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Founders Elaine & Francis McGillicuddy
BOTH ATTRACTED US
It only gradually dawned on Francis and me. But it is clear to us now that what attracted me to become a nun and him a priest 16 years before we met in 1968 is what, (by then married,) attracted us, 10 years later in 1978, to yoga: it was the call toward union. That call is at the heart of both the monastic tradition and of yoga, whose very name, "yuj" in Sanskrit means "union."
This is not as esoteric as it sounds. Everyday language reflects that it is universal. When you say, "I’ve got to pull myself together!" you also are groping toward that union for which (we believe) we all vaguely long.
 A REMARK CHANGED OUR LIFE
The catalyst that changed the course of my direction and Francis’ came in the form of a single remark. One day, when he came home from a yoga demonstration for low income seniors where he worked as a Social Worker, he blurted out "You know what? Yoga massages the internal organs!" Intrigued, I bought a book on yoga and began a practice that I found so compelling I began travelling out of state to get training. Six years later in 1984 I left my academic teaching profession of 23 years in order to devote myself full time to much yoga practice and a modest yoga teaching schedule at the Unversity of Southern Maine. Then in 1989 Francis and I found a beautiful yoga space with hardwood floors to start our own Portland Yoga Studio.
THE PALPABLE BENEFITS ENCOURAGED US
Francis and I, and even my elderly mother, all found relief from pain in yoga. For Francis it was relief from back pain, for me, arthritis in my swollen knuckles at first, and later, hip pain. (That’s a special story in itself which I tell at the end of this general story.) Yoga did something dramatic for my mother: it prevented her from needing the knee replacement for which her doctor was planning. We became enthusiastic proponents of yoga.
I STUDIED WITH THE BEST
I was very fortunate to have had a solid yoga training, (in this order, chronologically): in San Francisco with Judith Lasater at the Iyengar Yoga Institute; in Boston with Patricia Walden at her B.K.S. Iyengar Yoga Center; in Pune, India with Mr. Iyengar and with his daughter Geeta and his son Prashant, at the Ramamani Iyengar Yoga Institute; and in Bethesda, Maryland with John Schumacher at the Unity Woods Yoga Center, to name only the most important. I also did extensive studies in anatomy withTom Myers, Anatomy Chair of the Rolf Institute and his professional team which included Deane Juhan, author of Job’s Body.
YOGA BECAME OUR WAY OF PEACEMAKING
There was a second factor that Francis and I considered when we gravitated toward opening our own yoga place. We had been deeply involved in the peace movement since our marriage in 1972, and by the late 80’s were beginning to get "burned out." We continue to advocate the abolition of nuclear weapons and especially the abolition of the immoral economic sanctions against Iraq which kill 4500 children a month! But we saw teaching yoga as an effective alternative way of peacemaking. Since wars begin within the human heart, helping sow peace within hearts, our own included, made sense.
YOGA IS AN IDEAL TOOL FOR MINISTRY
After a while I felt the need to do direct ministry, using yoga as my ministry tool. So I taught yoga as an unpaid volunteer at the AIDS Project for 5 years, then Yoga for Seniors for a few years, and now, since 1996, Francis and I have been teaching yoga weekly at the Cumberland County Jail in Portland Maine. This is something we need to do. We need to be educated about the realities from which our simple but protected lifestyle shelters us.
This photo shows me teaching shoulder openers (while hamstrings get stretched) to inmates in the men's "pod" at the Cumberland County Jail.
Photo by Britta-Lena Lasko ©1998
With special thanks to
The Salt Center for Documentary Studies.
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We get more out of this jail ministry than we bring. We are touched by a lot of the people we meet in jail. One responsive inmate wrote: "You both gave me the gift of providing a sense of safety to tap into my inner self in an otherwise unsafe environment. I looked forward to being with you every week because you reminded me what I gave up for drugs and more importantly that I could return to Self and Spirit."
Here is a poem I wrote on June 5, 2003, in our 7th year of teaching yoga to inmates at the Cumberland County Jail:
Interruption Choice
By Elaine G. McGillicuddy
To county jail
for weekly yoga
we came --
I, reluctantly, --
work interrupted.
But then I saw her,
missing tooth,
sad eyes and
red streaked
wrists.
Another's shoulder
sore from injury
"An accident," she said,
"two months ago."
My gut was moved.
I wanted now
to bring them balm
for wounds.
I soothed them with my voice,
through posture, breath, repose
and saw them merge
into themselves
for nourishment.
Reward enough for me
to rouse myself each week
with husband at my side
--- an interruption choice.
(June 5, 2003)
OUR TEACHING COMMUNITY HAS A LOT TO OFFER
Since our founding in 1989, our teaching staff gradually formed itself. One after another the most gifted of our yoga students came asking how to become yoga teachers. At first they apprenticed with me, but then they branched out on their own, driving 2 hours to Patricia Walden’s Center in Boston, traveling to distant workshops, and availing themselves of the master teacher workshops we have, for years, regularly sponsored in Portland. Our teachers are all bright and intellectually curious and devoted to their practice. We’re happy to see that they are actively engaged as we are, in an ongoing study of yoga.
I NEED TO TELL MY HIP STORY
Finally, since it’s such a central thing in my life, -- this phenomenon of my getting unstuck, -- I need to tell this story that has gradually shaped itself as my understanding has grown.
A seemingly inconsequential accident happened to me when I was 5 year old. I almost got run over by a car. It left no obvious scars. But (bodyworkers and I deduce), it left my right hip muscles in trauma. It’s as if my hip went into a deep contraction that it never let go. So it became fibrous, if not scarred, and as I grew, it stayed fibrous at the core. As we yoga practitioners know, underneath numbed, chronically contracted tissue which is in a state of amnesia, there is pain. But that pain was dormant.
With hindsight I see now that I was drawn to yoga to get freed of the physical shakles I didn’t even know I had. What a surprise to discover, after about 10 years of practice, that without my direction, except for giving my body the yoga that assuaged it, the postures began unearthing that pain! After all those years! (I began practicing yoga at age 43 in 1978.) Unbelievable that the hip reached for release after such long dormancy!
It was not eagerness to perform advanced poses that led me into a deep yoga practice. It was the physically irresistible relief my fibrous hip muscles (and I) sought and experienced that led me deeper and deeper. This process of turning fiber into flesh goes on to this day. Francis says it’ll never end. He may be right, but I’ve reached a point now where, by comparison with the imprisonment I felt in my body before, I feel blessedly free. It was not an easy journey, but I’ve learned so much it’s been my gift. I have lots of stories to tell. There is a price to pay to keep my body free, but it is a sweet price -- absolutely daily practice.
In The Tree of Yoga, Mr. Iyengar writes that Yoga is "apauruseya,...not given by man." (p. 89) I think, or, more precisely, feel, that I know what he is talking about. I’m in such awe of the body’s wisdom which drives it toward health! That irresistible driving force and the intricacies of its language within my own body are downright mysterious! That’s why I ended up writing five poems about my hip.
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