How one class grew from the roots of reading and writing to an urban garden that shapes our thinking about food, community and the journey from the field to the table.



In this class, students are encouraged to reflect and blog about what resonates with them during the work we approach each week. Once a week, usually later in the week, my students submit entries, we go over them and see what will get posted. ~Mary Ann D'Urso, Instructor




3/24/2010 - Yoga, A New Experience

Teacher Mary Ann D"Urso, assisted by yogi Emma Magenta, going vertical for her students.


I've studied yoga on and off for about 10 years, most of it off. Since last April, though, I found my way back. My teachers always talk about "the yoga" -- applying "the yoga" on and off the mat. The union of the self. The inner making room for the outer. Finding light in the dark of the body's resistance. Breathing into a kink and pulling out strength. Yesterday, my first yoga teacher, Emma Magenta, one of the best yoga teachers in the country and director of South Mountain Yoga in South Orange, volunteered and came to introduce my students to yoga.

Woven into a month celebrating women, our school designated some special programs about health and wellness. It was really something to see my students doing yoga. I am reminded always of the things that i forget in the middle of my day. That silence is difficult for my students. That laughter masks nervousness. That encouragement, again and again and again, is essential to all of us and some of us need more than others.

Emma was Emma: the essence of grace and yoga. Her clear instructions, walking my students through movement, helping them find their "warrior" selves, calling their "downward facing dogs," pushing them to stretch for the sun -- they breathed in this new language. With each coaxing, they found new openings. Me, too.

Mary Ann D'Urso

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