I hear a lot of folks talking about the shadow in the context of yoga. Sometimes I feel the word has become cliche and musty with lost potency and meaning. I am aiming to reclaim the word, its concepts and harness its power because...

if you don't direct it, it will direct you.

With more and more people trying and falling in love with yoga--more and more people seeking what we might call "the Light", the wider the shadow will be cast. All you have to do is look at the quality of Yoga Journal these days. Or how about the fact that we now have a "yoga apparel industry" worth 13.4 billion a year. Or perhaps I should remind you of the horrors of gurus gone gaga. Or how about the other common shadows of misdirected rage and fear where we lie to our spouses or snap at them because we have unmet needs that we fail to recognize and then like to believe they should meet the things we don't even admit to ourselves.

How is it that more people do yoga and yet more people are disenfranchised, feel jaded and eeked out of their local yoga clique? Why does the corporate yoga studio last and the humble homespun cloth goes out of business? How is that one is able to do a 200hour yoga teacher training and suddenly be a health and wellness guru? 200 hours of training and you are certified--in what, down dog? And what is that worth exactly? (actually to be honest I think its worth a lot. But I also think its worth it to know our limitations. Or at least stay awake to the possibility of them. And the thing I think is worth the most is the day in and day out personal practice.)

Need I remind you that it is 2014. We do not use just the pronouns HE and She anymore. It's uncouth and ignorant to gender body parts and covertly exclude those who identify different than you. How about the fact that that this billion dollar industry of ours (yes, ours) is funded by white women with disposable income. White women just like me and you. And that many of us who teach this stuff can't even afford half the shit off the rack. And how about the host of us who speak up and out get slammed as bitches or as unyogic by the spiritual bypassers and samadhi posers.

The "experts" are telling us we can earn more and have a six figure business along with those stunning six pack abs. There are also "experts" who tell us "this way" or "that way" is the only way and the "right way" for alignment based yoga, or any style of yoga for that matter.

There is no "formula" or "method" to learning about, diving into and coming to love one's shadow. By now, you are probably wanting me to tell you what I mean by SHADOW which in the yoga world is "so hot right now". The shadow is any part of ourselves that we push into the unconscious recesses. It is those parts that we either consciously or unconsciously cannot yet tolerate about ourselves (both good and bad) so we very smartly chive them in the basement of our being. Or we try to cut them out or off. Or we see them only in someone else. Or we try to push them way way down inside ourselves. Our we try to ignore them by merging with another person deeply they may never see who we "really" are.

We are smart and fragile creatures, we human beings. We do not like to be ruffled. But see the yogi is the one able to stay cool in the torrent. The yogi is impacted by life but not the one who is whipped by life. All yoga work is shadow work. We wrestle with the parts our our body that don't want to do what we want it to do. We are faced with shapes that impact our ego's. Somewhere along the line we learn that we have to harness the innate power of our body rather than fight against it. Disciplined practice helps us find the balance between going with our nature and nurturing a better pathway. 

There is no right way to do shadow work. The only wrong way is to pretend like you are immune to your shadow, don't have one or have it all figured out. We have a little term for that. It's called Peter Pan Syndrome. It's when you don't want to grow up. It's when you don't want to be tethered to anything--let alone something of value.

Yoga teachers, grow up. Not because I say so. Grow up because your life's work depends on your capacity to tether yourself to your own shadow in such a way that the madness and wildness becomes useable.

A few years ago one of my teachers, Melissa Miachaels asked me, amongst other diverse youth leaders "What pisses you off?" I said clear as the crystal air off the rocky mountains: "Spiritual disenfranchisement and the conscious manipulation by spiritual leaders pisses me off".

In that moment I heard the rumbling of truth roll off my tongue like a wave shaking my body to the core. And so my righteous anger was set loose. With skill, with love, with devotion and working towards clear vision I continue to refine this anger into something worth while. If you are a seeker of truth, honesty, trust then the shadow work must be part of your work.

I cannot simply stand by or backbend along and let the billion dollar industry of yoga continue on in madness. Now, of course I by no means think I--one tiny human have that much power. But I do know that the more I bow down with great earnest respect to the shadowy parts of myself and call it out in loving ways when i see it, the better off we all are. Everyone wants to be creative and impassioned. And rarely does that come in a pretty package.

A little bit ago I spoke about the importance of having a tried and true chicken recipe if you are a Good Jewish Girl. Well, I am not that “good” at being Jewish. But I am really good at making chicken. In fact, sometimes on friday evenings I telephone my mother and ask “So what time will your chicken be ready?”. Then we trade pictures on our iPhones. It usually takes her a while. Almost as long as the chicken takes to cook through. She is slow at the texting you see. So as the weather here in the great borough of Brooklyn has changed, I found myself in the middle of a Thursday no less, cooking my chicken. Here is the recipe. Oh, and like most Jewish Bubby’s I can not give you exact amounts of the spices. Because I honestly have no idea. I just through it all in there honestly. So here we go, The Chicken Part Deux: The Recipe.

In a big plastic bag that wont leek put…..

• 1-2 pounds cut chicken breast
• About 3 tbs olive oil
• A Lot of Turmeric. 
• About half that amount of Cumin
• A little Salt
• Generous Pepper
• Some Paprika (I use smoked and not a ton, less than the Cumin)
• About 3 lemons cut into wedges.
• A ton of Garlic cut up. (this last time for about 2 pounds of chicken i used maybe 5 cloves)

Let all those mishmash marinate for a while…20 min to even two hours. I have also made it where I don't marinate. Its good. But not as good. 

Then using a very deep and wide pan, or a dutch oven or a Tagine even place all the bagged ingredients. Add to it:

• A nice amount of cherry tomatoes
• Two onions cut into chunks
• Some Olives
• (Sometimes I add Crimini mushrooms when I am feeling excited)

Cook on low heat for an hour. The tomatoes will eventually burst and help to create a nice sauce.

I serve it with either rice, roasted potatoes or a spicy roasted cauliflower. I also do a nice big salad with a Tahini dressing. 

So thats how its done. It is super easy. Very flavorful and is the food of my People. 

ENJOY.

Enjoy.

I love food. I love food so much I spent half my life trying to tell myself I hated food. Alas, despite my best efforts I indeed love the art of preparing and eating food from farm to belly. It brings me such great joy to have a refrigerator full of local produce and meat. Cutting, slicing and dicing is meditation. Creating artful plating of rustic homespun food is an extraordinary vinyasa of sensory delight. Knowing the source of products is like studying a great visionary’s work.

One Sunday night my Father asks me what I am up to.

“I’m cooking a chicken.” I tell him.

“Oh, that’s great. I love having a chicken” he replies with an audible smile.

“Yea, I love having a chicken.” I repeat equally as elated as the wafting smells of my Sunday summer permeate my home.

What I must explain to you is that if you are Jewish you have a chicken recipe. It is like some kind of domesticated Rite that you move through. My grandmother had a chicken recipe. My mother has her chicken recipe. My dad has his chicken recipe, aka buying a rotisserie chicken from the grocery. My uncles and aunts have their recipes.  I remember when I first nailed my chicken recipe. It was like an induction into Jewish cookery. I don’t know what this equates to in other faiths but for us, it is what Tevya (you know the guy from Fiddler On The Roof) says; “Tradition!”

Now of course if you are vegan I probably just offended you. I eat chicken. I apologize for my fowl behaviors.  I know our views do not always match in terms of what we should be eating for health of all beings. Having been vegan, vegetarian, raw, paleo and more I am not really interested in the “what diet are you?” conversation anymore. I am interested in what is sustainable in concentric circles from you body, to your family, to your community, to your society, to your planet. I am also very interested in tradition. I am curious about what my grandmothers ate and prepared. I am interested in how that can become my own.

I have dedicated my life to the practice, art and science of embodiment. Food is one of those doorways for me. Of course the irony is that food, for so many of us, can be the doorway out of our bodies. I know this path and paradigm all too painfully well. I can remember literally watching myself as a spectator in the vicious binge-purge cycle. I can still taste the remnants of the self-righteousness and power I gained from rejecting, neglecting and tossing away anything more than the barest minimum. I was so desperate to get in my body, but I couldn’t stand being in there. So floating off I went. Running, dashing, frantic like a chicken with its head cut off as the saying goes.

I remember the look of awe, confusion and disgust some family members had when they would see me enact my most wretched food-related behaviors. It was as if they couldn’t even comprehend the possibility of rejecting food. For my family food was and is love. Food is passion, joy and wealth. For my grandparents food was also survival and aliveness. They were simply grateful to have it. I think I hurt my grandmother the most when I stopped eating her chicken. It was like I severed an umbilical chord. It was one of the more painful times between us. I also remember the absolute joy and pride in her voice when  years later I told her I was roasting a chicken. “Sure” she used to say in her very Polish accent. “You have to have a chicken”.

And of course when my family first immigrated to the United States after the Second World War, they moved to a chicken farm. You can understand my father’s horror when he discovered his pet chicken was on the table for dinner. That in itself is a tale for another dinner. Come to think of it, maybe that’s why he buys his from the store instead of making it himself.

I have done the ascetic thing with food. Now I am much more interested in the aesthetic thing. I am into the beauty, the lushness, the deliciousness, the bounty, and the enoughness of food.

I have learned more about the importance of tradition from studying yoga than I did from going to Jewish Day School or having a Bat Mitzvah. Look, I am not the best Jew in the lot. I don’t like synagogue very much and I don’t know prayers by heart. I make altars with “idols”. I believe in the many faces of the Goddess. I know mantras by heart. I did not have a traditional Jewish wedding. But then again, I do have a chicken recipe and I am not the best yogi in the lot either. So I continue to build my own traditions. My family was centered on food, and low and behold, despite my best attempts to outrun The Family, I too am centered on the traditional chicken. 

Bubby, never understood my fascination with eastern traditions and she told me once in regards to teaching yoga; “You teach people to bend in half and break themselves”. So I am sure that wherever she is in heaven she is kvelling. Because what she always understood was nourishment, tradition and love. Which actually is a really high yogic teaching.