FINDING HARMONY PODCAST
What is a spiritual practice? How does it work? How will it improve my life? How will deepening my self-care transform me? What strategies can I use to improve my life, increase my health, and create wellness? How can craft a life that I love?
The Finding Harmony Podcast gets to the root of all these questions. Each episode is full of inspiration, humour, honest observations, and actionable steps that you can integrate to enhance your experience of self-love, develop a connection to Spirit, and create a life you truly love.
Show Notes Below:
Urban Yogi Ben Eckett: Gloves Not Guns
Our guest today, Ben Eckett, is fairly new to Ashtanga, starting back in 2016; but he’s lived a life devoted to serving fellow humans and his constantly focused on increasing good in the world. He’s super charming and full of passion and emanates love for his life’s mission.
He’s a “Devon man,” and like his yogi grandfather, devilishly handsome. We asked him about the contradiction in teaching boxing and yoga to kids and prison-mates. Is there a contradiction to teaching martial arts as a tool towards the betterment of a more loving society?
Eddie Stern: I'll Be Your Mirror
We have someone we have wanted to speak to ever since we first initiated this Podcast: The Inimitable Eddie Stern! You’ll feel absolutely transported as you jump right into our conversation with the iconic Eddie Stern… Talking about rectangles of all things and their place of importance in our world!
Around 3 minutes in, you’ll get to hear why (or why not) we always do postures to the right side first! And, of all the outrageously unorthodox things we said in this interview, “jumping to the left” seems to epitomize how unconventional we’ve all become.
The Hidden Gem that is Kathy Cooper
We had such a good time talking to an old friend in Kathy Cooper. For Russell it reminded him of Anne Rice’s vampire Lestat’s recounting of his origins in New Orleans. Lestat wrote that at every corner he was continuously surprised to find another stronger older vampire coming out of the ground and shadows. Each time like pulling back yards of history. These Ashtanga yoga students from the 70’s are each one a surprise fascinating in their strength and wisdom.
Manuel Ferreira: The Brazen Bull
Today we have the infamous Bull Fighting Manuel Ferreira on the show for you. We are delighted that such an old friend would agree to come on to tell us about his life and family growing up in Portugal. It’s literally true that he was a bull fighter, though perhaps just as a student and not so much a professional. He’s an interesting person to sit with as he has lived his life with so much joie du vivre or alegria de viver as one might say in Portuguese…
Alex South: No Pelvis Left Behind
“From menstruation, pregnancy, miscarriage, pelvic pain, endometriosis and fibroids, every pelvis has a story, and more often than not, we’re quite disconnected from it.” Please sit with us on this beautiful Sunday as we join our friend Alexandra South in a deeply personal story.
Jeanette Keane: Dance Me to the End of Love
The Finding Harmony Podcast has always been a play on words. How to find harmony in your life?
Uncovering that point when one hits rock bottom and discovers yoga as the secret key to ending suffering… Sometime after everything else has failed. Jeanette was fortunate enough to be introduced to yoga at a very young age through her mother. She’s an artist, a professional dancer, and skilled in Public Relations, Digital Communication, Marketing and Arts Administration. But even Jeanette explored many different avenues, looking for answers, before realizing that yoga held the perfect space for her to cultivate inner-peace.
Electric Man : Stan Woodman
What makes someone electric?
In today’s episode we’re going to find out.
Stan Woodman joins us in conversation. He has that beautiful esprit de corps that comes from overcoming adversity with a team in fellowship, even in the face of great tragedy there's still Love in the group.
Stan has a confidence in him that he is loved and will always be loved. Not in an arrogant way whatsoever, but as a man who loves all beings and naturally sees Love within them.
Elizabeth Ball: Science & Yoga
Dr. Elizabeth Ball is a unique teacher within our community. She's akin to the Neuroscientist Meditator or the Warrior Poet… A person uniquely situated to watch reality, as the seer residing in herself. She observes with awareness. As water gives life to the ten thousand things; yet does not strive to do so. She simply does. And so, with her PhD in immunology, Liz is uniquely situated to observe the physiological process of becoming whole as she dips her toe into the water of serenity.
Saraswati the Goddess of Learning with Tara Mitra
What does cooking, painting and yoga all have in common?
Listen to this week’s episode of Finding Harmony with Tara Mitra to find out.
Tara is a life long lover of learning, discovering new ideas, people, and places. It seems no accident that her mentor, Guru, and main teacher was named after the Hindu goddess of knowledge, music, art, speech, wisdom, and learning: Saraswati.
Coming Full Circle with Nea Ferrier
Accessing the deepest, most personal parts of herself, and bringing them into the light is at the heart of Nea’s practice. Like Bhuvaneshwari, the great cosmic mother of the universe, who represents space and who creates space for all things. Nea herself, has become a cosmic womb. She creates space within her own consciousness for beautiful experiences to grow and flourish, and is focused on giving birth to her very own divine nature.
A Trip Towards the Self with Barry Silver
Today we interview Barry Silver, traveling artist, explorer of the mystic and esoteric realms. Barry is astonishingly self aware of his own pursuit of cool, and seeking to be cool in the myriad communities he merged with. Whether it was Disco, Kundalini Yoga, Ashtanga Yoga, or the “Burner Community,” he has come back to being himself again and again, finding comfort in acknowledging who he is. Like the Alchemist’s journey, he’s realized that there was nothing to strive for or become, and he oozed cool all along.
From altar building to cathartic scrapbook journaling, Barry Silver has traveled an interesting path to becoming a full-time artist… His work is comic, genius, and generous in a wondrously mysterious way.
Karyn Grenfell: A Hero's Journey
Karyn Grenfell has a very particular and idiosyncratic way of living her life. She is not dissimilar to a Tibetan nun, simply here and present, offering goodness to all beings. She’s not bored. Or at least she’s come to terms with a certain pace of life. And, she’s inculcating that same quality of patience and peacefulness in her child. Karyn is keeping alive traditions that feel as if they belong in another century, a predigital age, activities that keep her refreshingly grounded and self-aware.
If you’re at all in doubt about the value of an Ashtanga Yoga practice, or if you’re fretting and insecure, be assured that the 20 years of practice in a dark room at 3:00 in the morning DOES HAVE an effect…
Emma O'Neill on this Samhain
Samhain or All Hollow’s Eve is an ancient festival of the northern Gaelic islands. It’s a celebration meant to honour the beginning of winter when the demarcation between this world the other is thinned. To celebrate this day and these celestial beings, we present our friend and fellow Canadian, an Irish born lass, Emma O’Neill. She’s a lady who’s quite touched by the gifts that come from a long lineage of Pagan Irish Women. Not only is Emma an Ashtanga yoga teacher, but she’s also a voice actor who in her own words, “was born and placed on stage,” as well as a Mala-Magician, a true artist with beads, imbuing them with her Witchy Irish intuition and Sanskrit incantations to enhance the sacred stone properties….
Lu Duong: The Western Wing
Lu Duong is Principal Director for the Tech and STEM Initiatives unit for The United Negro College Fund and a former communications lead at the very influential education initiative the Aspen Institute. He took his degree in Political Science at Virginia Commonwealth University and applied his expertise in growth and marketing to his interest in Ashtanga Yoga (in his spare time!). We think it’s fair to say, Lu is kind of a big deal (not to mention a incredibly talented, thoughtful, empathetic and all-round fabulous human being).
In today’s episode we asked Lu his professional opinion to the question... “What would you do with the Ashtanga Yoga brand?”
Listen along as he reluctantly explains his opinion from the perspective of a political marketing expert…
Where were you on 9/11, Hanne Sydanmaa?
t is with great pleasure we introduce to you the contagiously ebullient Hanne Sydanmaa from Helsinki, Finland. We asked Hanne to share a bit about the birth of Ashtanga Yoga in Finland, which continues to this day to have the most practitioners per capita over any other country in the world! After only a few years of practice, Hanne had to go back to square one, and relearn this practice in a completely different way than the rest of us.
This is a very special episode that will help anyone dealing with injury or looking for hope in how to rehabilitate their body and practice.
The Odyssey of Kristina Karitinou
If you ever wondered how gods are made, our guest today will tell you they start out as heroes. Our guest today is very much like this. She is larger than life and it makes sense that she married a Golden God like Derek Ireland and bore him two children. They used to make statues of people like them (think Venus de Milo). Kristina Karitinou sits with us today and talks about her epic life story, including her true romance with Derek Ireland, nursing him through cancer, and her subsequent depression upon his death. The pain of this event along with their two small children, shaped the rest of her journey.
A Delicious Poison with Kate
Today we’ve created a Venn diagram of interesting listening…. Here you’ll find the intersection of the dedicated The Last Kingdom fan (secretly in love with Uhtred of Uhtred; and Aethelfled her personal hero), mixing with a keen interest in True Crime Detective procedurals, along with a curiosity in what it might take to become a female weight lifter, or body building champion (and this may or may not have nosedived into an obsession with professional wrestling, who’s to say really). All this crosses over with a love for tea, running, meditation, yoga and nutrition.
Dena Kingsberg: That's Where The Light Gets In
We are blessed today to share our conversation with Dena about her personal transformation from an awkward child into an artist, poet, and rock-goddess architect. She built her home using her own hands and she’s built her life in much the same way. It’s challenging to be a deeply introverted person, while also being called to publicly share the sacred wisdom gleaned from time spent inwardly looking.
Alex Medin: Relax into Life
It is our great pleasure to introduce you to our old friend (and living legend) Certified Ashtanga Yoga Teacher, Alex Medin. Unfortunately this sentence doesn’t do him justice! He’s an excellent and exceptional student in so many walks of life: a boxer, ballet dancer, a Sanskrit scholar, entrepreneur, and humanitarian to name but a few. Not only will you hear his story, but his entire interview is threaded with yoga philosophy and ancient wisdom for the modern human condition.
Maria Boox Love Goddess
In Norse mythology, Freyja (from Old Norse meaning "the Lady" is a goddess associated with love, beauty, fertility, sex, war, and gold. Freyja is the owner of the necklace Brísingamen, rides a chariot pulled by two cats, is accompanied by the boar Hildisvíni, and possesses a cloak of falcon feathers.
Today we interviewed Maria Boox, who in our opinion, most embodies this Freya love goddess energy.