Studio Farewell –
My relationship with this space began around 23 years ago when I was a yoga student, coming to classes with Jayelle. I remember taking off my shoes and stepping into this room and immediately feeling like I was entering a sacred place, like a church or a temple.
In those early days, Jayelle had a small desk with a lamp and she would take your name and write it in a ledger.
In the years that followed, this room became the front studio and a second studio was built. The handwritten ledgers became computer software. I became a teacher here, and then the owner of the business.
We’ve had hundreds of students practising yoga and meditation here, dozens of teachers teaching. We’ve made life-long friendships and experienced deep learning and transformation.
Yoga and meditation help us to find what the yogis call our True Self that dwells in the home of our heart. These practices teach us how to live in a world that is constantly changing; to be awake and aware and compassionate so that we can respond to the world in a skillful and kind way.
This past year has certainly been a test of our practice. We’ve seen tremendous change and have experienced fear and loss and grief in the face of the pandemic.
Ken and I had no idea when we became business owners that we would be faced with the decisions we’ve had to make this year. This last decision to let go of the studio has been the most difficult and heart-breaking. Heart-breaking not just for us, but for all of you who have been coming to the studio for so many years.
Yet it’s our practice that endures, and this community that we are part of, that in the end, is what is most important and meaningful.
A haiku keeps coming to mind:
Barn’s burnt down –
now
I can see the moon.
While our barn hasn’t actually burned down, we WILL be virtual nomads for awhile. Ken and I are committed to finding another space when the time is right and when it feels safe for everyone to practice together again.
So today we are celebrating and giving honour to this space which has been a sacred container for us to do our work in for so many years.
We acknowledge and give honour to the land that this building rests on, to the first nations people who lived and tended to the land before us.
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