“He with you?” the man asks in a gravelly tone, his boots clomping on the pavement as he steps off his motorcycle. He turns his head to my left, gesturing toward my travel companion, Morgan, who is a few paces away, FaceTiming his nieces and nephew.

“Yes,” I respond, unsure, placing my hand in a salute over my brow to shield my eyes from the bright sun. I glance toward his dog, sitting at the back of his motorcycle. The heeler mix steps gingerly to the ground. “What’s your pup’s name?” I ask.

He replies, “Her name is Tehona, but she’s not mine, and I’m not hers.” I look at Tehona and think to myself, Have I ever actually seen a dog roll its eyes before?

I look back at the man and take him in: long gray hair and beard, jeans, and a rancher hat. His eyes are a piercing blue and stand out against his tan, weathered face. He continues, “You see, I believe in the consciousness of animals. When you take ownership of them, they lose their dignity. We do this with our human babies, too, changing their diapers; we rob them of their dignity.” I picture a newborn, helpless and soggy, and try to locate the dignity in that equation. He loses me on that last line, but before I can ask for clarification, he presses on: “I’m writing a book about canine consciousness,” he muses, pulling some cellophane wrap covering a piece of sausage out of his pocket.

The man divides it into two and instructs Tehona to climb up a row of barrels. He places the meat directly in front of Tehona at each end of the barrels. “Look at her,” he instructs me. “She doesn’t eat until she energetically knows I agree.” Tehona regretfully looks back over her shoulder at me. The man nods and says “comer,” which means eat in Spanish. Tehona takes one bite and waits. She reluctantly looks back at him this time. “Comer,” he says again, and she takes the second bite.

By now, my date has returned from his call, cautiously curious about my new friend. Morgan reaches out, shakes the man’s hand, and introduces himself, and the man responds with his own name: “David Sleeper, but just call me Sleeper.”

Sleeper rolls on into the next part of his demonstration. His dog, Tehona, has now wandered across the street, where she watches us from a distance. “Watch this,” he says as he steps to the far side of the fence separating the property where we sit from the one to the left of us. Tehona looks at us, then at the fence where Sleeper just ducked behind, but keeps sniffing the dusty yard across the street, unconcerned.

Morgan and I sit in silence for at least a full minute, unsure how to proceed or if this is all part of the demonstration. Eventually, we return to our margaritas and continue our prior conversation.

Maybe 5 more minutes go by before Sleeper and Tehona are back at the side of our picnic table. “It’s never taken that long before, but she knew where I was because we share a consciousness,” he assures us.

I begin to sense Morgan’s restlessness, but I am enthralled. Maybe it’s the margarita or the microdose of mushrooms, but I am beginning to see the faint outline of a prismatic aura surrounding Sleeper’s head as he talks. He goes on about shared consciousness, man’s role in spreading the seed, women’s role as the true creator, and, frankly, who knows what else, but I’m sure it will be available to read in his upcoming book.

We drain our margaritas and begin to set ourselves back on our way. Tehona winks at me as we say our goodbyes.

Some hours later, we find ourselves walking down the empty, dimly lit streets of Marfa on the quiet Monday evening. We round a corner and walk right into Sleeper and Tehona, now on foot. “Sleeper!” Morgan warmly acknowledges the man despite prior misgivings. Sleeper instead looks to me, completely ignoring my companion. “Jordan,” he tips his hat. I nod back and smile.

In early twenty twenty one, I attended one of my first postpartum (post?-pandemic) public yoga classes. Despite already having a daily home practice, it was the first time in a long time that I really felt alive. As we lay in savasana bliss, soft music hovering in the atmospheric inch above my body, I listened to Bob Dylan’s voice wash over me.

“The answer, my friend, is blowin' in the wind. The answer is blowin' in the wind.”

This struck me as funny because the day before, I had rewatched the Coen Brothers’ movie Inside Llewyn Davis, and Bob Dylan’s discreet cameo at the end of the film, which always moves me, had done so again. Dylan seemed an odd pick for savasana, but the timing felt like synchronicity, the love language of the universe.

I left yoga, grabbed a “loving-kindness” latte, and popped down the road to Book People on a whim. I listened to more Dylan in the car on the way. As I sat upstairs at Book People, perusing the shrink-wrapped coffee table and art books, I overheard a man asking whether they would be carrying the new Clinton Heylin biography on Bob Dylan and whether he could pre-order it. That felt like another nudge, another small sign that Dylan’s fresh presence in my life was insisting on my attention.

Now I’m a believer in synchronicities, so at this point my attention was thoroughly caught. “What is Bob Dylan trying to tell me?” I thought to myself. That night, I googled the best Bob Dylan documentary and, of course, was met with No Direction Home, a legendary 2005 documentary directed by Martin Scorsese. At the end of the three-hour and twenty-eight-minute documentary, I was captivated in a way I hadn’t felt in years. Dylan’s rise, reinvention, and refusal to stay where others placed him began to resonate in my bones. “Dylan Goes Electric” became one of rock and roll’s most mythologized turning points.

I spent the entire summer of 2021 utterly and completely obsessed with Bob Dylan. If you were my hair client, my then-husband, or even a complete stranger who encountered me during that time, I’m genuinely sorry. In an online forum I was part of, I began to be referred to as “Bob Dylan” Jordan. I was completely fascinated by his story, but it was also as if there were a mystery I needed to solve, a deep and personal message I was meant to receive. In my own life, I was struggling. I was unhappy in my marriage, in my chronically ill body, in how I participated in my role as a mother, and in my almost twenty-year career as a hairstylist. An ancient, very deep wound from my family of origin had recently been reopened, leaving me all but crushed. I was yearning for a different life, one in which I wouldn’t feel so very far from myself. One of my few sources of solace was my yoga practice. I couldn’t yet put words to the ineffable qualities the practice was providing me, but I knew there was some strange magic afoot. When not practicing yoga, I walked or ran and listened to Dylan. Visions of Johanna for my warmup, Hurricane and Like a Rolling Stone for the run, and sometimes Joan Baez’s Diamonds and Rust for the cool-down. If that sounds like a short run, you would be correct. I had never run before and probably never will again. What I did not understand at the time was that I was in a season of deep grief, and Dylan was providing its soundtrack.

During this time, I was enrolled in school to become a yoga therapist. My yoga therapy cohort classmates will surely recall my Bob Dylan affliction. I had found my way into yoga therapy school, which is essentially yoga grad school because the deeper I studied yoga, the more questions I had, and the suggested intensity of this level of schooling felt like it could finally provide the answers I was seeking. Two things occurred simultaneously: my practice deepened immensely, and I had more questions than ever. I began teaching at a local studio, and practice or teaching became two of the only places I felt like I could come up for air. I gulped in every deep breath I could get, lost the chaotic contents of my mind in mantra practice, and I sang loudly to drown out all the internal noise. At the same moment, I immersed myself in community. I listened to and loved on strangers, and I remembered joy, but it widened the chasm between the life I wanted and the one I was living at home. I began to feel incongruent, like my insides were completely different than the outsides. I felt inauthentic, dishonest, and I was becoming so sick of myself. Yoga can be confrontational in that way if you aren’t walking your talk. I knew I had to tell my tender truth if I wanted my life to change. And I wanted my life to change. So I lit the proverbial match and tossed it onto the gasoline-covered kindling that was my own life, and boy, did it burn. And yet, when things went kablooey, despite having kind of started the fire, I found myself genuinely surprised by the size and scorch of the flames.

In the aftermath last summer, I went to yoga class after yoga class, trying out different local studios and teachers, attempting to salvage my practice from the rubble of my life. I was hoping to find a place I belonged, feeling broken-hearted, lost, and deeply confused. I also felt incredibly determined. I finished school for yoga therapy, which was genuinely no small feat. I found a new place to live and made it a beautiful home for my kids and me. I put up with endless chatter from people I had thought of as kind acquaintances, dear friends, or even my own family. Many unkind and often untrue assumptions were made about me, which is actually quite normal when you change your life, while many others are afraid to do so, but for every friend I lost, I gained a better new one. The depth of my relationships with real family and close friends came to the fore and carried me when I couldn’t carry myself. With time, I was finally able to reclaim my personal yoga practice. I learned that what remains is what matters and how beautiful each moment really is. I learned just how little control we actually have, especially over how others perceive us, and how surrendering to that truth is, in fact, freedom. I learned just how deeply I can trust myself. I danced with life. I saw that the depth of my grief was actually mirrored by my capacity for joy and happiness. I learned what it actually means to operate from blind faith and developed a trust in myself and life that will carry me through the rest of my days. While I have realized I am perhaps not going to be teaching yoga in the modern-traditional studio sense, at least for now, I am eternally grateful that I have maintained and held onto my practice. The depth of my understanding and love for yoga will undoubtedly carry me through the next half of my life and will inevitably be shared through whatever medium I choose to create in. I realize now that the lesson I learned from both Bob Dylan and yoga is actually one and the same. It is to honor the mystery rather than try to master it. And as I sit on the precipice of forty, I can say with a degree of certainty that while I don’t know what the next half of my life might hold, I do know it’s going to be electric.

Welcome to This Magic Moment. Thank you for being here.

*cue the harmonica solo

**Another small synchronicity unbeknownst to me at the time, this was written close to midnight on the eve of Bob Dylan’s 85th birthday. HBD BOB!

Recently, I found myself asking someone, “What’s your favorite thing about yourself?” After a thoughtful answer, they asked me the same. Without hesitation, I replied, “My curiosity.” The next day, while cleaning my bedroom, I reflected, “What’s my least favorite thing about myself?” Instantly, I knew: my need to know. It is not at all lost on me that these are two sides of the same coin. My endless curiosity keeps me open and full of wonder, honoring the mysteries of life. This is a beautiful trait. Yet I also have a deep longing to understand the unknowable, driving me, like a hungry ghost, to constantly seek answers.

This hunger for answers, while sometimes overwhelming, has tangible impacts on my life and practice. This drive to learn keeps me enrolled as a student. I have been consistently enrolled in some form of yoga training program since 2020. I voraciously consume texts and work 1:1. or take classes with teachers I admire. I view every opportunity I get to teach, whether in a class or workshop, or even in a podcast episode, as an opportunity to learn and grow. One thing I’ve noticed is how often, as a student in a classroom setting, I am told information that contradicts something a previous teacher said. “Pull your elbows forward in Garudasana (eagle pose) to elongate the neck” vs. “draw the elbows down in eagle to compress and then lift the chest up.” or “The Gayatri mantra helps thin the layers of the Koshas to let Atman shine through” vs. “The Gayatri mantra is only meant for men to whisper in the ears of their sons when they come of age.” This is where, at times, my own research or discernment is needed. The beauty of yoga is that, in The Bhagavad Gita, a foundational text of classical yoga and Hinduism that most of us study or begin with in the West, it outlines how we are to best learn. We begin with the texts, and then, potentially, a guru or teacher who translates them, while the highest version of knowledge is achieved exclusively through direct experience. The power is truly in the practice. The practice is the moon, and everything else is just a finger pointing at it. This is true for everything we do. It’s why, although I love the work of Maya Angelou, I have to wholeheartedly disagree with her famous quote, “When we know better, we do better.” Often, we think we know, and yet we still don’t do better. The truth is, none of us really know, and we certainly don’t always do, but I suppose practice makes progress.

This ongoing engagement with learning and the search for deeper understanding has led me into varied explorations. Building on this devotion to learning and practice, during the last semester of Sadhana School, a program I am enrolled in through the Embodied Philosophy platform, we dove into what’s known as Maitrika Shakti, or the ineffable experience of practicing mantra. One of the course leaders, Nataraj Chaitanya, encouraged us in his introduction not to get lost in Vidyaranya, the forest of knowledge. I found myself reminded of Alan Watts’s book, The Wisdom of Insecurity: A Message for an Age of Anxiety, in which he argues that humanity’s frantic search for security is the root of its anxiety. Watts posited that because life is inherently impermanent and unpredictable, true happiness and spiritual peace are found only by accepting this insecurity and living fully in the present moment, rather than chasing future certainty.

In my personal experience, yoga certainly seems to help with finding presence, but even after all my practice, there are times when I am sick of myself and feel insecure. I am, after all, yet another thin, blonde, able-bodied white woman donning Free People Movement attire and espousing ancient wisdom from a culture I don’t come from. It has been immensely helpful to learn the historical context of Yoga vs. Hinduism, which, while not inherently the same, overlaps significantly, in order to orient myself in my own teachings so that I can culturally appreciate vs culturally appropriate. However, I find inherent acceptance in the practice itself. Part of my work in both learning and teaching non-dualism is accepting that I might want to sing Outkast or the Ganesha mantra at the end of a class, and that neither is inherently more spiritual than the other. I have both a goddess Saraswati murti and a bronze glitter ET bath bomb from Lush, which I honor with equal reverence because both hold deep meaning for me.

This perspective on embracing different aspects of myself informs how I interpret the debates I see in the yoga world today. Currently, I find myself intrigued by the amount of debate in the online yoga space. Many people are currently arguing over the superiority or age of their “lineage,” when nearly all of what we practice in the West is modern, and “lineage” might as well be another word for brand (yes, even yours). That does NOT mean these practices or traditions are without merit. I have rolled out my mat for a home Ashtanga primary practice more times than I could possibly count. I’ve chanted a mantra for hours, rolling mala beads through my fingers, but I’ve also touched the face of God during savasana at the end of a sweaty, black-lit EDM yoga class. All of this can be true. You are, in fact, not more yogic for wearing harem pants and no makeup. I am, in fact, not less yogic for loving the Euphoria TV show and cursing under my breath in traffic. There’s a lot of discussion right now about what yoga is and what isn’t. While I do think yoga is a lived experience, what concerns me is that there seems to be a bit of judgment about who is or isn’t “living their yoga,” and, frankly, that is not something anyone can name but the practitioner experiencing yoga through the vehicle of their own life. The beauty of where I do think is that this conversation is coming from, and what isn’t up for debate is that yoga is inherently a spiritual practice. It is part and parcel of it, no matter the lineage, tradition, or brand. This past week, I interviewed fellow teacher Carter Miles on my podcast, where he reflected on the current conversation in the yoga space. As I was editing, I was struck by a single line he said: “As far as I’m concerned, it’s either all yoga or none of it’s yoga.” It is all yoga.

With that in mind, I

am reminded that yoga’s spiritual foundation is interconnected with everyday life. Also, our lives are a spiritual practice. Our divinity is part and parcel with our humanity. These things cannot be separated, and the separation or division is where yoga is needed most right now, so that we might remember we are not separate from each other. If what drives someone to their mat for the first time is the opportunity to change the shape of their ass, or to stretch their calves, then I don’t really care. If what drives someone to their first meditation is crippling anxiety, then that’s a great place to start. Despite all of my hours of training, I can’t say with any degree of certainty whether you or I will awaken from the seat of the meditation cushion, from the front row at a Radiohead concert, or while watching a rerun of Welcome Back, Kotter on a beanbag. It’s not for me to judge, and it’s certainly not for me to know.

Do you ever just want to cup your hands around the sides of your mouth and scream? Like, holler so loud you have to bend your knees and tense every muscle in your body just to open your mouth wide enough to get the proper sound out? Does it feel as if you, too, were to, in fact, do this right now, no one would even notice? Would anyone look up from their iPhone or even take out an AirPod to listen? More and more it feels like we’re all just shouting into the void. “I’m here.”

A friend recently told me, unsolicited, that he thought I should really do a Rage Room. Not because I seemed particularly rageful, he just felt I probably had to be based on what he knows about me. Who doesn’t need a rage room? And I’m sure I am rageful, but actually, the words I wish to scream at the top of my lungs? “I DON’T KNOW.” It’s really that simple. I don’t know anything about anything. I don’t know a thing about a thing. Nothing, Zip, Nada, and I am beginning to really severely question anyone who pretends to have a clue. Frankly, I am downright uncertain. I am bona fide unfuckingsure. And maybe that doesn’t sell. Maybe that’s not packagable or palatable, but it’s true. I can provide no ten-step program to save your life.

This was especially evident last Tuesday. For days, I had been running around like a chicken with my head cut off. I was overpromising and underdelivering. Never have I made more calendar errors in my entire life. Sorry, dear reader, if you were someone affected. After a morning paying a speeding ticket, a few hundred dollars for cruising 12 miles over, I was beginning to question it all. I frantically checked to see if my laptop was even charged for a Zoom meeting and looked down to realize I was still in last night’s sleep attire, black sweat pants, and a giant happy face t-shirt, a messy top knot sitting above my unwashed face. Currently, I am in a year-long mentorship studying astrology with my yoga therapist, . As she popped onto the call to go over the next sign in the zodiacal wheel, tears began to well in my eyes. “I’m overwhelmed,” I sheepishly lamented. “I got you. Let’s pivot,” she quickly jumped in. She instructed me to lie on the floor and began a yoga therapy practice. A few slow breaths coupled with arm movements known as nyasa to calm my nervous system, and she began offering a visualization. “You’re lying on a rock in the sun. Right now, you are no one, you have nowhere to be, you are nothing.” The literal stress that rode out of my body on my exhale, I can’t even express how good it felt, even just for a moment, to be no one. To need to know nothing. To be reminded that I don’t have, or need to have, the answers, and that’s a good thing, because I don’t. The few times I’ve told that story in the week since, people have almost instantly booked a yoga therapy session with me. Don’t we all just want to be nothing for a moment? Aren’t we all a little uncertain?

Emerging from that experience, I realized what I do have and what the practice really provides. I love to learn, but more so, unlearn. I love sitting with myself and questioning my belief systems. Where did it come from? Is that really me? Is this judgment for someone else or myself? Is this who I wish to be? When I feel heightened, I can take a deep breath and pause before responding. Can I sit with myself even when I am my very most rattled and ask myself these questions? Being able to do this is undoubtedly a byproduct of years of daily yoga practice and countless hours sitting in the discomfort of postures, breathing slowly on a mat, or just becoming comfortable with getting still and listening deeply. So, no, I don’t have and can’t sell you any answers, but yoga has helped me, and might help you sit with the questions, too.

If you, too, wish to be gently reminded you’re nothing, you can book with me here.

Photos above by the unmatched, Angela Doran.

Words are my currency. I love to talk, I live to read, and I write most days. My home overflows with journals, books, and handwritten notes from friends, family, and past loves, both platonic and romantic. I contemplate words, look them up, and choose them with care. Sometimes a word captivates me; a recent week was marked by my searching for places to weave macabre into a sentence, and this week’s infatuation is impeccable. I teach, write, share essays, and podcast. Language is my love.

This devotion to words makes mantra my favorite yoga practice. Mantra embodies my belief in the transformative power of language. It allows me to connect deeply with words through the magic of ancient sound, the maitrika shakti. I’m currently studying with of Embodied Philosophy in Sadhana School. Much to my delight, this winter semester is devoted entirely to this subject. So much of our inquiry centers on the distinction between ancient and modern language. Our current language is largely used to indicate. The ancient was used to create.

As if the universe were underlining the lesson, reflections on the limits of language began appearing everywhere. Synchronicity seems to follow me when I’m paying attention. I was recently sent a thoughtful article by Cormac McCarthy, and that same week, another arrived in my inbox from . Two worthwhile, word-filled reflections circling a truth Eastern philosophy has long insisted upon: words fall short.

Just last week, walking to the salon in the cute Austin neighborhood where I work , I spotted a vanity plate that read “SOHOOD.” I immediately pulled out my notes app to jot down an essay prompt about my intrinsic mistrust of people with vanity plates. It’s the old paradox Alan Watts loved to illuminate: “Trying to define yourself is like trying to bite your own teeth.” Words are crude embodiments of deeper truths we cannot fully name. Watts spoke so clearly to this limitation of language: “You cannot put what it is into words. And this indeed is a central point of Zen and of Buddhist understanding in general: that reality is beyond words, and one must not confuse the world of things—as we think about them and name them—with the world as it actually is.”

This doesn’t stop any of us from trying to define things. It’s only natural to want to place a label or a name to understand and identify our mysterious selves and the general uncertainty of the world around us. Yet what are these definitions even if we aren’t actively living them? I’ve learned over time that those who talk the loudest are indeed sometimes all talk, unable to back up their bold proclamations with any direct action. Or even worse, acting in direct opposition to the words they espouse. An astrologer I adore, Colin Bedell, once said, “Integrity is security, and integrity is walking your talk.” We witness this in the actions of ourselves and others, that maybe that general hum of anxiety most people are feeling is just the incongruence of their words and motions.

Still, for all our philosophies about language’s shortcomings, life sometimes reveals the truth with striking clarity.

A few years ago, I had the immense privilege of sitting in a yoga classroom where students were invited to share. I no longer recall what prompted the reflection, only that it concerned the ineffable quality of the human soul. One student raised her hand and described losing both of her parents, one to dementia, the other to ALS. She recounted the differences between the two illnesses: the parent with dementia lost memory rapidly, preserving other faculties, while the parent with ALS lost the power to communicate entirely, trapped in a body that would no longer answer.

Yet, she said, in those final moments with each parent, the experience was indistinguishable.

It was the experience of sitting in the presence of pure love.

There was hardly a dry eye in the room. The irony that the student’s words illustrated to a room full of people: words do, in fact, fall short

.

As I’ve been contemplating the physical body, I can’t help but ponder what it means to embody. The word itself means to be an expression of or give form to (an idea, quality, or feeling). Our bodies, these physical vessels that move us through the world, make the invisible visible. Others see our values or thoughts through our daily actions. Our hands write lyrics that become love in verse; our physical actions make ideas manifest for others to witness. I read, therefore I become a reader. I practice daily sadhana and become a yogi. If I flip the bird at a grandma holding up traffic, I am the embodiment of road rage. Believe it or not, these last two are not inherently mutually exclusive, and that is why we practice.

Upon first contemplating the anamaya kosha, the most superficial layer of self, in the yogic system known as the koshas, I wanted to dismiss it as just that, superficial. I’m realizing now that what is most visible is, in fact, the embodiment of our deepest truths. We don’t have to wear a graphic tee for our outfit to tell a story. A hairstyle choice might make others consider you chic, “c*nty” or a Karen. Our bodies are an expression of the energy that resides beneath the surface. A heavy sigh carries deep meaning. A lip nibble means you’re worried. When we find something funny, we laugh. We whistle while we work. We hum when we’re happy. Salt water wells up in our eyes when we are overwhelmed with grief or joy.

Even our language reflects these acts of embodiment. We “stand up” for what we believe. We “bow” under pressure. We “grasp” for an idea. We “look away” from injustice or we “rise up” against oppression. It strikes me in this way how much our bodies matter. How in this life, this time, this is the way we are known. How our very actions reflect all we hold to be true.

On a personal level, I’ve been considering what it means to be an embodiment of the value I hold dearest and truest, love, and what that might look like. How love in its tangible, embodied form may not be a passionate poem, it might be two squeezes of a hand. It might be someone saving you a seat, or wiping the boogers out of your five-year-old’s eyelashes. It might be a meme sent without explanation. It might be baking gluten-free marshmallow brownies for someone’s birthday. It might be a small act of service that the other person never even knows about. It might be a simple, “Hey, how was your day?” It might be holding a grain of compassion for a person you’ve never met who lives a life completely different than yours.

In summary, I suppose what I’m saying is that how we act matters. How we show up reflects what we believe. Our acts of embodiment are who we are, and now I’m nourishing myself with and offering you the same food for thought as an act of love.