Namaskar! Thanks for checking out the blog site dedicated to the adventures, practices, and thoughts of Anand and Sadhana. Together we are Love and Light in Action. We are two yogis that became friends, starting teaching together, and then fell in love. This is the story of how we met from the perspective of Ken, who had yet to become Anand.

Namaste y’all! I was born Ken from Kentucky where people drink hard, smoke, gamble, and practice serious asana. I studied ashtanga vinyasa from my teacher Laura Spaulding at Yoga East in Louisville and would make it to retreats with Amanda Smith, who taught me the method of Angela Farmer and Victor Van Kooten. When I discovered Anusara Yoga it felt like a nice medium between the two extreme styles and I began to study with Sianna Sherman, Mitchel Bleir, and John Friend. After quitting my job in the family glass business, and bailing on a toxic relationship, I was ready to break out into the yoga world. I was in need of like-minded practitioners, but where to go…….

I joined John’s merry band of bohemian yogis on his tour around the country. I got a good feel of a lot of communities, and after my last training in Tucson, I headed to Miami. I only knew the other local Anusara teacher, Jordan Bloom, who graciously let me crash on his couch for a week. It took me a while to get a teaching position on South Beach at the Miami Yoga Shala, which was the best studio around at the time, due to the all-star teachers on staff.

One day, Lina (who was not yet Sadhana Shakti) came to my class one afternoon on a bright sunny day. There was several other students in class and I was handing out sheets with the mantra invocation. I asked her if she knew the mantra and she shook her head no. I sat down to introduce the class theme and then we started to chant, and she knew the mantra perfectly! I was a little confused and surprised. She was beautiful and very alluring, although she was smacking on chewing gum the entire class! I let it slide for some reason. After the class she put on some really cool Ganesha pants and I asked her where she got them. She kind of blew me off and just said, “a friend.” I thought she was some rock star like Paula Rubio, who was practicing at that studio.

I was staying at another yoga studio that was run by Moses who was the founder of the I love Clothing brand. He ran his t-shirt operation out of Castle Yoga, a derelict building in the ghetto of midtown Miami. It literally was shaped like a castle with towers and huge black iron gates. Moses was friends with Lina and we all ended practicing together at lunch time because there were no students to teach at that time. It was then that I learned that Lina didn’t understand much English but we still ended up becoming good friends. We would teach a class together on the beach that was bi-lingual. We didn’t plan anything but understood one another perfectly through the language of energy.

One night Moses was hosting a travelling teacher of the Maya calendar systems who went by the name of Merlin. He was a simple man living out of his van and was always wearing a flannel shirt that had a pocket protector. It was overfilled with a calculator, notebook, and pencils. He had one single dreadlock that was wrapped around his head like a tortoise shell. He wore a pillow case as a hat and when he spoke his head would move in and out of his shell like a turtle. He said it was for channeling information and energy. During the evening lecture he read everyone’s chart on the calendar. There were over twenty people attending and Lina and I were the only ones who had a connection. He said that we had all four directional energies aligned. At that time I didn’t have a clue about what that that meant, but he went on to say that together we would do great things and she would support me in my mission in life. I was impressed and thought we should start hanging out more. We did and the magic began to unfold. We learned that we are back-to-back on the maya calendar. We were born in different years but energetically we were born in the same wavespell. She is the Blue Spectral Eagle (115) and I am the Yellow Crystal Warrior (116). She establishes the Vision and I bring the manifestation of Sri (elegance).