How We Live Our Yoga

How We Live Our Yoga collects fourteen frank, moving, and thoughtful personal essays by passionate yoga practitioners on why they began to practice, what it has brought to their lives, how their relationship to yoga changes and evolves, and more. Judith Lasater looks at the unexpected relationship between yoga and parenting. Award-winning poet Stanley Plumly ponders the connection between his Quaker upbringing, his writing, and his yoga practice. The well-known Sanskritist Vyaas Houston tells the story of his first guru and their difficult relationship. And philosopher and conceptual artist Adrian Piper comes out as a yogic celibate.

"With the abundance of how-to books about yoga in the marketplace today it is a breath of fresh air to read these intelligent, well-written, funny, and moving accounts of how the practice of yoga has helped this widely diverse group of people maintain balance and perspective in their lives-even when faced with paradox, confusion, isolation, and pain."
-Tim Miller, director of the Ashtanga Yoga Center

"A fascinating collection of unique and powerful stories about practicing yoga. How We Live Our Yoga provides needed insight into some of the cross-cultural, ethical, religious, and physical challenges we meet when trying to ground an ancient discipline in our modern world."
-Richard Freeman, director of the Yoga Workshop

"This wonderful collection of thought-provoking, well-written personal essays will provide the reader with insight into the everyday world of the American yoga community. I think that any yoga student would thoroughly enjoy this anthology."
-John Friend, founder of Anusara Yoga

Valerie Jeremijenko is a writer and ashtanga yoga practitioner. Her short fiction has been published in several literary journals, and she has studied with leading yoga teachers, including Sri K. Pattabhi Jois, Tim Miller, Dave Oliver, and Graeme Northfield. An assistant professor at the department of dance and choreography at Virginia Commonwealth University, she currently teaches yoga at both VCU and Yoga Source, in Richmond.