Stand by me Earth week

Stand up for me, I am the patient at Rockland Psychiatric Center who fell apart from loneliness on Monday in Yoga class because, and only because, I had been with family on Easter, and now I was back behind locked doors.

Stand with me, I am a Chinese student in a school of mainly Hispanic and Black students on Career Day at Ramapo High School – looking at the floor and quietly listening to the talk about Yoga – how it gives you the tools to be in the moment without gloom.

Stand for me, I am the youngest student, barely 17, in the Yoga Mountain teacher certification program at Sukha Arts in Harrington Park, NJ; learning to let go the tension in the backs of my knees and lower legs; studying the ancient art of Yoga – form, energy, rhythm.

Stand up for me, I am the felon at Bergen County Jail in Hackensack, NJ, who became addicted first to prescribed medicine then to Heroin, started stealing and got sent up. I have a baby and a wife at home. Here I am hoping what the old instructor from Yoga Mountain says is true – that the practice of Yoga brings freedom.

Stand by me, I am the owner/teacher with Yoga Mountain who writes at a stand-up desk when she’s not teaching. Wondering where future students will come from, humbled more by Yoga than by age, thankful for the strength and flexibility Yoga has given me. No longer needing to be saved but simply used.