As we move into summer I can’t help but feel incredibly grateful to be in New England, on a farm, with the opportunity to teach a weekly outdoor yoga class. After being away from this area for over 16 years and having lived on both coasts, I have fresh eyes on the beauty of this part of the country.

I began my yoga journey with the intention of offering yoga in outdoor settings because of the power of the natural environment. When you combine nature’s purest energy with yoga it’s an entirely different experience than when you’re doing a class indoors. Which is why coming back to my roots of sharing this practice in nature has me all filled up.

The connection to Mother Earth - combined with your breathing - grounds you into the experience so much more deeply than a session in a studio. You can pour your heart ache and suffering into Mother Earth with each breath, which each heartbeat, and she will take all those heavy emotions and she will compost them and regenerate that pain into calm, steady beauty.

Mother Earth is the most grounding force that I have ever experienced. Bare foot on the ground, connecting the core of it all, breathing that steadiness through your feet and into your soul, provides a moment in time that is pristinely yours and the universes alone.

I’ve loved celebrating International Yoga Day and the Summer Solstice outside, reflecting on all the places in the world I have practiced yoga. I am so grateful for all the beautiful places I have sat in stillness, centered my breath, and inhaled the essence of a location that was so foreign and magical to me.

India was one of the most amazing places to practice yoga - an art, a meditation, a discipline, a religion, whatever you may call yoga yourself. India called to me in a way no other place ever has.

Yoga is about connecting to your breath, having awareness of your physical body in this world, and your spirit that resides there. 

Hawaii, was also an amazing place to cultivate peace and connection with nature with my yoga practice and with all the amazing people I met.

Machu Pichu was a particularly special place to strike a warrior pose. It felt ancient and sacred But no matter where I go in the world my practice is always there to ground and center me and my breath is there to guide me and calm me.

In addition to doing my yoga practice outdoors I also combine cannabis with my yoga practice to offer an additional boost to my endocannabinoid system. I find connecting with this sacred plant prior to teaching a class or taking a class or completing my own practice serves me in a beautiful way and I embrace this practice now on a daily basis. The insights on love and compassion I have had when combining plant medicine and practice have truly changed my life.

I recently shared this type of practice with a group of individuals who joined me and other cannabis nurses for a day of cannabis education and living your best life. We shared some cannabis samples and one of our nurses provided and educational discussion about cannabis and offered CBD and THC samples. We then moved on the sharing a yoga class, which I taught.

Many of these guests have never participated in a yoga class, let alone a yoga class like the one I teach that takes you deep into the space of your heart where loving kindness and self-love and forgiveness tend to hide. We need to be flexible, forgiving and kind to ourselves before we can extend that to others. Yoga helps us to do this.

Yoga is not about who can get their legs behind their heads the best. Yoga is about connecting to your breath, having awareness of your physical body in this world, and your spirit that resides there. I encourage you to get outside, sit with nature, breathe with nature, move with nature. Pour your sorrows into her and feel the radiance you receive from her and know you are always supported by Mother Earth and divine timing in all things.

Photos by Yannic Läderach and kike vega on Unsplash