Hi Reader,

I flew to Boulder for four days this week. My daughter is a freshman there, and it was Moms Weekend.

I took the airporter from Marin through San Francisco and down to SFO. It was one of those bright February days that makes the city feel almost hyper-real. The air was crisp and clean. The sky an impossible blue. The water reflecting it back like polished glass. Everything looked staged.

The International Orange of the Golden Gate Bridge stood bold and unapologetic against it all — perfect placement.

And then a cargo ship slid under the bridge just as we were crossing it.

Chilling. Thrilling. A reminder of scale… and of vulnerability.

But ultimately, in that entire setting, it was all about the light.

Sunlight. Moonlight. Bright light. Inner light.

During Moms Weekend, we did a very simple craft: pressed dried flowers, paper, and Mod Podge. That’s it. No fancy materials. No art degree required (though I do happen to have one).

I sat down and began placing petals and leaves onto paper. Adjusting. Moving one stem a quarter inch to the left. Letting a piece fall where it wanted and gluing it there. Balancing a blue blossom with a fern.

At some point, I realized I had completely dropped in.

Quiet.
Focused.
Unhurried.

This is meditation.

Not the kind where you sit on a cushion and close your eyes. But the kind where your attention is sustained by one thing long enough that the mind softens around it. No past. No future. No role to play. Just color, texture, composition.

Meditation can look like that.

It can look like art making.
It can look like crossing a bridge in bright winter light.
It can look like holding a yoga pose with full attention.

B.K.S. Iyengar writes in Sparks of Divinity:

“Meditation is oneness, when there is no longer time, sex, or country. The moment when, after you have concentrated on doing a pose perfectly, you hold it and then forget everything — not because you want to forget but because you are concentrated — this is meditation.”

Asana was never meant to be just exercise. It is a vehicle. A focusing lens. A way to gather the scattered mind into one steady stream.

In the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali, the second sutra reads:

“Yoga is the stilling of the fluctuations of the mind.”

That is the definition of yoga — and it is also the definition of meditation.

And you don’t have to choose a single identity to access that.

Not an artist?
Not an athlete?
Not a “serious meditator”?

Who decided those categories?

Why can’t you be all of it?

I teach Yoga Nidra once a week in San Francisco (and it’s streamed live for those of you not local). Yoga Nidra is a guided practice of concentration and surrender — moving into deep physical and mental quiet. To get there, you focus on relaxing. On letting go. On following awareness inward.

That sustained attention is meditation.

And once in that state, something opens. You can visualize yourself healthy. Whole. Free from old narratives. You can see yourself already living the life that has felt just out of reach.

When the mind quiets, you are no longer reacting to who you’ve been told you are.

You begin defining who you are.

Art making.
Asana.
Meditation.
Yoga Nidra.

Different doors.
Same room.

And sometimes, it begins with noticing the light on water…
or a pressed flower landing exactly where it belongs.

With love,

Marisa

P.S. Join me for Yoga Nidra, Monday nights at 7:30 in San Francisco and livestreamed.​