SharedBliss: Ageless Hippie Chick & Warrior Yogi, Linda-Sama

Linda-Sama, yogi

Listening to: Obviously, I was attracted to this (by one of the singers Linda mentions loving).

Bliss: Last night, Marcy and I just sat and soaked in all the love in our house. While eating pizza...our favorite comfort food. Thank you for all the good thoughts you sent our way yesterday morning.

I've mentioned before that the first blogs I read were Birdchick and Neil Gaiman. When I realized that I like this newfangled technology, I started searching for blogs in my, at the time, primary area of interest -- yoga.

At the time, there were a lot fewer yoga blogs. A lot fewer. But there was Linda, right here.

The thing about Linda, she's not afraid to speak her mind. Doesn't couch things in sweet nothings to make them more palatable. Allows her PissedChick to show and never makes apologies for it.

I like this about her, and I think you will, too.

She also writes a sassy blog called Ageless Hippie Chick, here.

Kali,
An important force in Linda's life.
(And a beautiful example of the
awesome nature of things
like you tube.)

Describe the PrimaryBliss of your life. How did you come to know that this was your PrimaryBliss?

My PrimaryBliss is yoga and my spirituality, Buddhism, but I also resonate very much with the Hindu goddess, Kali. I feel that Kali is very misunderstood in the West but for me she is the Divine Mother, as she was for the great Hindu saint, Ramakrishna. Kali is similar to the Vajrayogini in Tibetan Buddhism, same energy....and I've been told I have the energy of both!

My yoga and spirituality keep me centered and grounded. Both have liberated me from old ways of thinking and have given me emotional freedom.

My personal yoga sutra started over 30 years ago when I was a young hippie chick in high school and I read books on the Eastern wisdom traditions and Native American spirituality. I never connected with western organized religions. Nature was my church. In college in the early '70s, I ran with older hippies and with the college profs who were free-thinkers and iconoclasts. I dabbled in yoga and meditation way back then. Looking back, I WAS Buddhist back then, but I never realized that what I believed in was called Buddhism. I moved out of my house when I was 18 so I had to support myself -- when my friends were running off to India via the Overland Route at that time, I stayed home. I fell off the yoga path and eventually entered the corporate world and worked for lawyers for 20 years.

I developed severe arthritis in my 30s and I returned to yoga about 1995 in order to help rehab my shoulder after arthroscopic surgery -- I have no cartilage in my right shoulder. Even after physical therapy my range of motion was severely limited. I always remembered the mind-body connection in yoga and it just kicked in for me right in the first class. I stayed in a beginning yoga class for about 2 years and the teacher always encouraged me to become a yoga teacher.

They say that yoga helps you discover or re-discover your True Self, and I did. I knew that what I had been doing for so long had to be shed like old clothes, so I began to investigate yoga trainings. I could not get enough of yoga learning and I still can't -- I consider myself a yoga student first, then a yoga teacher. I studied twice with Suddha Weixler at the Chicago Yoga Center. I became a certified yoga teacher at the age of 48, at an age where most of the yogis I admire have been doing yoga for 20 years or more. This summer, at the age of 54, I started my 7th year of teaching. My primary teachers besides Suddha Weixler are Srivatsa Ramaswami, Paul Grilley, and Sarah Powers.

As for my Buddhism, I re-read all those books that I had read when I was in high school, so of course in the new stage of my life, they were more meaningful to me. And at this time, I started attending Buddhist retreats.

As my yoga trainings progressed, I knew I had to study yoga in India, I knew I had to go to the heart of yoga. Taking my first workshop with Srivatsa Ramaswami inspired me to do this. I researched places for about 6 months and then read a story about the Krishnamacharya Yoga Mandiram, and I knew I had to study there.

At the time, my husband was not supportive of this whatsoever and was not supportive of my yoga path. but I told him that I'm going to India and nothing or no one is going to stop me. at the age of 51, having never been overseas in my life, I went to India alone. And as soon as I put my foot down on Indian soil, I knew I had come home. I will never forget the moment that I walked out of the Chennai airport and knew on a primal level that I had returned to my true home. And I have gone to India every year since 2005. It is my Heart's Home, and I know I will die in India. I know this in my bones. There has not been a day since 2005 that I do not think of Ma India.

What types of choices and sacrifices did you make to be able to craft this bliss-filled life?

I have given up the money of the legal profession which in the beginning was hard for me....I have also given up some people in my life who weren't on the same page, so to speak. But I believe all things happen for a reason and people float in and out of our lives for a specific reason. As a practicing Buddhist, I know that nothing is permanent and that both attachment and aversion create our suffering.

How does your PrimaryBliss radiate out into the rest of your life?

I have been through many things in my life -- I am a survivor of abuse, rape and domestic violence. But I believe that my yoga and spirituality and a consistent mindfulness meditation practice have helped me release from many negativities. I truly try to live my life with a joyful presence and I truly believe in the phrase "just this just here just now," because the present moment is all we have, all we ever had, and all that we will ever have. We may not be able to control our circumstances but we can always control our reactions to them.

I took the Five Precepts Ceremony with my Theravadan Buddhist teacher, a Sri Lankan monk, and he gave me the name Sama, which means "harmony" or "evenness" -- he said he saw that in me, although on occasion I don't feel very harmonious!

My PrimaryBliss is also teaching yoga and meditation at a domestic violence shelter to the Hispanic Women's Support Group. It is my seva and I love it. It's my favorite class to teach. Unfortunately, it's only once a month to these women. You can read about it here. Those women have also been my teachers.

What are some other activities that also give you this sense of bliss? Things that make you lose track of time?

Gardening gardening gardening! Being out in nature especially near the ocean -- mountains and hills are too confining for me, I need to see and hear and smell the ocean, it is freedom to me. The ocean's waves, the constant ebb and flow, remind me of Life itself, how everything changes. I don't want to be stuck to the earth like a mountain. But here I am in the Midwest, DUH!

Before I became a yoga teacher, I started a garden design business -- my niche (and I was ahead of my time) was eco-landscaping, the use of native plants in the home landscape, naturalistic design, and educating people on the environment. I was in charge of the first Earth Day in 1970 at my high school. I started gardening at age 4 when I helped my father plant hundreds of tulip bulbs! I've always had my hands in the dirt and I was "green" before that phrase became trendy.

What is your daily or weekly spiritual practice?

I teach 7 yoga classes a week so I might not do my own personal yoga practice on a daily basis, but I always try to get my butt down on the meditation cushion!

What music is your bliss?

All types! see my blog post from the Ageless Hippie Chick about music....

I love blues, jazz, world music, kirtans, old rock, R&B, and soul....singers from Tom Jones to Annie Lenox to Etta James.....my music tastes are very eclectic, and I love to dance.

Name books or authors/poets or people who are your bliss, who influenced your bliss.

To name a few.....

Awakening the Buddha Within, Lama Surya Das
Good Life, Good Death, Gelek Rimpoche (whom I have studied with)
A Path With Heart, Jack Kornfield
Bringing Yoga to Life, Donna Farhi
Yoga Beneath the Surface, Srivatsa Ramaswami

Of course the Sufi poet Rumi and the Bengali poet Tagore

What advice would you give to someone who feels they have not yet discovered their PrimaryBliss?

Always always always follow your heart, listen to your intuition, it will never fail you. Observe, explore, investigate EVERYTHING. Always ask questions, and as Buddha said, judge things through your own experience, never anyone else's. Always go with the flow, because life can change in a second. Never settle for anything that is less than what you really want. Always be grateful for both the good AND the bad because bad experiences are sometimes our best teachers. And always give it up to something that is greater outside yourself.

Do you have a favorite quote you would like to share?

"Let my life force be linked to my heart,
and my heart be linked to the Truth that lies deep within me.
Let that Truth be linked to the Eternal
which is unending joy."

---Taittiriya Brahmana

Linda-Sama is a woman of determined direction, and so her journey will always be intriguing to observe. Thanks to the blogging world, we are honored by that privilege.

Linda is also a woman who reminds us to never, no matter how "old" we think we are (and I am guilty of this, recently turning 40), that it is never too late to follow our dreams or even to discover new ones.