Finding Harmony Podcast Episodes

We can not wait to introduce you to our guest this week: Michael Baidoo. Michael is very unique in that he’s what we might call a “CoVid phenomenon.” He is completely self taught through online resources, social media, and Zoom. And, he is amazing! It’s a delight for us personally as older, less awestruck, students (Harmony and Russell have been doing Ashtanga Yoga for over 50 years combined!) to encounter such an enthusiast for yoga, and for the Ashtanga Yoga in particular. For someone like M...

Observe this seeming contradiction: The sea, once it casts its spell, holds one in its net of wonder forever. Water and air, the two essential fluids on which all life depends, have become global garbage cans. - Jacques Cousteau - Today we are taking a deep dive into the ocean of yoga with Dr. Daniela Ceccarelli as our guide. We’re learning about coral reef ecology, the purpose of counting fish, and what this ultimately has to do with the health of our oceans. While we're down there... we disco...

It is with great pleasure that we introduce you to our friend Anna Guryeva. She graces us a with a marvelous little window into the Russian soul. From the heart of Siberia, she reveals a path to joy. To see the beauty of the Russian spirit, one must understand the generational hardship of the people, and Anna’s narrative, though particular to her, shares this ancestral trauma. To know the horror of the last century, and the centuries of slavery that came before, and Anna’s own personal enslavem...

It is such a joy to meet a human being dedicated to evolution, self discovery, and insight. It’s our pleasure to introduce to you the accentless Englishman, now profoundly Canadian, Geoff Mackenzie! Citizen of the world, swimmer, rugby player, and avid skier… Mysore teacher and Yogic Health Coach. He tells us how his practice has evolved over these past few year, becoming less strict. He’s created a more adaptive approach, more personal, and not dependent on needing to “show your practice off” ...

Richard Freeman and Mary Taylor need no introduction. In this episode, we talk about the dissolution of our minds, bodies, and practices in the face of time. How do we let go of the physicality of the practice? We were curious after 50 years of yoga, how they’ve maintained their enthusiasm in the face of age. What we heard was extremely enlightening, and surprisingly heart-opening. Your whole body and mind are an offering. You are never throwing it away… But rather, allowing it to shine no ma...

It 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! We tried, in our way, to get Hanne to open herself to us… So that you could see the Real Hanne, with her zestful and sparkling personality. Alas, like all Fins, they are hard to coax out from their safe, ...

If you ever wondered how gods are made, our guest today will tell you they start out as heroes. They become big enough to thrust out at Brad Pitt and decide the fate of thousands of women and children. Hector must have been like that… a giant like Priapus or Goliath standing in the way of Achilles. Probably a good sized lad. Maybe even 6 foot 4 and full of muscles. 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 Irelan...

September is National Recovery Month. This national observance has been held every September since 1989, to educate and increase awareness around mental health and substance use disorders. It’s also a month to celebrate the people who have recovered and honor their strength in living healthy and rewarding lives. We are reminded of Malcolm X when he wrote in the forward to his autobiography that 'the lurid gossipy details of his misspent youth were not meant to simply entertain but to educate th...

You know her as Lee. We know her as 이성은 It is with great honor and joy that we introduce you to our very special friend, Lee (this is her last name of course). In the Korean language the last name is introduced first before the first name. Why would that be? What kind of culture believes that family is more important that the individual? The answer is a Confucian culture. Or Kong Ja Nim in Hangul which is of course Korean for the their Language and alphabet: 콩자님 한글 We discussed at length the ...

It’s our pleasure to introduce you to Ann Svärdfelt. Many of you know here as her the proprietor of the Santosha Cafe. Her experience of Mysore is unique. She came to Ashtanga Yoga later in life, already with small children, and as a responsible adult. She stepped into the practice from a very different space than many of us, who were in somewhat of a state of arrested development, bugged out drop outs, wannabe hippies, overgrown, and still living with our parents. Ann didn’t have these advant...

As you’re quickly becoming aware, We, in our little Ashtanga Yoga Land, have a culture. This word stems from the Latin meaning “to cultivate or to toil over.” And, this cultivation of the soil, slowly became a cultivation of the mind. This is were we get the word ‘cult’ from... which is to say, “cultivated, or inhabited.” In a way, our work in yoga, leads our mind to become inhabited. We become Self-possessed. Without really sitting down to talk with Casey Palmer before now, what we noticed i...

It is with great pleasure that we introduce you to our great friend Mariela Cruz. Mariela is one of those phenomenal human that you might find in an Alexandre Dumas classic like ‘The Count of Monte Christo’ or ‘The Man in the Iron Mask.’ Someone who’s heart-centered and gifted with supreme powers of intelligence, wit, and physical prowess! With 7 children, a lawyer, a gifted solo pianist, she also happened to finished Advanced A Series with Sharath Jois in Mysore, India. She was an ambassador t...

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 c...

"By the practice of the limbs of Yoga, the impurities dwindle away and there dawns the light of wisdom, leading to discriminative discernment." “Dukham evam sarvaam vivekinaha.” For a viveki, a person with discriminative knowledge, everything is painful and also, simultaneously, full and sweet. As epic poet, Leonard Cohen wrote, “Ring the bells that still can ring Forget your perfect offering There is a crack, a crack in everything That's how the light gets in.” When you allow yourself to...

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. In fact, if there is one allegory to describe Alex, it's that after our interview he immediately wanted to do it over so we could do it better the second time ar...

It is with great pleasure to introduce you to our dear friend Mark Stephen Pomianowski, known only as Sparky. He is a kind of Bay Area legend, infamous for his sense of humor, and his constant confrontations with wild (and quite literal) death defying situations. “Sparx” (for short) was Russell’s Ashtanga Yoga student in San Francisco, as well as a great master of Chinese Medicine who helped cure Russell’s sciatica. Later, he became Russell’s teacher in acupuncture. Sparky plays bass and class...

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 a woman, who in our opinion, most embodies this Freya sex goddess energy. Longing for a life of adventure since a small girl this desire took her across the world and after man...

For a particular generation of Ashtangi, Dominic Corigliano represents that paternal “cool dad” who knows everything that’s going on in your family and is more than happy to tell you too much about it. He’s like that cool uncle who’s not condescending and knows about the dope hiding in your room. Dom may smoke it with you, but he’s also going to be real honest about the side effects. He’s the first guy you call when you need bail money… But he’s also going to reinforce, “You really need to tel...

Sista Shree, born Regina French, in the First Nation State of Sequoyah (what is now referred to as Oklahoma— okla humma) is an embodiment of the benevolent magic Earth-Mother figure that we all need in our lives. She is a kind of blue-skinned Krishna who vibrates peace and love and makes all beings in her vicinity feel friendship towards her. For us, we’ve always felt a kinship with her - an immediate friendship was formed - since we first met twenty years ago. Sista Shree came on the podcast...

Sitting with Adam is a bit like sitting with David Beckham — they are both from Essex you understand — and are whirlwinds of energy! When Adam isn’t practising yoga, he’s talking, recording his Keen On Yoga Podcast, writing his book, and after all that, asks “what else can I do today?” To which he cheerfully answers, “I know, I’ll cook for them!” Adam has a wonderful lightness to him. His nature is a living example of a powerful creative energy, he embodies the quality of vata (in Ayurvedic t...

In this episode, we speak with an exceptional Brazilian. He’s a Professor of Philosophy and an Ashtanga yoga practitioner. We catch up with Marcos Silva, who is the chief organizing force behind a beautiful initiative to help the forgotten mothers within the Brazilian favelas. Marcos explains how a majority of the Brazilian population is of African Ancestry predestined to live out their lives within the confines of these slums, with little hope for a way out. These mothers, Maes de Favelas, ar...

If you have sensitive ears around please use earphones! The beauty of this episode is that Greg loves to go a little meta! He enjoys questioning and looking at our Ashtanga yoga practice, culture, shared history, and all the accompanying assumptions from a slightly higher perspective, being self-reflective, rather than continuing to perpetuate unhealthy patterns and unhelpful belief systems. We’re sure you will enjoy coming along this journey of inner exploration as we share our unique perspect...

We had a delightful morning interviewing Lisa Marie about her new book: The Goddess Solution: Practical Wisdom for Everyday Life. As it turns out, Lisa Marie is a Goddess, named after the King’s daughter, Miss. Presley. We discovered through our conversation that you are a Goddess too… And that even Russell could use this book (if so inclined). You’ll want to hear at what point Lisa Marie finally broke down and said “To hell with it, I’m changing my life and burning it all down. Then I’m gonna ...

Laura Miguel is founder of Casa Leela and AYPOA, and is a teacher of ashtanga vinyasa yoga, one of the few authorized to teach the method in Brazil by the institution KPAYI, in Mysore - India. Ayurvedic therapist graduated from Suddha Dharma, in Uberlândia - MG, and with a specialization in nutrition from the International Ayurveda Institute in Puna - India. She teaches the ashtanga vinyasa yoga method in Porto Alegre and also teaches in workshops throughout Brazil. We caught up with her in Por...