A Message For The Haters
To the white people burning down black churches, to the people refusing to serve, marry or acknowledge gay people, to men hating women and women hating women and women hating men and men hating men, to anyone who hates because they’re too afraid to simply accept what is: grow up. You think you’re going to […]
A Year in the Light
I have a massive announcement to make, and an even more massive favor to ask of you all, but let’s start first with the announcement: as I’ve mentioned in passing and through a few social media posts, my second book is on its way. My first book, The Examined Life, is still selling consistently after 18 months of being released and promoted, which I’m taking as a fantastic sign considering the following: I self-published it, I promote it myself, I do the footwork to get it all over the world to be sold through online and retail outlets and, as a result of having succeeded in getting it sold at Indigo (the largest book retailer in Canada) in downtown Montreal at Place Montréal Trust, it has become the most successful self-published/consignment book ever sold there. The book is now in its third printing and I couldn’t be happier with its evolution and the reception you’ve all given it. And trust me, I’m grateful. I’ll never be able to properly express just how grateful I am.
Musings On International Yoga Day
On Sunday, June 21 the world will have its first official International Yoga Day. And while I think that it is fantastic that yoga is getting the kind of recognition that it deserves, this milestone does run the risk of perpetuating certain myths about the superficialities of yoga. If you plan on observing International Yoga Day, think twice before you post a photo of yourself on social media in some intricate asana.
We’re Still Here
When I was twenty-six years old I lived on a street right next to Parc Lafontaine in Montreal. I was nearing the end of a nine-year relationship that I had held onto desperately because I knew that when it ended, I was going to be faced with me, myself and I, and I was a bundle of insecurity and uncertainty at that stage in my life.
I Want
I want to live a life of adventure. I want to know what it feels like to fall through the sky. I want to travel and see the world and have my soul resonate with the vibrations of the most beautiful geographical locations on this earth. I want to eat food that tastes like nothing I’ve ever tasted before.
For The Love of Baltimore
Events over the last couple of weeks in Baltimore have gotten extremely volatile with the suspicious circumstances surrounding Freddie Gray. What we know is that there is a massive race issue begging to be looked at in the USA, especially when it comes to the approach the police have towards the African-American community. The protests that have ended in rioting and a state of emergency officially being declared are slowly dwindling as calm is being restored in the city, and I’d like to take a moment to speak to the community I was welcomed into at M·Power Yoga exactly one month ago.
On The Fringe
I’ve often heard it said that the older we get the more defensive armor we don to protect ourselves from the harshness of life. What I know from my experience is that when you’re a kid who’s not the jock or the popular one, that armor falls into place very early on in life. If you were ever teased, ridiculed, treated differently or ached to get the hell out of the environment you felt trapped in in your youth, then it’s safe to assume that you’ve gone through some pretty important spurts of personal evolution and growth.
Intention
i don’t have time to pay attention to critics.
i don’t have time for judgement.
i don’t have time to look at all the photos of beautiful bodies in intricate yoga poses.
Minority Rising
In this moment in time, a moment of almost daily terrorist attacks and overpopulation somehow leading to unheard of statistics of isolation and loneliness, we have a responsibility. In a moment in time when women fighting for education and equality in war-torn countries are being raped, tortured and killed for it, in a period […]
This Is War
I have often spoken to students about how modern-day western culture has not lived through wartime in the same way our grandparents and great-grandparents did. Wars have, and are being waged globally, of course, but our day-to-day comfort and stability has never been drastically compromised. The Iraq war, the fight against the Taliban, ISIS… these are the conflicts that come to mind when we think about wars waged in our lifetime that affect the global consciousness. But there is a war that has actually hit much closer to home regardless of where we call home, one that rarely makes the headlines because the crimes to its victims, by and large, go unreported and, in some cases, get immediately dismissed, swept under the rug. This war is the war against women.