Dear friend,
In January of last year the Vancouver Foundation embarked on a process of community consultations to identify priority areas for future funding and support within, among other areas, Metro Vancouver. In their recently published report they were surprised to find that the most compelling concern of the people they spoke with was “isolation, its consequences and the craving for connection” within our community. This was not a small project; hundreds of people, from community leaders to non-profits indicated that they were primarily concerned about a lack of belonging and inclusion.
It shocks me to learn that in a thriving city like Vancouver so many people feel isolated and alone. And yet, in a way, I am not surprised at all, often feeling that way myself. The opportunity to engage with others presents itself constantly but we have come to feel universally alone, strangers in our strange land. As yogis, this poses an interesting question; how inclusive is our community, or Kula as it’s called in sanskrit? Do we go to yoga class to belong? Do we go out of our way to include a new student or make friends with the person next to us on her mat? Perhaps even more importantly, do we make friends with ourselves on the mat?
In her provocative book All About Love, author bell hooks implores us to understand love as an act, not just a feeling, and to live by this ethic to heal. In the chapter on community she opens with a quote by Parker Palmer: “Community cannot take root in a divided life. Long before community assumes external shape and form, it must be present as a seed in the undivided self: only as we are in communion with ourselves can we find community with others.” We are taught that yoga means “to unify”, to unify mind and body, to unify heart and Spirit, to unify all beings. Yoga begins with the Self and we gradually expand outwards to encompass All.
In a time when we are being called to action in every different direction, do we, can we even, take the time to see how cold our own community has become? As local Dr. Gabor Mate so poignantly writes, “We can be moved by the tragedy of mass starvation on a far continent; after all we have all known physical hunger, if only temporarily…We readily feel for a suffering child, but cannot see the child in the adult who, his soul fragmented and isolated, hustles for survival a few blocks from where we shop or work.” …or do yoga.
How then do we respond to our own community? Who makes up our Kula? I’ve heard Yoga Outreach instructors say they prefer their YO classes to studio ones because they are so real, so human, so connected. The students laugh, talk, decline to do things, and in general do not conform to the form. Every class is an impromptu lesson in humility and relationship. Well, it’s a New Year, and with a New Year comes new intentions. Yoga Outreach is all about change and possibility, and in 2012 we want to build a kula of love, joy, and togetherness, not just by sharing yoga with one another but by sharing our lives, our community.
This is my invitation to you, how would you like to get together?
Warmly,
Delanie Dyck
Executive Director
delanie@yogaoutreach.com






