September 2019 | Vol. 5 Iss. 09
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YOGINI GETS HER GROOVE BACK By Jennifer J. Johnson | j.johnson@mycityjournals.com
I
t makes sense that a writer — one who has been honored multiple times by the Utah Arts Council for her ability to produce a poem a day over the course of a month — followed the advice of another prolific poet, to relieve herself from a deep funk. That poet-yogini, Lin Ostler, seems to be following the advice of yester-century’s “ecstatic poet” and mystic, Rumi, who encouraged facing “a depression, a meanness” in a laughing manner, treating negative feelings as nothing more than “unexpected visitors.” Ostler did exactly that when she recently had her world uprooted.
May becomes ‘mayday’ for poet and yogini
May is usually a time for rejuvenation. Its name comes from Maia, the Greek goddess of fertility. For Ostler, a yogini who specializes in prenatal and mother/baby yoga and is also a doula, May had always been a special month. (A yogini is a female yoga guru. A doula is someone, typically without formal obstetric training, who is employed to help a pregnant woman during labor.) Two subsequent Mays, though, left the yogini deeply depressed. May 2018 saw Ostler losing a teaching association she had with Salt Lake Community College, where she had taught as many as 12 yoga classes per term for nearly 30 years. She said she was—without notice—stricken from the schedule. She was officially terminated from employment with the college, which shared its adjunct hiring policy with the Sugar House Journal: “temporary employees hired on a quarter to quarter basis with no expectation or obligation for employ-
Salt Lake’s Lin Ostler, who has been practicing yoga for nearly 50 years, considers refueling oneself with nature key to kicking depression. (Photo Aria Rockwood)
ment beyond their current assignment.” May 2019 then saw her lose the yoga classes at a local studio she had patched together to replace her year-round “bread-and-butter” college classes. Back-to-back years of losing classes was much more than a severe economic challenge. Infinitely more pressing was the aching, gnawing feeling of insignificance. “They never said they were letting me go. They never
said ‘thank you.’ They never said anything,” she recalled. “They just let me go.” As a long-term adjunct teacher, there was no pension for the 65-year-old yogini. Ostler called the experience an “immense shock” to her system. Suddenly, not being around students—young, vital, interested people—at least four days a week, she felt drained of energy and will. Continued page 5
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