In early 1990, I stumbled into my first yoga class with a woman named Ellie Brown. That fateful day changed the course of my life. In this podcast I sit down with my first yoga teacher and talk with her about the early days of yoga in the United States as well as her own journey of healing and self discovery which led from yoga to various forms of bodywork.

Ellie is one of several people in my life to whom I owe so much of what I have today. In this podcast, I'm sure you will see why!

SHOW NOTES:

If you would like to contact Ellie Brown, you can email her or call her office at 860-599-3373. Her yoga studio and healing center is located in South Eastern Connecticut.

During the interview, the following teachers and healers were discussed:

Patricia Walden (yoga teacher)

Judith Hanson Lasater (yoga teacher)

Bonnie Pruden and her book on Myotherapy

John Upledger and CranioSacral Therapy

Barbara Brennan and her book, Hands of Light.

Meditation has been promoted by every spiritual tradition throughout history, and now modern science is talking it up as an important and effective tool for mental and physical health.  In this interview, I ask Jonathan Reynolds, author of the just published book, Learning to Listen, about the practice of meditation and how it can be used as a powerful tool for transformation and healing.

For a great article on  yoga and buddhism, be sure to vist this website.

In this interview with actress Jeri Lynn Cohen, we explore her use of yoga to complement conventional cancer treatments with great success.  Jerri Lynn welcomes your emails. You can also visit her website.

In life it is easy to lose faith when things get dark, but all the great spiritual stories from East to West remind us that the dark times are necessary for us to be reborn in a new and more evolved way. By looking at three great stories from the Yogic, Jewish and Christian traditions, Darren explores the concept of spiritual rebirth in a new way that is applicable for our modern times.

Understanding one's purpose in life is the key to finding health and happiness. It is also how a spiritual seeker can fulfill his or her role in the healing of the world. In this talk, Darren explores the process of listening to that inner voice in order to find one's own personal path.

Spiritual practice is difficult even on a yoga mat or a meditation cushion; keeping the mind quiet and the heart open within the context of human relationships can seem impossible. There is no area of life where our spiritual practice is more important than in that of our interactions with each other. In this talk, Darren explores human relationships from a yogic point of view and looks at ways that we can make them a spiritual practice in and of themselves.

God is a very touchy subject for many in the yoga world. Many of us have found our way to the yoga mat because the religion of our childhood left a bad aftertaste. Although yoga is not a religion, it does encourage a relationship with a higher power. In this talk, Darren explores the nature of God through the lens of Hindu mythology. By looking at the concept of God in a new way, old patterns and beliefs can be replaced by healthy and well-adjusted ones.

In this talk Darren explores the idea that everyday people living in the modern world can live a mystical and deeply spiritual life by using ancient techniques such as yoga in a more modern way. The talk is based loosely on his second book, Yoga and the Path of the Urban Mystic.