1. Your thoughts create your reality. So racism doesn’t actually exist. It’s just your evil thoughts. If you choose to think this way, that’s all you’ll see. I choose to think love and light, so that’s all I see. Also, I’m White. #radiatepossiblity
   
   
2.  99.95333333~= % of people do not have a racial bone in their body. They have a thigh bone, but they don’t have a racial bone. Without racial bones, you cannot be a racist. I learned this in my yoga teacher training anatomy class attended by all White people and led by a famous White male teacher.
   
   
3. I live in a highly diverse White neighborhood. In light of recent events I learned from Instagram, I tried to see color for the first time in my life and was amazed to notice so many people of color. Would you believe that of the 125 people arrested for social distancing violations in my community, nearly all of them were Black or Latino? Who knew there were so many people of color here? I had never acknowledged their existence before because I don’t see color— I just see someone’s love and light truth.
   
   
4. I’m that girl who listens to gangsta rap on my to yoga. My t-shirt says so. #ghettosuperstar #throwonsomegangstarapandhandleit
   
   
5. I’ve been surrounded by people of different colors for as long as I can remember making up my own reality! I grew up in a very White neighborhood and went on to live in another even Whiter one, but still I‘m just so grateful for the remarkable diversity of this bubble I call home. Just look at this picture I posted on Instagram of me and a Black person from my teacher training in India three years ago. Not that I ever noticed her color. If I ever had to describe her, like, to the cops, I’d say: She’s a tall, love and light-radiating being! I forget her name.
   
   
6. My daughter has been surrounded by all different races her whole life in our highly diverse Whitopia. We eat black lentils. And would you believe she studies French? She speaks a completely different language (ish). As for me, I know Sanskrit after a weekend spent memorizing its alphabet! My mala beads are black! Our home is a living, breathing colorless melting pot where we never, ever talk about race. (We’re White, so we don’t see color!) We are so blessed to live with this rich diversity we imagine exists in our crisp, white lotus-flowered lives.
   
   
7. I’ve heard of Black people getting killed by the police, but I don’t really take notice. This is because I choose not to see color or read news from a reputable source that isn’t astrology-based or pay attention to anything in the world beyond my “Whitopia” love n’light bubble. I just carry so many good vibes in my heart.
   
   
8. “All lives matter” is a much more eloquent way of saying “good vibes only” or “we don’t give a Ganesh about systemic racism because we cannot see it as we’re too busy ignoring the world we live in while we use our privilege to create a unicorn-ful, good vibe-ian, kale-juiced “reality” while blasting gangsta rap instead.” Look, we can either choose good vibes only, or bad ones. 99.6333% of positive vibes have the power to kill both bad vibes and Coronavirus. It’s as Martin Luther King said, “hate cannot drive out hate, good vibes only can do that.”
   
   
9. My name isn’t Karen.
   
   
   
10. I treat everyone the same because we are all one. Does this allow me to ignore and even contribute to long-standing systemic racism that privileges Whites? That makes no sense to me, as I only see the oneness of love and light and not the reality of anything going on in the world. #goodvibesonly
    
    
11. On my Instagram there’s a picture of me with a Black person from a yoga training I did three years ago. Have I mentioned it? Not that I posted it because she was Black or re-shared it or talked about it five trillion times in the last month because of that. It’s not like I even noticed her color. I’m colorblind. I don’t even see the black in my morning coffee. All I see is its latte love and light. #goodvibesonly.
    
    
12. I teach hip hop vinyasa. #spirituallybypassygangster

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“Godd Vibes only” Illustration herein by the inimitable @unrulyascetic aka Zoe Ward

https://www.instagram.com/p/CA-bg1_Dq5w/

https://www.instagram.com/p/CCvsh1bC7Di/

Yoga Community, Your Love and Light is Not Working

Since we first announced plans to reopen when deemed safe by our resident taskforce (consisting of an astrologer, a Shaman, Reiki Master and Doterra Diamond seller) many yogis have asked how we plan to ensure safety in light of a pandemic, killer wasps, the end of days, and so on, in an enclosed, heated, airless room without windows. Our strategy of ignoring reality is outlined below, but the short answer is this:

Our beloved hOme will proceed as if everything’s okay because we believe in positive vibes. Only.

Spreading Love & Light (Not Corona):

Good News! Because you practice yoga with us, you’re already 99.57% inoculated against contracting the virus, according to leading yoga science experts. The sequence we do literally squeezes cooties out of your system and eradicates them from the universe, according to no scientist ever. When coupled with “positive vibes only” this yoga is practically designed to combat the spread of any and all diseases including ones that haven’t been invented yet from animals you haven’t heard of. (Just in case, avoid the zoo.)

But we’re going even further:

• In an abundance of caution, students named “Karen” will not be permitted in the studio (save for our Shaman, who happens to be a white woman named Karen from Laguna Beach).
• If you have traveled to a non-organic grocery store, kindly please self-quarantine.
• For extra immune system protection, we recommend purchasing our 5-day Corona Kidney Detox, subsisting on nothing but liquified blue algae and Fruit.
• Upon entry, students will be screened for symptoms of negative vibes. Any student exhibiting signs of negative vibrations or an awareness of reality will be asked to leave immediately.

Saucha! Yoga Room Safety and Disinfection:

After measuring our yoga hOMe and examining our nonexistent ventilation system, our unpaid cleaning staff of karma yogis has informed us that there’s absolutely no way our typical classes can fit in our space. But this amazing yoga hOMe has always valued creating our own delusional reality, so we’ve tackled this by posting “NO COVID-19 ALLOWED/POSITIVE VIBES ONLY” Vision Boards on every door and wall. We are manifesting a Covid-free space with these visions: If you dream it, you can achieve it, my lovely souls.

To show how seriously we take the situation, we have provided “AURA CLEARING MIST” spray at every point of entry to clean any negative energies. (Please note Aura Clearing Mist is not functional hand sanitizer.) Teachers will clean the space after each class, but as we don’t pay them for this or monitor their efforts, your guess is as good as ours. For added protection, sage brush your practice area before each class.  Positive Vibes Only!

Student Safety in Our Sanctuary:

How can we have a dozen students (or forty, thanks to our inventive manifestation of abundance imagining our space as quadruple its actual size) breathing heavily ujjayi style, flinging sweat droplets, all while they wear masks that they can remove whenever they want?

We’ll be moving some classes al fresco in the park this summer, but mostly not. Our community has decided to believe only the science we like (i.e. yoga teacher science, of the very same that brought you “pulling” is the object of stretching and “fish pose cures gallbladder cancer” and so on) and similarly only the theories of virus spread that we like. In sum:

It’s fine, whatever. Good Vibes Only! 

Still, we’re vigilant in observing the protocol we made up: requiring each student to purchase these custom moonstone mala beads with stones for the throat chakra (thus Corona cough inoculation) and perform 108 drop backs while chanting “Bibbity Bobbity Boo.” Students are also requested to consume a bowl of the cereal “Lucky Charms” each day, because you never know. We understand the hardship of consuming refined sugar, but in these times we all have to sacrifice for the greater good. 

Love Conquers All!

Retail:

Rest assured, REIKI healing energy is applied to each mat and towel before given to the customer, along with a Care Bear Stare. Live, Laugh, Love!

Teacher Training:

Our annual TT is taking place as usual because we think everything’s going to be fine in a week thanks to an abundance of positive vibes and Mercury coming out of Retrograde. All attendees will be accepted, regardless of whether they fly in from live animal markets in China or after “licking public subway turnstiles”** in New York City. Our 20 luminous TTs will hang in our stuffy yoga room for entire days and weekends– why,  it’s going to be like the old, pre-Covid glory days we shall pretend still exist! We’ll practice assisting each other (Touch!) and breath of fire exercises to flush negative energies while spreading respiratory droplets. Heck we might even bring back unconsented, creepy assault-y assists just for shits and giggles. We ask that upon arrival, our TTs make frequent use of our “AURA CLEARING MIST” stations, always start with the right leg, chant Om three times, and charge crystals on the full moon– just in case. All students will also receive a welcome package containing a “Positive Vibes” branded face mask (to use or not use depending on one’s positive vibe frequency), a “LOVE CONQUERS ALL” anti-Covid Vision Board, kombucha, a lucky penny, and the other half of this missing locket. 

Come hOMe to our Positive Vibes!

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* This piece was inspired by this hilarious article about University Reopening https://www.mcsweeneys.net/articles/a-message-from-your-universitys-vice-president-for-magical-thinking

**”licking public subway turnstiles” is a funny phrase I took from a post of the wonderful yogi Sean Haleen

Cover Drawing by Zoe Ward aka @unrulyascetic