As I anticipated the release of all of the Star Wars films on Disney+ for May the Fourth, I found myself continuously thinking about what the Star Wars universe taught me over the years. Geekdom or fandom in general is about connection with others. Whether you are cosplaying or posting theories on never-ending reddit threads, those of us who “nerd out” over fictional universes–be it Star Wars or any other– find connection with others because of our passion for all things geeky!

I’ve found myself, several times over, explaining to other people that I think Star Wars was truly my first introduction into yoga. My Dad and I watched A New Hope when I was about seven years old, and I immediately fell in love. I watched original trilogy over-and-over. I wanted to read comics and novels set in the same universe. I longed for toys, but alas, there weren’t many available in the early 90s. My how things have changed–unless you’re searching for Baby Yoda…Can you say SOLD OUT?

I digress… so, the force was awakened in me at a young age. But what was the force? And how was I to know that it was strong in me?

In Empire Strikes Back, Yoda tells Luke that “Life creates it (the Force), makes it grow…its energy surrounds us and binds us. Luminous beings are we, not this crude matter [our bodies]. You must feel the Force around you, here, between you and me, the tree, the rock, everywhere…”

The force is something bigger than us. It connects us. When studying yoga, I found that the Force is akin to Prana – a concept in yoga of a universal energy that is all around us and that flows through our body. Prana is literally translated as ‘Life Force’. Prana, when around us, flows through what yogis believe to be the subtle body, along channels called nadis. When you practice yoga you are moving and connecting to Prana much like the jedi learn to harness the power of the Force. One of the ways a yogi taps into prana is through the breath–inhaling and exhaling the energy that binds us all together.

In The Last Jedi, Luke instructs Rey to access the force by first sitting in a yogi posture known as sukhasana – “sit here, legs crossed” – kindergarten teachers refer to it as criss-cross-applesauce. Sukhasana is often done at the beginning of a yoga practice and at the end when a yogi is trying to connect with their breath and let go of the world around them to enter a more meditative state. During Rey’s first lesson, she mistakenly tells Luke the Force is “a power that jedi have that lets them control people and make things float.” Luke correct her stating that the Force is “the energy between all things, the tension the balance that binds the Universe together.” Similarly, Obi-Wan Kenobi explains, “The Force is what gives a Jedi his power. It’s an energy field created by all living things. It surrounds us, it penetrates us; it binds the galaxy together.” This use of the Force – Prana, the breath – can be accessed with practice. This Force exists in all of us, and with training, we are able to grow our practice, like the Jedi training the access the Force.

In yogic tradition, it is important that the yogi lets go of the outside world. When meditating or practicing asanas, the yogi should be in the present. To engage in this practice, the yogi must let go mentally of that which distracts them, not only when on the yoga mat, but in their everyday life. Yoda explains to Obi Wan, “A Jedi must have the deepest commitment, the most serious mind. This one (Luke) a long time have I watched. All his life he has looked away — -to the future, to the horizon. Never his mind on where he was. Hmmm? What was he doing? Hmph. Adventure, heh, excitement, heh. A Jedi craves not these things.” Luke struggles to believe in the Force, even when he begins to access it. Yoda repeatedly encourages Luke and explains that it takes practice and time to harness the energy and connect. In yoga, this is called abhyasa, which is a consistent practice done over a long period of time. The yogi must be patient and not allow frustration or anger to discourage them from committing to their practice. While training Luke, Yoda tells him to, “Beware of the dark side. Anger, fear, aggression; the dark side of the Force are they. Easily they flow, quick to join you in a fight…consume you it will.” Luke struggles to understand the light and dark forces and wants to know how he can find that he’s moving toward the light. Yoda reassures him that he will know when he is “calm and at peace.” This inner struggle with light and dark often happens as yogis learn to meditate; sometimes the practice can cause us to recall painful memories or to access and let go of our anger. It is the letting go that is most difficult for some, and this lack of letting go and not training to be the light is truly the path to the Dark Side.

Throughout the Star Wars films, books, comics, and television shows, various characters have struggled with both the dark and the light elements of the Force. The Jedi are not the only ones attempting to understand and harness it. Enter the Sith. In yogic philosophy, there are Yamas and Niyamas the yogi must observe and live by. The Yamas guide the yogi to become more self-aware and to let go and transform negative energy to find peace. When considering the practices of the Jedi, one of the yamas immediately comes to mind – aparigraha. Aparigraha is the last Yama in Patanjali’s Eight Limbs of Yoga. It translates to non-greed and non-attachment. For the Jedi, this is a necessary practice to serve others and detach from possessions and avoid the fears associated with loss and jealousy. Master Yoda says, “The fear of loss is a path to the dark side. Fear leads to anger, anger leads to hate, hate leads to suffering.” This is one reason the Jedi Order does not allow Jedi to marry. Anakin Skywalker struggles with non-attachment several times throughout his trainings as a Jedi. For one, he is pained by the loss of his mother, which leads to anger, destruction, and death. As Anakin allows that anger to feed his actions, he moves further away from finding inner peace. He allows dreams and fears to dictate his actions, which ends up consuming him so much that his biggest fear, the loss of his wife Padme, happens even before her death. This inability to reconcile his emotions with the teachings of the Jedi (specifically, non-attachment) is what leads him to the dark side as he becomes Darth Vader.

Finally, I think it’s important to note that even George Lucas drew a comparison between the yoga and the Star Wars university in the 1980s!

From “Revenge of the Jedi” Story Conference Transcript, July 13 to July 17, 1981 with series creator George Lucas, writer Lawrence Kasdan, director Richard Marquand and producer Howard Kazanjian.

Kasdan: The Force was available to anyone who could hook into it?

Lucas: Yes, everybody can do it.

Kasdan: Not just the Jedi?

Lucas: It’s just the Jedi who take the time to do it.

Marquand: They use it as a technique.

Lucas: Like yoga. If you want to take the time to do it, you can do it; but the ones that really want to do it are the ones who are into that kind of thing…

Whether you are a jedi or a yogi, focus on the light! Be the light. Keep practicing. Learn to let go. And on this extra special day,

Check out my article for Southwestern Magazine HERE

I started out the New Year sick…again… I’ve been dreaming of a thoughtful, inspiring “it’s a new decade” blog post, but I honestly don’t have the energy. A list felt more concise and convenient for the time being. Here’s what I hope to focus on in the new year and the next decade:

1. Bringing BiblioYoga to life!
2. My writing
3. My yoga practice
4. Reading
5. Gratitude and Appreciation for others
6. Meaningful conversations
7. The great outdoors
8. My love
9. My meows
10. My family (all the way in Texas)
11. My BFFF Mary (also in Texas)
12. Mermaid Adventures – Summer Trip with my favorite girls
13. New Connections – Finding a community in Colorado
14. Meditation
15. Eating clean
16. Exploring Colorado – Camping, Dining, Comedy and Concert Venues, all the things!
17. Meeting with Financial Advisor – I want a Jeep and a home!
18. Tarot & Reflection Every Day with my Biddy Tarot 2020 Planner
19. Listening to Podcasts (and maybe even starting one…)
20. Learning New Things

What are you hoping to achieve in the new year?

As yoga instructor still discovering my voice and growing my teaching skills, I found this book incredibly useful. My professional background is thirteen years in the world of education teaching both high school and college-level English and Philosophy courses. As an educator, you are often assigned curriculum and essential skills you must instruct. Much time is spent crafting and creating lessons around those skills or re-imagining “canned” curriculum to fit your teaching style and students. In the world of yoga, we each have our own practice and journey, and we must continually self-reflect on our strengths and weaknesses before instructing a class. In making the transition from yoga student to yoga instructor, I found myself longing for a resource to assist me in assessing myself as a yogini and then using that assessment and reflection to craft and build courses of value for my potential yoga students.

This book is an excellent resource to help yoga instructors do just that. It is essentially a workbook divided into three sections. The first is on Finding Your Voice as an instructor. There are some great tidbits of wisdom here for instructors both seasoned and new, particularly in regards to authenticity and finding inspiration (especially when you don’t feel inspired). From there, the second section offers Fifty-Four Themes for classes! I absolutely love this section because it serves as a model for how to construct a class, even offering potential phrases and sentences to use during class that connect back to the themes explored. There are also some pretty groovy themes–I especially dug the idea of utilizing the four seasons as themes.

The final section allows the yogini to get creative herself! There are blank templates to write out your ideas and inspirations, which makes this book extra handy to carry around when you’re in the process of pondering about what to teach next.

Overall, I highly recommend this book, especially for those of you that are newer to constructing your own classes. The thematic approach is quite fun and a good exercise to reflect and consider the various approaches to teaching a yoga course!

My practice is an escape. From long to-do lists. From sights and sounds of city life. It’s a time when I can connect with my body. As a former dancer, I used my body to tell stories, to connect with others. One of my favorite parts of class was stretching for ten minutes at the beginning. I never considered why I enjoyed it or what those quiet moments did for me.

Yoga allows me to feel my body. To recognize pain and redirect it, both physically and mentally. It makes me reflect on what I might have done to cause that pain or discomfort and what I need to do in the future to prevent it. The older you get, it seems the more pain you have—not just physical, emotional too.

Yoga sometimes brings out old phantasms that you thought you’d locked away in a deep, dark Poe-esque Tell-Tale-Heart floorboards. It comes knocking when you least expect it and completely shatters your sense of strength. It is part of the process; understanding your pain, both the mental and the physical—you have to work through that shit. Sometimes that means I have to sit with myself. Sometimes that means child’s pose is all I am up for that day. Sometimes that means I feel my body blazing and go full-blown phoenix, ready to work through a fast-paced flow. In that flow, I am on fire. I feel strong. I feel independent. I feel like I can do all the things –oops wait, lost my balance…maybe not all the things, there’s certainly a reality check here and there, which is grounding in its own right.

My yoga practice isn’t perfect pictures on Instagram. It isn’t my friends and I all lying in a circle on some bohemian blanket with our heads surrounded by crystals. It’s real. It’s truth. It’s painful. It’s present. But most of all, it’s necessary.

This is stemming from my avoidance of the mat lately. For those of you who don’t know me personally, I am a College & Career Counselor, which means that October, my once beloved “let’s get spooky month” is no longer my favorite (until the 31^st…everything changes on Halloween!). Early deadlines, scholarship applications, students and parents who need my help with FAFSA, thirty-minute back-to-back appointments with my seniors all day, every day. This is when I need yoga the most. I know it. I tell myself that every morning. Every lunch break. Every day when I get home. Every evening when I finish dinner. I look at local studios and classes. I stare at Yoga with Adriene’s calendar (she’s awesome if you don’t know her, check her out), but my desire and ability to go inward is met with me feeling like the skeletons covering lawns right now. Vapid. Empty. Broken.

I am an empath and a giver. I am the most happy when I do things for other people, which is something I’ve slowly tried to reverse with my yoga practice. It’s hard to learn to find your own happiness; sometimes it’s incredibly hard to make time to do so. So I’m writing this here and now to make myself more accountable…I’m going to make time for meditation and yoga. I’ve been auditioning to teach, but I also need to delve back into my own practice to be the best teacher possible if I am hired in the near future.

I’m also writing this to let you know, you are not alone. No person’s yoga practice (or writing routine, which is another thing I’ve been neglecting) is “perfect.” For me, my routine ebbs and flows…and right now, all I’m trying to do is find more of the flow in both the keys on my keyboard and on my mat.

Love them or hate them, you can’t deny that Greta Van Fleet has some serious talent. They’ve been called rip-offs of Led Zeppelin, AC/DC, The Rolling Stones, even Iron Maiden, but Greta Van Fleet’s classic rock roots are no secret. In interviews, the band consistently mentions revisiting their parents’ pressed vinyls and vehemently studying the rock Gods of the past in order to grow and mature as musicians.

New-age 70s rock revival frontman, Josh Kiszka, possesses Jim Morrison’s hair and impressive pipes equal to the likes of Freddie Mercury. He uses his voice like an instrument with such precision and control that his vocals own the stage as much as a guitar or drum solo (or his outfit, am I right?). Last night, Josh rocked a star-studded cosmic jumper, traipsed around barefoot on stage–his dancing and antics reminiscent of the great frontmen of the 60s and 70s, Joe Cocker and Mick Jagger, in particular.

It’s hard to believe that so much talent could come from one family—Josh (vox), Jake (guitar), and Sam (bass) all equally owned Red Rocks. One of the most surprising moments of the evening came from drummer, Danny Wagner, wind blowing his hair like a 80s rock music video as he pounded on the drums in an epic and long-lasting solo that would have been impressive to the likes of Bonham, Moon, Mitchell, and Peart.

The band’s set started out with some faulty lights in juxtaposition to the perfect goosebump-inducing banshee-like wailing of Josh and a sick seemless guitar riffs from Jake; the second they dove into “The Cold Wind,” the rocking didn’t stop. One highlight of the night was about a third of the way through the set, when Josh proclaimed “Flower Power” as one of the first songs the band recorded. He talked about loving one another, bonding, and all that other hippie shit before he launched into it, howling alongside his brother’s guitar. Halfway through the night, Greta cleverly covered John Denver’s “The Music Is You,” and gave it an edgier, hard rock sound with the crowd singing along. Throughout the evening, everyone was gasping and guffawing at the sheer lasting power of Greta Van Fleet’s energy. No matter the instrument, the band continued to deliver, especially Jake’s wailing on the guitar. The band closed with a fan favorites, “When the Curtain Falls,” “Lover, Leaver (Taker, Believer),” and finally “Highway Tune.” The bewildered crowd stayed until the end, frozen after the band finished. Fifty-to- seventy-year-old audience members that saw bands of the past said this was easily the best show they had witnessed at Red Rocks since the late 70s, and you know what? I believe them.

All photography taken from Miles Chrisinger. Instagram: @milescphotos

Except for these pics (taken by yours truly, clearly I wasn’t in the pit with a camera):

I want BiblioYoga to be a space where I can share all of my passions and adventures; not just yoga and writing advice, but my mystical journey through this weird world as well. For me, the most otherworldly experiences always occur amidst aesthetic endeavors, especially ones that involve travel and/or live music.

Flashback…

When I was in high school, I attended a Student Council convention on September 11, 2001. Before the towers were struck, the speaker talked about the importance of setting goals and making lists—your typical advice to teens with “leadership” potential. What struck me was an anecdote he shared about comedian, Drew Carey. At the time, my dream was to become a stand-up comedian, so any advice from a successful comedian caught my attention—especially at a leadership conference (comedians get a bad rap).

In the anecdote, the speaker explained that at age 18, Drew Carey made a list of 30 things he wanted to accomplish before he turned 30. I was awestruck when he proceeded to name things on his list that he successfully accomplished—have a sitcom, host a game show, and even CLIMB MOUNT EVEREST! (I can find no evidence of this on the internet, so maybe the speaker was full of shit, but hey…it worked for me!)

That night, I went home and began to make my own little eighteen-year-old Kandace list. I didn’t have 30 things on the turquoise gel pen ink-stained paper to accomplish right away. The list is something I added to in my journal throughout college, but for a teenager, I had a good start. Sidenote: At some point, I’ll write another post on making this list and my new Before 40 list. When I turned 30, I opened my old journal and went over the various drafts of my list. Of the final draft of my list…the one that stuck…I accomplished 27/30 goals. I hadn’t moved out of state, which I just did a few months ago, NOR did I make it to Australia (I think Jake the kangaroo rat in Rescuers Down Under is to blame for my obsession with visiting the land of Aussies).

The final goal on my list that I failed to accomplish before 30 was to travel out-of-state for a music festival. The 2000s were a time when music lovers went to music festivals. Festivals were for the fans! It was pre-social media. People weren’t attending just to get fucked up and take pictures to post on Snap and Insta. People attended festivals because they LOVED music. My dream was go to Coachella or Bonnaroo (two festivals whose musical variety has seriously changed since then and that I honestly don’t have the stamina for these days). I was fortunate to live in Austin & Houston, Texas, where I went to tons of stellar festivals – SXSW, Austin City Limits and festivals past like Free Press Summer Fest, Railroad Revival Tour, In Bloom Music Festival, and Float Fest (pour one out for the homies). But, my goal was to explore a new place and connect with music lovers like me.

So this year, I said, you know what…I’m 34… where’s a place I haven’t been with musicians I want to see? And, I found a lineup and a city worth exploring! This week, I crossed my music festival fantasy off my list with Bourbon & Beyond 2019 in Louisville, Kentucky!

Three glorious days of musicians that I love and respect with very few misbehaving teens and I-don’t-know-my-limit-yet-twenty-somethings. I work at a High School and occasionally teach college courses, so any reprieve from eighteen to twenty-five year old irresponsibility is lovely!

When I travel, I tend to stay in AirBNBs. I like supporting and connecting with locals and helping them grow their independently owned businesses. This adorable abode is by far one of the best places I’ve stayed out of the many homes I’ve booked over the years!

The Cutest Spot In Louisville!

If you’re ever in Louisville, I highly recommend booking Modern Style & Vintage Charm in Germantown. I mean, the hosts even give you pink bathrobes that say “FreshAF”!

So, my FreshAF self had a blast at the festival. I had originally considered reviewing each set, but quickly realized that in order for that to occur, this blog post would be incredibly long! Instead, I’d like the highlight the idea that we, as human beings, need adventures! Adventures in new places. Adventures with new people. Adventures where we encounter new art. New food. New cultures. Adventures are what make us human. Our ability to recount, describe, create, and share those stories are imperative not only to our own personal histories, but to the history of our culture.

BiblioYoga will be a place where I help people reflect on all of these ideas through both the practice of mindfulness and yoga, but also through the use of pen and paper or keyboard and screen. I hope (someday) to also be able to provide retreats (mini adventures, hooray!) for yogis and writers. Until then, I’ll continue to find new places, new people, and new stories to tell on my own.