Recently I was named an expert in a Rent. article. Check out the featured article: How To Create a Peaceful Home | Rent. 

​This article provides a variety of thoughtful suggestions to help create a calming ambiance, achieve tranquility with visual elements and music, maintain your space’s energy, make an altar, utilize calming scents, avoid sensory distractions, incorporate natural fibers, prioritize comfort and self-care items, add personal or inspirational items, and more.

It is wonderful to have a space to call your own and to shape to your needs, and even shared spaces can be shaped to your needs. But reading this article also reminded me how important our space is at The Spiral Goddess Collective. In fact, we only exist because of this space in the Clark Building at 16 State Street in Downtown Bangor.

Before I discovered this space and grew SGC here, I taught dance, yoga, and embodied movement practices in all kinds of spaces (I still do). I taught high-octane fitness classes at the Bangor Region YMCA, free yoga classes on the UMA-Bangor campus and via Zoom, and I taught many other practices that I have further developed since opening SGC in 2022. And we have grown because of our amazing, talented curators and teachers who have expanded our offerings.

Our offerings—weekly classes, workshops, and retreats—are unique and empowering. And they are even more impactful because of our space.

The Spiral Goddess Collective space—our Spiral Studio—is a sanctuary, a haven a home away from home, a community center, a safe space, a brave space. It is a space to connect with yourself and to connect with other people in our community. And it is a space to connect with ideas that are bigger than we are—all of the knows and unknowns of our universe, all of the richness of our world.

As I read this Rent. article, I was struck by how many suggestions are elements of our Spiral Studio.

The plants help breathe life into us as we move our bodies and minds.

The soothing sounds from our stereo or from Sen’s sound healing instruments create a calm atmosphere for rejuvenation. (Or the eclectic music in our dance classes that provide motivation to leave it all on the dancefloor!)

The art—on the walls, in our oracle deck collection, and in the sacred objects—inspire introspection and conversation. Many of the objects hold special significance for me—my grandmother’s tea set and my mother’s paintings, for instance.

Our bolsters, blankets, blocks, and other tools (like our Neuro Balls!) help us to take care of ourselves and each other.
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Our healthy snacks, teas, and treats—the very popular ginger chews and Andes mints—provide sustenance and joy.

The natural light on sunny days, the fading and shifting light in the evenings, and the colored lights that fill the space in the darkness provide a variety of seasonal sensory experiences depending upon the time of day and the time of year. And all year long, the view of downtown Bangor and the Kenduskeag River remind us of our shared past, our present moment, and our hope for the future.

Our Spiral Studio includes so many peaceful elements and an array of colorful inspiration. It is truly a space like no other. It is a space for movement, for connection to ourselves and others, for community building, for resourcing ourselves and supporting causes like Bangor Pride, mental health awareness, and healing and recovery that meets you where you are.

I think we have created the perfect home away from home—the third space where you set aside work and embrace play, finding joy and comradery, peace and presence, well-being and balance. When you climb the four flights of stairs, the sanctuary that greets you is worth the effort. It kind of feels like home.

One of the reasons that I wrote Demystifying American Yoga is an attempt to make yoga more accessible amidst a sea of flashy promises, inaccessible images, and dangerous myths.
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Pretty much every yoga teacher has heard the myths and excuses people make about why they can’t do yoga: I’m not flexible, it’s too slow (or too boring), I don’t have time, it’s too expensive—and many more reasons that I explore in my book.
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Because there are many different kinds of yoga—many different approaches, different practices, different goals—yoga’s diversity quickly squashes pretty much any excuse. But, we have to find the right kind of yoga, and that’s often the hardest part.

It’s easy to make excuses and sometimes these excuses reveal what’s under the surface, which are even better reasons to try yoga. Here are some of the most common excuses:

I’m not flexible—while flexibility is not a requirement for yoga, this excuse reveals more mental inflexibility than physical. Yoga can help foster both of these kinds of flexibility.

it’s too slow (or too boring)—I took Imke’s Vinyasa Flow Yoga class after not doing this style of yoga for a long time and it was neither slow nor boring!

But this excuse also reveals our inability to be in stillness, to be with ourselves without all of the distractions that our culture provides. Yoga helps us cultivate a relationship with our self and when we slow down, we help to renew and rejuvenate our mind/body/spirit.

We can choose a slow flow, like my Spiral Flow Yoga, or we can choose a yoga workout—both bring a variety of benefits. And there's so much more to discover at Spiral Goddess, and beyond!

I don’t have time—this is not untrue for many of us. We are expected to always be on the go, to be productive, to not waste time on things that don’t have an immediate, measurable impact. We spend time doing things for other people, sacrificing time for ourselves.

But yoga doesn’t have to take a lot of time and when we make time for ourselves to practice yoga, we might find that our ideas about time, our perceptions of time, and our priorities of our time shift. We might find that we make better use of our time and enjoy our time more.

It’s too expensive—again, not untrue. Some yoga is very expensive, perpetuating many other myths about who belongs in a yoga studio. But there are many affordable outlets for yoga, including online videos and other resources.

And at The Spiral Goddess Collective we offer Accessible Pricing options as well as scholarships. So, here, yoga is not too expensive.

However, this excuse also reveals the edge of what we value—what we choose to spend our money on speaks to what we value in ourselves and in our world. When we choose to invest in ourselves by buying (and attending!) yoga classes, we reap many rewards in the short and long term. When we practice regularly--on and off the mat, in and out of the studio--the benefits are even more profound and impactful.

When you choose to invest in classes and workshops at The Spiral Goddess Collective, you are also investing in your community and providing the opportunity for others to benefit from yoga as well.

Strength, flexibility, balance, emotional regulation, pain management, better sleep, a nervous system reset, better circulation, authenticity and so many more benefits can be found through a regular yoga practice. If you aren’t sure where to begin, just reach out and we’ll help you find the kind of yoga that will inspire you to keep investing in your self-care and wellbeing.