Living Yoga Off the Mat
Life is a Festival #40: Janet Stone (Janet Stone Yoga)
Photo by Ali Kaukas
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Welcome to a year of Life is a Festival!
It has been 12 months and 40 conversations since I launched this project, and what a project it has become! In fact today’s episode opens with the announcement of some incredible news for the show: I have been asked to perform a live version of Life is a Festival for Spotify’s end of year parties in London and Stockholm next month. This exciting honor bubbled up as life’s treasures often do, thanks to the support and belief of you, my community. I will publish those interviews together as a special Holiday episode so keep you ears open for that.
Today’s episode is perfect for an anniversary. If there’s one resounding theme of Life is a Festival, it is integration. Indeed, integrating festivals, psychedelics and even our regular yoga practice into our daily, sometimes prosaic, experience is the key to living life as a festival. As my mother used to say, only Hanuman the Monkey Man can leap from peak to peak. The rest of us must wander down into the deep valleys in order to ascend to lofty heights. But perhaps we might someday become like Hanuman, if we can only remember our true power.
This is brief but mighty. I am interviewing my yoga teacher, Janet Stone. With her expertise in all aspects of the eight limbed path, Janet manages to pack a curriculum of knowledge into 40 minutes of casual conversation. Now in her 18th year at Yoga Tree in San Francisco, Janet teaches around the world including pretty much every yoga festival in the world from Bali Spirit to Wanderlust.
On the podcast we talk about how to take yoga off the mat and assimilate asanas into our daily lives. We discuss the importance of humor and service, including Janet’s passionate dedication to the environment. Finally Janet tells the story of Hanuman, whose deep devotion to Sita and Rama gave him the power to leap all the way to the island of Sri Lanka.
From Burning Man to the bake sale, Janet Stone teaches us to live life like a festival both on the mat and off it.
TIMESTAMPS
:07 - Burning Man and Ashrams became Janet’s daily life.
:13 - Yoga is about assimilating experience from peak experience to trauma
:20 - Janet’s superpower is deep compassion for the human experience
:22 - The humor pose and that one time Janet worked for Larry David
:30 - The story of Hanuman and the superpower of service and community
:37 - Ways that Janet shows up in service
:42 - Janet’s advice for those who think yoga isn’t for them
Graphics Designed by Andy McErlean
Theme song ““Peculiar Colors” [Manjumasi]“ by dj atish