"In my dreams I am walking again," the twenty-four-year-old Syrian tells me from his wheelchair that his friends have lifted him into after their overcrowded raft arrived on the shores of Lesvos, Greece yesterday. He was paralyzed by a sniper in Syria, now one of 11 million Syrians who have been displaced from their homes [...]
Author’s note: I am in Lesvos, Greece to work on a project with Angela Farmer and then to take the two week workshop she offers with Victor Van Kooten. As soon as I arrived, I learned about the refugee crisis as rafts were arriving on the shore right in front of the place where [...]
In April, my friends and I arrived on the island of Lesvos to soon realize we had landed smack in the middle of the biggest refugee crisis since World War II. Rafts arrived daily from Syria and Afghanistan as well as Pakistan, Palestine, Iraq, and Iran. We quickly learned how to stockpile supplies in our [...]
In an autobiographical essay on yoga and meditation, Silvia Boorstein looks back on her decades-long work as an activist and yoga practitioner, saying, “I am more zealous than ever about social activism. I see my activism as an aspect of spiritual practice, the natural result of being less frightened, as well as a sign of [...]
It’s the eleventh day of a thirteen-day yoga retreat on the island of Lesvos in Greece at Angela Farmer and Victor van Kooten’s yoga studio. I wake up wondering how we could already be at day eleven, the days and evenings running faster than sun-warmed honey. This is a trip of a lifetime for me, [...]
