FINDING HARMONY PODCAST
What is a spiritual practice? How does it work? How will it improve my life? How will deepening my self-care transform me? What strategies can I use to improve my life, increase my health, and create wellness? How can craft a life that I love?
The Finding Harmony Podcast gets to the root of all these questions. Each episode is full of inspiration, humour, honest observations, and actionable steps that you can integrate to enhance your experience of self-love, develop a connection to Spirit, and create a life you truly love.
Show Notes Below:
The Three Stigmata of Mariela Cruz
It is with great pleasure that we introduce you to our great friend Mariela Cruz. Mariela is one of those phenomenal human that you might find in an Alexandre Dumas classic like ‘The Count of Monte Christo’ or ‘The Man in the Iron Mask.’
Someone who’s heart-centered and gifted with supreme powers of intelligence, wit, and physical prowess!
With 7 children, a lawyer, a gifted solo pianist, she also happened to finished Advanced A Series with Sharath Jois in Mysore, India. She was an ambassador to India on behalf of Costa Rica…. and the list of accomplishments goes on and on, reading like an epic novel. All this, and she still has half a lifetime more to live.
Dena Kingsberg: That's Where The Light Gets In
We are blessed today to share our conversation with Dena about her personal transformation from an awkward child into an artist, poet, and rock-goddess architect. She built her home using her own hands and she’s built her life in much the same way. It’s challenging to be a deeply introverted person, while also being called to publicly share the sacred wisdom gleaned from time spent inwardly looking.
Alex Medin: Relax into Life
It is our great pleasure to introduce you to our old friend (and living legend) Certified Ashtanga Yoga Teacher, Alex Medin. Unfortunately this sentence doesn’t do him justice! He’s an excellent and exceptional student in so many walks of life: a boxer, ballet dancer, a Sanskrit scholar, entrepreneur, and humanitarian to name but a few. Not only will you hear his story, but his entire interview is threaded with yoga philosophy and ancient wisdom for the modern human condition.
Maria Boox Love Goddess
In Norse mythology, Freyja (from Old Norse meaning "the Lady" is a goddess associated with love, beauty, fertility, sex, war, and gold. Freyja is the owner of the necklace Brísingamen, rides a chariot pulled by two cats, is accompanied by the boar Hildisvíni, and possesses a cloak of falcon feathers.
Today we interviewed Maria Boox, who in our opinion, most embodies this Freya love goddess energy.
Dominic Corigliano: On The Road
For a particular generation of Ashtangi, Dominic Corigliano represents that paternal “cool dad” who knows everything that’s going on in your family and is more than happy to tell you too much about it.
He’s like that cool uncle who’s not condescending and knows about the dope hiding in your room. Dom may smoke it with you, but he’s also going to be real honest about the side effects. He’s the first guy you call when you need bail money… But he’s also going to reinforce, “You really need to tell your mom, you know?”
Sitting with Dominic, feels very much like you’re part of his family. As a father of five, family has turned out to be a focal point of his life.
Sista Shree: Gotta Serve Somebody
Sistashree, born Regina French, in the First Nation State of Sequoyah (what is now referred to as Oklahoma— okla humma) is an embodiment of the benevolent magic Earth-Mother figure that we all need in our lives.
She is a kind of blue-skinned Krishna, who vibrates peace and love and makes all beings in her vicinity feel friendship towards her.
Keen On Adam
Adam has a wonderful lightness to him. His nature is a living example of a powerful creative energy, he embodies the quality of vata (in Ayurvedic terms) a bundle of moving, swirling ideas, ready to spring to life, and of course this energy is naturally infectious.
He’s really quite punk in his inclination and seems to have a distaste for authoritarianism, which has transformed and shaped his worldview.
Yoga, Philosophy, and Favelas
Those pursuing the path of Yoga should understand that it is to be experienced and expressed off of our mats and beyond acrobatic poses. The position we ought to strive towards the most, is practicing the stance of caring for others as if we were all One... every day. At least that's what Yoga teaches us. We know we can't experience completeness as long as others are still suffering and deprived of basic needs.
The pandemic in Brazil has gotten much worse and most of the population already lives in precarious conditions. These people are now facing extreme poverty and hunger, as the Brazilian government actions are very weak or nonexistent. This inspired Marcos Silva to initiate a projected called Rede Yoga Contra a Fome. A teaching network offering charity classes to support CUFA — Mães da Favela as he explains, the“Mothers of the Slum.”
All In The Family with Greg Nardi
The beauty of this episode is that Greg loves to go a little meta!
He enjoys questioning and looking at our Ashtanga yoga practice, culture, shared history, and all the accompanying assumptions from a slightly higher perspective, being self-reflective, rather than continuing to perpetuate unhealthy patterns and unhelpful belief systems.
We’re sure you will enjoy coming along this journey of inner exploration as we share our unique perspectives and the mixed bag of contradictory feelings that arise from being a member of a particular spiritual community— a post-guru community— trying to find its way through.
Sonja and The Mind Monsters
It’s been said that if you can’t explain something to a 5 year old, you don’t really understand it. Perhaps apocryphally that quote refers to quantum mechanics and general relativity theory. Albert Einstein was doing his level best to explain these concepts to a nervous public. Equally as difficult to understand is the prism of Patanjali’s Yoga Sutras, and yet our guest today, Sonja Radvila, explains it effortlessly in her Yoga Sutra book written especially for children.
John Bultman: Captain America
There is something about John that strikes a person as wholesome. In a different age, we might've described him as an "All American." Of course, that’s before some of us were awakened to nativism and privilege. Still, watch Captain America and you can understand what allows him to hold Mjölnir. He has something pure and true about him that allows him to wield Thor’s hammer. He is selfless and leads through example. He brings all of us in the room together, which is essentially beautiful.
Come With Me To the Sea of Love
Isa’s story is shaped by her affection for depth, song, movement, water, wildness, and her love for family and children. She adores Pattabhi Jois and is not embarrassed by it. She loved him dearly and he continues to hold a place in her heart.
As a practitioner and mother of three Isa shares with us how her experience of practicing through pregnancy was very different with each of her children. Arjuna was born 2004 when Isa was in her twenties, her daughter Kailani was born 20014 when Isa was in her thirties, and baby Koa was born last year in 2020 at age 42. Isa shares with us her different approaches to practice that naturally took place with each pregnancy, as well as her different approaches to giving birth.
The Empty Mirror
Today we have a delightful conversation for you with one of the few Certified teachers of Ashtanga yoga, Luke Jordan. We learn about his on-going journey, which has taken him all around the world seeking out experts, gurus and teachers in the field of Yoga and spirituality.
We speak about things like the value of learning to surrender, freewill verses determinism, and the relationship between Sankhya and Yoga. Discover whether the nature of the Self is a Full-Emptiness or an Empty-Fullness.
Luke Jordan began a formal study of Eastern mysticism while at University during the 1990s, feeling a sense that there must be something more to life, Luke began experimenting with Psychedelics. During this period, after a relationship break up, Luke had a life-altering experience where the identity he had so carefully crafted as a means of coping with life completely fell apart.
Share Knowledge Share Power
When Hamish Hendry was eighteen he couldn’t touch his toes, so he decided to do something about it. Fate led him to finding yoga, first in library books, then at local classes in Bristol. Later that year he went on holiday to Greece and met his first yoga teacher, Derek Ireland, who taught him Astanga yoga. He studied daily with Derek for many years until Derek’s death. It was a great privilege and pleasure to spend time with Mr. Hendry and we're sure you'll feel as we did, that it all comes to an end much too quickly. We hope you enjoy being a part of our conversation with this unique, humble, and goodhearted man.
Life Beyond Power Yoga
Beryl told it like it was, and continues to tell it like is, and we were thrilled to have her acerbic sense of humor and enjoyed her salt-of-the-earth presence. Beryl tells us about meeting, traveling, and meditating with her spiritual guide, Munishree Chitrabhanu, a Jain monk. She also speaks candidly about Pattabhi Jois’ indiscretions while teaching in the classroom, as well as how she began her Ashtanga yoga studies with Norman Allen in NYC.
Lost Angels Yoga Club
In our 43rd episode we sit down with Spiros and Erica. On the surface this is an unlikely pair. What is perversely intriguing however, on speaking with these two, is how uniquely suited they are to each other. What shines through their every interaction is intelligence and insight. With every topic we brought up whether it was Los Angeles, the criminal justice system, the State of Ohio, the Tarot, or the Trumpist identity, they brought a profound sense of layered self-aware contextual discernment to their own thoughts, which compassionately penetrated to the heart of each complicated issue.
Rogue Yogi: Escaping Samsara
We are delighted to share with you a conversation with our fellow podcaster Nathan Thompson: Poet, Journalist, Buddhist Practitioner, and self-taught Ashtangi, as well as the host of the Escaping Samsara Podcast. In his teens Nathan tumbled headfirst down the deep tunnel of drug use and sank into a pattern of addiction. After a decade of darkness, he found his feet again through the practice of Vipassana Meditation in the lineage of S.N Goenka, a tradition that both he and Harmony share a connection with. You will love this lively interview!
Music is the Space between Sound
If you’ve had the pleasure of tasting Andrew Hillam’s idlis then you know he has a special talent for cooking Indian food. However, that is not his only interested. Andrew is fascinated with all kinds of aspects of Indian culture. Besides being a Certified Advanced A Ashtanga Yoga teacher in the Mysore stye, he was a classical guitarist, who had previously pursued a PhD in immunology. We had a “quiet is the new loud” type of conversation with him on topics such as raising children in India, cooking in the flow state, and the comparison of playing music and chanting the Vedas. Something that Andrew says creates a peculiar vibration in his skull.