Expansion…Inside and Out

It’s with a mixture of great pleasure and amazement that I want to let you know about the period of expansion we are entering as a community. It’s surprising to me when I think about how this has evolved from me simply having my own practice to showing a few friends what I did for my yoga practice to teaching my first official classes afterhours in daycare rooms and community centers to our first tiny Saco River Yoga studio to today as we get ready to expand into a network of yoga studios, meditation rooms and a holistic integrative learning institute as a group of about fifteen in-house trained teachers offering just under sixty weekly classes at three locations in southern Maine.

The thing I value the most about what has happened is the natural manner in which this has all grown… it was never forced, chased after or controlled into being. And I believe that it is precisely because I never had a dream to create a single yoga studio, let alone several, that allowed it to grow into something much bigger and authentic than I could have ever dreamed up. It has been a process of continually practicing to fully invest in every single class I have taught and every task at hand, holding the best intentions I can in my heart and mind, and learning the lifetime lesson I needed about resting back and NOT thinking up my next big goal in life. I’ve learned that when I do come up with a great goal, things usually turn out pretty well. But, more importantly, I’ve learned that when I lay back instead and do not run off into my mind’s next well thought out course of action, I am without fail eventually handed a ‘yes or no’ proposition that normally seems like it’s from left field or one of those crazy coincidences. I have learned the valuable lesson of saying ‘yes’ to those choices no matter how scary it seems because every time I do, something new is created in my life that is bigger and better for me and everyone around me than I could have ever come up with myself. When I finally had the courage to yield to the signals I had been getting that it was time give up the security and enjoyment of my faculty position at University of New England this past spring, there were a few months of excruciating waiting and discomfort before these current opportunities arose. I’ve learned the value in stillness, awareness of what surrounds and fills me and mostly trust. And here we are again!

Allowing instead of controlling the evolution and expansion of Saco River Yoga over time has in itself been my personal path and, for that reason, our original studio in Pepperell Square in Saco will always be the heart and origination point of all that I do. This is the community that grew me up as a teacher and as a whole person. Thank you! I view our additional locations as a form of spreading the light of what we have created here through the experiences, the laughter, the physical classes, the sweat, the relaxations, the discussions, the self explorations and the friendships that have begun here.

Our new network of practice spaces and educational facilities will fall under the umbrella of the Kusum Institute and to remain consistent, our Saco yoga studio will be called Kusum Yoga Saco. This studio will continue on the same as it always has and now, additionally, I’m happy to offer you additional options each week for classes, workshops and locations to attend through this network.

I will be posting a listing of our new locations and facilities that are scheduled to open as renovations are completed over the next few weeks. Beginning on September 8, we will switch to our new passes that will be good at all yoga studio locations (Saco, Scarborough and Portland), a separate pass for the meditation room and there will also be a combination pass if you would like to attend both physical yoga classes as well as our meditation room weekly offerings. The meditation room will offer traditional meditation as well as yoga nidra, singing bowl meditations, gentle meditative yoga, yoga for seniors, spiritual book clubs, discussion groups and we are very excited to offer regular group sessions with energy workers and polarity therapists for weekly clearings and readings. The weekly classes at the meditation room will also be offered as an unlimited monthly pass so that once you feel you are interested in including these sorts of practices in your life, you may do so as often as you would like every week.

As always, deep gratitude to all of you who have supported me and our Saco studio in any way over the years. My life has been changed by you and together we have created something that has brought more ease to the lives of many. It is my deepest hope that our current growth will add more to your life. Please call or email if you have any questions or feedback and keep an eye on our new website and Kusum Institute on Facebook as we post more information and unveil our new website over the next few weeks.