf Deutsch. Five years later, my kid has a stellar native accent and our German is considerably less sh*tty. And I am proud to have learned a (hard) new language in my 40s.

Google Translate and GPS have definitely saved our lives countless times. (I can’t imagine living overseas without either.) More importantly, so has our amazing community. The relationships we’ve made here have become forever-friendships beyond what we ever could have hoped for. Truly the best part of this whole experience.

Thanks to everyone near and far who’s been a part of our Swiss adventure thus far. When we first moved here, we thought it might feasibly last only six months. Super proud to now have five years (and a lot more cheese and chocolate) under our belts. 🧀🍫🏔🇨🇭🫕

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Bhakti bundt cakes

Stumbled across this old gem while I was in Nebraska. My first national print magazine publication, in a 2009 issue of Yoga Journal. On bundt cakes, bhakti, and the yoga of baking. 🍰

I’d just finished defending a masters thesis on Karl Marx and bodies and queer theology and the commodification of salvation. “The Joy of Baking” felt so damn cringe. 😝 (Needless to say: I did not pick that headline.)

But it truly was a joy to see my words in print for the first time. For a writer, that feeling never gets old. It’s at once thrilling and heart-racing, vulnerable and terrifying. Now that print media has essentially died (RIP magazines 😢) and the yoga world has changed so much, I’m glad to hang on to this dusty memory.

The last few years, I’ve been mostly writing behind-the-scenes, doing corporate communications work. But now, with several more personal projects in the pipeline, I’m feeling quietly excited to get publishing more frequently again.

Stay tuned. ✍🏼🪷

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You Are Your Own Best Teacher

I’ve been re-reading Tricia Hersey’s recent book Rest Is Resistance: A Manifesto, and loving her emphasis on Womanist and Black liberation theologies.

This line jumped out at me today. ✨

It’s a version of something I often say in yoga class: Remember that you are your own best teacher, and you know your body better than anyone else. So take what I say with a grain of salt, and trust your own deep knowing as you move through your practice.

Did you grow up learning this sense of embodied trust in your own faith tradition? 🥴 Reclaiming it can be super hard for those of us who didn’t. (Ahem, Christianity.)

But that’s why I love the yogic (and Black Womanist, and ecofeminist) traditions. They cultivate that sense of inherent bodily goodness; of radical wholeness; of the fact that our bodies are wise and holy and strong, just as they are.

Grateful for theologians like Hersey who are spreading this powerful wisdom on a global scale. 🪷

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Irreplaceable

Tuesday night a massive lightning storm blew through Basel.  It was a real rumbler, leaving trees down all over the city.

Yesterday morning as I walked by Schutzenmatt Park, it was like a disaster zone. Branches down everywhere. But then I was shocked to see this enormous grandmother of a tree had toppled, crushing a wooden swingset and changing the skyscape completely.

What first struck me was the size and age of the tree — surely at least a few hundred years old, and utterly irreplaceable.  But then, even more so, the way people gathered silently around it in shellshocked grief, like a collective mourning. Like we all sensed what a tremendous loss it was.

Throughout the day people continued to gather and just stand wordlessly, arms crossed, watching this behemoth of a tree slowly being sawed into bits.

This morning, there were even more. Parents balancing toddlers on their hips, silently taking it in. Elderly women holding up cameras. Young men cycling by, slowing and dismounting in shock.

Then I noticed that overnight, someone had brought candles and made a mandala of leaves and branches on the remaining trunk.  The candles are still flickering now, even as the heavy machinery tears the remainders of the tree apart.

It feels so holy, this altar. So perfect and necessary and right. 

It’s the same energy as when people stand quietly in European cathedrals, staring up awestruck, full of respect for the labor and ingenuity and sweat and creative spirit that built these sanctuaries hundreds (or thousands) of years ago.

This was another temple, gone in a literal flash. Impermanent, like everything else.

It provided shade for humans through the First World War and the Second and probably the French Revolution and maybe even the American one, too? Ancestors celebrating birthdays and mourning losses and lolling around on lazy Sundays on blankets under its branches.

This morning, I’m so grateful the candles are still burning.

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Ruhezeit

In Switzerland, you can’t vacuum on a Sunday. You can’t mow your lawn or wash your car. (Unless you want to risk a hefty fine, or a cranky neighbor.)

The grocery stores are all closed, so you’d better stock up on Saturday, because you won’t be picking up any last-minute burger buns or an extra six-pack for your barbecue.

It’s Ruhezeit.

That’s German for rest period. Off-season. Quiet time.

The same rules apply from 10pm-6am. (Don’t shower or flush your toilet overnight.)

And from 12-1pm on weekdays. Craftspeople stop working. Children nap. Shops close. Put your brass instruments away and chill out for an hour over lunch.

We are loud Americans, and so of course we often forget this. Especially when we first moved here. We felt so. damn. loud.

After nearly five years, though, Ruhezeit feels pretty damn good. It’s like a collective cultural savasana.

On Sundays, instead of shopping or working, Swiss folks go hiking — in stark contrast to Americans’ Costco runs. They ramble along village streets for family walks, toddlers wheeling by on balance bikes. They sit on their terraces and watch the neighbors stroll past.

Something about this all feels so healthy, and balanced, and SANE. Simple. Conscious. (Especially the part about not shopping.) Being together, in their bodies, out in nature.

This Sabbath practice originated in Jewish and Christian traditions, but it continues, even as Swiss culture grows ever more agnostic.

There’s a lot of buzz lately about the idea that in white supremacist capitalist culture, rest is resistance. This is so true. (Thanks, @thenapministry.)

Ruhezeit reminds me that, quite simply, rest is also just HUMAN. And I’m grateful for this enforced weekly quiet, even as we still sometimes blow it using the blender for smoothies at 7am or hollering too loudly over a FIFA23 victory goal.

Find your off-season. Your Ruhezeit.

Take your savasana. Whatever that looks like. 🪷