Desire (Iccha)

I am creating a rugged map of yoga that illuminates my recent inspiration to harness and refine desire in my own life. First I want to offer my deepest gratitude to my teachers Ali Certain and Ronna Rochell. In perspective I also offer that my heart is open in a big way for embracing the path and message of Anusara yoga and as a result I give due credit to myself as well.

Today's lesson focuses on desire. This is a word with tons of connotation both positive and negative. In many ways desire is what leads to misery in my own life, but it is now that I am taking a deeper look at desire. We can all relate to the desire for ice cream, attention, money, time off from work....you fill in the blank. Desire bombards us; it is relentless. Anusara yoga says, "Good celebrate your desire, but be skillful."


In my life as a Minnesotan growing up with teacher parents devoted to the Lutheran Church you could say that I was given mixed messages about desire. Desire? Bad. Discipline? Good. Okay so I honored that as best I could - often ignoring things that felt natural to me because they didn't seem disciplined. Example? As a graduating senior I chose my college based on the prompting of my parents instead of following an instinct, and the encouragement of my drama coach to go to New York City and insert myself in the theater scene. I was always performing in downhill skiing, choir, solo vocal performance, and plays. Yet these activities should be hobbies, according to my parents. And so being the disciplined, studious daughter I had always been I went to the Lutheran Liberal Arts college and attempted to set my sights on something more serious.

I began with a double major in biology and chemistry; declaring a pre-medicine major. I promptly hit a wall in my first study group when a fellow member took notice of my inability to keep up with concepts she said were "basic." I remember leaving that study group so sad. I felt like such a failure. I was crying to my roommate, calling my parents - threatening to quit school. The next four years were a steady pulse of the same theme of missing the mark revealing itself. I majored in math, physics, communications, political science, fashion and apparel design somehow emerging with a double major in print journalism and political science. I found the school newspaper and the mock trial my stage; finding intermittent moments of success and repose. Receiving an occasional nod from professors for articles on refugee influx, implications of war in non-democratic societies and farm bill policy.

The fire of desire was revealing itself in a passion for identifying injustice and mis-alignment in the world. I set my sights on law school determining I would be a lobbyist or work for a non-governmental agency advocating for human rights. I followed this desire to the law school application process, to Denver, Colorado working as a paralegal. Again I hit walls. I was sick; chronic strep throat. My Midwestern lungs couldn't take the Denver air; not at this time anyway. I couldn't take care of others through this lofty mission of advocacy when I was unwell myself. Connecting to a yoga practice after a brief absence from yoga I started to feel an unveiling; desire was returning.

This time desire led me back to Minnesota. One tonsilectomy and I was ready to find work in law again. I spent the next year working for two different attorneys and again....hit the wall. My work was in the business of law - not in the business of helping. The story doesn't end here. There were more walls and more moments of clarity.

Today my svadharma (desired path) is the same. My desire combined with my gifts has always been to serve. The form that this takes today is in a mission to light a path for those open to the message. The word guru means from darkness to lightness. I am not a guru because yoga comes so easy for me; yoga is very difficult work for me. But because I am willing to be honest with myself; to roll out the mat each day and look inside at what is truly there....I gather great riches to share a means to find the path into light. This deep work is fueled by a desire to live my life in a fashion that affirms and celebrates light. And although there is plenty of darkness cloaking me along the way - yoga teaches me to reach for the highest path - my heart. My community of students are my teachers. You inspire me. You roll out your mat with such courage and trust...this is the work of moving toward the light. Your desire to unveil is so inspiring. May we lift each other up when desire is dormant...until it reveals itself again.....may we walk through the darkness and navigate a path around the walls together.

May we celebrate desire. Use desire for the fuel and life blood that it is - to listen when it calls in a skillful fashion. Desire calls us to the mat - even in the moments when we feel like life is too full to roll out the mat - may we listen to the siren call despite all odds.

To your desire.