03/05/2025
I rescued this thrift store painting, and gave it a whole new story by adding one of my images. When I first started yoga to help with back pain, I had no idea it was more than just about stretching. Years later, a senior teacher dropped some wisdom: âThe true goal of Yoga is to quiet the monkey mind.â Monkey mind refers to the restless, unsettled nature of your thoughts, constantly, jumping from one thing to another, like mischievous monkeys swinging from branch to branch. Yoga sutra 1.2 states Yoga citta vritti nirodhah - which can be translated to yoga is the cessation of the fluctuations of the mind. In Africa, the most terrorizing animals I encountered werenât the lions or elephants â it was the monkeys. They would stare you down outside your tent, jump on the roof in the middle of the night, and even break into tents, causing chaos just like the thoughts we struggle to quiet. This piece is my playful take on the ongoing challenge of finding inner stillness one breath at a time. The show Fix Up Look Sharp opens Thursday, March 6 from 6-10pm at Northern Contemporary and goes until Mach 18