Yoga empowered me to stay home with my children and build a business that has sustained us and given me a performative place to process my generational healing and facilitate the same for others. Yoga has become a feminist movement.
Women practicing Yoga in the west often undergo several stages of healing from an emotional, physical, spiritual or mental trauma, experiencing a subsequent transformation, which leads to a sense of personal empowerment and transformation into a modern yogini (female Yoga practitioner). This process of becoming is facilitated by cultivating a “relationship of power with the divine feminine (shakti), and through developing a personal yoga practice (sadhana), spiritual studies (swadhyaya), and ongoing ethical development (yamas/niyamas).” (Amy E. Champs) Yoga teachers eventually become leaders within their community, finding purpose (dharma) through service projects (seva), teaching yoga to the underserved and special populations (karma yoga), and through public gatherings, workshops and festivals. (This is paraphrased from Amy Elizabeth Champs phd dissertation on Feminism and Yoga from 2013.) But her words resonnate with me on a personal level, as this is my story, and so many other women’s stories and for that matter, some men’s stories as well.
Champs’ research supports my view that yoga teachers and yoga students are often feminist in their approach to life. We centre our values and then our business.
The fifth wave of feminism has evolved into a multi-dimensional solution that combines the forces of politics, economics, culture, media, and sustainability to build the argument for gender equality or equity.
I feel that I have made a defined historical mark on the evolution of yoga in relation to a community of students and teachers who follow and support this vision for a feminist yogic ethic. I feel certain that this is an element of what women, people feel and sense when they find me and our particular brand of yoga. I think that the desire to feed, sustain or reach towards a spiritually satisfying lifestyle that is based on the principles of feminism is the underling thread of connection within students who land here at Atlas Yoga Studio and School. To this point I have trained many others in the discipline and guided their practice.
Watch for a community salon that is evolving in the studio and online. Come together with us to pause and think; to engage in discourse; to enact your own healing journey; to deeply connect with fundamental consciousness.
we can’t be everywhere, but we can be here now, Denise
