New York-based digital strategist by day and full time, lovingly nosy, mom of a teen, I’ve been surfing and working on the web for good part of the last 15 years. The Soul Style Diary was born out of my need to bring together and express under a coherent theme my eclectic interests, random thoughts and fleeting reflections on everyday’s life.

Like for many people, Covid19 has forced me to pause from my fast-paced New York life and given me time reflect. A blessed time, a much needed break, which I have chosen to use to deepen my yoga practice.

Yoga & Meditation

Yoga has been a long time love of mine. I started practicing Yoga in my teen years with Carlo Patrian, a pioneer of  Yoga in Italy, in Milan. There, I started the path of Raja Yoga. For a few years, I practiced meditation and Hatha Yoga, as well as studied all I could find on the subject. After that, choices and life have taken me across countries and continents and in/out of yoga for over two decades. In 2017, I found a new yoga home with Paula Tursi and her Reflections Yoga For Conscious Living in NYC. The center is now closed due to the pandemic. Indeed, COVID19 has caused many losses for the Yoga community worldwide as many yoga studios have closed down. On the other hand, Yoga teaching has switched online, thus making it more accessible. That’s when I decided to make the best out of a difficult situation and started to pursue the yoga teacher certification, which has also led to the meditation teacher certification with Yogamu.org.

At the time of writing (August 2021), I have obtained a 200hr Yoga Teacher Certification (almost finished with the 300 hr!) and a 200hr Meditation Teacher Certification. I’m definitely not finished -this is the path of a lifetime after all, but I finally feel I’m coming home to myself.

My approach to Yoga is holistic. I believe that asanas, the positions that most people usually think of as Yoga, are just one of the many tools that Yoga offers in a path of self-discovery and transformation. I currently teach Hatha Yoga, including Yin and Restorative styles, and Yoga meditation in its many forms such as: breath awareness, chakras, yoga nidra, mantra. In my classes, I like to guide the students, and myself -because I learn each time I practice Yoga whether I am teaching or not, towards increased awareness of our physical, emotional, mental and spiritual bodies by employing the wonderful techniques that the Yoga masters have developed and transmitted to us throughout millennia of practice and devotion. I currently teach mostly one on one classes, in person and/or online.

Soulful Living for the Earth

The experience of the last year has helped me focus on, and clarify, my mission (or dharma in yoga terms). Since my teen years, my perspective has been to look at society and the world as a whole, a living organism. This organism is made up of people and the environment around them. My desire has always been towards bringing more fairness, and giving everyone the possibility to fully realize themselves, their talents, their inclinations for the greater good of the world. Just like every cell in our bodies is created with a specific job to do and it is supplied with resources to do it properly -unless some disease intervenes, for as long as we live. Humans should learn from the billion-year intelligence of life on this planet and mimic this organization rather than trying to force something that is clearly not working, with the arrogance of our handful of millennia of experience.

Undoubtedly, we are living in a time of change, profound, epochal change. It is affecting all the three fundamental aspects of life: spiritual, social and physical.

Spiritual change: because quantum physics has been revolutionizing the idea of our place in the cosmos, in the order of things. Our perspective is changing and this must change our behavior; otherwise, we will get stuck in the old view and we will inevitably disappear with it. The certainty of Newtonian physics, on which we built the industrial revolution, has to make space for the fuzziness and mysterious behaviors of quantum particles/waves with profound philosophical consequences. As our certainties disintegrate in view of modern scientific discoveries, the emerging new wisdom looks very similar to the ancient one. Modern physics theories, like this recent cosmology article, resonate with the concepts of the ancient spiritual traditions (like the Samkhya in the case of that specific article). Therefore, I can’t help but to think that we are approaching full circle.

Social change: because in a society more globally connected, capable of producing enough to allow every human being to live with dignity, disparities are rising. Instead of improving the distribution of the resources towards the well being of all, they tend to be more and more concentrated in the hands of few for their exclusive benefit. The rising inequalities forewarn only future conflicts

Environmental change: because the greed that has been ruling the social behaviors has devastating effects on our planet. I believe that the biggest challenge of our generation, not only socially and economically but also spiritually, is the environmental crisis that has been caused by the mindless exploitation and waste of natural and human resources with the exclusive objective of creating financial wealth. As a mother, I feel compelled to do my part in order to leave a better world to the future generations and this my way to start doing it.

How will we humans adapt to these changes? Will we be able to change so we can enter a new era of global planetary civilization or will we be stuck with our cultural divisions and perish miserably with them? Humanity has been going through similar changes before, and, if history has taught us anything, it is that our way has been violence until a new balance is achieved. This is how it usually has been going in previous ages of profound cultural changes:

Science advances create technological advances which destabilize existing social structures. Consequently, conflict explodes between the old world order (resisting change) and the new world order (bringing change). Until, inevitably, the new world order prevails and society reorganizes itself around new principles.

Think of the first industrial revolution brought about by Galileo Galilei’s new view of the solar system:

The discovery of the solar system -> development of navigation by the stars -> imperialistic worldwide expansion -> wars with locals and among imperial powers  -> United Nations (almost 400 years, and many many wars, later!)

The only way to avoid this repeating is to turn the process upside down and start to change at an individual level. The ancient wisdom of the sacred texts of the Indian tradition, the Vedas and the Upanishads upon which Yoga has been developed, are the most comprehensive guide to this new perspective. There’s one cosmic consciousness and we’re all in it. We’re all connected. Therefore, to evolve out of this looming disaster, we need to leave behind the individualistic materialistic view of the world that has created this reality, to build a different one. 

In this case, individual change will bring about the social change that is needed to save the planet. It all starts with me, and you and you, us … all …

It’s all about reconnecting. Let’s reconnect with our cosmic Self, let’s reconnect to one another, let’s reconnect with Nature to imagine a different future together. 

Where attention goes, energy flows. Let’s create a different future! Remember, it starts with me and you.

One Love,

Maria Elena