uneaten cookies
I love
Being by
Mountains
They are like
So many needed things
Like a gathering
Of tribal chiefs
Of wise, non-attached
Observers
Who remain steadfast in their element
N’importe quoi qui arrive
They remind me
That even the Earth
Can rise like cookie-dough
And resist eating
Its own baking
Mountains are like the cookies
That the Earth saved for us
🙏⛰🍪
~ Sandi H.
Boulder, Colorado
Summer 2018
Stepping Up
There is a Mountain
That I want to climb
And for so many years
I have exhausted myself
Walking in circles around its base
But somehow, today, something is different
Maybe I’m just tired
Of making myself dizzy
Because today I hear a voice that says,
Hey stupid!
Mountains can only be climbed
By stepping up…
~ Sandi H.
Boulder, Colorado
August 2018
prose: unborn giants

Handstand at sunrise over Wonderland Lake, photo by Diana Shangguan, Boulder, Colorado July 2018
Unborn Giants
Do you ever
Feel
Like you have to look up
Every word you want to use?
Like you no longer know
What a word really
Means
Whether it really fits
The idea in your head?
Or the idea in your
Heart?
In what womb do ideas grow
Before emerging
To take shape
In the world?
Can ideas become
So so so
Big
Before ever being born
That they no longer fit
Any words
Any forms
Any framework
To express them
To dress them
To make them
Presentable?
Perhaps
Naked ideas
Only come to reality
In the realm of
Sheer sound
Where their forms
Matter less than
The Way they form
Music
Might well be
The only vagina
For unborn giants
To enter the world
~ Sandi H.
Boulder, Colorado
August 2018
Which side are you on?

Handstand in front of mural by Madeleine Tonzi (2017) on Pearl St. Boulder, Colorado. Photo by Sven Stocker. August 1st, 2018
Which side are you on?
The side of the oppressor
Or the side of the oppressed?
Can we see
Beyond our side?
Can we switch sides?
Can the side of the oppressor
Become the side of the oppressed?
And vice versa?
On the side of the oppressor
Do we believe we are entitled
To claim Rightness, to claim Wholeness
While forgetting what we’ve excluded
From the side of the oppressed?
On the side of the oppressor
Do we listen mostly
For consensus, for a chorus
Of Rightness, of Wholeness
Without heeding the voices
On the side of the oppressed?
On the side of the oppressor
Do we seek Pleasure with disdain
For the Pain of Injustice
And pride ourselves on choosing
Compassion?
Is it a choice to be
On the side of the oppressed?
On the side of the oppressor
Do we turn from Darkness to Light
By running from our shadows
The monsters of our own making?
Ignorance is bliss, or
Ignorance is terror,
When we are ignorant of the other
On the side of the oppressed?
On the side of the oppressor
Do we Give Back for not knowing
How to actually take less?
Do we suffer from too much stuff
And too little Connection?
Do drugs numb our conscience
As our mind-bodies cry
For the suffering we’ve been ignoring
On the side of the oppressed?
On the side of the oppressor
Can we Stretch? Dialogue?
Can we lengthen our spines
Open our hearts
Follow our breath
From This Side to That Side?
Like, a side stretch y’all
And in so doing,
Can we Recall
Unity Beyond Oppression?
~ Sandi H.
Boulder, Colorado
August 1st, 2018
Clearwater Hudson River Revival 2018
A Festival for Live Music & Environmental Activism?
On the Hudson River?
Yes!
I’ll be there.
“Inspired by Pete Seeger’s desire to clean up the river over forty years ago, Clearwater’s Great Hudson River Revival initially helped raise the funds to build the sloop Clearwater, which has since become a world-renowned floating classroom and a symbol of effective grassroots action. Today, Hudson River Sloop Clearwater, Inc. is a non-profit organization that sails at the forefront of the nation’s environmental challenges. The revenue raised by the Revival goes to support Clearwater’s numerous educational programs and its work toward environmental and social justice—as well as keeping the sloop Clearwater afloat.” ~ www.clearwaterfestival.org
ka, reading, practice, awakening: ashtanga updates from #yogawithsandi
Currently, I’m reading the eye-opening book Ka Stories of The Minds & Gods of India by Roberto Calasso. It was recommended by my teachers Richard Freeman and Mary Taylor, whom I’m excitedly preparing to study with this summer in their Ashtanga Yoga Teacher Intensive in Boulder, Colorado.
My first impression of the book is that it’s like Monty Python doing the Mahabharata! I have only seen a bit of the brilliant Monty Python, and I have only read a little bit of the epic Mahabharata, but this was the impression (and I’ve been watching more Monty Python clips on youtube ever since reading this book – genius).
In terms of storytelling, Ka, so far, is surreal, sometimes hilarious, awkward, uncomfortable, blatant, mysterious, insightful, and totally giddy. The stories are full of resonance from a space beyond logical sequence and conclusion.
In this post, I have no intention of doing a complete book review (I’m only in the middle of the book) but simply of sharing how reading is resonating with practice, and how, in general, reading can infuse our lives with a nourishment and perspective that is palpable if we pay attention to the words, images, and ideas in our circulation.
Ka takes my mind out of conventional patterns and expectations. So refreshing! It feels like I’m tripping on magical mushrooms while reading, though caffeine is the only drug I’ve been on. The stories are like gifts of insight into how the mind can, in seeking to understand its own nuances, conjure beauty and terror, how it can flow into far-out expanses and far-in embellishments to seek to explain why it is flowing at all.
This dual awareness is something that we can perceive when watching our thoughts in meditation, too. Reading Ka is like a kaleidoscopic meditation that brings to mind the very movement of mind, a mind that is contemplating its furthest forms: divinity, absurdity, and the dance between them – humanity.
Sometimes I am asked for recommended reading. Despite the number of my books sitting on a shelf in my mother’s basement, I’d like to believe that libraries are living creatures, shedding skin and reinventing themselves over time. Here on my website library, I have compiled a list of a few books that I recommend reading as an ongoing reference and resource for Ashtanga yoga practice. Without claiming to have fully grasped these books at all, they are the books that I often refer to and quote from or recollect when posting clips from my practice on my insta-feed #yogawithsandi.
Sri K. Pattabhi Jois is often quoted as saying that Ashtanga Yoga is 1% theory & 99% practice. Perhaps this highlights the underlying question: