It was a time of immense disappointment and heartbreak when I came to yoga. I ached for an anchor in the plethora of feelings and emotions that I felt I could not escape. There was a yoga studio near my neighborhood I would visit from time to time. Over the few years prior to this period, I had gotten to know the owner – she knew me by name, and would have a warm smile for me on my visits. Having this small bit of a rapport made me feel seen at a time where the best word to describe my feeling in community was “invisible”. I couldn’t afford yoga classes on a regular basis, so I jumped on the opportunity when I found out the studio had a work-study program and a spot became available. Wanting to avoid a forty five minute subway commute to the next neighborhood over, I would walk twenty-five minutes instead. I still remember those walks and I walked a lot growing up in New York City. This walk in particular though, back and forth, felt like my own meditation, my own little pilgrimage. I would take class, and then clean three studio floors in an old Queens walk-up converted yoga studio. The experience was cathartic, and the class was only part of it. In classes, I felt I could give myself permission to really feel what I was feeling, and channel it in a way, through movement, through sound, through prayer, where those feelings could finally be set free. And that was just the beginning.