Out on a Limb: Epilogue

A couple of months ago, one of my fellow yogis shared with me the following story about listening to me host my weekly live-streamed podcast Out on a Limb. Years ago, she told me, she had watched a documentary that had been narrated by the actor Brad Pitt. Because the audience does not see the actor throughout the film, but only hears his voice, my friend confessed that she felt as though she was hearing the voice of this highly celebrated actor for the first time. By listening only to his voice, she heard a rhythm, a cadence, a mesmerizing quality that she had never before experienced when seeing the actor speak his lines in a movie. That, she explained, was how she felt about hearing my voice these past nine months as the on air host of Out on a Limb.

How could I not love this story? Aside from the fact that it was meant as a compliment—which, by the way, is how it was received—it revealed much about the storyteller, my yoga-practicing friend. The story told me something about how my friend listens to the world around her; how she attends to what she hears; and how she recognized a personal moment of awakening, which she made the effort to remember to share with me. This is, after all, who we are. We are our stories. They grow out of that space that continues to expand from where we once began to where we are now, in the present, doing what we think it is we do with our time and energy and talents. While focused on doing our one thing, that space—where all of our stories reside—invites infinities. 

I like to think that this is what I have been doing with Out on a Limb since the first Sunday of March 2014. I have been inviting artists, writers, musicians, teachers, scholars, practitioners, film makers, and studio owners from the yoga community to share their personal infinities. And what have I found as a result? Only a larger infinity, the one that Swami Satchidananda promised the seeker on this path in his translation of Patanjali’s Yoga Sutra: “There is joy in being together. That’s all.” 

It turns out, joy is a humbling journey, and choosing to call my show Out on a Limb was more apt than I could ever have known in the weeks leading up to its start date. I discovered that I was nervous in the face of joy; and I made mistakes. And I had to make those mistakes live, on air, for all to hear. Technical difficulties made some conversations more challenging. Whenever I got stuck feeling that I wanted the next show to be perfect, I returned to Satchidananda’s wise counsel. “There is joy in being together. That’s all.” The truth is, despite the challenges and the hard work and the prevailing uncertainties, week after week, my guests always brought me joy. I am ever grateful to them all for their immense generosity of spirit and time and communion.
  

When I began Out on a Limb that first Sunday—March 2—at 2 p.m., I focused on a phrase of Buddhist teacher, psychologist and storyteller Sylvia Boorstein. Boorstein said, “Change is always happening.” And so it is. At the end of October, KX@OneLaguna executives explained to me and my fellow community show hosts that it had a bottom line, which now had to be passed along to us. After much deliberation, I have decided that I have one of those, too. And while I am not bidding farewell to what I have begun with Out on a Limb, it is—as  Dani Shapiro wrote in her bestselling book Devotion—time that it turns into something else. Change is always happening. 

One day, not too many months ago, one of my fellow yogis asked me what it is I do at the end of my practice every day, sitting as I do at the head of my mat after rising from savasana, hands folded at my heart, head slightly bent, eyes closed. I told her that I say my prayers. It occurs to me now that the act of sharing our stories is like the act of prayer. In both, we are engaged in creating what author and Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel so beautifully described in his book Sabbath as a “cathedral of time” to honor and engage in the sacred moments of our lives. It is important to remember that these are always happening. So, in the same way that I asked of you week after week since March 2, remember to tune in. Then, share your stories and your prayers. I guarantee, you will find that you are spreading joy.

Namaste

Thank you Diana Christinson, Andres Amador Arts, Roger Faubel, Jeffrey Briar, Savita Geuther, Robert Sturman ~ Artist/Photografía, Naren K. Schreiner, Christine E. Taylor, Simon Carnie Ballard, Erika Burkhalter, Kayoko Mitsumatsu, John Myers Childers, Bidyut K. Bose of the Niroga Institute, Eric Antonini and Denise Antonini, Lisbeth Fritz, Charlotte Cressey, Daniel E. Hickman, Jeremy Frindel, Lily Cushman Frindel, Steven Lustig, Richard Beatie, Breathe One Community-Crisanto Santa Ana, Sukhdeep Tracy Huang, Kim Black, Dhyana-Jacinthe Mitchell, Pam Wicks, Erica Austin, David Regelin, Garrett Tiebens, Barbara Campins Cambra, Katie Allen and Allison Martin Prince of Be The Change Yoga, Bryan Kest's Power Yoga, Dr. Christopher Chapple of Loyola Marymount University, Christy Brock Miele, Elaine Pike, Jorgen Christiansson, Arvind Chittumalla, Kelly Wood Yoga and Brad Keimach and my yoga family of listeners. Abundant gratitude.