meet kathleen yount 

Kathleen is playing the role of jet-setter this year. Since March she's been skipping up to New York City every month or so to visit her husband, Xavier, who is attending the Natural Gourmet Institute.  

"I've long loved New York City," says Kathleen, "so it's great to travel there so frequently. I don't know that I will ever live there, but I do intend for me and that city to always be very good friends."

Xavier is training to become a vegan chef, and being vegan is one of the things he and Kathleen had in common when they first met.  

"The longer I am vegan, the more strongly I feel about the suffering of animals and the social justice issues around what and how we all eat," Kathleen says. "Being vegan gives me an easy way to actively participate, three times a day, in one of the most important changes I wish to see in the world."  

"Being vegan is really about unrestricted compassion, which means extending compassion to all animals, including the human animals who act in ways I find painful or unjust," she explains. "That's usually a lot harder than choosing not to eat an egg or a piece of cheese. For most of my life I was a go-along and get-along kind of girl on the outside, and on the inside I would freely judge, criticize, or hold resentment for any personal or public wrong I perceived. Being vegan asks me not to do either one of those things. While I have had no problem with the food, when it comes to the rest of it, sometimes I plain old fail. Experimenting with failure has been good for me."

Kathleen notes that her recent, regular doses of the Big City have only increased her love of her little house in the southeast corner of downtown Raleigh, and in particular her often-unkempt backyard. "I am miserable at landscape maintenance," she says. "But the backyard is my sanctuary in progress."  

Part of her morning routine is to do at least a few hours of her computer work while outside in the back yard, where she can put her feet on the earth, enjoy the near-constant conversations of the neighborhood birds, and hang out with the other man in her life: an orange tabby named Leroy Brown, who stops by regularly to check on her (and her cat food).  

"He's the baddest cat in the whole downtown," Kathleen says.

Kathleen, who is also the studio manager, teaches Yoga Foundations on Saturday mornings, and Vinyasa Level 1 on Wednesday evenings, Thursday lunchtime, and Saturday mornings. She also teaches Yoga Nidra once a month for the Friday Night Special. 

No school means no meals for many kids in our community. Children participating in free and reduced-cost breakfast and lunch programs are potentially missing those meals, which are sometimes the only meals they get.

From June 1 - 15, the blue will be collecting food for the Food Bank of Central and Eastern North Carolina, as part of its Stop Summer Hunger campaign.

Check out the list of  most needed items. Join us and help feed our community!

If you're looking for a little refuge from the season's flurry of school transitions, weddings, baby showers, graduations, and vacations, here are a few options:

• Kirtan with Dani Strauss, June 14, 7-9pm: Dani is back to lead us in an evening of music, mantra, and song. You'll feel the love! (Event is by-donation; cash only). 
• Kids Yoga and Art Camp (ages 6-10) with Jen, June 16-20, 2-5pm: Let your young yogi's creative juices flow! Early bird discount ends June 6.
• Master Class with Travis Eliot, July 10, 7-9pm: 'Tis the season for sweat, and Travis, the creator of the Ultimate Yogi DVD series, will be with us to dish it out. Come play!