Embodying the Mystery, Illuminating the World

Drawing from the Krishnamacharya lineage– Iyengar, Ashtanga, and Vini yoga– Jovielle will lead a breath-based, slow-flow vinyasa class, which focuses on releasing tension patterns and arriving in harmonious alignment while cleansing and vitalizing the koshas (layers of being/consciousness or “envelopes”). All levels welcome!

Knowing yourself, knowing the world…this is the entry point, and the greatest, most beautiful, mystery. We have these amazing bodies that we dwell in. It is by noticing our existence, our moment to moment awareness, and experiencing the world with our living, breathing, bodies, that we come to appreciate all that we are. At the pace of an even breath, we will welcome ourselves home in each asana. We will ask questions of our bodies, as we explore, and then we will listen for the answers: the sensations, the areas of tension, maybe something we may not have noticed before. How can we know if we do not: listen, watch, feel? 

In living life with this wonder, on and off of the yoga mat, we are learning through our direct experience which enables us to share our most intimate understanding of the world with each other and to illuminate the path upon which we walk. Living our questions and being open to the world ‘as it is’, is vitalizing. We have more awareness of, and appreciation for, all of our experiences, regardless of how “good” or “bad” the experiences are. In this way we become more open to our lives. Join me for this meditation in motion!

Jovielle Gers is a yoga teacher, Mindfulness-Based-Stress-Reduction teacher, Thai-Massage therapist, as well as a photographer/artist, and mother. Jovielle grew up dancing, enjoying the outdoors, and doing yoga. She is a second-generation yoga teacher, and has been teaching yoga for over 10 years in the Boston Area, including two years of teaching therapeutic yoga in the Walden Behavioral Care program at the Children’s Hospital in Waltham. After practicing alongside her mother as a teenager, she began her ongoing study with Iyengar yoga teacher Patricia Walden in 1999. In her early twenties she spent 14 months living and studying yoga and meditation in India over a period of two years. Her teachers during this time were Sharot Arora (Iyengar yoga), Geshe Sonam Rinchen, Geshe Tsokal, Geshe Khensur Rinpoche Lobsang Tsephel, as well as the Dalai Lama, and the Karmapa. She is grateful for her continued in-depth-studies with Barbara Benagh; and for the opportunity to illustrate yoga-anatomy images for Benagh’s teaching manual. Jovielle has been blessed to receive the teachings of many other inspired teachers from the Krishnamacharya lineage whose lessons are integral to her teaching: TKV Desikachar, Gary Kraftsow, Annie Pace, Richard Freeman, Tias Little, Shiva Rae, Manuso Manos, Brenda Flemming… and many, many, more! Jovielle holds a BFA from Tufts University and the School of the Museum of Fine Arts. From 2002-2004 she was the photographer, and primary documentarian, at the Norbulingka Institute in India (a center to preserve Tibetan arts & culture), and was an official photographer for the Kalachakra taught by H.H. the Dalai Lama in 2005. Jovielle has begun studies in Somatic Experiencing a therapy for trauma held in the body, and in healing Tibetan Buddhist practices taught by Lama Tsultrim Allione. Jovielle most recently welcomed a laughing little buddha child into her arms, and into her life…so her weekly class offerings in the Boston area have decreased as she explores the world with her newly walking, incredibly curious, toddler.