Our lives, yes everyone's, are interconnected. Take a moment right now and check out what you are wearing, sitting on and maybe eating.  Chance are your clothing came from outside the US and that it was made in a sweatshop. Food?  Well, you know. It's estimated that the your food  traveled over 1500 miles to make it to your plate.  Can you image how many people were involved along the way?  Even the packers and the labelers and the dock workers and the truck drivers had a hand in getting that white peach to you in December all the way from Chile.  So, when you start to feel oh-so independent and free, think again.  

We come to our yoga mat to explore our own internal connections (intraconnections?) by moving and breathing and being present with what transpires (good and bad).  We stay present and focused.  We are determined and creative and yet at the same time letting go of our attachments to our efforts. But our personal growth is not just for us, so we can sit around and sip our G.T.'s Kombucha with chia and look all spiritual and buffed. Our yoga begins when we step off our mat, into the "real" world.  That's where the fun begins. That's where the intersection between the mat and the world meets.That's where we can initiate change.  

Take my friend, Jayne.  She's talented and smart and brave and a healer to many. She joinedOff the Mat and Into the World, an organization that bridges yoga and activism. This year Off the Mat focused on the rehabilitation of young women and girls saved from the sex trade in India. Jayne joined their program which asked her to raise $20,000 to make a difference in the lives of these girls.  Twenty thousand dollars is a lot for a yoga teacher.  Maybe Jayne could have written a check, I don't know.  But, she spent the year reaching out to family, friends and the yoga community and started organizing yoga and meditation classes, t-shirt and wristband sales, book clubs and luncheons. This is not easy stuff and it takes courage and commitment.  She'll finish off the year over $28,000.  Bottom line, she did something.  She made the connection between herself and some young girl(s) in India.   

One of my favorite organizations, The Interdependence Project (theidproject.org), states: "Get Connected.  Because We Really Are."  Based on Buddhist principles and psychology, they are dedicated to "to bridging the gap between personal development and collective engagement in our world, combining the principles of mindfulness and interdependence with activism, arts, and media."  It's a mouthful, but they don't just sit and meditate to be all spiritual and blissed out.  They describe the connection between meditation and activism as "the simple act of sitting cannot be divorced from the communal, social and political forces that brought us to the cushion. As we engage in social change work, our inner world also unfolds and impacts the way we relate to our efforts, and so we cannot divorce our lives as activists from our life on the cushion."  They get out and make a difference

And speakng of making a difference, yogini to Sonoma County and the planet and supporters of women's issues, Anne O'Brien, has spent this week encouraging her students (and I bet everyone she meets) to "do something" to address the terrible wrong that occurred in Connecticut.  Anne says: "I am sparked to action about an issue when I reach the tipping point . . .  [and] I felt a deep sense of urgency that it was incumbent upon me to do whatever possible to work for change on gun laws in the US."  She wasted no time penning (what's the new word for digitally penning?) an article to her local editor.  Entitled "Talk About Guns--It is Time" her letter was published in the Opinion section of the Sonoma News.  She encourages us to take action stating:  "Please initiate your own call to action; write your representatives, protest, destroy the assault weapon you already own as it could be stolen and used in this most violent of manners. Sell the stock you own in companies that manufacture guns. Do something. It is time."  Bravo, Anne.

It is super easy to get complacent.  It's even easier to blame others for our inaction--our political system, corporate interests or our community leaders.  But, like Anne said, it's time to do something.  Each of us individually can make a difference.   

Thanks to all of you who joined us and make our Graton in Yoga program ROCK!