Finding Harmony Podcast Episodes

Very often our podcasts are a coming together of old friends, conversations which sometimes unravel into talking about something funny, strange, a little bit weird, or “culty,” just like we would be sitting at a chai-stand in Mysore, India. Sometimes though, we call on a person who looms much larger in our minds, a giant in our industry, whose life experience, we know, has fundamentally altered ours; just by the sheer courage of the choices made in their era. Beryl Bender Birch is one of those ...

If there is one thing we have learned this year it’s that no matter how uncomfortable we are, it’s always better to try and engage in conversation whereby we can learn our neighbor’s perspective. We should, whether it be our Trans or Trumpist family members, attempt to reach deeply into the wound that’s created a particular pattern and find compassion and understanding for hearts, that like our own, experience fear, grief, and pain. To that end, we’ve asked the ebullient Shanna Small onto our ...

In our 43rd episode we sit down with Spiros and Erica. On the surface this is an unlikely pair. What is perversely intriguing however, on speaking with these two, is how uniquely suited they are to each other. What shines through their every interaction is intelligence and insight. With every topic we brought up whether it was Los Angeles, the criminal justice system, the State of Ohio, the Tarot, or the Trumpist identity, they brought a profound sense of layered self-aware contextual discernme...

Every once in a while on this show we like to pull the blinds down (or the pull the curtain away) and show you what it really sounds like at the Chai Stand gossiping on Gokulum High Street in India. Tim Feldmann is hilarious (unfortunately for him not quite Jewish) and shares a very similar sense of humor to Russell. The two of them create their own little giggling world together and we are delighted to share this hour exploring Tim’s life with you! Tim appears to be a Dane. He comes from a ni...

For the New Year and for the Dawning of the Age of Aquarius that it seems we’ve now fully entered… We have done the impossible for you! We’ve nailed down the spinning melodic kites that are Richard Freeman and Mary Taylor. What is truly incredible about these two is their enormous sense of self-awareness to the fishbowl world in which we all live. They know themselves and they see you, seeing them, and within this awareness Love comes to light. They become (as one of Richard’s books suggests...

David Swenson is someone in the Ashtanga yoga circle who needs no introduction. He began his journey of Yoga in 1969 when he and his brother Doug were arrested for stretching in a small park at the end of their street in Houston, Texas. There were few sources for yoga at that time so they practiced from whatever books they could find. He tells us about how he met David Williams and Nancy Gilgoff in Encinitas, CA in 1973 following in brother’s spiritual yoga-surf journey. This naturally flowed i...

In the decades that followed the Korean War, over 250,000 Korean children were sent abroad, to be adopted by foreigners, for many reasons, but most prominently was the incredible weight of economic hardship facing these parents, and all of South Korea during those years. It is referred to as the Han Diaspora. Born in Daegu, South Korea to Korean parents, Hojung was given up for adoption at a very young age. She was adopted and raised by Flemish-Belgian parents in Europe, who, shortly after her ...

We sat down with our close friend Loreto Cortés recently. Russell asked her what it was like living in Chile during Pinochet and fascism. (Something that has been on his mind recently). Loreto said of that time in her childhood that: “In that time everything lacked colour. After Pinochet our world became brighter and filled with light.” We probed Loreto and her experience as an activist, artist, and yogi. We were fascinated by her universe. Loreto is an actor and as such she can reach her emoti...

Today it is our distinct honor and pleasure to introduce Sharon Moon. This is a one of Russell’s most revered friends, colleagues, his mentor, and teacher. Russell met Sharon in 1998 when he was 23 years old (younger than her grandchildren are now). Sharon was instrumental in pushing Russell towards studying the traditional method of Ashtanga Yoga in a real Mysore Room in NY. She has an enormous heart and has guided him over the years in his decisions. Sharon tells us about studying with David ...

We are delighted to share with you a conversation with our fellow podcaster Nathan Thompson: Poet, Journalist, Buddhist Practitioner, and self-taught Ashtangi, as well as the host of the Escaping Samsara Podcast. Nathan is a peculiar sort of Englishman. In that he is entirely self made. He seems to have created a career for himself by weaving together a colorful tapestry, in the way that Americans used to (or were assumed to have done in the old days). The English, as Russell will tell you, hav...

It’s American Thanksgiving this Thursday and we have so much to be grateful for. This conversation with Samantha Lucas reminds us all just how much we tend to take for granted every day and how an entire life can be forever altered within mere seconds. From polyglot to major (major league) baseball fan to motorcycle enthusiast, Samantha Lucas has a plethora of interests that have taken her on adventures across the globe. Her Ashtanga yoga practice though, never became more valuable than when sh...

This week we had the pleasure of sitting with one of our oldest friends, Andrew Hillam. It is always a surprising thing to chat in public and this conversation was no different. We expected that Russell and Andrew would slide into familiar scatological tropes but instead Andrew’s insular and introspective nature shined through. We had a "quiet is the new loud" type of conversation with him on topics such as raising children in India, cooking in the flow state, and the comparison of playing musi...

In Ballet, the term développé means to "unfold," or open outwards in a “developing movement.” In this episode we sit down with Shelley Washington where she gracefully unfolds different aspects of her journey. When you are in Shelley’s presence you feel you are sitting with a star. Someone who is deeply reflective and her essence shines through in every way. We were also love crushed by her in Mysore, India, even more so, because of her enormous heart and generosity towards us. In this episode,...

Whether it’s politics, pandemics, protests, or Ashtanga yoga, we’re all unavoidably immersed within a world of duality, or maya, meaning illusion, and it’s a game we cannot truly escape. Yoga however, teaches us to move through our lives as gracefully as possible, accepting the positive and negative, the accolades and losses, while rebalancing and reclaiming our sense of inner equanimity. We speak to Prem and Radha Carlisi, who speak to us about their personal history and how they’ve grown into...

The Chinese have a curse “May you be blessed to live in interesting times.” Today we spoke with Timothy Lynch, an artist, father, philosopher, husband, activist, and deeply connected human being. One thing we could all agree on was that these were certainly “interesting times!” Timothy Lynch spoke to us about the personal sacrifice he made. Like in a giant cyclical wheel, the bubble of energy expanded… Ashtanga Yoga was triumphant and golden at the turn of the millennium, and all things seeme...

When we’re at home, most of us practice with a different intensity than we do in Mysore, whether it turns out to be more or less postures is another story. We spent an afternoon discussing what this looks like and why we do what we do with power couple Kate O’Donnell and Rich Ray from Ashtanga Yoga Portland Maine. We talked about Advanced Asanas and our relationship to them both personally, as well as collectively. The first aspect we discussed is what sacrifices a person must make to practice ...

We were blessed today to catch up with our dear friend Todd Boman. Todd and Russell were both born in the Pontiac Memorial Hospital in the 70’s. Probably right along side Madonna Ciccone, a neighbor. Todd has a unique story to share. Growing up in Michigan as a young gay male is its own peculiar hellscape. He understood immediately (and by that I mean junior high school) that being gay in the 80’s and 90’s likely meant death from HIV/AIDS. Surviving the darker side of this AIDS crisis in America...

We were absolutely blown away when Robert Moses related the current pandemic of the Coronavirus to a powerful transformative goddess, Ma Corona Devi. In this way, we most certainly felt like it was a blessing of the Mother Goddess Corona Devi, that this esteemed teacher of yoga, Robert Moses, came on our podcast to share with us personal stories from his incredible lifetime on the spiritual path. Starting with being born in South Africa into a Jewish family, growing up during apartheid, to tra...

Harmony and Russell are at heart amateur archivists of the emerging yoga punk scene that grew up in the heart of Generation X. For us Lisa Schrempp embodies everything that is cool about how we did things. Angry, disaffected, latchkey kids, having to make dinner by ourselves; we made everything in our world by hand because no one else was around. That’s punk. And that is Lisa Schrempp to a T. Lisa was a 17 year old human gazelle and modern dancer in Chicago. She received a scholarship to dance ...

Bibi Lorenzetti is (obvious to anyone who meets her) a star. We are absolutely delighted to have her on the podcast. But one thing you will find, as Madonna put it, when you are a star there is probably something wrong with you. And, like Russell and Harmony, Bibi shares body dysmorphia and has suffered with anorexia nervosa. The urgency to “progress” at the physical side of the yoga practice, often comes at the expense of one’s health, which is traced more deeply to an old feeling of insecurity...

We had the great pleasure to interview our good friend, partner of Harmony’s dear friend Lara Land, the amazing Thimo Wittich. What strikes people about Thimo is his wonderful kindness and good humor. He is very much a sadhaka, like Rolf Naujokat and Swami Agehananda—all Good Germans. Ultimately, just good people that seek to heal the world through mindfulness practice. Thimo sat and discussed a wide range of topics with us: The Ancient Catholic Carnival of his home town Cologne “Köln”, the ant...

From her early origins in a full Opus Dei Catholic school in England to landing the part of Ariel Sharon the Israeli stripper in the blockbuster movie Striptease to becoming a leading figure in the Ashtanga yoga community and now holding the Guinness World Record for the longest held downward facing dog, Kimberly “Kiki” Flynn has lived a fantastical life. As student of Lee Strasburg’s “Method” School of Acting in NYC, she also began learning Kundalini yoga in 1982. Shortly afterward, she was re...

In this episode of Finding Harmony, we’ve decided to take a little "Breathing Break." We wanted to share some funny stories and talk about our experience with the fourth limb of the eight-limb yoga path: Pranayama. During these especially stressful times, we felt it was important to share with you some of the many benefits that cultivating a regular breathing practice can have on your body and mind. If you want to learn more about practicing the 4th limb of yoga: Register for my online Pranayam...

In this episode we catch up with dedicated Ashtangi, mother of two, and highly acclaimed jouranlist, Bethany McLean. She is also an author and contributing editor to Vanity Fair, who lives in Chicago. Bethany’s gift is understanding where the bullshit is, and uncovering it. As Russell said “To put Bethany McLean in context, imagine if in Die Hard Jon McClane takes down Hans Gruber in a cowboy no due process kind of way, then its Bethany who uncovers the rampant embezzlement at Nakatomi Plaza!” ...