There is a teaching in yoga that has accompanied me for almost three decades, and the older I become, the more I understand that it is not merely philosophical, but profoundly human: everything is maya. Everything is illusion. Not illusion in the sense that life is unreal, but illusion in the sense that what we perceive is rarely the thing itself. What we see is often the projection of our memories, our fears, our desires, our wounds, our longings, and our inherited shadows dancing against the walls of our internal cave. Much like Plato’s allegory, we spend so much of our human experience believing the shadows to be truth. Believing that what we perceive is reality itself, when in truth it is filtered through the immense architecture of the psyche. Through yoga, I began understanding that the path toward liberation is not about escaping the world, but about learning how to see clearly within it. To walk through the cave carrying enough light to discern what belongs to truth and what belongs to projection.
This is why yoga is a system of illumination.
For thousands of years, yogis have spoken of the 72,000 nadis that weave through the body, subtle energetic pathways that become gateways toward awakening. I often think of them as 72,000 points of entry into our own cave of shadows. 72,000 opportunities to bring consciousness where there was once unconsciousness. Through practice, through breath, through discipline, through devotion, we illuminate these pathways little by little, allowing clarity to emerge where there was once fog.
For twenty-eight years, I have devoted myself to this path. I have opened my living room to teach. I have opened a shala to gather in practice and community. I have walked this path next to my husband, allowing yoga not only to shape my body, but to shape the architecture of my life, my relationships, my discernment, and my spirit. And what yoga has taught me most deeply is not how to escape the shadows, but how to walk among them without becoming consumed by them. Because the true path of yoga is not toward asana perfection; it is toward mind-body illumination. And this is why the Eightfold Path, Ashtanga, has become such an important map in my life. Some may see it as rigid commandments, but for me they are living principles that constantly reveal where consciousness is clouded and where truth is asking to emerge.
The yamas, the ethical restraints, were the first great mirrors for me. They revealed how much suffering is created not only through physical action, but through unconscious projection. Ahimsa, nonviolence, taught me that violence does not only exist in harm done by the hands, nasty words, or emotional and mental manipulation, but also in the ways we unconsciously project our pain, our fears, and our unresolved shadows onto another. Compassion became possible when I understood that ignorance itself creates suffering. The Hindu activist, Mahatma Gandhi, embodied this beautifully. Ahimsa is love mature enough to see beyond the wound, where forgiveness lives and soothes the heart.
Then came Satya, truthfulness. And perhaps one of the deepest revelations for me was understanding that truth is not always absolute, even more so when we travel between worlds. Every person carries their own perspective, their own lens, their own interpretation of reality. But Satya asks for accountability. It asks us to stand behind the truth we choose to embody and express. To become responsible for our words, our actions, and our intentions. It reminds me so much of Sagittarius energy, raw, direct, unapologetic, sometimes lacking prudence, but honest in its nakedness. What you see is what you get. There is coherence in that. Satya, and my Sagittarius Sun, taught me that integrity matters more than performance or pleasing others.
Asteya, non-stealing, expanded my understanding of reciprocity. Finally, I can tap into my Libra Rising, and the projected Aries in my house of “the other.” We often think stealing refers only to material or intellectual things, but throughout life we steal in many subtle ways. We steal time, vitality, ideas, attention, validation, opportunities, even identity. We take what others have cultivated and worked for without acknowledgment. Yoga taught me to become more aware of the energetic exchanges constantly taking place between the individual and the collective, the true Aquarius golden-age promise. To recognize the sacredness of honoring what belongs to another. The importance of weaving my thread while potentiating that of others.
And from this awareness emerges Brahmacharya, the wise use of energy. The sage force of Capricorn, nourishing in order to preserve the roots. Once we begin discerning where consciousness becomes distorted, we naturally become more intentional with our life force. Our attention becomes sacred. Our time becomes sacred. Our vitality becomes sacred. We stop scattering ourselves into every distraction, every conflict, every illusion demanding our energy. Brahmacharya became the practice of asking myself: where do I truly want to place the precious force of my life? That which does not come back once given: my time.
Then comes Aparigraha, non-attachment, one of the teachings that has liberated me the most. The mysterious Scorpio who in silence transmutes poison into medicine. Yoga constantly reminds us that life is cyclical. Everything rises and dissolves. Everything blooms and eventually returns to the earth. Like the Tibetan monks creating intricate mandalas only to sweep them away, we are reminded that the beauty was never in possession, but in devotion. Perhaps this is why one of the deepest mantras I have cultivated through the years is: IN KARMA I TRUST.
This trust has softened my need for personal justice. Especially with Pluto rising in Libra within me, always longing for equanimity, fairness, and divine balance. But yoga taught me that there are forces far greater than my individual will. Even though the Taurus in me wants to embody equanimity and beautiful comfort, there is an intelligence moving through existence itself. Karma, beyond the effort to work toward what we desire, educates. Life spirals constantly toward evolution, returning to each soul the exact lessons necessary for growth. My role is not to control the spiral, but to walk through it consciously and gracefully.
And once we begin understanding what distorts the path, the niyamas invite us into what nourishes it.
Saucha, purity, became the practice of clearing the internal space. Our inner landscape, the subjective self we carry in this beautiful body of ours. Purifying thought, speech, body, intention, environment. Creating enough openness for light to move through the system unobstructed.
There is something deeply Virgoan in this practice, an innocence that longs for coherence. And coherence is the torch of my path. The heart of Leo that, with charisma, leads my path and defends my ground.
From there, Santosha, contentment, revealed itself as one of the greatest spiritual disciplines. Because the world is not always fair. Duality guarantees contrast. Light and shadow continuously dance through the human experience. Contentment is the ability to remain centered amidst both expansion and contraction. To cultivate peace not because life becomes perfect within our projections, but because we stop demanding perfection from something that never existed.
And then comes Tapas, the sacred heat, the fire of discipline. The devotion to continue walking the path even when the fog returns. Because Pisces is vast, and it is in its waters that we might learn to alchemize all that our soul is meant to experience, even when the shadows reappear. Even when the illusion becomes seductive once again. Tapas burns through the samskaras, the unconscious imprints that keep us trapped in repetitive cycles. It is through this sacred fire that the nadis slowly illuminate.
But for true transformation to happen, we must practice Svadhyaya, self-study. And perhaps this is why astrology became such a profound companion in my journey. Through the movements of the cosmos, I began understanding that there is a greater intelligence unfolding through life. A larger evolutionary agenda beyond the preferences of my ego, beyond what I wish to experience or avoid. Astrology taught me to stop asking, “Why is this happening to me?” and instead ask, “Why is my soul moving through this experience?”
Life is cyclical, and perhaps the only thing truly worth carrying from the past are the skills and wisdom gathered through experience. The rest can so easily become story, nostalgia, identity, and weight. My Moon in Cancer knows this gently and lovingly, learning this one experience at a time. And eventually, through all of this, we arrive at Ishvara Pranidhana, surrender to the divine. The understanding that there are forces moving through us greater than our individual control. That we can trust the intelligence of existence enough to walk through the thresholds life presents without becoming imprisoned by resistance. Sometimes all we can do is keep walking, trusting that somewhere within the darkness another nadi may illuminate, another doorway may open, another layer of fog may dissolve.
The remaining limbs of yoga then cease to be isolated practices and become ways of living.
Asana gave me the posture to remain upright through life’s thresholds, building the verticality necessary to sustain light within the body. Pranayama taught me how to gather information from the external world, metabolize it internally, and continue breathing through transformation. Pratyahara became essential: the withdrawal from illusion, the purification of the senses amidst the noise of projection and distraction.
Dharana, concentration, taught me to remain devoted to my path. To understand that while others critique, gossip, or disperse themselves outwardly, my task is to continue doing my work. To continue cultivating what brings coherence, meaning, stability, and truth into my being.
And eventually, life itself becomes meditation. A repetition of sacred disciplines. A repetition of returning. A repetition of devotion. Cycle after cycle, threshold after threshold, life after life perhaps, we continue refining consciousness through these limbs.
And maybe one day, through all of this living and dying, through all of these spirals of light and shadow, of maya and revelation, of forgetting and remembering, perhaps we may aspire to touch Samadhi for even a moment: the dissolution of separation, the integration with the whole. I aspire for the transit of Uranus in Gemini to bring the possibility of dreaming with this.
And maybe that has always been the true path of yoga. Not challenging the illusion, but learning how to walk through it consciously, carrying enough light to SEE.
This is my cave.
On a personal note, one of Mahatma Gandhi’s teachings has accompanied me deeply through the years, especially knowing the fire that lives within me: my Sagittarius nature, my quick tongue, my passionate convictions, and the intensity of having Mercury and Uranus in Scorpio.
Gandhi once said, “Bite your tongue before creating harm,” and I still work with this teaching constantly. Because if I am honest, Sagittarius will often place Satya, truth, before Ahimsa, nonviolence. The fire wants to reveal, expose, uncover, sometimes forgetting that truth without compassion can also wound.
And yet yoga continuously reminds me that everything we say about another often reveals more about ourselves than about the person we are speaking of. Our words emerge from the architecture of our own cave, from our memories, projections, fears, wounds, and perceptions. In this sense, every judgment becomes a mirror. Every reaction becomes a doorway into deeper self-study.
This understanding has softened me. It has taught me to pause before speaking from the heat of projection and instead ask myself: what part of my own shadow is asking to be illuminated here?
It has also given me the courage to ask for forgiveness when my words have caused harm through passion, through reactivity, through the fire of conviction. Because passion, etymologically speaking, is suffering, and sometimes suffering speaks before wisdom does.
Perhaps this is also part of the yogic path: learning that discernment without compassion becomes violence, but compassion without discernment becomes illusion.
