About Alice

Summer of 2021

New York City has an unstoppable, ever-changing quality that I love. The walks I’ve been taking recently, south of where I live on the west side of Manhattan, have left me feeling, “It’s a new day!”

So much has emerged in these neighborhoods which were once urban wastelands – much of it during the austere COVID-19 year.

The Irish Arts Center has moved to a new space on West 51st Street. A bit south, there is new construction featuring apartments with entire walls of glass. In a new development by the Hudson River, there is a geometric fountain built into the cement that turns colors, and on these balmy, summer evenings, people are enjoying picnics in the parks, while listening to live jazz or viewing a gorgeous sunset. There is a feeling of peace in the city.

I’m grateful for the silver linings of the COVID-19 year. For me that meant practicing regularly and deeply, reading some deeply inspiring books, taking long walks every day, and enjoying the beauty of a quieter, more stark NY City. Over the past year, I also deepened my knowledge and expertise of using yoga to heal a wide range of medical conditions by working in Dr. Fishman’s office as a yoga therapist.

COVID-19 reminded us that life is short and our time on the planet is precious. It may have also increased our awareness of our interconnectedness with others. So with a new season upon us, I’m asking myself and now you:

What’s next, now that sheltering in place is mostly behind us? How do you want to spend your precious time and energy?

During times of change and transition, my daily meditation practice (even more than the physical practice of yoga) is the one constant that grounds and centers me and enables me to access insights that inform my decisions.

Please don’t hesitate to reach out if you want to explore the benefits of a meditation or yoga practice. A silver lining of the pandemic is that we have mastered using Zoom for yoga and meditation so we can practice—and teach—wherever we are.

Who I Teach

A diverse audience; current and past students include:

• • • Columbia University postdoctoral fellows
    • Singers, dancers, musicians, and writers
    • Therapists, dentists, doctors
    • People suffering with therapeutic issues and chronic illnesses
    • Teens living with HIV
    • Yoga teacher trainees (mentoring in philosophy for certification exam)
    • The healthy aging crowd
    • Bankers and corporate professionals
    • Association for Financial Professionals’ annual event: Meditation and Mindfulness in the Age of Volatility: Essentials for Financial Professionals

What I Teach

• • • Alignment and therapeutics
    • Meditation
    • Presence and awareness practices
    • Grounding, calming, centering
    • Brightening your mood
    • Micro meditation and yoga practices
    • Self-inquiry
    • Self-care, foundations of well-being
    • Wisdom for uncertain times

For information on group classes and workshops, sign up for my newsletter in the footer below.

My Intention

My intention is to help people experience deep-level healing and wholeness through Yoga and its core practice, meditation. It is ultimately to help people discover and become intimate with the deepest, truest part of themselves.

The etymological origin of “heal” is “to make whole.” When we become familiar with and rest in our truest, most authentic Self, we’re resting in the part of ourselves that is whole.

The Yoga traditions refer to this deep, true self as the atman, or the Self; Buddhists refer to it as one’s essence-nature; many modern-day Teachers refer to it as one’s essential self. In secular parlance, it’s primal awareness.

There are many ways to become familiar with our truest self, including via a secular exploration of the nature of awareness.

Everyone’s Yoga journey is unique. Often it’s the desire to heal a therapeutic issue, to deal with mental or emotional suffering, or to find ease and balance in our lives, that brings us to the mat. In our journey, we might heal physical issues, come into better alignment, release stored grief, learn how to calm ourselves, or discover our innate vitality and joy.

As a Teacher, regardless of where we are in our journey, I’m always interested in these questions:

Influences

Yoga As A Healing Modality

“Yoga for Osteoporosis,” “Yoga for Arhtritis,” and “Yoga for Back Pain” with Dr. Loren Fishman

Yoga4Cancer with Tari Prinster

“Yoga As Medicine” with Dr. Timothy McCall

Anatomy and Therapeutics, Ellen Saltonstall

“Working with Difficult Emotions and States” with Sally Kempton

“The Essence of Buddhist Psychology” with Jack Kornfield

“Tantric Psychology” with Chris Wallis

Original Anusara Yoga Teacher Training and Certification (2007 – 2008)

Meditation

My approach to teaching meditation is informed by my deep exploration of yoga philosophy, my love of diverse wisdom traditions, and my curiosity about different meditation approaches. My primary Teacher—of meditation, nonduality, and the philosophy of Yoga and Tantra (Kashmir Shaivism and Shaktism) since 2008—is Sally Kempton. I have also studied philosophy and meditation deeply with these world-class Teachers:

Bill Mahony, Vedanta, Bhakti Yoga, Kashmir Shaivism
Paul Muller-Ortega, Kashmir Shaivism (Workshops and The Siva Sutras)
Chris Wallis, Shaivism
Chris Tompkins, Shaivism
Mark Dyczkowski, Kashmir Shaivism
Carlos Pomeda, Overiew and History of Yoga, Vedanta, The Bhagavad Gita and The Bhakti Sutras, Patanjali’s Classical Yoga, Kashmir Shaivism and Kundalini Yoga
Rudrani Farbman Brown, Origins of Yoga, Vedanta, Classical Yoga and Kashmir Shaivism

As part of an independent study on mindfulness, I immersed in Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction, with Florence Meleo-Meyers and Saki Santorelli, and Power of Awareness, with Jack Kornfield and Tara Brach.

I also include among my most important influences: Rupert Spira, Teacher of nonduality; Eckhart Tolle, Teacher of presence; Llewellyn Vaughn Lee, Sufi Teacher; Lex Hixon, Teacher of diverse traditions and the “open space” beyond all of the great, noble traditions; and Joseph Campbell, “mythologist” and writer.

Wisdom Traditions

It’s been fourteen years since I started my deep dive in the formal study of Yoga philosophy. I am still on fire for the wisdom of Yoga, especially for the “View,” texts, and practices of the pinnacle of the Yoga traditions, Kashmir Shaivism.

My teaching is also informed by:

• • • • • Classical Yoga’s foundational wisdom
        • Vedanta and the direct path to pure awareness
        • The mystical core of Christianity and other paths of the heart: the Hindu Bhakti tradition and Sufism
        • Taoism’s wisdom on effortless action from a still center of being
        • Buddhism’s wisdom and practices for mitigating suffering
        • What Lex Hixon referred to as “the open space” beyond all the great traditions
        • Secular meditation and mindfulness practices which increase our intimacy with our own awareness
        • The growing body of rigorous scientific research that shows how meditation changes the brain
        • This question…
      What would love do?

What I Love

In my original teacher training I was voted “most likely to be found on a beach in Mexico with a stack of Tantric texts.”

I’m drawn to beauty, delight in creativity, and cherish authenticity.

I started practicing yoga when I was navigating a universal human experience—the loss of a loved one. In my first classes, I experienced yoga’s power to shift our mental and emotional state and to create deep feelings of well-being in body and mind.

Through the physical practice, I’ve healed my own therapeutic issues and through a deep, ongoing practice of meditation, I’ve re-connected with an underlying, ever-present current of contentment.

One day when walking on Amsterdam Avenue, aware and appreciative of the diversity of New York City, I had this thought: “What a wonderful life it will have been—to have shared the practices of meditation and yoga with so many different people.”

I love…

• • • • • The diversity and vibrant pulse of New York City
        • The night flight to London
        • The Yoga of art
        • Music, poetry, theatre
        • Sam Gold’s production of King Lear with Glenda Jackson
        • The way Broadway sparkles at twilight
        • The rocky coast of New Hampshire and Maine
        • Small New England towns
        • Beauty—in nature and in architecture
        • Curling up on the couch with a book and a cup of tea
        • Meditating and journaling to capture a flow of insights
        • This deep feeling of well-being in my body-mind
        • Sharing the practices that help us access more spaciousness
        • Helping people not suffer and connect with their center—their contentment and intuition
        • The brightness in students’ eyes after class
        • The radical, positive shift in someone’s state after they’ve touched into a deeper dimension of themselves
        • Teaching group classes in thunderstorms or when the snow is falling
        • Using Powerpoint and my Tibetan Bowl to teach in the workplace
        • Capturing moments of beauty with my iPhone camera
        • In summer, the golden, early morning sunlight that floods my parquet floors and white bookshelves
        • The four seasons
        • The planes of Yoga which are a wonder