Image of Erin and daughter Annabelle participating in Samdhana-Karana’s Yoga in the Park in 2013.
Photo by Scott Hayden
“Dana [generosity] is a form of kindness and compassion practice motivated by unconditional caring for another. When you mindfully practice [generosity] you come into contact with its joyful, healing power.” Phillip Moffot
From the beginning of Source Yoga, I have had a strong desire to use the platform of our business to make a difference. Of course I know that yoga in itself makes a difference in the bodies, minds, and hearts of those that practice. But I also have always known that I wanted to expand that beyond the confines of the studios and into the greater community around us.
A couple of years ago, I was looking at how I wanted Source Yoga to give to our larger community. From our very first year in business, we offered Thanksgiving donation classes, giving the proceeds to local service organizations, and donated regularly to many local schools and other non-profits. We have offered scholarships for workshops and events provided by our “Source Yoga Scholarship Fund,” but I kept asking myself, “How can we continue to make an even bigger difference?”
Through yoga, was the obvious answer to me. I already knew that yoga certainly makes a difference in the lives of those who come to the studios. But what about the people who can’t come, either because of financial difficulty, or because of access to a studio? I thought of a local business that was providing yoga for just those populations.
Samdhana-Karana Yoga (SKY) is a local nonprofit yoga studio whose mission it is to make yoga accessible to people of all incomes and abilities. One of their specialties is in Trauma Sensitive Yoga, providing a safe space, led by teachers specifically trained to work with those who had experienced trauma, and using yoga as a path to healing. They offer outreach programs to communities that can’t come to the studio, and offer many scholarships for those who can’t afford to pay.
Source Yoga has been a supporter of SKY for several years. We have sponsored their Summer Yoga in the Park, one of their biggest fundraisers of the year. We are one of their “Partners in Healing” – funding a scholarship for a student to have monthly yoga. We have donated to their auctions, and students from Source volunteer regularly at SKY and have even participated as members of their Board of Directors. Two of SKY’s co-directors, Vania Kent and Kate Fontana teach weekly classes at Source Yoga, and we are excited to team up with them to offer this special opportunity to offer financial support as a community to SKY.
I wanted to offer this opportunity to Source Yoga students and community: to explore generosity and giving as a part of our spiritual practice. For anyone on a spiritual path, I believe that our spiritual journeys will not unfold if we always gaze inward, looking only at ourselves. Yes, we need to nourish ourselves. Yes, we need to learn to take good care of our own bodies and minds and hearts. And if we stop there, our spiritual practice is (in a sense) stunted. Our personal growth stops there. It’s when we give with generosity and true freedom of heart, that we experience the same growth and healing for ourselves.
Please join Source Yoga, Vania Kent, and Kate Fontana, for a special fundraising workshop for SKY on Sunday, May 1st, The Heart of our Practice: Yoga and Sacred Activism. 100% of the proceeds of this event will go to SKY.
Find out more here.
Namaste, Erin
