Table of contents for Issue 2 in YOKE Magazine

The ancient Sanskrit root for yoke is The ancient Sanskrit root for yoke is ‘YUJ’ which is the root word of yoga. The word yoga means 'to be yoked'- the spiritual concept of 'being yoked' means to join or connect, to form a bond, to unite. As the American writer and mystic, Thomas Merton, put it, “happiness is not a matter of intensity, but of balance, order, rhythm and harmony.” We are overwhelmed by the notion of being the perfect spinning top in this crazy world that is whirling faster than ever before, and how well we spin depends on how well we are balancing our lives. We give credence to this elusive concept as we live in a world of duality that constantly changes from moment to moment. Everything…

Most of us are aware that yoga is facing the dual challenges of Westernisation and commercialisation. The practice today has significantly shifted from how it was practised in India millennia ago, and with the rapid rise of teacher training courses around the world, we feel that the exploration of yogic philosophy and the conversation about what yoga means off the mat are more vital than ever. In the first issue of YOKE we featured four yogis who generously shared their thoughts on life, yoga and living in the city. In this issue, we feature three more yogis who continue this theme and include their views on balance, what meaning and judgment is placed on it, and also explore their philosophies on teaching.…

"I knew that I was going to experience a death, that I wasn’t coming back the same person." Edo It’s hard to describe what Edo & Jo create together. Jo Mall Kahn with her soft, gentle, yet powerfully weighty voice, and Edo Kahn with his ability to make soulful and infectious music, come together with enviable radiance and love for each other and the world, dedicated to consciousness and seva (service). Individually they are divine humans - together, they seem like a perfect celestial creation. Edo - formerly of Gelbison and the Kahn Brothers - and Jo - a classically trained musician and yoga teacher - have come together as mantra musicians and singer/songwriters, travelling the world performing a soothing blend of Eastern mantra and Western pop, grounded in the…

Celebrated Buddhist contemplative, philosopher and student of physics, B. Alan Wallace, believes a balanced mind is not only the key to an active, fulfilling and joyful life, it may also help unlock the secrets of the universe. “It pretty much defines the way I teach," he explains. “Whatever I am teaching always comes back to the theme of balance, which is just another way of saying ‘middle way’. So yes, I am very keen on balance.” Dr Wallace has been a scholar and practitioner of Buddhism since 1970, a passion which he has more recently combined with his scientific studies to further his understanding of the human mind. Having spent 14 years training as a Tibetan Buddhist monk, he returned to the US to earn an undergraduate degree in physics,…

The world of the Physical Culturist has been much derided. In some quarters it is seen as pure egotism, just a way of producing aggressive lumps, self-absorbed and even dangerous individuals. There are others who just want to laugh at the stereotype of the ‘Muscle Man’ routine with greased up biceps pulsing to comedy music. Some simply think of it as being weird. I think that these determined characters are owed something more than a snigger or a typecast. Graceful and Elegant are words that seem to have been lost from the vocabulary when describing body building today.…

Explore From 2010 to 2013, I hitchhiked throughout Europe with the aim of meeting men and women who had made the radical choice to live away from cities, willing to abandon their lifestyle based on performance, efficiency and consumption. Without any fixed route, driven by encounters and chance, this trip eventually became for me a similar kind of initiatory quest to those of these families. Eight of these experiments are shown here, and display various fates which I think should not only be seen at a political level, but more importantly as daily and immediate experiences. The heterogeneity of places and situations shows us the beautiful paradox of the pursuit of a utopia through permanent empirical attempts and sometimes errors. Unstable structures, recovered materials, or multiple applications of agricultural theories…

Im balancing nervously on the back of a motorbike as we sail through Ubud’s spectacular rice terraces. The full moon is high. Sweaty-sweet incense teases our nostrils. Rain dusts our shoulders. Trucks, bikes, cars and dogs flow around us as we sail on. We pull up alongside men in ceremonial dress and ask the way to the water temple. Then we ask a young mother, and boys playing chess We point and smile, ‘Tampak Siring?’ In return we receive a nod or a ‘no’ along with mimed directions and always that smile. The locals are unfazed: another Westerner. But for me, the warmth in these exchanges is exactly the balm I need - I’m flying! Ubud; derived from the Balinese ‘ubad' (medicine), is so named after the abundance of medicinal…

A medium sized coastal rainforest tree native to Australia and part of the Lilli Pilli family. It produces a pear-shaped fruit with a light red colour and a single seed in the centre, and has a tart, cranberry-like flavour, with a hint of clove. Most commonly used to make a distinctively flavoured jam, and also used in mousses, sauces, syrups and confectionery. Can also be eaten and enjoyed straight off the tree. A sprawling grey/blue shrub found in dry inland Australia, it grows up to three metres in height, and sometimes spreads to five metres wide. Indigenous Australians mostly collected the minute saltbush seeds to grind and roast for damper. Now, the large fresh blanched saltbush leaves can be used as a wrap around meat or fish, in salads or…

YOKE "I can function better in the world as a yoga teacher, as a father, as a husband, partner, within all of life, by bringing out the stillness inside the body and the mind so I can relate and interrelate better with who I am in the world. It’s not just about asana or getting a sequence right or breathing correctly; it’s about using those aspects to get away from the ego-thinking mind.” "I THINK THAT I MAKE PEOPLE WORK HARD, BUT THERE'S A LIGHTNESS TO IT SO THEY FEEL LIKE THEY'VE ACTUALLY DONE SOMETHING, THAT THEY HAVEN'T BEEN BUSTED UP OR BROKEN." What was your first experience with yoga? My first experience was in Adelaide -1 was 26 and I’d been thinking about going for around six months. It…

Remember when all women had to worry about was ‘having it all’? Well, assuming you’ve managed to hone yourself into an ageless embodiment of beauty, with an adoring husband, a clutch of cherubic children and a glass-ceiling busting career, it’s no longer enough. Now, it seems, you can only be deemed a success if you manage to maintain all of these aspects of your life in perfect harmony-giving rise to that elusive concept, ‘work-life balance’. Obviously finding some kind of middle ground between the demands of your job, the demands of your family and your own physical and spiritual needs is not only desirable, it’s essential. But doing so is an endless juggling act requiring constant modification, adjustment and compromise. The problem with terms such as work-life balance is that…

Men are dressed in fancy leathers, with stars and shiny buckles, characters in a cowboy story, struggling to keep their balance for those infinite seconds with the unbroken energy of an animal bucking beneath them. Seemingly a little out of step with time, amplified by the artist’s choice of black & white and sepia tones. The challenges they face are timeless: what it is to be a man, to earn respect, to hold your own; how to maintain control. These are questions which perhaps get more difficult to answer over time, in the manic fury of the contemporary world. The hopes and dreams of these young men are held close, with an uncertain selfawareness. Surprising in their vulnerability, the photographer succeeds in capturing both their strength and fragility. So keen…

Confessional, autobiographical self-portraiture, centre of the frame, time and time again. Close up with desert flowers. Close up with cone-head. Close up with feathers. Close up with eerie piercing lenses. Close up with smoke. It appears habitual, this close-up of a hedonistically adorned face in frame. And it wouldn’t be out of place on the catwalks of Paris, indeed it somehow belongs there. I taste a little off-the-shelf Galliano, fused with the scent of Leigh Bowery, riding on the coat tails of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert. Speaking from London, where he is currently finishing off his thesis - only 7,000 words to go - Christian Thompson muses with me on being the inaugural Charles Perkins Oxford Scholar recipient, the art of shape-shifting through self-portraiture, seasonal affective disorder and the…

If you’ve seen the video clips for Sia’s 2014 single 'Chandelier', or for Arcade Fire’s 'We Exist', then you have seen Heffington’s magic at its most sublime, innovative, challenging and idiosyncratic. Heffington recently took home the 2014 MTV Video Music Award for his choreography on Chandelier, sharing his thoughts with Yoke just after this auspicious endorsement of his work. As a dancer and choreographer, he is engaged with the medium of the body and seems devoted to nurturing awareness and the expression of this physical passion as a shared human experience, rather than something which a dancer has special ownership of. Heffington sees the body and movement as another voice that all of us, as humans, have the opportunity to harness in our daily vocabulary. Heffington’s own dance vocabulary spans…

Cecilia Macaulay is a permaculturist who lives in Australia, but spends a great deal of time travelling the world and spreading her knowledge and influence. Known as the “permacuiture fairy”, Cecilia uses her Japanese influences to seemingly effortlessly transform people’s homes into relaxing havens brimming with positive energy. Focusing on the foundations of life, she believes that once you have managed to get the basics of your life in order, then everything else will fall neatly into place. Frequently travelling to Japan, Cecilia draws her inspiration from cultural traditions such as Samurai and Japanese gardens. Believing that we should not hide from our problems as we have the strength to find a solution, she spends time designing gardens for communities, as a way for them to become selfsufficient, draw upon…

Andrew Quilly was born in Sydney. He has won a World Press Photo Award and a Walkley Young Australian Photojournalist of The Year Award. His work has been published by The New York Times, TIME, Newsweek, Rolling Stone, Foreign Policy and The Guardian - among others - and he is a member of the Australian photographic collective, Oculi. He is now based in Kabul, Afghanistan, andrewquilty.com Antoine Bruy Is a French photographer and graduate of the Vevey School of Photography in Switzerland. He was honoured with a Young Swiss Talent Prize in 2010 and has participated in several group exhibitions in Switzerland and abroad. His artistic focus is on the intimacy between humans and the physical environment, and its relationship to economic and intellectual conditions. Cynthia Sciberras believes that when…

YOKE 55 MINUTES WITH MINMIA The world is suffering from spiritual malnutrition. Our Mother the Earth, Nungeena-tya, is hurting. But do not despair. All we have to do is hold the balance. Minmia - wirrloo, law woman, Wirradjirri elder, great-grandmother, author, messenger of birds - offers this message of hope, even as the world seems consumed by anger and greed. “Just think this - all I have to do is hold the balance, hold the energy of the balance of compassion, hold the knowing that Nungeena is strong, that the universe is strong, that this has to be cleansed and it will pass … So just hold it- just don’t give up in despair because if you send despair out there, it’s going to stay there.” Minmia has had more…

Money makes the world go round, spinning interminably through profit and loss, boom and bust. We pay for our water, energy, food, housing, education - and our dreams pay dearly. Money is deeply woven into the complex web of our lives. Some feel enslaved by the false idols of free market theology, working to make money to buy food, to give us energy to work to make money to buy food… ad infinitum. We can’t buy love or happiness, but money can certainly make life more comfortable. But what if we tried to opt out? Can we bypass the monetary system altogether? Husband and wife team Vladimir Alzamora Guzman and Julie Glassock are environmental scientists who have big ambitions to do just that. They’re not simply escaping the nine-to-five for…

If the body is a temple, to be treated with respect and care, then how do performers maintain balance physically, spiritually and emotionally whilst meeting the demands of physically exhausting tour schedules, and continue to push boundaries within their art form? Producer, Veronica Bolzon spoke to five physical performers who make a living out of performing in circus, burlesque, dance and physical theatre shows internationally about their approach to their art, and their relationship to their bodies. Who are you and what you do? Danik: I'm an acrobat. I’m well-versed in most circus skills, but my main discipline is hand-balancing. I’m currently touring the world in the show Limbo. Kathryn: I'm a physical performer. I have dedicated my life to training and working with my body across multiple disciplines, from…

Internal belief systems about food and the way we eat, are under constant scrutiny. Experts in food, fitness and medicine, as well as, let's face it, some clever marketing, evangelise what's best and what's not. As a result, we have seen the epic rise of superfoods and diets ranging from sugar, grain, dairy or meat free to all of the above. But armed with all of this knowledge, is the urban dweller really eating for balance or unknown harm? Is the seduction of excess because it's 'good for me', or removal because it's bad creating other health issues? With a population more conscious of where food comes from and what's in it, how should decisions be made on what to eat and how to obtain individual nutritional harmony? And where…

In 1980, Texan Robert Svoboda became the first Westerner to be licensed as an Ayurvedic physician. Trained under Guru Aghori Vimalananda, he travelled many theoretical paths, immersing himself in the traditions of Tantra, Ayurveda and Jyotish (India’s system of divination), to name but a few. In person Svoboda riffs on everything, from neurobiology to thoroughbred horse breeding and the health benefits of singing show tunes. It’s exactly this eclectic world view that attracts students from every corner of the globe to his teachings. Before becoming the cultural nomad he is today, Svoboda lived in India for more than 14 years, immersing himself in her ancient cultures and publishing prolifically on subjects ranging from Indian astrology, to Tantra and the Aghori (holy men). Adept at taking ancient texts and making them…

THE MIWI The Miwi is better known as your spirit or your soul. This is not to be confused with Wandjina or Mimi. If I cut you open with a tin opener and look at you inside, this is what’s on the journey. Some call it spirit, some call it soul, and some call it essence or God validated within, developed or revealed. The Miwi sits above the navel and under the heart; it pulses and keeps the heard beating. The physical body is really nothing. Our body is only to assist us to physically fulfil our learning tasks. When your shoes are worn out what do you do? Buy another pair. Now, when you look at an illustration of the Miwi what do you notice as soon as you…