as does anyone who has absorbed the lessons of yoga, that every body is a
yoga body. Already. We’re born that way.
By the same notion, there is no single definition of yoga. As you’ll see in this
book, yoga invites each of us to define it as we wish.
To me, yoga is the practice of observing myself exactly as I am right now,
with no specific expectation of what will happen in the future—whether
that’s one second, a week, or twenty years from now. The poses figure in
because they keep my mind busy as I work to, say, hold Half Moon Pose.
There’s so much to focus on—Gaze toward the ceiling! Keep breathing! Stay
upright!—that my anxious mind, which is usually very busy regaling me with
a kaleidoscope of catastrophes that might befall me, falls silent. That tiny,
temporary respite feels like a vacation. (By the way, although I have been
practicing yoga for a while, I am still not great at having no expectations
and no anxiety. But I’m getting better.)
So that’s how I see yoga, but my definition is by no means the official or only
one. In this book you’ll find a different interpretation of yoga with each turn
of the page, as more than eighty people express, in words and poses, what
yoga means to them.
The yogis in this book are on their own journeys. A few are beginners; some
teach yoga for a living. If you know your yoga, you may spot some imperfect
poses. That’s also part of the message of Yoga Bodies. Each of these images,
by photographer Jaimie Baird, captures one yogi in one pose at one moment
in time that is now long past. “Perfection,” if it even exists, is elusive.
But each of these yogis is divine and beautiful. So are you. So is everyone.
We’re in this together. We are all yoga bodies.
—Lauren Lipton