Geoffrey Earendil
Constructing The Yogi’s Journey
Geoffrey’s journey of discovering the deeper practices of Yoga is a familiar one; with its different iterations, it could almost be called the Yogi’s Journey, a variation of the Hero’s Journey. His journey goes like this: While working construction in San Francisco, in 1997, he began experiencing problems with his shoulders and the beginnings of carpal tunnel syndrome. A friend suggested Bikram Yoga. Geoffrey took advantage of the $20 first week special advertised by a new Bikram Yoga Studio in the Marina district. He made good use of the unlimited classes the first week and continue attending three to five times a week for the next three-and-a-half years. Beyond relieving all of the symptoms of carpal tunnel, he noticed that the practice “changed my life in really subtle ways I wasn’t expecting. When I began to realize the subtle changes, I wanted to share it.”
As many people do who explore the ever-deepening path of the Yogi’s Journey, Geoffrey completed a teacher training program more than ten years ago (in Hatha Yoga, for which he traded his handyman skills and built a fence), read every book he could lay his hands on, began teaching when he moved to Joshua Tree soon after finishing teacher training, taught, observed his students, questioned everything and explored how to help the practice become accessible. His second teacher training where he deepened his study of the art of teaching was with the Integrated Yoga Therapy (IYT) program (this time, he traded his illustration skills to help develop a deck of Yoga pose cards). IYT has an inclusive approach (they bring in Ashtanga, Yin, chanting, kirtan, meditation, visualization and other paths and techniques). IYT also provided Geoffrey with his introduction to Yoga Nidra, practices of deep relaxation. He found their approach that helps people identify where they are experiencing separation and then draws on whatever tools are available to heal that separation “liberating.” It gave him, as he said, “permission to use absolutely everything in the service of Yoga.”
This revelation informed his life. “It struck me that being a handyman was Yoga, writing could be Yoga, painting could be Yoga, swimming is Yoga, running is Yoga. Eliminating the separation between yourself and what you are doing is Yoga.” “In classes I try to emphasize that Yoga is not what you do, it’s how you do what you do.” Professionally, he says, everything is part of the Yoga practice. And when it comes to profession, “everything” is a concept Geoffrey knows well. He’s worked in construction and as a chef, during which he performed what he sees as the seva, the selfless service of offering food and feeding people. He has supported himself as a musician and performance artist and a general handyman. In addition, he is a graphic artist and illustrator; these are skills which are not only the currency for which he traded to enroll in teacher training but also skills he utilizes professionally.
Geoffrey lived for ten years in the region surrounding Joshua Tree, working and teaching throughout the high and low deserts before a desire for more community and opportunity inspired the move to LA. While Geoffrey acknowledges that Joshua Tree is a community of artists, he notes that LA has more activism, and “a stronger intention for community-building.” He’s taken that to heart and has moved into an intentional community of artists and musicians in Topanga. In LA, Geoffrey met Jacqueline Marie, his partner in life and teaching at a Fusionart retreat, where he was performing a Japanese butoh dance and leading a drum circle while Jacqueline was facilitating the opening circle using voice and crystal bowls. It wasn’t love at first sight (far from it), but after repeated meetings, the connection was made, and the transformational nature of their relationship is part of their teaching of Nada Yoga, combining the vibration of sound with the power of movement.
The Nada Yoga workshops the two teach together in a process that developed out of their relationship and their joint backgrounds in music, arts and movement. They incorporate sound baths, seven bowls tuned to the seven chakras, Jacqueline singing, toning and playing bowls directly over people’s bodies. The combination of this with medicine drums, devotional chanting and Hatha Yoga and Qigong sequences encourages the movement and direct experience of chi, prana or life-force within the body. Geoffrey also draws upon his experience in the Japanese modern style butoh (its full name, ankoku butoh, literally means dance of the dark soul). This art form features a variety of movements low to the ground, with bent knees. As Geoffrey puts it, this style has given him the tools to guide people toward dancing from the heart center, and the lower dan tien, instead of dancing from the head. People dance in ways they may not have done before, which breaks up congestion and blockage in the body. The full body sensual experience incorporates all of the koshas, all of the multilayered components of the self.
The multifaceted aspects of the self are something Geoffrey has been cultivating his entire life. In college he studied post-modern philosophy. “My last year in college I was thinking about the body, I was approaching the body in terms of theory. The whole time I was disconnected from it, not taking care of myself, subsiding on a diet of coffee and cigarettes with an occasional forty-ounce beer. Both Yoga and dance were ways for me to reconnect with my body.”
Music has also been part of every step of his Yogi’s Journey. Singing since childhood, Geoffrey nourished a teenage dream of becoming the next Steven Tyler, and sang in bands on his way to fulfilling this goal. Now, it’s with a sigh of relief that he confesses he might be dead or in rehab right now if that had been his path. “Being introduced to kirtan has given me the tools to create a much deeper intention as a musician and a singer.” Music, dance, philosophy, illustration, cooking, construction and relationship have all come together in an alchemical process in Geoffrey’s life in this journey where everything has become part of the spiritual path, energetic fuel for spiritual progress.
“In college, I never would have imagined that I would become a Yoga teacher.” Geoffrey continued thoughtfully, “It feels like the perfect culmination of everything leading up to it. Being a Yoga teacher allows me to be a philosopher, poet, musician and dancer, to encourage people to reconnect with their body and open their hearts.” And for him, the study, the practice and the teaching are all intertwined. “The past ten years teaching Yoga have been some of the most humbling experiences of my entire life and I feel that the better a student I become, the better teacher I am; and I’m not done.”
“I’m not done learning by any means.” Geoffrey Earendil teaches Yoga at Yoga Desa in Topanga, Innerpower Yoga in Calabasas and at Be the Change Energy Center in Woodland Hills. He can be reached by email at: gOff2fish@hotmail.com. He teaches Nada Yoga, the principles and practice of healing with sound and movement with his partner, musician, singer and healer Jacqueline Marie: jacquelinemarie.com.
By Felicia M. Tomasko, RN
Felicia Tomasko has spent more of her life practicing Yoga and Ayurveda than not. She first became introduced to the teachings through the writings of the Transcendentalists, through meditation, and using asana to cross-train for her practice of cross-country running. Between beginning her commitment to Yoga and Ayurveda and today, she earned degrees in environmental biology and anthropology and nursing, and certifications in the practice and teaching of yoga, yoga therapy, and Ayurveda while working in fields including cognitive neuroscience and plant biochemistry. Her commitment to writing is at least as long as her commitment to yoga. Working on everything related to the written word from newspapers to magazines to websites to books, Felicia has been writing and editing professionally since college. In order to feel like a teenager again, Felicia has pulled out her running shoes for regular interval sessions throughout Southern California. Since the very first issue of LA YOGA, Felicia has been part of the team and the growth and development of the Bliss Network.