FREEDOM
This was my editor's note from July 2, leading up to the holiday.

This weekend we celebrate freedom. We celebrate the legacy of independence, forward-thinking, rebellion, citizen activism, our collective individual rights, our ability to vote and speak our minds.

This is what this day means to us and what being born, growing up in or moving to this country at this period of time means. With this celebration, I believe we also have a responsibility to cultivate and to maintain these freedoms.

We can look at freedom at an individual level: Where are we imprisoned in our lives? Where are we stuck? Where are we holding ourselves back unnecessarily? What are the blind spots we’re not seeing? What are the obstacles we can break through? When we consider our individual freedoms, when we realize the truth, we know that we are already free. Freedom, liberation, enlightenment—these are our birthrights. This is what we are born to experience.

Living in this time and this place we are fortunate to be exposed to the teachings of Yoga and Ayurveda, in all of their paths, iterations, complexities, traditions—that offer us a template, a roadmap and an ability to discover and experience freedom. When we surrender and soften into ourselves, we know it, believe it, breathe it and embody it.

On Monday morning, July 5, we have the opportunity to go on this journey with Arun Deva (whom I recently had the pleasure of interviewing for the July issue teacher profile) exploring the Alchemy of Consciousness and the Transformative Power of Personal Practice at the Sivananda Center in Marina del Rey.

When we think about our larger freedoms, our ability to choose how we spend our money, what we purchase in order to enhance our health and well-being and our prerogative to support small farmers and ethical businesses, is also part of what it means to live here, in this country, at this time. I believe using our voices to maintain our freedoms is vital. This morning I read community member Tommy Rosen’s account of the recent FBI raid at the private food club Rawsome. (Read the account here.) Whether or not you believe in raw food, unpasteurized milk or the basic premises’ of this club, there are dangers in overregulation, in not allowing us to make choices, in the increased corporatization of our food supply, of factory farming and the dangers we are subjected to with lack of labeling around GMOs, proliferation of dangerous pesticides and other issues. At Rawsome, full disclosure is part of the deal. With true full disclosure, then we really have the freedom to choose. Freedom to choose is part of our independence. And this freedom to choose, I believe, should be more than just freedom to choose which brand of sugar-coated, GMO and pesticide-filled cereal in a box we buy.

If we believe the adage that practice, and all is coming, then do we dare to ask ourselves how are we practicing freedom in all areas of our life, on and off the mat, in and around our minds.
Happy Independence Day and to Freedom!