A lot of people have been asking me what’s happening with yoga at the Arboretum. I wish I had a happier answer.
The Arboretum is one of my favorite places to teach yoga. My first class at the Minnesota Arboretum was memorable because I was greeted by a flock of geese. The summer yoga retreat at the Arboretum is typically one of the most enjoyable days of the year for me. The last class I taught there was on October 16, 2025.
I had a signed contract for 2026, with weekday classes and multiple retreats on the calendar. Then, on December 12 last year, all of the Yoga in the Gardens teachers got a letter informing us that the program was going to be “pausing”:
“The Arboretum will be pausing the Yoga in the Gardens program for the 2026 season to work on innovating our calendar of events. We know this program has become a meaningful part of many visitors’ wellness routines, and this decision was not made lightly.”
I wrote back to ask what this means going forward, but I haven’t heard anything more.
So the classes I’d been planning to teach are not happening. I’ve been weirdly hesitant to accept that the classes are canceled and actually remove them from my calendar, even though it’s June. But the world doesn’t always do what I want it to do, and learning to accept reality is central to contemplative traditions like yoga and meditation.
If your sense of well-being depends on the outside world, a world you don’t control, you’re going to suffer. The only durable peace is the kind you build inside.
That was the theme of my class on Sunday at The Marsh. We live in a world of imperfections. That isn’t a problem to solve, it’s just a fact of life. So we work on well-being right here, in the body we have, on the day we’re having. It’s an independent joy that does not depend on conditions being just right.
On the yoga mat and the meditation cushion we come back, over and over again, to what is real: noticing tightness, openness, rushing, peacefulness, or whatever is going on. And we do not have to settle for an unskillful state of mind just because it showed up uninvited and made itself at home. You can work with what’s inside the same way you work with a tight hamstring: patiently, without forcing, and with utmost kindness, again and again.
I don’t know when I’ll teach at the Arboretum again. Someday, I hope. In the meantime I’m still at The Marsh on Sundays and Wednesdays. If the world has refused to cooperate with you lately too, come join me. We’ll work on the kind of peace that doesn’t wait for conditions to improve, the kind that lets you live at ease right where you are.
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