 Right, so first, the few announcements that we have at our library. We definitely want to acknowledge that we are on a lonely land. And this is the unceded ancestor homeland of the raw mutish lonely peoples, who are the original inhabitants of the San Francisco peninsula. We recognize that we benefit from living and working on their traditional homeland as uninvited guest we affirm their sovereign rights as first persons, and we pay our respects to the ancestors, elders and relatives of the raw mutish community. And now I'm going to throw in a link in the chat box that will get you to all sorts of great reading lists about first person culture and great websites that you can donate and news about land rights information. Here at San Francisco Public Library we're celebrating more than a month which is our version of Black History Month we started at MLK weekend and run it all the way through the end of February. And we're so fortunate to be able to commission and get amazing artists to work with us every campaign. This gorgeous work is by Tiffany Conway. You can see the actual painting at the library main library, as well as a ginormous mural when you walk into the main doors. It's gorgeous. The overall theme for Black History Month is black health and black wellness. So I encourage you to check out some of the past programs we've had we only have a couple more left. Every Wednesday we've been having meditation with the amazing Dennis Phillips, who is a disability activist, and he can be seen in Netflix So this happening every Wednesday at noon in the African American Center third floor main library, and you can also go to the farmers market on the same day right across the street. One more in our film series of high on the hog how African American cuisine transformed America, and this will be held in our African American Center to usually it's in the correct so don't get lost it's going to be upstairs on the third floor. A couple more events I'd like to tell you about this is the today's event isn't on the same page. This is a five monthly read where we encourage all of San Francisco to read the same book. It's been long, long running events. And our next up event will be with the amazing Natalie Diaz in conversation with Michelle Cruz Gonzalez. And I would say starting by next Monday, you can pick this book up at all of your library locations, no lots of them, the same place where you picked up yoke. So today we have the amazing Charlie Jane Anders, who is a amazing activist writer, and loves authors and loves books and does all the things to promote those in our San Francisco. And she will be in combo with Peter heart love and Heather night. This is going to be in our correct auditorium masks on it's a beautiful huge space will spread out. You can come down, you can also stream it. So check that out. And then as soon as we're done with more than a month we head right into her story. And we have lots and lots of events planned for this. So I encourage you to check out our website for more news on this. And we could do nothing without our friends from the San Francisco public library, who helps sponsor every single thing we do. Thank you friends, and we encourage you to get a membership. Now, without further ado, it is time to introduce you to our author and in combo. All right, so as I said this is part of arts on the same page. So keep keep looking at your libraries we have all of these promotional read this campaign. We love to read together. This also incorporated a book club on Valentine's Day I hosted a book club we talked all about you. It was a very robust book club. It was fun. Okay, Jessam and Stanley is internationally acclaimed voice and wellness was highly sought after for her insights on 21st century yoga and intersectional identity. In her first book, everybody, everybody yoga, let go of fear get on the mat. Love your body has inspired audiences to discover the power of yoga and set forth on a path for personal development. She is well versed in a variety of cultural issues including modern black experience LGBTQIA plus representation and equality in the health industry amongst others. She is the co founder of we go high and see a Southern cannabis justice organization that works to increase cannabis access and prohibition states like hers, and highlights the natural connection between cannabis consumption and prison evolution, evolution. And then to make a cast and Miller, who is my yoga teacher and I am so thankful that I have had her this whole pandemic. She is the director of a she yoga and contributor to yoga journal, a historian educator and social justice you're getting cast and Miller embraces student agency and body diversity to build a she the West African concept of energy that transforms transforms through authentic Asana and meditation practice dedicated to the building of compassion and community repair. She co creates classes events workshops and retreats that restore and trainings that empower people to share their gift with the world. And I'm so thankful that you are both here and I'm going to stop sharing and stop talking and turn it over. That was a lot. That was a big introduction. Wow, that is a cool. Can I just tell you how grateful I am to be here with you. Truly. Oh my goodness. I was listening to, I was listening to your bio and I was just like, fuck, thank God, we can talk. I wrote this book for real to be able to talk to my family. So thank you anyway. And we have far more in common than I think you know. I'm sure I believe I don't know but I believe it. I mean, what I didn't think about putting like black and queer in my bio, but like, why would you. Oh my God, you. Lord. It's just, can you hear my eyes rolling. I'm like, is this like go next to the ER my team 500 like black and queer like. Wow, can identity just be Oh my goodness. Wow. Yeah, I feel you. I'm so happy to be in this conversation with you because we actually sit in two different generations. And so the generation of I'm going to say my truth I'm going to speak my truth. And I'm in the generation gen X of like, we're just going to steal our way into the spaces. Millennials are like, I'm going to bust down the door and I'm going to come in there and I'm going to just occupy space. That is exactly right. That is such a beautiful way of describing that. But the thing about millennials is that we idolize gen X, but we like can't admit it. Do you know what I mean where it's like, there's this thing of like, like, because we kick the door open because we think we know fucking everything really we're like, just wandering our way out of a paper bag, like everybody else. But I distinctly recall like when I have when I meet friends now who like, we're just meeting at this stage in our lives. And they say that they're like class of 98 or class of like 2000 or something. I'm like, oh my God, y'all are like, that is like that whole time. Because that was my, my age of idol so I'm going to sit in that. It's like it's like the whole Super Bowl Super Bowl past half time show and it was like, that was my generation like no, I was literally in duck love. We know I was I was watching my cousin come home from club, you were at the club. But it seems like I really these last few weeks have been very tuned out of what's going on in the world but I don't know why it's how it's even possible to do that nowadays is wild to me but it seems like there was a response from Gen Z to the Super Bowl past half time show people being like, like, why, like, like, who are these artists for like who will be into them so like this is for old people or something like that. And I was like, wow, I love this variation of experience with all that. I also love this fake ass argument like who cares. Literally, literally. boredom is so interesting. The whole concept of it is fascinating. And what the way that we show up as a result of it. So, I love to just, you know, get into it and I think that one of the things that really have me very interested from the beginning from jump is that you wrote this book, or the book came out. Right after George Floyd and Brianna Taylor, all that stuff, but you've written it before that. So I'm wondering how has how have those deaths informed have those depth that's informed your world in a different way with with your book have been a little different, if it would have been written after No, I got it because I feel like, frankly, the summer 2020 was so weird to me in the sense that like, it was the first time that racism was a popular topic to discuss. Like, people were I think that before that it was not quite as trendy. And I felt like, why does it take public lynchings for anyone to give a fuck about something that is literally embedded in the fabric of not just the United States but our entire world. And I felt this for some time like since it became popular to. Well, since we all became so tuned in on social. And I everything that I wrote in the book, I feel like are unfortunately timeless things because it's so hard for us as a people to accept the ways that we are harmful to ourselves and then the repercussions of that. So, I really like when I pitched you. Well, first of all, I knew that I was going to have to write this book while I was writing everybody yoga, because I knew that everybody yoga was really just a very small piece of what it is to practice yoga, and it's really like, you can't skip it. Like, if you like, you don't have to practice postural yoga to ever be practicing yoga. So I was like, there's going to be a need for a discussion of something deeper. And when I first pitched it, I was thinking that it would be. I think a little bit more me telling people what to do. So much of this. So much of writing this book was pure practice from the whole thing I suppose but the experience of really having to like, look at myself and reflect reflect the truth of myself to myself in order to get something on the page. I think that that I don't feel differently about any of the especially anything related to race and or the impact that the martyrdom of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor, the impact that I have on this world to me I was like, I hate that we had to lose more people. But this is not the first time that this shit has happened. And I, I mean, maybe that comes from growing up in North Carolina and never having any other like there. That's one thing that I appreciate about the South is that there's no bones about racism, like people are not pretending that it doesn't exist or trying to intellectualize it or trying to make it like no we fix that we figured that out. That's recently I have relocated to the Bay Area actually and it is so interesting to me the way that all all topics of marginalization are approached here. So it's interesting and I think that there's in any kind of progressive area there's always like a little bit of subterfuge like a little bit of deciding how we're going to talk about it and then there's all this stuff that lives underneath that we don't talk about it but that doesn't really exist in North Carolina I think that people are we're living to the shadow of Jim Crow is way too heavy to do that so that has made me kind of always feel like, you know, we don't talk about this. Right. And, yeah, I'm gonna let that sit there. And you're in North, I mean you're from North Carolina, I am from Texas. Yeah, absolutely. What part of Texas. Thank God I'm in Houston, Texas. Okay, that's a very specific identity. Yeah, yeah, it's very different. It's very, it's very much like look we run like my own strong. It's immigrant strong. But also, you know, it feels really different to be here and sometimes it feels like where are we like what is happening in the in the world around us and you know there's just there's so many cultures that are just willing to coexist with another black culture LGBT culture, you know, and there's no there's no such thing as a neighborhood that doesn't have a minority in it or a majority strong neighborhood that doesn't have a minority in it, or vice versa. So it just feels kind of like a little pocket of the world that makes sense a little bit, but then we remember we're in Texas. It's always that. And I mean I think that could be said for like literally anywhere in the United States it's like, you can be in the most, like, most progressive most inclusive place and literally, if you drive a good 200 miles in any direction. You'll find a different opinion from that, like literally anywhere and I appreciate about the fact that people are up front with it, you know what I mean. Like, yeah, you know, like, yeah, please let me know where you're at because I won't be there, but don't say that you like don't say don't quite don't hold a Confederate flag on your spirit in your heart. And then I don't know and now I'm out here trying to live my life, but then you are at crazy so anyway, yeah. There's so much more confronting because I don't trust. I do not trust it I don't trust it when places still too progressive. I'm like I'm going to need to show me your racism. Like, I need to know where it exists to feel okay. I feel the exact same way I cannot even tell you. Now is this the voice you referenced. Is that the voice. What is that. That is the voice that is the voice that says, wait, are we talking about the Confederate flag on your spirit because I do feel like the voice speaks that, but the voice. The voice, the voices, your intuition, voices, your guts, the voices your ancestors, the voices you yesterday in a previous multiverse leg. It's the voices that sound. It's the voice at the very heart of you that know will absolutely steer you wrong. Sometimes I think, um, sometimes I think we don't go with our gut because we're like that could be the wrong choice. Everything is the wrong choice. Eventually, you're going to slip on a banana peel like it's coming, but the voice inside that knows that knows what the next step is. It's hard to hear. If you are listening to other voices, like if you're really tuned into community and listening to what other people think. And even honestly, those voices are so loud that you can like play them on a tape in on repeat in your head and then you think that that voice in your head is the voice. The voice is like something that I had trained myself to not listen to, to not be tuned into for sure. And it is a practice. Well, I guess I did kind of like slapdash like shitty job on actually not listening to the voice because I have come back to try to listen to it but I feel like it's every day. Returning to the practices, many different practices at all times, and just trying to receive the wisdom that is currently flowing through this particular meat suit. Yeah, I love that when you were you were saying that you let your that voice guide you through the practice after having been in a big room practice and then being at home with yourself and allowing for the voice to guide you through the poses maybe you didn't get all of them right, but that voices was your guide the voice was your teacher. So much of what's missing is that we're looking for that voice for from someone else. And it just becomes a distraction from being able to hear ourselves I think you elucidated that really brilliantly, and that led you all the way through this massive self guided home practice. That you have how long were you in that self guided practice before going back into a studio. No, I don't remember but however long it was, however long until I could afford to go to a class again. I even now, I'm constantly trying to return to the voice just trying to listen to the voice and allow it to lead me, not just when I'm physically on a yoga mat but when I am living the yoga of everyday life, which is something I think I must have said this in yoga, this concept of yoga not just being something that you practice on the yoga map but that it really is ultimately every moment of this life is yoga. And, excuse me, I think that you're right, I think that we are so hungry to let someone else take the wheel to let somebody else lead that we will seek forever to find the right teachers and the right beings who could who can lead us or guide us. And I think that anytime that we follow other human beings. We're just following in a circle, like we're just going to go, you'll follow another human being off a bridge, which maybe that's your younger. I do feel like there's a, there's a leadership that comes from inside yourself that transcends what another human being can offer, and that even in the most intimate practice with a teacher with a teacher, other than the teacher that was inside you, that that they're just holding space for your teacher to come out. So, I think that that is what it's been so crucial to me about the home practice though and maintaining it regardless of whether or not I can go to the studio classes and it's probably why I've never had. There have been periods in my life where I've like consistently gone to the same class or like sought out and there are some teachers that I specifically seek them out to practice with them, especially online. But I've always been kind of like, I'll go to this class or I'll try this style of this thing, whatever, because ultimately like the teacher that I need to hear is a teacher that lives inside me. And the more time that I've been focusing on what another human being is doing, the less time I'm spending actually uncovering this teacher. And that's, I mean, that's for today. And there's time when like there are people who you need to hold it down but like, I think for me it has always been about even, even when I first so I started practicing yoga when I was in my early 20s. And it was not my first time going to a yoga class though. I first tried yoga when I was in high school. And that experience, I think, at that point in my life I was the most interested in being like everybody else. And I remember going to the class and just feeling like I can't do this at all, like nobody I can't do what everybody else is doing. I don't know I'm not finding any of these shapes in my body like the breathing is impossible. It was hot yoga so the heat in this room is like going to overtake me. I was so consumed by the aesthetics of it and by the getting it right and feeling at home in it and like being like trying to see myself as part of the flock. But when I went back, it wasn't a very different point in my life. I was in graduate school. I was going through what I think anyone who is at that point in their life goes through the uncertainty, not knowing who you are, depression, etc. And at that point, I didn't need like, I didn't need to be a part of anything else I just needed to not hate living that experience of being able to listen to myself, it was not like, like they're amazing teachers that I had during this time period. But they were making space for me to actually receive myself, which is something that I had never even thought of as like a thing to do. I think it's interesting that we go into this practice for some sort of bodily liberation be it for feeling better in our bodies or actually having our body feel better, sometimes both. And then we're looking to be guided. And there are like two possible things that happen and one is the teachers like yes I'm guiding you I'm the teacher you do the thing like this is what we're doing I know all the things and I'm your guru. You can come follow me and you know and you know, but then there's also that teacher who's what who makes space for your inner guru to come out, or your teacher to come out. I think that one thing that has been that's really plagued yoga is this world of folks that are trying to guide people so hard that they do not give space for the inner guru to come through that effect. That's exactly right. And as I come through when we have imposter syndrome, you know one of the things that you talk about a lot in this book you began with it you ended with it. My favorite and most relatable moment and the entire book was the very first chapter, where you have the typo of your like, as, as a black woman as a black human, we have been told over and over again that we have to be twice as good to you know as everyone else. And I think that this fuels the perfectionism that is pervasive in our world and this is why we have all these degrees and all the things right. And this is why when we're when we are well sparked spoken people we want everyone to know that we're well spoken people because we have the weight of proving to the world that not all black people still in the blank right. And this is published, but this very public moment where your brain works faster and nothing, and all this got through your editors first of all I blame your editors. What is your sign. Are you a Gemini or something. Absolutely, you better lay judgment. Okay, so first of all, anyway, I'm going to lay down. Okay, so that was not your fault. Okay, so very human moment of you having a mistake of the freaking hominem. And which, by the way, was a teachable moment for people everywhere that that can happen. And that we need a second pair of eyes. Many pairs of eyes. I can't. So many pairs of eyes saw that and let it go. It happened. It had to happen for this. You know what I mean, everything is happening on purpose, all things on purpose. I will say that a capricorn would have said I did that on purpose to, you know, a response. I believe that I believe that I am a cancer sun cancer moon. I'm a professional martyr. So I would be like, no, it was my fault. Plus mine. You shout my eyes down to let anyone else know and everyone's like, it's literally not your fault. Please stop. No, it was me anywhere. For those of you who do not know, cancers and capricorns are opposite ends of the astrological spectrum. So while cancers will self-ladulate over that mistake, capricorns will explain it away. We'll act like we did that on purpose. We'll be like, that's what you give for being judgmental, instead of seeing the point that I was trying to make. Well, what you don't know is that this is a part of a larger strategy. And actually, if you knew anything at all, no, it's because I love that. I just need to channel your inner capricorn, but I love that you said that because it was such a human moment. And it was a great introduction to something that we all feel. Well, not all. I will say that folks who have been meant to be perfected in order to be valued. But we have felt because I don't think everybody feels imposter syndrome. I think that's a very specific thing that happens with people who are in marginalized groups. Like, you talked about that and I just thought that that was, so I want to know, I mean, this is going to, I'm going to ask you to go right into the deep end. But what do you think that imposter syndrome has stolen from you? Oh, stolen. Oh, wow. Can I tell you honestly, I am so grateful for everything that has literally ever happened, especially the things, the moments where I did not believe where the moments where I thought I should, and I'm sure I have plenty of them today that were come that came directly from imposter syndrome. I'm so grateful because it is the deepest wisdom for me. It is returning to. Back to the starting line over and over again and saying, Okay, so I think I can't do this. Why do I think I can't do this? Where's this coming from? Because I have to know the most because I should have already known because I should already have it. What if it's okay for me to just be, what if it's okay for me to be a beginner? What if it's okay for me to make a mistake? Like what if it's okay? And being asked to return to that just feels like an incredibly important lesson and deep magic, deep wisdom. And so I feel a lot of gratitude for it. I guess if we look at it humanly, there are a number of things in my life that I've not done because I was afraid. There are a number of times that I have felt just in a deep, even when I'm doing something that I feel called to do, that I have experienced like deep spiritual agitation out of fear that like I'm not doing it right. I don't know what I'm doing. Like this isn't right or I don't deserve this. That's a big one. I don't deserve this. And that I think is very much attached to, I mean, I only know life as a black woman. So like I don't, maybe it happens to other people, but I know specifically like I was made to feel that I don't deserve to have good things happen to me. That I should be, and that if something good is happening to me, it should happen. It should happen to somebody else first. Like I shouldn't be the first one. And I think this is something that a lot of black women are told from a very young age, not told verbally, but like told subtly. It's just in the details. And so in that sense, quite a lot. But at the same time, it's just provided so much. And I even think about this specific instance of someone calling me out and me having to reckon with that imposter syndrome. And I'm like, I'm glad that it provoked me to create something. Like I'm glad that it, it brought something up out of me. I felt compelled to write that down to remember it. And that's how I feel about like literally every experience in my life at this point is that it's like, can I create from here? Like it's like I'm standing in a hole. Can I, can I make something in this hole? Can I dig something? Can I pull something out of this hole? And because I think sometimes we get so caught up on like what we don't have or what we think something should be that we don't recognize the magic of what is actually happening and like the letting the disaster be an inspiration. Wow. Oh, yeah. Path to self-study, you know. Exactly. One of the, you said a passage, a part I get a passage, like where maybe your book is becoming one of our sacred texts. But one of the things that you wrote was I began to notice the difference between who I am and the privacy of my own identity and who I choose to be in front of other people. You're referencing this in your yoga practice. I'm really compelled by that and you continue to say, I'm always afraid of offending other people or being too much or too big, taking up too much space, making too many sounds, being too hard to handle, or too much to control. I wonder how social media has given an opportunity to like the yoga practice, you know, our home practice gives us an opportunity to be large and vocal as you mentioned in the book. But I also am wondering how social media has lent itself to being a place to be large and vocal in a public setting. Oh, yeah, literally. Oh my God. Okay, I know back and forth on social media because I definitely came up blogging like that. I would have gotten better grades in high school, 5% less time, mom blog spot and Zanga and Tumblr and I was an early Instagram. I was on Instagram like when it first came out. And I love creating there. I love creating just thinking so much fun. And part of it is that I get really anxious in, like when I'm actually around people I'm an introvert, it is not a don't feel comfortable always like just being an introvert. And so the internet is a place where it's okay to just like be yourself and especially being marginalized like intention. I feel like it's like that for all introverts. But then if you're a marginalized introvert you're like, okay, so really where do I fit in where can I where can I communicate where, where am I allowed to exist fully. And so social media is a place where you can and where you can just do you do your thing whatever that thing is whoever you are at whatever stage in your life. Just do your thing. And it's totally it's literally like if you can get connected to the internet. You can show the whole world what your thing is because everybody wants to be seen. And that is the purpose of this life is to shine we're all here so that we can shine. And like social media is a place that can happen. And I think it's this interest I say I go back and forth with it because in the last five to 10 years, especially social media has become way more about analytics and editorializing and sensationalism and fear mongering. And it's been really interesting to watch people who like when Instagram first came out people made fun of it and now fucking everybody is there like literally everybody and I feel like because of the obsession with engagement and analytics. This shift toward cattle culture, like comparison culture, like everybody just trying to fit in and trying to do the right thing and trying to the right thing and get the right answer and be like everybody else. When really low key, even to this day, the whole idea is still just do your thing, just do your just be yourself be your loudest, be your most obnoxious so that is what the people who you love on Tiktok are being their most obnoxious so like whatever that thing is and like everybody has that and we try to pretend that we don't for the no one will leave us so that people will love you and you don't want to be too big because what if nobody loves you like what if you say the wrong thing then nobody's going to love you but if you love you. And if you think that what you put out into the world matters and that you that your light is meant to shine. It doesn't matter what anybody else thinks and then inevitably everybody else is like thank God now wait so I can be myself I can be loud to I can do my thing. The cycle it's like we all have to be a part of this. This larger experience of us accepting ourselves. I really missed opportunity for folks that use social media to be someone else, unless maybe that's their shadow self or something they're trying to show. Hey, you know, you know, I mean there's a place to it. There's a place for that but like if you're you have this opportunity to be the you that you love the you that you maybe don't feel comfortable being in a public setting in person, but you can do that with social media. You know, people are missing it they're missing the opportunity because they're too busy showing Saturday date night you know and making sure the font is pretty and all the, you know this has been my biggest, like critique lately as all of the new reels and it's just like, like humble brides for, you know, a minute and I'm just like, you know, things like I don't want to do dishes with you. I don't want to do that popular opinion but I don't care. You're like, you're an avid capricorn like I'm like, what is your moon sign. I think a moon is. Okay, literally, first of all, I always think of Sagittarians and aquariums as two of the astrological science they care the least about astrology, and I love so much that that's your mate that's probably your moon sign and you're like yeah I don't know maybe it's one of those like I feel like you're sad and curious moon. I'm so curious. You know what you would you know you more than I will send it to you later because our friends. You have an entire chapter dedicated to how much you love and how much tarot is an astrology and all of those things are part of ritual for you. I think I was looking at some reviews of your book and people are like, that has nothing to do with yoga and I'm like you missed the whole point. The yoga is it's all yoga. Like you miss. Um, I'm so sorry. I know about yoga. I love that. Yoga is, you know, where you like lift your foot and you put your hand around your foot and it's like actually. I'm like, I'm like, sure. That's that's their yoga. I guess that's that sounds great. I find it to be very helpful to be able to tune into it's that it's trying to listen to the voice like listening to the voice. It's very hard because there are so many voices that are distracting and pulling cards and wearing crystals and like clearing the energy like with herbs and doing all of these things are not just journaling journaling journaling. It's not like a thing to pin trust about you know what I mean like I feel like nowadays so many of these sacred practices that have been come hella high water have been carried through time have gone underground and now in the age of Aquarius I guess like the almost age of queries that now in this time. We are living where everybody is interested in there it's like being used in so many different ways and understood from so many different viewpoints but like. This is just literally like this ancient wisdom is the same thing that our ancestors did this just it's just how you can find the map like life seems so confusing. If you can't find the map or if that's I think and I think that's part of the desire to like just make order out of anything. But it really helps me to like know about what's going on with astrology, not because I really didn't reflect about astrology to be completely honest it's literally like trying to understand the weather. Astrology is just the planet it's like how are they moving around, and in the same way that you would want to know like when is it going to rain. When is it going to snow. It's like, when is Merck where's Mercury going to be on this day where's the sun like how are they moving together. It's not I think that there's so much prejudice and frankly. I don't need to say that but there's a lot of prejudice and biases against and about the sacred practices and it's anti feminist it's patriots deeply patriarchal, very, very, very much embedded in white supremacy. And all of that like our lack of understanding of like just tuning into the internal voice. It's not about aesthetics or like, like, have it again it's not about finding something to Pinterest about it's literally like, how am I going to move forward in my life how do I chart the course how, how can I find the map. Yeah, and I mean yoga is only just now because it has been consumed by white supremacy, like so many ways. yoga is like a little bit like people feel like, Oh, I can read a book about yoga, you know, but then you start talking about other things and they're like, that's not what I signed up for I didn't say we were going to talk about all the other free stuff and I'm like, it's all kind of the same. It's tapping into the authentic right and it's just like, I, you know, I say all the time, you know, a lot of what we call who now is just colonized out of us. I mean, we look at all of these, these practices, they're just really old but we could we were just allowed to practice them or we're called, you know, which is or we weren't Christian enough or we weren't, or we were to Muslim or to Jewish or to literally not whatever is the dominant culture in the moment and it's just, it's like actually by by looking at whatever be it Chakras or astrology astrology, you know, all of these things had connections to how people engage with the earth and energy and we're trying to figure all that out. It's like we're just trying to figure it out we're just trying to figure out a different way, because this way he's not working for us. That's it, literally, I'm like, I can't even figure out what's going to cause the end of us is it going to be an ecological crisis, are we going to is it going to be a nuclear catastrophe isn't going to be like there isn't going to be civil war like it's going to be the same. And if we're to that point where everybody's trying to figure out what the apocalypse is going to look like, I think you could pull it to road cars like I don't think it's that deep, I feel like at a minimum, we could all meditate. It's not that deep. It's not even like it doesn't have to be about your opinion. Overall wellness like are we going to argue about whether or not to drink water next like everybody needs to, we have to take care of ourselves and our world is deteriorating the world that we that we the dream. Fuck, I said, in yoga, I said like the dream of America is burning. It is, and like we just, you can watch it burn, which I mean that's, I'm watching, whatever. And then at the same time, we can try to heal, or we can just try to accept and see if some healing comes along the way. I want to just read a few of the things that you said and let those words hang in the air, and then, and then take some questions. So a couple a few things, a few of your own words back to you on sacred texts, use them and pass them on. Nothing you can learn from another person. There's nothing you can learn from another person that you can't understand more clearly from within yourself. And then you said, ah, yogic spirituality speaks to the soul's eternal condition, beyond religious systems, rhetoric and culture. It's spirituality beyond religiosity. Another thing you said you refer to yoga or your practice as the church of self acceptance and everyone is invited and ideology is the beginning of another question, not the end itself. Another thing you said that really resonated with me being just a little bit older than you is aging is life's greatest crescendo. It's something that really resonated with me personally, you know, just being, you said, you know, we're all in aging bodies essentially, and there's this constant change that's really annoying at a time. And then when the while the physical body decays the subtle body gets wiser. And the last quote of yours that I'll quote back to you is like the like the universe, I'm always unfolding. We are all each our own little universe to the practical of this bigger thing. Yeah, if it's okay with you let's see what questions there there are as well. I saw the little Q&A button highlighted but now it's not there. Let's see. Your question whoever answered. Are you got are you a poet. We've been answered so we'll leave that question. If there are any other questions. Now's a great time to put them in the Q&A raise your hand do the thing. But definitely in the Q&A now is the time to put them in there. It's really, while they're loading them. We have to talk about the yoga journal debacle. Because as you know, I'm a contributor to yoga journal, which I think is so disruptive in so many ways because I am a very full figured older black woman with natural hair with dreadlocks. And I don't even think that yoga journal even knew that that like the yoga journal of yesterday year would have even considered having this. Definitely not. I still haven't yet made the magazine is just the the the it's the electric electronic version but I think it's still such a huge thing. And I think that you are one of the people who helped shift that. You said how do I feel about it now. I really feel like the credit for the shift, any shifting the yoga journal has done really should be given to Diane Bondi. She has been out here, literally she is how I when I first started practicing. No, that this is actually not fair. So, sometimes people like, Oh, like, how did you like, I've stopped variation I'm like, why would you think you can practice yoga, if you're fat and black. Like, I saw Diane Bondi like a long time ago, she has been out here doing in the public eye doing her thing so consistent and I know that she was up yoga journal asked for years about all of this. I really feel like it's so much of what I have been able to do is because of Diane Bondi specifically so that just to say it. But um, yeah, I mean, I don't know, I feel very aesthetic forward and about the yoga establishment, I feel like pretty resolved. I'm really grateful for that experience of being on the cover and have empty maelstrom, if that's not too strong words that came after this. I feel like it actually because it's happened a couple times now with like, being on the cover of something like where people will have a lot of you get to see how people really feel about stuff whenever you are provoking whenever you're forced in their face. And I don't prefer being a token. It's not my favorite position to be in in this life. And yet it has happened to me quite a bit like there are a number of situations prior to all of this. Everything through schooling I grew up in a predominantly white community there went to a predominantly white all girls boarding school for high school, like I had a very, I was one of very few. I was the only non white guy on my college radio station board. So like it was like me and six white men, like, battling often about a variety of things. Like I had I had a lot of experiences prior to feeling like there's more at play here and even now like with branded deals and with large scale campaigns. There's still this thing where it's like, okay, I am the token here. That is that that is what this is. And then I think like, who is going to see this and be inspired to be themselves. Who who could be even in this situation with yoga journal where like what ended up happening was kind of the question came up of like, is yoga journal really being inclusive or not. Like even being a part of that question I'm like, that's an important dialogue that's something that we all really need to reckon with and not just in the yoga industrial complex. So, I don't know, I feel, I just, I don't know, I'm just, it just is, I think that's what it is, it just is, and there's no, there's no good or bad. Well, and hopefully, you know, I think one of the things that we can, we can look at is we you and I have both been tokenized you don't I mean in our lives. And also I think that there's something to be said for like using the Diane Bondi question, you know, seeing her as like the only black full figure woman I use full figure because I'm Jen X I know that's not the problem. Absolutely. But, but I didn't see her as a token I saw her as me, you know, and that's it. Yes. It's, it's important. It's someone's got to see that, you know, I know that we are close to time but there are three questions that I'm hoping if it's okay with you that we asked. One was, do you have a dream practice. And if so, what is your relationship to your dreams. Hmm. I mean the answer can be no as well. So, I don't have a deep relationship to my dream practice to my dreams. I don't have like what one would call a dream practice, but I have noticed patterns in my dreams over the last couple of years, especially. And I remember that there was a period where it seems like everyone was having horrifying dreams, everyone that was close to me and me were having the scariest dreams. And this was like the, like maybe right before the pandemic was known to everybody and like, maybe mid like 2020, like end of 2020. And then more recently, I have not been dreaming that much, or at least I'm so invested in the dream. I'm so I'm embodied that I don't recall it when I wake up. And that has been, it's been that way for quite some time. And that is a marked difference because there was a point in my life where I had. I would remember my dreams that every morning I'd be like, this thing happened and this thing happened and they're directly related to this thing. I've never really been that into recording my dreams unless there's something that I am so struck by that I don't want to forget. But watch now I'm going to remember my dream. And if I do, I'm going to write it down and I'm going to start, I'm going to note the big chunk. We're going to check. I appreciate whoever asked us for that. Thank you. We're going to check in with your socials tomorrow to see if that was valid. Hello. Brianna asked, she said that she loves the sacred text idea. This was in the book you're for those of you who may not know the question or you were talking about how raised and the high freight fate there were sacred texts that you were conditioned to believe and now there are, and I don't use that term conditioning as a bad thing but rather a part of faith development. And, and then of course there are all these texts. But now it's, well, I can create the sacred texts be based on what I believe is sacred. So the, this, so Brianna said that she loves that idea and reclaiming that title. And now wants to know what are you reading? What are you reading? Oh my goodness, my most recent addition to my sacred text is in search of our mother's gardens by Alice Walker, but I had got purchased. Like I came across there was like a, like a bookmobile setup in the parking lot of the natural grocery store in Greensboro where my hometown. And I just like came across this copy of it and it is just the most magnificent text. I'm so grateful for it. I'm like, thank you Alice Walker for writing this shit down literally for that. And then just a couple nights ago I started a book called Buddha and the Bard. And it is an examination of Shakespeare through the lens of Buddhism. And it is so fascinating. Like God, it has my whole attention. Like, I cannot, there are breakdowns based on different characters from different Shakespearean plays, and then how that relates to the four noble truths, for example, and it's just like my like inner, my geek kid and my fucking hero fence are just going. That is for the nerds like that. Deeper. Yes, I need this. What, yeah, what, what are your, what are your, what are you reading and what is the, what are your sacred texts. Well, I'm currently reading itichuba, which is the story from the perspective of Tituba the black witch that was referenced in the crucible, which was my favorite book when I was a kid. I was like, what, because I always was like, there's a black character in this book that nobody's talking about, but somehow she's the one teaching all these white ladies to be witches. Yeah, so there's the so it's itichuba and and I just and currently I'm also in radiant rest again because I'm about to teach yoga nidra and I guide you, I'm a yoga nidra guide as well and so just like having yoga nidra talked about from a black woman's perspective was so affirming, even though Tracy Stanley and I are in two very different tax brackets, but it'll make a difference man. Like, very different like she lives in Oprah's neighborhood you know I'm saying different experiences you know but it's so nice. Thank you for asking. And there's one final question there's one. And I love that this is the final question this is beautiful. Does this work in life you've built for yourself. Feel like you're calling and do you believe in a calling. I do believe in a calling. And I do feel that this is my calling, mainly because I wouldn't have picked it. So like, I didn't. I did not want to be a yoga teacher, like even now I don't like calling myself a yoga teacher, I just do it because it's the easiest way to explain, but I don't feel like it's something that I pushed back against it for so long. And yet the universe still made it happen. And like there's so many different. I can't even tell you it'd be a much longer conversation of like, all the different twists and turns that made this literally the singular path. And I don't even know how I got here beyond just like falling down and getting back up and falling down and getting back up and who knows where this path is going to lead. I don't think that anything is forever, or like that we're always meant to do anything. And this has been a really incredible way to live this part of my life, really truly. And I do think that just existing, ultimately is all that yoga is and so I intend to keep practicing yoga for as long as I meant to. But I don't, I don't pretend to know the way forward. I'm just going with the flow. That beginner mindset. Every day, like starting again. I hope that we're all turning into the voice and we're all unfolding at any given time. This has been really awesome we didn't get a chance to talk about like your behind faith and or your relationship with cannabis or so many things so I guess they're going to have to write read your book. Yeah, so it's in the book, but also, like, you can follow me on social media and I'm literally talking about all the shit, all the time, so we can you find me at my name is gentlemen, all the underbelly at the underbelly yoga and it's all in yoke, my yoga self acceptance, which can I also just say that being on the same page book is like one of the greatest honors of my life and being here with you is just the icing. It's like the icing and the cherry and all the accoutrements so thank you so much. I loved your video saying how much you loved it and one one of my teammates did come to tears. We were, you know, I was moved. Love library lovers too. So folks, I did see a questions in there that you can find some answers to in this book, and you can give it at your library or your local independent bookstore. Also, we have it on who blow what you can easily get right this second, both audio and ebook and just met is the narrator. So I love when that happens to thank you both just met Stanley on the same page author to make a custom Miller. Thank you so much both for being here. And we'll see you again library community.