I read these words from Sarah Bellamy, artistic director of Penumbra Theatre in St. Paul, recently:

“We are bone-tired, exhausted from generational trauma, from hyper-vigilance, from news of recurring violence in this country. This is not a celebration. It is a potent, single dose of relief.”

Upon reading them, I sagged in my chair, my body going limp as a flood of relief flowed through me, breaking the bonds of being held too tightly for more than a year.

I asked myself these questions: What is the truth of this shared generational trauma?

What is the role of truth-telling, or satya, as we understand it from the 8-limbed path of yoga?

How am I to recognize truth?

What am I to do with it?

When George Floyd was murdered last May, Green Lotus made a commitment to learn and listen before speaking. Whatever we collectively wrote or videotaped in the days immediately following the ebbing of George Floyd’s life as it played out right in front of us seemed tepid to some and overreaching to others, even on our own staff.

Some of us expressed our feelings and thoughts on our personal SM pages. (Mine is here if you wish to read it. Another link, Yoga Alliance’s communication to its members following the conviction of Derek Chauvin, is included, too. I encourage you to read it.)

Listen we did – especially to those whose voices reminded us that while our hearts might be in the right place, we could never fully comprehend the poisonous effects of racial injustice suffered by the Black community or any of the BIPOC communities. Located as we are in predominately White suburbs becoming slowly more diverse, the truth lay bare, finally, for us. In addition to listening to leaders and members of the Black, Indigenous, People of Color, South Asian, Latinix, immigrant, and LGBTGIA communities, we needed to listen to and talk with those “of our own kind” – read, Whites – who harbor and cling to deeply imbedded beliefs about “the other”. The truth is this: It is much easier to step out and up with important statements of support for racial justice than it is to sit down with someone (or oneself) and ask where these fears and resentments originate and what fuels them until they explode in actual physical violence – or in systemic violence like limiting the vote and redlining. How does an alternative history get passed down from one generation to another until any hope of looking at facts as the basis of solutions becomes hopeless?

The 8-limbed path of yoga demands examination, it insists on truth-telling, second only in the ten observances of living a life of value and meaning, to non-harming.

Truth be told, breaking the dark pattern of injustice in all its forms cannot happen without breaking down injurious, deep-seated belief systems. Those of us trained in iRest, a form of Yoga Nidra, and in fields of psychology and social work, know we humans cling ferociously to our beliefs and will create “facts” or interpretations of facts to protect them. Truthfully, our words and actions will be rendered less effective if directed only toward the communities that are hurting and not toward those who inflict the hurt. We yogis must stick together, yes, and we also must go out as coalitions and sit with the perpetrators, to face them, and dare to say again and again, “This belief that you hold is not the truth.” Taking this action is not easy to do, as my daughter learned a few years ago when she tutored a high-school boy in rural Wisconsin who was struggling with history. When they reached the part of the curriculum that dealt with the Holocaust, he was flabbergasted that a White person so close in age to him did not share his same view of history. As the two of them kept at it, digging and digging, talking and prodding, the young man confessed that his family had told him forever that the history books are the Big Lie when it comes to the Holocaust. Slowly, painfully, they kept talking. This bravery, this perseverance is what I think it is going to take to turn away the dark force, not just the single conviction of one Derek Chauvin or even of a few more of those like him. I think it happens in communities in close conversation, an incredible task as my daughter learned at a young age. I used to have this energy and this patience. I hope, to God, I still have it in me.

The search for the truth about racial and social justice and societal inclusion at Green Lotus comes down to examining what we’ve always said: “Green Lotus is for all.” What does that really mean?

All means:

Tall and short, wide and slim, the young and the old. All means the heavily tattooed and the non-tattooed. It means people who can touch their toes and people who cannot.

All means Black, Indigenous, People of Color. It means South Asian and Latinix. It means immigrants, all immigrants. It means Jews, Christians, Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists, Christians, Mormons, agnostics, and atheists. It means gay, lesbian, transgender, the whole continuum of gender and orientation. It means she/he/they and him/her/them. It means the field worker and the desk worker - and the entrepreneur, too. And it means Whites.

Together, forming our own coalitions about racial and social justice, talking frankly with each other in forums and privately, then we can do the work. We can take yoga’s teachings of truth, love, compassion out to where the dark fear resides – sometimes in our own hearts – and systematically help release it.

We’ve – I’ve – much to do, bone-tired or not.

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Marcia Appel

In 2006, Marcia, a former journalist and corporate executive, wrote the plan that launched Green Lotus. In 2007, Green Lotus opened, and Marcia and business partner Merry Beth Hovey, who joined in 2009, planted the seeds of service that are the foundation of the Green Lotus philosophy. "As teachers and healers," Marcia says, "we meet students and clients where they are. We learn and grow from each other -- and have fun doing it."