The Nature of Awakening • What IS Awakening? Awakening is a process, not a destination or an arrival. It is the recognition, the realization, the remembering that what you are, what I am, what we are, is not our conditioning, not our trauma, not our unresolved emotion, not our patterns, not our personas, not our …
How I was the source of my own suffering when I had an intense Kundalini Awakening (is this you too?)
Something that’s common amongst people experiencing an intense Kundalini Awakening is a desire for things to be different, a desire to fix or change things. It’s such a paradox but the doorway for a Kundalini Awakening, the portal, is our willingness to meet and embrace whatever’s unfolding exactly as it is. The paradox is that …
Cannabis as a Sacred Plant Medicine: Journeying, Accessing Trance States & Psychosis
by Kara-Leah Grant, (I wrote this in 2019, and only just published it, 2025) This article has been a long time coming. Given that Canada has just legalised cannabis, and New Zealand is finally having a referendum on legalising it in 2020, it feels like now is the time. The danger in writing about the …
Returning to Facebook: What happened when I came back after 5 years of absence
My favourite part of returning to Facebook after 5 years is becoming friends with my friends. Of starting fresh and new and more or less only friend requesting or saying yes to those who ARE my friends. Given how much I’ve moved, constantly leaving behind communities in Whistler, up & down New Zealand, and now …
Teaching is Listening: The Art of Seeing Your Students Over Time
I’ve been teaching a drop-in class at a local yoga studio for the better part of a year now. It’s not a big commitment on paper—one class, once a week—but something profound has begun to unfold. A handful of students have shown up semi-regularly, two or three times a month, which means I’ve been able …
Yoga and Politics: What Responsibilities Do Yogis Have in Shaping Society?
Two things constantly call to my heart—yoga and shaping society—what you might call politics or political engagement. So let’s talk about yoga and politics, but first a snapshot of my interest in politics. My political journey began early—I was elected student rep on the Board of Trustees in high school. At university, I initially aimed …