Please see my most recent writings and announcements at this link from now on

https://substack.com/@halmonipower 

Why Shoulderstand?

 

One of the most important poses we practice in the Iyengar Yoga tradition is Salamba Sarvangāsana. It literally translates to Supported All Limbs Pose, but typically in English, we call it shoulderstand.

Some yoga practitioners, including some seasoned practitioners, refrain from this pose. Some of the reasons may be:

• Glaucoma, or a similar medical condition that contraindicates inversions of any sort
• Chronic neck pain or a neck injury
• Shoulder pain, tightness, or injury 
• Menses 
• Fear, for a variety of reasons  

 

If you’re on your period, inversions in general are contraindicated, because gravity can cause too much pressure on reproductive organs, resulting in cramps or heavy bleeding. In general, we encourage the downward flow and expulsion of the uterine lining during menses, instead of going against the flow.

Similarly, certain medical conditions could be aggravated by the slight increase in blood pressure in the neck and head region while inverting. Even though jalandhara bandha (the chest to chin position) puts a brake on the blood flow, it’s normal to experience increased circulation to the head and throat. In fact, this is one of the benefits of the pose: stimulation of the thyroid gland in the throat region. 

Using adequate height under the shoulders (a blanket stack or foam pads) prevents neck and shoulder pain. If you look in Light on Yoga, BKS Iyengar’s classic guide to yoga āsana, you will see that he is doing Sarvangāsana flat on the floor. However, as a teacher, Mr. Iyengar noticed that the firm chest to chin position of jalandhara bandha was impossible for most people. Hyperflexible folks who could easily flex the cervical spine ended up flattening their cervical vertebrae, if constantly practicing Sarvangāsana with no blankets, even though the cervical spine is designed to have a curve to absorb movement. 

If you came to Iyengar Yoga from a different yoga tradition, you might be accustomed to practicing Sarvangāsana flat on the floor, and might dislike using blankets. If you’re only holding the pose for 20-60 seconds, and you don’t have any neck/shoulder pain or injury, it may not matter much whether you use blankets or not. 

However one of the hallmarks of Iyengar Yoga is the duration of the poses. In the beginning, you might only hold Halāsana or Sarvangāsana for 20-30 seconds. However, as you build strength, flexibility, and capacity, we increase the hold in Sarvangāsana and variations, to 2, 3, 5, 10 minutes or longer. In order to build stamina in the pose, a blanket stack of 2-3 inches will help to keep the spine lifted and the mind quiet. Without this support, even skilled practitioners will find it difficult to stay on the crown of the shoulders, and will likely find themselves rolling back toward their shoulder blades, rounding their backs, and muscularizing the pose instead of finding balance and ease. 

Using height under the shoulders will prevent pressure on the neck, and help compensate for shoulder tightness. The upper arms need to externally rotate, but if this is difficult, or if you have bulky shoulders, the blankets will definitely help. Use as many as you need in order to move the back muscles away from the neck, and press the corners of the shoulders down. Ask your teacher to help you.

Why do we stay so long in inversions? Geeta Iyengar points out that the first 5 minutes of an āsana benefit the physical body. After 5 minutes, the physiological and mental benefits develop. And just what are the physiological benefits? This article explicates them nicely. Just ask any seasoned practitioner, and they will give you their own list of benefits. In addition to what’s already listed, I would add the cardiovascular benefit. Whenever we’re upside down, venous return, of the blood back into the heart and lungs, is enhanced. Although the arteries have the heart pumping the blood through the entire body, the veins do not have a pump. Veins require movement to encourage the flow. When we’re inverted, it hastens the flow of blood through the veins by virtue of gravity, enhancing overall cardiovascular health.

Even with all this information, coaching from your teachers, and all the props in the world, some folks may feel fearful when Sarvangāsana is announced. Going topsy turvy may be disorienting, confusing, and uncomfortable. Lucky for us, Iyengar Yoga provides us with an endless array of modifications and variations. One of the most accessible ways to become confident and overcome apprehension is to use the rope wall (see photos at the top of this page). Set up between a pair of low ropes, and pull on them as you hoist your hips up into a Chatush Padāsana variation, with your feet on the wall, and practice lifting your hips over your shoulders. Once this becomes easy, try Ardha Halāsana and Ekapāda Sarvangāsana. 

Sarvangāsana is such a powerful, useful, and healthful pose, that I hope every practitioner can become proficient at it. Experiment, dabble, play around with it, until you feel an understanding, connection, and appreciation for the pose. May your practice be enlightening and healing.

 

Practicing Yoga When the Nation is on Fire

 

This week has been unbelievably brutal. Like the cold-blooded murder of George Floyd, preceded by decades of Jim Crow, preceded by centuries of chattel slavery, preceded by centuries of genocide, life in the USA could not be more unjust. The very founding and essence of the USA, in fact, is based on incredible violence and inequality. We romanticize and fetishize democracy to avoid admitting we are actually perpetrators of unspeakable harm.

I hate to identify as American, but it would be disingenuous to pretend I have nothing to do with the nation. My parents sought out America, as an alternative to war-torn Korea, a place where they could raise their children to be successful and prosperous, and where my father could pursue his career as a scientist. Even though I live on the furthest fringes of America, in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, we in Hawai`i have not yet succeeded in throwing off the yoke of the US empire.

The brutality that Black and Brown bodies have always experienced in the USA has hit home to white American citizens. Say their names:

RENEE NICOLE GOOD

ALEX PRETTI

On New Year’s Eve, ICE executed another innocent citizen, a Black man in LA,

KEITH PORTER, JR,

who has gotten far less attention than the recent white executions. As James Baldwin wrote to Angela Davis, “If they take you in the morning, they will be coming for us that night.” Similarly, Martin Niemöller noted, “First they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out—because I was not a socialist. Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out—because I was not a trade unionist. Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out—because I was not a Jew. Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me.”

By profession, I am a mere Iyengar Yoga teacher. I make a modest living teaching full-time, as I have since 2001. I am also a poet, dancer, musician, maker, grower, and grandmother. What power do I have to change the world? To topple Trump? To abolish ICE? To end the genocide in Gaza?

On the other hand, who am I not to try?

I have to believe that every gesture of resistance carries weight. Every conversation, every phone call, every meeting, every action. Drops in buckets multiplied by millions. Even my tears constitute resistance. I refuse to numb out. I refuse to look away. I choose to feel, rage, mourn. I bear the wound, then choose healing.

Of course it never feels adequate. We feel powerless, just as the systems of domination have designed us to feel. Plus, we’re too busy surviving, which is key to the master plan. We vent our stress by shopping, distracting ourselves, entertaining ourselves, chasing little dopamine hits that keep us barely sated.

We are far more powerful than we may think. I am a mere Iyengar Yoga teacher, yet I have dozens of students each week that choose to spend time with me. I’m a writer with books, degrees, and awards under my belt. I have mentees across oceans and nations. I can play small, or I can choose to embrace my expansiveness.

I strive to bring my whole self into the classroom, including my frustration, grief, and rage. I hope to imbue my students with courage to face difficulty, stamina to stay engaged, and practices for healing to alleviate suffering. I tell my students that our role as yoga practitioners is to be fully present with our friends, families, and communities, with mental clarity and emotional stability. We strive to offer grounded, centered physical presence in every situation. We don’t run away. We don’t hide. We may need to take respite to refill our tanks. Then we come back to the mat, so to speak.

Perhaps we can even offer spiritual presence. Perhaps our yoga practice has helped us see a bigger picture, beyond the sometimes overwhelming present moment. Perhaps we can see beyond the individual, to glimpse the universal and eternal.

But do you see how easy it can be to slip into the ineffable? To spiritually bypass? To float off into the woo-woo ether?

STOP.

Our nation is on fire. The State murders people in the streets. We provide weapons for genocide. We commit ethnic cleansing.

Speak up, stay engaged. Yes, practice. Āsana, prānāyāma, meditation, Tai Chi, your daily walks, your weekly hikes, sing, dance, whatever your practices may be, keep doing them. But don’t use them just to feel better as an individual. Don’t use them as escape. Keep your vision on the larger picture of collectivity. Consider how your practice contributes to collective resistance, to improve all our lives. Invite others to practice in a more socially and politically engaged way. Dismantle, now and forever, the myth of individuality. Use your practice as iśvara praņidhana—surrender to a higher power. Envision the higher power as the greater whole. Dedicate your practice to the spirit of Renee Nicole Good, to Hind Rajab, to any number of beloved martyrs who’ve joined the ancestors. Break yourself open. Weep sacred tears.

BKS Iyengar said, “Yoga teaches us how to stand on our own two feet.” Get up on your own two feet. Stand strong, resist with all your might. We stand together.

Who Gets to be Indigenous? Korean in Hawai`i, Part II

 [For more context, you may choose to read “Reindigenizing, Part I,” “Reindigenizing, Part II,” and “Korean in Hawai`i”]

As I was viewing the newly released “In the Circle of Life” film by Zaya and Maurizio Benazzo of Science and Nonduality, I was struck by the different faces of indigeneity on the continent of Australia. Like indigeneity all over the world, superficial markers of appearance have changed. In 2026, we can no longer claim: people native to ______ look like this: _______. It’s simply not true. For instance, many people of Australian aboriginal heritage have lighter skin than their native ancestors, and facial features that look European. Similarly, in the United States, many people who could pass as white actually identify as Black, or Asian, or another racial identity. Here in Hawai`i, it’s possible to meet someone you would assume is white or Asian or Black or another racial identity, then learn they are Hawaiian. People who are indigenous to their land can look almost any way.

Over decades and centuries, we and our ancestors have experienced trafficking, rape, abuse, forced or arranged marriages, and voluntary and involuntary migration. We and our ancestors may have chosen to partner with people from different parts of the world or different racial backgrounds. These may be “love marriages,” or green card marriages, or health insurance-motivated marriages, or shotgun marriages, or any combinations of these or other conditions. Their partnerships may arise from love, lust, or necessity. Our attractions and desires cannot help but be influenced by colonization and globalization, whether we realize it or admit it or not. Outside of marriage, people always have and will always continue to hook up. Whatever the reasons and motivations may be, we look around most communities, and note that racial purity may not actually exist.

When people of mixed heritage are invited to racially identify themselves, some choose to center an indigenous identity. Almost every kanaka māoli I’ve met has a parent or grandparent who is Filipinx, Chinese, Japanese, Portuguese, Korean, Puerto Rican—usually some combination. Yet, they choose to proudly identify as kanaka. They feel Hawaiian, they live in Hawai`i, usually they know some or a lot of the Hawaiian language, and they identify strongly with Hawaiian culture, history, and often politics.

One result of this pluralization of indigenous heritage is wider access to indigeneity in general. Colonization absolutely decimated the native population of Hawai`i with widespread disease. But when more people of mixed heritage choose to center their native identity, the Hawaiian movement can actually grow, amplify and gain more power. It’s an act of defiance: The colonizer thought intermarriage would strip native people of their culture and identity, making them easier to colonize. But now, generations later, their descendants reclaim their native power, reject colonizer systems, and teach their children and grandchildren native ways and languages.

Clearly, I am not kanaka. Nevertheless I identify strongly with the native culture, history, and politics here, and the kānaka community has graciously welcomed me with incredible aloha and generosity. I’m actively learning mele, hula, oli, and pule (songs, dances, chants, prayers) with so much gratitude. I’m also devoting myself to aloha `āina and lāhui, learning the land and community, while supporting the movements of demilitarization and sovereignty.

The most remarkable development is that Hawaiian practices are serving as a conduit for my own indigeneity to be revealed. I haven’t lived extensively in Korea since my early childhood, yet by calling upon the ancestors of the land here in Hawai`i, my own blood ancestors are being beckoned as well. I cannot yet explicate all their names and stories, but I feel them accompanying me, guiding me, supporting me. Indeed, the ancestors, all of them, are here for all of us.

Recently I had an experience with my grandchildren, at my granddaughter Coco’s soccer practice. She wanted me to sit under the tree, watching her, so that she could easily see me, and check in with me during water breaks. However I was also tending her younger brother, Solomon, who wanted to go to the nearby playground. I told Coco we would be near the tree, but not under it, and I would still be watching her. It struck me that that must be how our ancestors regard us. They are nearby, watching us, cheering us on, supporting us, even if we can’t quite spot them. They’re like the spectators at a soccer game, enthusiastically rooting for us, whether we acknowledge them or not. And guess what? My ancestors are cheering for everybody, not just me. And your ancestors also avail themselves to me, and others.

I believe we’re mistaken if we limit the ancestral realm to blood only. Instead, can we experience spirit as ineffable, accessible, both immediate and transcendent, and above all, inclusive and plural? I do believe I have special relations with certain ancestors, such as my mother, father, and brother. And yet, I don’t possess them nor have exclusive rights. May we not be limited by the myth of separateness and individuality, especially beyond the earthly realm.

At the same time, identifying with our ancestral earth-based heritage and practices doesn’t mean just peace and love and harmony. That would be spiritual bypassing. Choosing to identify with our own indigeneity also means taking on the responsibility of being indigenous. We must embrace responsibility to the land, to our elders, to our youth, and to our struggles. Without these commitments, we are simply extracting. All over the world indigenous people and cultures have been oppressed, silenced, shamed, and even obliterated. Those who choose to identify primarily with their colonizer lineage and ancestors may not feel a desire to be in solidarity with struggle. But if you feel the tug, a restless unease, a curiosity, an awakening…..that is a direct call from your indigenous ancestors.

To reindigenize, go to the land. Tend it. Talk to the beings of the land. What do they ask of you? Plant something. Forage. Lie down and feel how it is connected with the rest of the planet.

Go to the waters, fresh or salty. Immerse yourself, cleanse yourself. Listen to it, observe it. Feel how the water is eternal and constantly cycling, how it touches and moves through every flowing body, human and nonhuman, near and far.

Ask your ancestors to enter your dreams. Invite them into ceremony. Remember they’re present whether you acknowledge them or not (but better to acknowledge them).

How do I know all of this? I’m just sharing what my body experiences as reality. Please take it or leave it as you choose. Meanwhile, let us fully immerse ourselves in the power and beauty of our own indigeneity, our own earth-based connection to all of life. All you have to do is wonder, ask, and invite guidance. Embrace your own ancestry, however much or little you may have access to at this moment. Tap into the land-based practices of the place you inhabit. Get your hands in the soil, step into the waters. The spirits of the land and waters will welcome you and guide you into your own stories of indigeneity.

Driving Aloha: Decolonizing the Roads

This December, I mark my 4th anniversary of moving back to Hawai`i, my childhood home. In this time, I've had to relearn a basic skill I've been practicing since my mid-teens: driving a car. 

Early on, I realized I had to slow way down. Accustomed to straight, wide open, flat roads and highways of the United States Midwest, I had to shift from 70 mph speed limits to 40-50, on the crowded, curving expressways. On local, winding, hilly roads, I had to drive even slower, to 20-30 mph. Even more important than speed, however, was the culture of driving, and changing from American driving style to Hawaiian. I've realized, more than ever, how I've been shaped by the dominant white culture as a driver.

I've been conditioned to dart in and out whenever I see an opening, move quickly, and take up space. But these habits of "getting ahead," instilled in me by my Korean immigrant parents, do not serve me in Hawai`i. In fact, I've learned, from my grandson's preschool teachers at his Hawaiian-centered preschool, that in Hawaiian culture, one never walks in front of others, crossing their path. Instead, we are to walk around and behind others. This use of space creates an altogether different dynamic. 

This practice carries over into driving. When I moved from crowded, rushed, Americanized Honolulu to the windward side, all the way out to Waimānalo, a rural, heavily Hawaiian community, I had to relearn how to drive. Turning Ewa (west) from Kumuhau Street to Kalanianaole Highway, at certain times of the day or week, is only possible with aloha. Invariably a local driver will slow down and blink their lights, allowing me to turn left, and then a second driver, seeing me turn, will slow down to let me slip in front of them. All this takes about 3 seconds, no words, and several shakas. Helping each other out gets reinforced with a mini-endorphin hit.

Midwestern USA driving can feel anonymous and detached, as we sit hunched behind sealed windows, in several layers of clothing, complete with hats, gloves, and scarves. We feel distant and separate from each other. But in Hawai`i, it's too hot to hide. We're more exposed, more visible. Plus we live in the most remote place on the planet, on tiny rocks in the middle of a vast ocean. We HAVE to get along with each other.  

You can tell who's a local and who's a tourist or recent settler by their driving habits. Only the locals know to slow down and watch out for others at certain intersections, while the tourists just whizz by without even noticing. Noticing one another is 90% of decolonizing our roads. I admit I'm often too distracted to notice another driver trying to enter, or a pedestrian waiting at a crosswalk. Other times I notice but am too concerned about getting somewhere on time to slow down. Decolonizing in general can be summarized in 2 words: slowing down. This requires going to bed earlier so I can wake up earlier, and take my time packing my stuff for the day. It means I have to plan, cook ahead of time, and have ingredients on hand. It means I cannot overbook or overcommit myself, because the added stress will neither serve me nor my community. I have to train myself to be on island time.

I can tell when I cross over from Waimānalo to the more gentrified and colonized neighboring town of Kailua, by the drivers. All of a sudden, there are cars darting in and out of parking lots. Even the way folks steer their shopping carts in the grocery store is different. They're more pushy, more negligent of people around them. A man stands in the middle of the aisle by the checkout, looking at his phone. Don't you know you're supposed to keep the aisle clear? I go behind him, waiting for him to notice me and move, but to no avail.

These are classic traits of white culture. But we don't have to be white to embody these traits. These values have been perpetuated through media, the military, capitalism, workplaces, corporations, and our families, to people of all races. Acting haole is not about skin color. It's about acting like a foreigner, not embodying Hawaiian culture. It takes self-awareness, discipline, commitment, and community reinforcement, to break haole habits. And it can't be just an intellectual exercise. One needs to feel the imbalances and be determined to change them.

Believe me, deconditioning and decolonizing requires continual vigilance, and I continue to falter often. I still find myself falling into old habits. I try to forgive myself quickly, and move on, hopefully not repeating the same mistakes. 

The good news is I get 47-49 mpg from my 2010 Prius, instead of 44-45 mpg when I am rushing. I feel more at ease, remembering life is not a race nor a competition. I feel more comfortable wherever I am, relating to others as kin rather than adversaries.

SNAP is not the problem

As a working artist, I've never equated monetary net worth with actual value. I've always recognized that the most impactful, transformative, nourishing experiences, objects, and people, cannot be represented with a dollar value. When I was 20 years old, in the early 1980s, I interned at St. Mark's Poetry Project, in the Bowery in New York City. As a young poet, I saw brilliant poets living the barest of material lives, on so little financial means, so that they would have time to write and contribute to the literary community. Maybe they got a fellowship every once in a while, stretching it out to make it last as long as possible. Maybe they took part-time jobs to cover rent and food. The Lower East Side of Manhattan back in the day was not yet fully gentrified (although the signs were clear and undeniable), and you could still get a relatively cheap apartment. 

This internship, and hanging out in the Bowery, planted seeds in me that would take root and flower over the years to come. It shifted my view of the world, helping me to understand what the artist's life required, as opposed to the dominant culture I had grown up in, which I now would call Colonized Mind. I'm using Colonized as an umbrella term to include patriarchy, capitalism, heteronormativity, racism, ableism, and even the universally lauded American Work Ethic. The poets in the Bowery embodied lifestyles and ethics of resistance to Colonized Mind: Why should we work for you? Why do you get to tell me how to spend my time and what to think? And even You need what we produce, whether you know it or now, and you need to uplift us.

Many years later, children grown, and newly divorced, I moved to Detroit, Michigan, in 2013, to study at the feet of Grace Lee Boggs and other movement and thought leaders, obsessed with questions of how to live in times of intense transformation, and even collapse. At that time we all engaged deeply in the concepts of New Work, New Culture, New Economy, spearheaded by Professor Frithjof Bergmann. These ideas revolved around the fact that our globalized economies, along with the rise of technology, guaranteed that jobs, as we knew them, would be less and less available, such that we had to evolve to figure out what it meant to be human, how we would eat and live, and create new cultures and identities that did not revolve around our former concepts of jobs.

Now, in October 2025, on the brink of the loss of food benefits for 40 million Americans, including me, I reflect, once again, on what it all means. What constitutes work in the 21st century? Whose responsibility is it to feed oneself and loved ones?

In a moment of extreme vulnerability, in the midst of an extreme culture of polarization, I decided to out myself on social media as a SNAP beneficiary. I felt an intense need to do this because of the lies and stereotypes attributed to people like me. Don't make me go through the litany; we've all heard the slurs about poor people throughout our lives. Colonized Mind has trained us to valorize greedy mofos like Zuckerberg and Musk, while demonizing people like me. So I posted: 

 

 

I have been on and off SNAP for a while, some years leaner than others. Even though I'm a Senior Teacher in the Iyengar Yoga tradition, I often teach for free, or less than minimum wage. Since 2013, I have made 2 major moves. In 2003, I helped establish a nonprofit Iyengar Yoga center in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, Riverwest Yogashala, and left it in 2012, to pursue my next stage of learning in Detroit. I helped establish a cooperative Iyengar Yoga center in Detroit, and also left it, to move closer to my grandchildren in Hawai`i in 2021, and teach at Iyengar Yoga Silent Dance Center. Admittedly, I've struggled here in Hawai`i, to build a large enough community to fully support me financially. I understand why folks tend not to uproot in their 60s to start all over--it's like trying to replant a mature, fruiting tree in a new land. I have a small cadre of committed students and mentees, and many casual students who occasionally drop in. 

 

Like I've said, deep down, I know we cannot measure our worth in dollars. Professionally, I'm at the top of my game. My skill as a teacher has never been stronger. I do feel assured that the community here in Hawai`i respects, appreciates, and likes me. But that doesn't mean they want to study with me. Why would they want to change teachers and disrupt their weekly schedules, when they are perfectly content where they are? 

 

I regard my yoga practice as my primary art form, as well as my spiritual practice. As such, I never expected nor required it to pay off financially. In addition to teaching locally, I teach for Iyengar Yoga Detroit, run their Teacher Education program, and teach students in Korea. I teach on a sliding scale, and quite a few of my students pay on the lower end, or not at all. I'm completely fine with that, because I don't believe in yoga as a commodity or commercial enterprise.

 

This means I have refined the art of simple living over the years. If you really knew, you might be appalled. I will spare you the details, except to say that the more I honor the gifts of the natural world, by living as conservatively as possible, the more integrated I feel with all of life. Somehow I manage to live an extraordinarily rich life, on very little money. 

 

As you can imagine, I got a lot of traction on the post about being a SNAP user, overwhelmingly positive, but a few strangers decided they needed to scold me and set me straight. I decided not to drain my energy responding to them, but a few allies, also strangers, came out of left field to respond on my behalf. 

 

Most of the attacks were along the lines of "You work to eat. No work, no eat." They reveal what I've come to think of as Plantation Mind. I think of my fellow Koreans, who came by ship in the early 1900s to work the sugar plantations, hungry, starved by the Japanese Empire. They came to make money, full-stop, and they did what was required. The trauma of displacement and backbreaking labor can lead to valorization of one's own trauma, and a reinforcing belief in its inevitability, such that it gets passed from generation to generation. Work your ass off for the master, and master will reward you: this message gets hardwired into generations. The only relief is 4 weeks vacation, and a 401K, for the lucky ones. Until then, the only option is to suffer through it, building resentment and hatred for those of us who refuse to step on the treadmill.

 

However Plantation Mind is survival mentality based on individual effort and sacrifice. It doesn't consider underlying systems of exploitation. Plantation labor in Hawai`i was basically indentured servitude, because slavery had been outlawed, but cheap or free labor was required for profit. Plantation owners recruited laborers from around the world, the more desperate, the better for their bottom line. Who are the real exploiters? 

 

Corporate welfare remains invisible and unspoken. We ignore the preposterous, expanding wealth gap. We've long stopped complaining about the regressive tax codes, which let millionaires and billionaires keep growing their wealth, instead of sharing it with the rest of us. You see, low-income folks like me are not the problem.

 

Do I like depending on the federal government for food assistance? No, it makes me squirm and hold my nose. I also hate paying taxes that fund an out of control military industrial complex, responsible for multiple genocides, including the current one in Gaza. I hate the fact that I drive on government roads, depend on government funded healthcare, eat food from farms surviving on government subsidies. We live in times of collapse, but until it all collapses and something new birthed from the ashes, we are stuck with what we've got.

 

My critics want me to feel shame, and to apologize for accepting government aid. But my tiny aid package is not even a drop in the bucket of the aid that Musk, Zuckerberg, and the other tech and defense industries receive. Let's not even look at the BILLIONS to Israel, and the 300 million dollar demolition of the White House East Wing for a disastrous ballroom. Yeah, the ballroom is being privately funded, but take a minute to ponder why these businesses might be shelling out money to the president. Hmmmf?

 

Please, let's not attack the poor. We're the last to blame for the collapse of our nation. We're not poor because of bad planning, laziness, self-indulgence, or stupidity. We're impoverished by the exploitative system of capitalism, which requires a massive underclass. 

 

In my case, I choose to live on very little money, because I refuse to compromise my ethics to serve a master I do not believe in. I choose to devote myself to meaningful work that benefits the community, whether it pays or not. I choose to spend time caring for my grandchildren, raising money for mutual aid in Palestine, and providing yoga therapy for people even if they do not have the means to pay me. I choose to devote myself to `āina and akua, knowing there will not be financial gain. Because of these choices, I rarely eat out, never shop, attend only free cultural events, and share, share, share, as much as possible in cultivating beloved communities of mutual aid.

 

In my heart I truly believe I am putting in, giving back, and investing more than I take. I'm not the only one. Most impoverished people are caring for little ones, or kūpuna, or people with disabilities. Most impoverished people are working the jobs no one else wants to, and getting paid way too little. The poor  keep the system afloat, while the rich keep stealing more and more. Instead of attacking the poor, we should be uplifting them, while making the wealthy pay up! 

 

I wish none of this needed to be explained. Personally, I never learned any of this in school, or from my immigrant parents. I had to teach myself well into adulthood, while shedding the layers of Colonized Mind. It takes time, and I can't blame those who are only looking at the individual and not the system, because that's definitely how I was brought up. Don't look at the man behind the curtain! But until and unless we all see the bigger picture, we cannot rise up together. We cannot dismantle the massive edifices of injustice. We cannot create the society that we all long to live in, where we all have decent housing, food, healthcare, and education. Where keiki and kūpuna are treasured and cared for. Where `āina is beloved as the basis for all life. May it be so.

 

A Rite of Passage: Embracing the Crone

I have always wanted to be old. I have been waiting all my life to become old.

I did not find youth easy. Perhaps I was born old. Until society succeeded in cowing me, I was a rageful child. I didn't fit it, but I learned to suppress my weirdnesses and assimilate. I was born restless and agitated, but I didn't find the words for my rage until I was much older, in my 20s, and more fully in my 30s and 40s. I still cultivate sacred rage as a kind of superpower. Sacred rage emerges from insight, seeing through things, finding truth that contradicts what we've been told.

One thing I was taught, by everyone--my mother and her sisters, by both mainstream and alternative media, by society and across cultures--is that women depreciate in value as we age. By all means possible, we should strive to be young. Facial creams, hair dyes, plastic surgery, lying about our age, special wardrobes....all become necessary to prevent the ravages of aging. 

Is it any wonder that so many women struggle painfully with perimenopause and menopause? The end of our childbearing years throws us, according to the model of the triune goddesses, from maiden, to mother, to, finally, crone.

We don't even like the word crone. Western culture tends to characterize crones as kin to witches and evil stepmothers. European fairy tales and Disney sure don't help. But we must reclaim the status, magic, power, and majesty of the crone. 

This doesn't happen overnight. The power of the crone begins decades earlier. It started, for me, with my pregnancies and childbirths, embracing the power of motherhood, and learning to trust my own body. It ripened further as my relationship to menstruation evolved, from shame and denial, to honoring it. 

Iyengar Yoga practice taught me how to befriend my period. Counterculturally, I learned to honor it as a time of introspection and rest, and to allow and encourage the flow, instead of suppressing it. I learned to read the discomforts--of cramps, headaches, or crankiness--as messages from my body to change my behavior and prioritize my well-being. I learned how to support the hormonal changes, and encourage my uterus to expel its lining, instead of fighting against the physiology, or simply medicating my discomfort. Learning the menstrual practice profoundly shaped how I would experience perimenopause.

I admit I may not be the average 62 year-old. I began a practice of yoga 35 years ago, so by the time I stopped menstruating at age 50, I had 20 years of practice under my belt. This practice includes lots of time upside down, promoting circulation, physiological health, and hormonal balance. For me, perimenopause was not that eventful. Yes, I had irregular periods, erratic flow, and some very heavy sheddings, including a few embarrassing episodes of bleeding through my clothes. But to me, these were relatively minor inconveniences. 

Except for a year after college, before my first child was born, my work schedule was always variable. I chose not to work a 40-hour, 9-5 job, and instead, chose the flexibility of independent contracting, as a working artist, and later, as an Iyengar Yoga instructor. After my divorce, at age 49, when I became financially independent, I accepted that economic uncertainty, including periods of poverty, was the price I paid for flexibility. 

I had time to take care of myself. As a young mother, by the time I reached perimenopause, my 3 children were all grown and out of the house. Leaving my marriage, I also freed myself from householding and "wifing." I had earned my freedom, and shed the constraints associated with caregiving and householding. Of course I also lost my privileges, but I had long renounced most of them anyway.

Some of the struggles associated with menopause and perimenopause didn't pertain to me. Sleepless? Turn on a lamp and read a book. Tired in the middle of the day? Take a nap. Hot flash? Throw off the covers. Don't get me wrong, I still had plenty of obligations. Nevertheless I structured my life such that I could prioritize my own well-being.

I do recognize that I've lost some strength in my bones and muscles. Yesterday my 8 and 6 year-old grandkids and I put on an entire show to the soundtrack of K-Pop Demon Hunters. I was exhausted because I starred in the show, along with 8 year-old Coco, and she made me be in every dance. Afterwards, I laid down on the floor and said, "OK, let's rest." Of course my grandkids were not having it, nor needing rest. 

For the first 7 years after my last menstrual cycle, I had very few symptoms of menopause. In 2020-2021 (remember the COVID-19 lockdown?) my body went through a whole litany of injuries, no doubt exacerbated by stress: plantar fascitis, sacral instability, hip pain, sciatica, knee pain, and hamstring injuries. Each injury taught me more than any seminar could, on how to heal myself. I did manage to heal from all these conditions, and it made me a better, more compassionate and effective teacher.

I believe I had accrued enough strength pre-cronehood to carry me through some years post-menopause without much fuss. But the conditions of COVID weakened me overall and allowed anatomical imbalances to arise. I learned from these injuries that I need to emphasize strength-building and stabilizing as I age.

Most of all I recognize cronehood as the most incredibly rich and rewarding stage of my life. I tell younger friends: Your 30s are better than your 20s. Your 40s will be better than your 30s. Your 50s even better, and the 60s are the best of all. Beyond my 60s, I continue to expect the best.

Why do I celebrate cronehood? Because I have no fucks to give anymore. On TikTok or Instagram you can find @justbeingmelani and join her We Do Not Care Club for menopausal and perimenopausal women. Here I found soul sisters to laugh with for hours! But it's not light humor. This is powerful, subversive humor, declaring that the patriarchy no longer has any hold on us. The pressures of society--to be beautiful, young, polite, self-sacrificing, submissive, and more--have become utterly insignificant. That is the true beauty of cronehood.