Description
Yoga saved my life. May it help you to live yours.
If you’ve ever asked yourself, “Is there more to life than this?” this book is your answer. With a blend of personal anecdotes, expert yogic teachings, and reflective exercises, it’s a companion for every phase of life. Embrace the opportunity-take this journey, explore your inner world, and redefine your reality.
With Kundalini Yoga, you can find your authentic voice and true self, alter your engrained narratives, and upshift your own life higher and higher. With dedication and devotion, the practices in this book help you to release blockages that become stored in the physical and mental bodies, resulting in suppression, separation, and pain.
From being photographed by Pamela Hanson for my first professional portfolio in the wheat fields of Colorado, I have navigated a journey of fantastic and sometimes blistering experiences with over four decades of yoga, meditation, and Ayurvedic diet. I started blind in Paris on a one-way ticket to “make it” as a professional model. After months of fruitless auditioning, on pluck and providence, Guy Bourdin considered one of France’s most famous fashion artists and photographers, took one concerted look at me and booked me for 6 months at French Vogue. From his photos and legacy, my image is now in museums worldwide.
Then contracted as a model with Eileen Ford, who brought me from Paris to New York, exuberant and riding high on the energy, I broke both arms pedaling a bike down Fifth Avenue to a Mademoiselle shoot. Always intent on “Showing Up,” I went to the Ralph Lauren show the very next day, as I was cast to walk the runway and sadly had to observe instead, double-casted. This immediately sparked my advocacy for model protection, and I was one of the first to advocate for emergency insurance. When privacy on set for models became a reoccurring issue, I used my voice and championed those privacy rights along with Jerry Hall.
In my next “stage,” I stood on my head to audition for The Bristol Old Vic Theatre School where I graced the same boards as Daniel Day Lewis and Anthony Hopkins. Seeing Daniel by chance on Kensington High Street in London shortly after acceptance, he was among the first to congratulate me, and I helped him choose a pair of moccasins to wear while filming The Last of the Mohicans. After many years, I encountered Anthony in Santa Monica at a green juice bar, and we exchanged a hug, recounted the personal fable about expulsion from a pub in Wales, and shared our love for Rudy, a highly respected teacher from The Bristol Old Vic who taught me to “calm down my eyebrows.”
While still modeling and acting, I raised two very young children, living a very full householder life. I happened to be the daughter-in-law of Laura Ashley who created a fashion empire and left us a legacy championing women, a reason you often saw Princess Diana wearing Laura Ashley. At an opening of a new Laura Ashley factory in Newtown, Wales, Princess Diana told me, “Don’t be ridiculous!” when my 9-month pregnant self tried my very best to curtsy. As I looked up to respond and receive her wisdom and initiation in absolute awe, she softly smiled, and we giggled in agreement. I have always revered both as icons of the Divine Feminine.
Hopefully, my stories of being poked, provoked, and confronted, which eventually led to surrender, change, and elevated awakening, will resonate with your experiences and provide guidance and support as you find a way in and through your challenges to make your life full of love, humor, and forgiveness, compassionately honoring yourself, others, and the planet more carefully and intimately. Let us meet and greet each other with love along the way, blending our hearts, communities, and paths into One.
Karuna is the author of Light on Kundalini: Your Lifestyle Guide to Yoga and Awakening. For over 40 years, Karuna has studied Yoga, working from the “inside out.” Her certification is with the Kundalini Research Institute (KRI) including Level One, Two, and Three Teacher Training Programs and Prenatal Yoga. She practices Ayurvedic healing and is an ordained Interfaith Minister. As Co-Founder of Light on Light Publications and Media, Karuna is Host Editor for its magazine’s annual Yoga editions in partnership with the International Day of Yoga Committee at the United Nations. She lives in Boulder, CO.
