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Theater of Memory
Wherever this m ay find you on the eve of 2013, I hope you are healthy and thriving.
This has been a year of fire, and a year of ice. This has been a great year of contrast and radical change. On the outside the whirling speed of life and the palpable heat of transformation has governed daily existence. On the inside, I have never been so steady--sure of my choices or focused in direction. It's quite a juxtaposition, and yet the contrast feels appropriate.
A pilgrimage in South India is the perfect way for me to close this tumultuous year.
South India is a land of contrast and rich experiences. This is a land of highly refined civilization, and deep primal energy. Madurai, where we have spent a couple of days, is the most continually inhabited city in the world. This contrast and complementarity is played out in every place I visit here. The beauty and sophistication of ritual and teaching are incredible, and my experience of being here is amplified by my last 10 years (plus) of earnest study.
To witness the Dikshatars perform rituals (for which they have been trained since birth) is to watch poetry in action. Every gesture is graceful. Every offering is conscious. Every mantra is deeply resonant. These rituals have been played out every day and every year for hundreds and hundreds of years. It is all passed down orally, and the power of memory and purpose is potent. As my teacher, Douglas Brooks, has said; It is a theater of memory. We enter every temple barefoot, walking through streets of dirt and mud and who-knows-what-stickiness. One day we climbed 650 steps to a hilltop temple of Palani (one of 6 temples of Murugan), ecstatically calling with the other pilgrims; 'Arogara!', "To Life, To Health'. And that is nothing; we pass pilgrims from our air-conditioned bus, who are walking 60km with no shoes on to get to a temple. Cows are in many of the temples, and are considered sacred and welcome. The smells of jasmine and frankincense mix with smoke and dung. The sounds are almost always loud, whether it is the music that pumps from every temple  beginning at 4am, the honking of horns and calls of hawkers on the streets, the bells and trumpets and mantras inside the temples. Drums are banging, coconuts are being smashed open, and pilgrims are quietly or ecstatically calling and singing folk songs and the names of Gods.
I have so many new stories and such a wealth of content for the upcoming Online Course, The Stories of Yoga Poses. I'm so excited to share some of what I have learned with all of you.
If you are looking for a 'quiet and peaceful' place, don't come to South India. If you are looking for the sublime thoroughly co-mingled with the mundane, a spiritual model to bring to householder life, then perhaps a pilgrimage could be for you.
I feel very at home here. I generally do not like crowds and much formal procedure, but in these crowds and  rituals, every cell of my body is happy and home. Darshan in Cidambaram, where Nataraja dances, was thick with the press of bodies from all sides. The crowd surges this way and that, as the priest perform rituals, or the crowd makes way as some enormous statue is carried on the shoulders of many men, and I am carried with it as if I was in the ocean. 
But unlike in the ocean, here I feel totally safe. Everyone smiles at us. The joy and love of the Tamil people is very tangible and always right on the surface. Of course, we are careful to dress and act as pilgrims, not as tourists. This is ecstasy with rules, just as there are rules in intimacy with your beloved. This is my spiritual home. I feel like I have been to these temples before, chanted these mantras, waved the lights to these Gods in my memories.
It's both chaotic and calming all at once and mirrors my inner state as I close this year. In considering how much change we have been absorbing, I am somewhat awestruck by and ever grateful for the unwavering connection I have experienced this year with my wife.
I counted  the days that I have been on the road this year--258! It has been the roughest year ever on the outside-but on the inside the ground is solid. Tracy has been by my side, and has had my back through every wave of this stormy year. She is the heroine of my heart and we have found real ways to stoke the fire of our love from every corner of the earth this past year.
Meanwhile, my wife has been mommy to our children without me for far too many weeks this year. We have taken turns holding each other up. You know those moments when it seems you cannot keep your head above the water--those moments of overwhelm and anxiety, desperation and depression?
Tracy has been there to lift me-- and I hope that I have been there to lift her. Without this partnership, I cannot fathom what my world would look like. And as I close the year, I realize that my steady commitment with my beloved has been my ever present guide in 2012. My marriage defined the year--and I could not be more proud of us.
As much as I love traveling and seeing you all around  the world, I hope to spend more days at home in the coming year. I dearly miss my children and my wife. I want a relationship with Oliver that goes as deep as I have with Madeleine. I am ready to be home. So ready, in fact, that my 2013 travel schedule is still in a sketchy format on the right side of this letter! It is coming together though, and you will see me mostly in North America next year as I focus on my domestic fire and new home school.
MYoga is opening explosively in Los Angeles, exceeding my dreams. There are only a few spaces remaining in my 300 hour program--it will sell out in the next week or so--and our online courses have been so well received. We have exceeded our goal of 6% scholarships and I am proud to say that we have been offering around 15% of our programming to our students for free. Our new home makes this possible. MYoga LA will have an incredible opening year, if all continues as it has begun--and I have you to thank--for coming to see me and for believing in what I have to of  fer.
For LA Peeps, we will be opening the MYoga space for a Sunday afternoon practice in 2013. Check out the MYoga Website for details. Our first gathering will be January 6. As I spend more time in at home, I will spend more time at YogaGlo too, and I have much in store for you this year on that front--stay tuned.
I wish for all of us, the richness of life, the heat and fire of transformation, the clarity and coolness of ice. The heat of passion (shringara) and the calm presence of peace (shanta) In the contrast and complexity of life, may we so thoroughly intertwine our spiritual identity with our worldly identity. Make your spiritual life your worldly life.
I wish you good health, good karma and good luck. I wish you the blessing of friends and partners that stay with you and support you through good times and bad. I wish you love and great courage on your path. I wish you fulfillment and moments of joy, as life is too short for anything less.
Hold your children close, every day is precious. May you be blessed in this transition from 2012 to 2013. I look forward to the blessing of your company, both online and in-person. 
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