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This morning in my online Yoga Sutra Study class, we explored Sutras 3.14–3.16, among others.
Sutra 3.14 is: śāntoditāvyapadeśya-dharmānupātī dharmī
The underlying substance of something remains consistent, while some aspects of it move through changes: the past, the present, and the future. The past hasn’t simply disappeared, and the future hasn’t appeared from nowhere - both exist in relationship to the causes, conditions and potentialities unfolding in the present.
Sutra 3.15 continues: kramānyatvaṃ pariṇāmānyatve hetuḥ
“The difference in the sequence is the cause of the difference in transformation.”
In other words, transformation does not happen randomly. What something becomes is shaped by the sequence through which it unfolds. Change one part of the sequence, and a different transformation becomes possible.
Then Sutra 3.16 teaches that through samyama - deep concentration, meditation and absorption - on these three forms of transformation, knowledge of the past and future may arise.
I have been thinking about this a lot.
Things feel hard right now. I feel isolated, and I feel as though I have put so much effort into trying to find lesbian community in Bali, with little success. It has now been a few months since I came out publicly as queer, and almost a year since I started actively speaking about it with others, and in that time I really only made one other lesbian friend in Bali, who left the island, and I dated one woman, who I am no longer seeing. Theres no lesbian events here. I know it would be easier if I were living somewhere that was more open minded, where being gay was more part of the local culture and accepted.
Being lesbian now has also changed how I feel about returning to the Middle East, and now I don’t think I’d ever go back to live there. I used to think I would return one day, but now I think I won’t.
I sometimes I wish I had realized I was a lesbian when I was a teenager. I imagine that perhaps this transition would have been easier if I had begun it earlier.
Then I think about kirtan.
I was first introduced to kirtan when I was 22, but I didn’t begin leading it until eleven years later, in 2025. Sometimes I wonder how my path might have changed if I had begun leading kirtan back then. Perhaps it would have brought me more quickly into contact with parts of myself that I was not yet ready—or able—to name. Perhaps I would have come out sooner.
Sometimes I think about leaving Bali because I feel so lonely here as a lesbian, or at least here in Ubud. I wonder whether life would feel easier in Australia, Thailand or even back in Canada.
And yet, if I had understood myself as a lesbian at 16 or 22, I probably would not have moved to the Middle East to begin with. I might never have come to Bali. I might not have built this life than I have, or become the teacher I am now.
It is astonishing to consider how the path of a life is shaped by sequence: one experience preparing the ground for another, one transformation revealing the possibility of the next.
I don’t think this means that everything is predetermined, or that we should remain passive in circumstances that cause us pain. Yoga does not ask us to abandon discernment or conscious action. It asks us to see clearly.
The present moment has arisen through innumerable causes and conditions, but how I meet this moment becomes part of the sequence too.
In addiction recovery circles we call it “pulling a geographical” when someone changes location to avoid pain.
Is me thinking about leaving Bali what am I doing right now? Or would I genuinely be happier somewhere else?
Perhaps the invitation is not to insist that everything is happening exactly as it “should,” but to recognize that this moment contains both the residue of what has been and the seeds of what may still become.
I am here now. That is the dharma of this moment: to meet honestly what is actually present, while listening carefully for what life is asking me to do next.
Life in Bali has not always felt this difficult. Perhaps this season is revealing something I could not see before: the depth of my need for queer community, the limits of the life I have built, and the possibility that something may need to change.
This, too, is pariṇāma—transformation.
Amidst all this, I am also five days off Instagram again, and I can see more clearly how my relationship with it has been clouding my perception. I think I did it that way on purpose - my constant tendency to reach for my phone helped me avoid facing deeper emotions. The compulsive checking, comparison and searching for connection scattered my attention and diverted my energy from the places where genuine connection might actually be built.
In yoga, clear perception matters. When the movements of the mind become quieter, we can begin to distinguish between what is arising from fear, what is arising from habit, and what is arising from intuition or love.
So, for now, I will continue to stay off Instagram. I will keep turning toward connection - with myself, with the community available to me here, and with the people I share practice with online.
I told my students this morning that meditation is how I have found my purpose. Through meditation, I begin to see my next steps - not always as a complete plan, but as the next honest movement.
At times, this process has felt like destruction. I have been dismantling parts of my business and releasing identities and structures that no longer feel aligned. But perhaps what looks like destruction from the outside is sometimes transformation from within.
There is a poem that comes to mind:
“For a star to be born, there is one thing that must happen: a gaseous nebula must collapse.
So collapse.
Crumble.
This is not your destruction.
This is your birth.”
—Zoe Skylar
As I continue deepening my meditation practice, clarity keeps arriving—not all at once, but gradually, sequentially.
The past has subsided.
The present has arisen.
The future remains unnamed.
And perhaps my work is not to know exactly what comes next, but to become quiet enough to recognize the next step when it appears.
Watch this space. A new birth is already underway.
UPCOMING ONLINE OFFERINGS
• Full Moon Women’s Circle on August 29th.
• Online Yoga Sutra Study starts September 7th.
UPCOMING IN-PERSON OFFERINGS
• Sober Women’s Retreat in Mexico December 27 - January 2nd
• 300-Hour Advanced Yoga Teacher Training January 31 - March 10 in Bali
• 200-Hour Yoga Teacher Trainings in April & June 2027