Amy Nachman, one of my longtime Yogis and dear friends, wrote the piece below about her life-altering experience after her husband Alan died in the early fall of 2024. I share this with you as a testament on the importance of community - something I value with the utmost respect and gratitude. My Yoga family is my life. We keep each other company on this lifepath, wherever we may be in the world. They give me purpose and meaning in my life. The holding of sacred space - a Yoga teacher’s main job requirement - can and should happen anywhere in the world. Sometimes it happens in a park in Omaha, Nebraska. Maybe someday, sacred space and community will happen on the Moon.

Amy writes:

After my husband and life partner, Alan, passed away in September 2024, my world shifted in ways I was not prepared for. In the midst of that loss, two things remained constant: my twin sons—and my yoga practice.

Yoga has been part of my life for more than 20 years. Over that time, I’ve practiced alongside a remarkable group of women. What began in a shared physical studio evolved into a virtual space during COVID, but the essence of our connection never changed. It has always been more than a practice—it is a community grounded in trust, presence, and care.

This circle has taught me how to be still with myself. How to breathe deeply. How to listen to my body. And perhaps most importantly, how to create space—for reflection, for emotion, and for healing.

Over the years, yoga has carried me through significant life moments. My teacher, Mel, and I navigated breast cancer at the same time, finding strength in both practice and friendship. Later, when my father passed, yoga once again became a place where grief could move through me—where acceptance could slowly take root, and where I could maintain a quiet, spiritual connection to him.

But losing Alan was different.

I found myself unable to return to the mat. I didn’t have the strength, the words, or the emotional footing to begin processing what had happened. It felt as though everything familiar had been stripped away.

With gentle wisdom, Mel suggested something simple: just sit and meditate together.

And so, we did. In silence. Without expectation. Without judgment. Just being present—together.

That was the beginning.

Slowly—very slowly—I began to move again. Surrounded by women who had walked alongside me for years, I allowed myself to feel whatever arose. Tears became part of the practice. Movement became an expression of grief, rather than an escape from it.

I remember returning to tree pose—a posture I had long associated with balance, rootedness, and focus. This time, I couldn’t hold it. My body reflected what I felt internally: unsteady, broken, searching for ground. Over time, as I continued to show up, something shifted. Not all at once, but gradually—balance began to return.

Grief does not disappear. It reshapes you. It asks you to rebuild, piece by piece. As additional health challenges surfaced—likely tied to the stress of loss—I made a conscious decision to keep yoga at the center of my life. Not perfectly. Not consistently.

But intentionally. It became a steady thread—helping me cope, heal, and move forward.

One of the most meaningful aspects of this journey is that we are aging together. Our bodies are changing, and we honor that—less flexibility, more limitations, moments of discomfort. And yet, we continue. We adapt. We show up for ourselves and for each other.

There is something profoundly powerful about that.

My grief for Alan will be lifelong. That is the reality of loving deeply. But alongside that grief lives something else: gratitude.

Gratitude for a practice that meets me exactly where I am.

Gratitude for a teacher who understands the power of presence.

And gratitude for a community of women who embody strength, compassion, and resilience.

Yoga has not taken away my grief—but it has given me a way to live with it. To honor it.

And, in time, to grow through it.

In both life and leadership, we often search for ways to “move forward.” What I’ve learned is that sometimes, the most powerful step forward begins with stillness.

Titanic Collision Anniversary - April 14th, 1912

One hundred and fourteen years ago today on April 14th, 1912, at 11:40 pm the RMS Titanic hit an iceberg on its starboard bow side, suffering a gash roughly 300 feet in length. Modern sonar studies have shown that the gash was not continuous but made up of small gaps caused by the rivets popping off the hull plates which were buckled by the 7-10 second impact with the iceberg. This breach was fatal because it compromised six of the sixteen watertight compartments. Had it been four or fewer of the compartments breached, the Titanic would have remained afloat.

Titanic Trivia from The Mirror, 1912

The Mackay Bennett, a chartered boat from Halifax, Nova Scotia, pulled 190 bodies out of the North Atlantic, bringing them into Halifax Port. On the boat, they were identified by the contents held in their pockets, toe-tagged, and embalmed. Extending across an area of 40 miles, the bodies found in the wreckage site numbered 306 in total, but 116 were so mutilated by the explosion of the boilers just prior Titanic’s final decent two miles down, they were buried at sea.

The copy of Fitzgerald’s translation of “Omar Khayyam” with Elihu Vedder’s beautiful illustrations, famous as “the most remarkable specimen of binding ever produced,” has gone down with the Titanic. Less than a month ago, the work realized 405 pounds sterling at the auction-rooms of Messrs. Sotheby, purchased by Mr. Lionel Isaacs. The binding took two years to execute, with the exterior having 1500 precious stones.

There was a collapsible (lifeboat A) discovered and picked up over 200 miles from the sinking site by the Oceanic a month after the sinking (on May 13th) which contained three deceased and decomposing men - two huddled together at one end with corks in their mouths and the other chained by the leg to the bulwark at the other end of the collapsible. Two of the men were Titanic firemen; the other was Thomas Beattie, a first-class passenger from Winnipeg, Manitoba Canada. They were buried at sea.

Podcast: Bhadra Yoga House “Little Stinker”

Podcast: Bhadra Yoga House “Jan 2”

Blessings & Love,

We all have a place in the world where we can travel down a road, a river, or a train track and see the beautiful variations of a single country or place. As I waved a tearful goodbye as my winter-town of Tarbert on the Isle of Harris receded into the oceanic background, I knew I was headed for a bursting Spring with trees and flowers of all sorts, less wind, and the necessity of sunscreen. Pictures speak louder than words, and so, I give you a photo montage of Spring on the mainland of Scotland…

Read more

Friday’s much anticipated and appreciated ferry from the Isle of Harris to the Isle of Skye arrived late (but we were thrilled it arrived at all due to all the recent government drama) and transported us with a faint hint of a sky-moon view on a smooth, late-evening crossing. After waving a sad goodbye to Tarbert, I had the CalMac-and-cheese for dinner sans peas and watched an episode of Vera.

The Isle of Skye is the home to many beautiful and strange things, one of which is the Fairy Glen, a geological landslide formation located in the middle of sheep grazing farmland in the township of Uig. Each year it is my ritual to visit it - usually on a day trip via ferry from Tarbert to Uig and back the same day. This year, I am remaining in Uig for a few days due to the prematurity of my arrival in response to the limited sailing of the aforementioned ferry. On my first day here, I set out with walking stick on a clear morning.

Unacknowledged by the council government which refuses to designate it with any signage other than the one posted on the highway that says, “Strictly No Tour Buses,” they did manage to acknowledge the ever-increasing tourism and subsequent damage from cars parking on the side of the road by putting in a parking lot in 2020. (I blame the Fairy Glen Facebook Page, and so should you.)

I visited the Fairy Glen on my very first trip to Scotland in May of 2001. You remember pre-9/11 - when your mother could sit and wait with you at the terminal gate, quizzing you on what you packed. That year was all about visiting Skye and seeing Dunvegan Castle, the seat of the MacLeod clan chieftain, where he and his family live from October through March each year. A friend who had lived in Edinburgh for many years loaned me a travel book titled “Strange Places to Visit in Scotland” or something like that. When I boarded that bus from Portree twenty-five years ago, I asked the driver to let me off at the Fairy Glen and he had no idea what I was talking about. He did end up dropping me at the correct entrance road from the highway, where that “Strictly No Tour Buses” sign now lives, and quipped “Be back in two hours or you will spend the night in the ‘Fairy Glen’.”

After walking for about a mile or so down the now pothole-riddled road, otherworldly conical-shaped ridged hills popped out of the landscape. And then the tourists start popping out. Don’t go on a Saturday…

What is stranger than the sheep-infested, ridged hills surrounded by randomly scattered stone walls, clustered Rowan trees, and red toadstools, is the abrupt start and stop of it all - it covers merely a half square mile of farmland.

Later that day, my friend Angus prepared a Sunday roast for us to share, along with a side of broccolini and roasted potatoes. When I said, “Let’s have some broccolini with the roast” he looked at me quizzically. They call it “tender stems” here in the UK. Precious.

Playlist: Landslide

Titanic Trivia:

Safety Wanted, Not Luxury

Mr. Walter Winans, the millionaire sportsman, expresses himself sensibly on the disaster, “Does it not seem strange, charging a passenger 870 pounds for the best stateroom on the Titanic,” he writes to the Daily Mirror, “and not giving him a private lifeboat? I am sure it would pay better than giving him a lot of useless decoration. By the way, the Titans defied the Gods and were thrown into the sea, so it was a bad-omened name to give a ship.”

Titanic Ship of Dreams, BBC

Blessings & Love,

Thank God I’m in the UK for another two weeks because I really want to see the new lambs. This year’s extended stay through the first week of April is specifically for this reason. OK - two reasons: the lambs and the gelato truck Italian guys from Sicily that come here to Tarbert for three days in the spring. They arrived Tuesday and set up at the Harris Gin Distillery parking lot across the street where I can happily monitor them. The strawberry is really good. So is the Harris Gin-flavoured one, especially as a double-dip. Tomorrow, I have a date with the mint chocolate chip.

Read more

Before I leave Scotland and head down to England, we must discuss clotted cream. The marketing department or medieval man who invented the name for this cooked-then-cooled butter failed miserably. To my ear and eye, the wo…

Read more

This post marks my imminent departure from the Western Isles of Scotland in two weeks. Every year here is different, offering its various experiences and interactions with people, flora, and fauna. I make new friends, see new sights, learn new things, as well as enjoying familiarities. I will be leaving yet a few more articles of clothing under the stairwell this year along with my winter raincoat, air purifier, hand weights, and Christmas ornaments. Some people summer away - I winter away - with props.

Read more

These are the internal voice musings that flutter around your head when you are from the Midwest and alone on a beach. When clams and razorback clams and cockleshells taunt you with their state of aliveness or deadness because either way, they always present f…

Read more

I am still thinking about the rogue sheep mystery tour from two weeks ago. The local farm sheep that typically graze up the hill decided to have a field trip and somehow crossed the cattle grid at the top and ran down to town. Sure, there is a wee bit of greenery down here, along with the daffodils and snow drops that have fully bloomed, but it is sparse among the concrete parking lots, roads, buildings, moving vehicles, camper vans, and lorries (semi-trucks).

Read more

I am certainly not 44, nor am I crazy. However, while the weather here in the Hebrides is a stable 44 degrees Fahrenheit, this March is crazy with its sun, no sun; wind, no wind; rain, no rain; sleet, rain, sun, wind, wash-rinse-repeat weather pattern. It is barely 1:00 pm on a Sunday, and we have had all the weather patterns ava…

Read more

Well, we are all in the official stop-start of pre-Spring. Even Toronto had a lovely day on Tuesday. Omaha is doing its usual thing of weather vacillation extremes. Here on the islands, the sun pops out one minute, then goes away the next. Still, I managed to get a two-hour hike in yesterday, along with the after-errand to buy a half-dozen eggs from the croft-closet (above photo) that suddenly appeared this week. A sure sign of Spring!

Read more

On a recent Thursday I paid 60 US dollars for a 90-minute eye exam at a private clinical ophthalmology practice here in Scotland. It was a thorough chart-reading, eyeball picture-taking, a “one” or “two” lens-clarity quizzing, eye muscle-testing exam. While all that was going on, I learned a few things. Like why Napoleon Bonaparte is the reason we drive…

Read more

Welp, it’s been a barnyard-animal kind of week. Usually, I have to walk up into the grazing hills to see them, but this week the sheep came to the village for a fieldtrip that lasted for about an hour. Somehow, they crossed the cattle grid at the top of the hill to get down here. From my desk, I have a birds-eye view of the main entrance to the town, so I see buses, cars, trailers, campervans, cyclists, hikers, - and now sheep - on the road. It was hilarious to see them running down the hill.

Read more

International Holocaust Remembrance Day is January 27th, annually marking the anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz-Birkenau by the Allies in 1945 along with marking the remembrance of the six million Jews murdered by the Nazis and their collaborators. In the UK, it is known as Holocaust Memorial Day (HMD), and my local library set out a display of…

Read more

While I was in the bathtub last night singing the Preamble to the U.S. Constitution, I questioned my memory because it tumbled out of my mouth fully intact along with the accompanying melody that we Gen-Xers learned in between cereal commercials while watching Saturday morning cartoons. Later when settled into bed, I Googled it - and found that no, I had it right. Never question your memory just because something is short and sweet...

Read more

I am really into lemongrass right now. Not to cook with, just to smell. My favorite delivery system for this scent is via the soy candle. This morning, I sliced open a grapefruit and before cutting the wedges from the peel, I lifted it to my nose for a whiff of that citrus. Lemongrass is not sweetgrass (which I also l…

Read more

I don’t seek it out. I wait for it. Patiently. Patiently and reservedly because it takes me down a rabbit hole which makes my day one of pacing around the house, spreading papers across the floor and table, highlighting lines and dates with the green and orange highlighter pens, and telling myself over and over again, “I’ll go for a walk in a minute.”

Read more

When you visit Scotland for any length of time beyond two weeks, you find yourself saying things (to yourself) like, “I really wish I hadn’t stepped in that bog” or “I think I’ll head over to the library for a cuppa and a blather.” You also think that the word “concessions” refers to popcorn, soda, and maybe a box of Maltesers, but …

Read more

Hello, YogaHag Journal subscribers! Thank you for supporting me on my now three-year writing journey. It’s been a wonderful ride and one that I plan to continue for a long time to come. Thank you for being here!

Read more

In a world where sense is not being made, there is one constant in my life: I keep dreaming the same dream over and over again. This dream takes place in or around my childhood home in Omaha, Nebraska. Mostly, the dreams take place in the house. Occasionally I’m across the street looking at the house, wondering if my mother is still there so I can visit…

Read more

(Thank God for the invention of the laptop because this was written Sunday, February 1st, from bed with a cold cloth on my forehead):

I have spent some time the last few days on YouTube listening to various men and women of my son’s Millennial-Gen who have spent the last 30+ hours going through the Epstein files. These horrific documents - to put it mil…

Read more