YBM Editor Ra Jordan’s message on the oppressive nature of racism in our world and how to seek out the light.

Greetings to every yoga bodi,

This message comes with a heavy heart for the recent events that took place in the United States, yet another demonstration of an unrelenting and ongoing pattern of violence against black and brown bodies. The YBM team hopes this message finds everyone safe and in wellness.

As the YBM Editor, I would like to share my thoughts with you about why I started this magazine. It was and is my belief that seeing and reading stories of beautiful, melanin-rich yogis and wellness aficionados, represented in a published work, was of critical socio-cultural and psychological significance. It was a publication missing from our world.

During times like these, it is important to know how to reduce the impact of negative social issues on our psyche, our mental health, and subsequently on our bodies… Yoga and overall wellness are a very necessary lifeline to navigating the very complex socio-political, structural, and psychological system of racism everywhere.

Yoga Bodi’s core mission is to honor & serve the rich diversity of yoga practitioners from around the world. The Yoga Bodi brand was inspired by a need, representation. The representation of people from across the world, specifically melanin-dominant; black, brown, copper, carbon – indigenous people, who are systemically left out of the Yoga “industry” image of what a person practicing Yoga typically looks like. This lack of sincere representation in the Yoga “mainstream” is contrary to the Yoga philosophy of removing ego.

All practicing yogis, no matter the human suit, work equally hard & diligently towards attaining the yoke, intending to remove all suffering & access the divine in themselves. The practice and promotion of Yoga should not signify privilege and exclusivity, because that only demonstrates the reinforcing of deception, limiting belief systems, & infringing upon all people’s incarnated potential & their individual value to human society. Silent bystanders, too, strengthen this misleading paradigm & all this prejudice is contradictory to Yoga philosophy.

Higher consciousness lives in the truth, joy & light & truly wants this manifested for all. As we use meditation & the breath to expand our awareness & our hearts, we can explore our inner light, become empowered, mindful, & allow the higher-minded version of ourselves, that by default we entered this realm already connected to, to take the reins.

We at Yoga Bodi Magazine chose not to title our magazine a Black/Brown or “people of color” specific Yoga magazine, because no other group has to insert their racial or skin tone identity at the beginning or end of titles & headings & we won’t either. But we are unapologetically melanin-rich; black, brown, carbon, copper indigenous people. Our content will reflect that self-love. Our yoga magazine is like any yoga magazine at its core, it’s about how Yoga enriches lives, and it’s for everybody to enjoy. The Yoga Bodi Magazine does not exclude any body, the point of difference is that our publications gaze, in which the content is derived from, is from the perspective of black, brown, copper, indigenous yogis and wellness warriors, something that should not be considered unusual given other groups practice this type of social economics every single day.

Right now, how can we best help ourselves to maintain a sense of balance and mid to high frequency state of being, all while bearing witness to and experiencing dramatic events, social changes, and an unstable social climate that may be impacting many people emotionally, mentally, spiritually, and physically, as it has done so to me and our team?

We have been living in unprecedented times, and we continue minute by minute to experience what appears to be the gradual worsening of our social fabric. While this may be true, it is also a time that we experience the great revealing of truths, the reinstatement of the divine feminine, and the increase in higher frequencies brought on by our galaxy’s Sun evolution. We have the great awakening, and with that come great changes and a great new world, should we choose.

What is critical during these times, more specifically is our health; both physical and mental, because our vessel is our vehicle and we need to be able to progress, to travel through the many changes and challenges with limited negative impact to our health to be capable and cognizant, to make sense of the journey, inner stand our selves in this time and space – why we are here and how we can better be of service.

If we can take comfort in knowing that the world is created by thought, energy frequency, and vibration, then we can use our time to better equip ourselves to actively engage in auspicious thoughts that will bring about powerful energies that will match. Empowering thoughts and feelings that will remove the attitude of dis-empowerment and frustration, clarity that will remove doubt and confusion, and focus and determination that will remove disorganization and apathy.

Yoga of any kind will assist us in centering ourselves for the duration of our time on the mat and long after. It’s a form of meditation, so shedding the worries of the world, to fall by the wayside as we work through any physical maladies that may be building up due to tension, anxiety or stress…that is our aim, with the objective being to decompress and allow Chi to flow through our body; connecting to source energy, divine energy transforming our awareness and subsequently how we perceive our environment and what we allow to inform our life and our life choices.

Focused meditation, either guided or not, to lose the attachment to the self in the third dimension and instead exist purely in no time or space, is where we open doors to explore aspects of ourselves and our connection to all that is. The process is not only calming and serene, despite the chatter often clamoring to challenge our aim to seek silence and stillness, we gain introspection and perspective, especially when we meditate for extended periods of time, often helping us to more positively cultivated states of reality than we would otherwise attain, not doing yoga or meditation.

I end this share with a sincere gesture of love, compassion, warmth, and solidarity for our people, melanin-rich people, who are, despite all that we have experienced, our strength, creativity, and tenacity are an uninterrupted inspiration. For our fellow humans, we hope you can continue to stand with us, to be unrelenting and genuine in your aim to dismantle the many forms of violence and oppression that have no place in the new world we are all building together.

Be safe, all. In unity and justice. Namaste.
Love and gratitude,
Ra Jordan
Editor-In-Chief
Yoga Bodi Magazine