Children, who knew how much fun it could be to have children in my life. While the three wonderful children that chose to come to me have been the most intense spiritual challenge of my life to date, they are also the most incredible gift. Children are an endowment of a depth and magnitude that I could never have anticipated.

When our first child, Conor, came along, I remember thinking, as we were walking out the front door of Mount Sinai Hospital, “Isn’t someone going to check that I have the right credentials to take care of this precious little bundle?”

I remember looking around, over both shoulders to see if anyone was going to run up behind me and tap on my shoulder, “excuse me, but do you have a degree in early childhood education? What about a certificate in child care? Or, at the very least, What about your first aid certificate, can I see that please?” But, nothing, nothing happened. No one even checked to see if our baby car seat met industry standards.

I read the books, I took the classes and nothing prepared me for the overwhelming mind, body, and spirit experience that it was to have a newborn baby. “How does anyone ever get a shower, let alone sleep?” B.C., before children, I worked full time at a local TV station, designed and manufactured a line of ladies clothing and ran a showroom in downtown Toronto, I taught 15-20 hours of aerobics and yoga a week, worked out, took courses, traveled and still had time to sleep, eat and have sex. One child and it all came to a screeching halt. Terrified that I would wake up one day and walk out the front door without him, I eventually went on to adjust to parenting; sleep deprivations and other joys of children.

I sit here many years later writing about planting the seeds of wisdom in young children. I really believe that my level of consciousness around this flitted in and out, butterfly fashion, for many years. This process took a real life-time to embody the teachings of the great masters and step back and trust the process of becoming, thereby, letting my children and the children that I have been blessed to work with grow and thrive in the unique and often incredibly resilient ways that they are meant to. The Atlas Children’s Workshop grew out of this process and we seek to train yoga teachers to see the child and  facilitate the child’s unique yoga path in each encounter.

Becoming a Atlas Children’s Workshop facilitator is not just another continuing education course meant to fulfill the basic requirements of being a responsible yoga teacher, but a real lived experience of coming into the stream of consciousness to bring in and nurture seed of wisdom for generations.