My Story:

I was 14. Growing up in the Bronx, in a working class family, I happened upon the word “yoga” in TV Guide. Always curious I wanted to know what it meant. Thus started my yoga journey, practicing with Lilias Folan’s TV show on PBS (she was a yoga pioneer.)

Soon after, my Jamaican mother caught me on my bed, sitting in lotus pose, eyes closed, legs crossed apparently doing nothing. When asked what I was doing– I enunciated with teenage pride—“I’m med–it-taaayy-ting.” 

This made no sense to her- she thought I’d lost my mind. Thus ended the practice.

Fast forward to my late 20’s I took my first actual yoga class, and fell in love with the practice when I attended Mt. Holyoke College.  As a product of inner city public schools and the first in family to attend college, this was an intense challenge & change of environment. I first practiced Zen meditation there as well.

Years later, yoga helped me through some very stressful years working in academia as an art professor at Onondaga Community College.  It enabled me to ride the waves. I left my job as an art professor (after getting tenure.) Dealing with anxiety and depression, the yoga practices & meditation were crucial to get back on my feet. 

I had never tried to make a living as an artist, because of the “starving artist” trope.  Instead I went the safe teaching route, which led to unhappiness. 

Now at this stage in my life I’m finally going for it as a fine artist- integrating my love of Eastern Wisdom traditions, and more recent investigations into shamanism. More about my spiritual background here.