Saw the first crocuses this morning in Portland, here two days before my youngest daughter's first birthday. The sense of renewal embeds itself into the folds of my soul where i strive to nourish it into hope. And this hope, then, to share. Enjoy, please.

How about a yoga class where the teachers volunteer and the students get paid. That's what is happening at our classes at Outside In this month. By the good graces of Kathy Oliver and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, we are able to offer coupons for students to come to yoga. We are setting up to inform them of the benefits of joining the Oregon Health Plan as part of our expanding wellness focus.

At first i was a bit hesitant, but the reality is, most of these young people have no money except what they can get from begging or renting their body or peddling illegal substances. If they can come to yoga to pick up a little food money and connect even a small bit more with their own grace and potential, it is money well spent.

Of course, we couldn't get off without a challenge. Word got out that there was money to be made by hanging on a purple sticky mat, doing a little stretching, breathing in and breathing out. We grew within days to 19 students, which is a huge number of youth for yoga! We had to breathe deep ourselves and come up with guidelines which made it safe for all students. We've had to ask all students to respect their peers and let them to take class without interruption, have had to describe to the youth that yoga is a physical practice, not just meditation, and have had to request that all student pledge to participate in every class to their ‘personal level of physical ability.’

This new sign up system seems to be working, and the feedback we have gathered from the youth has been positive. We'll keep you posted.

The IRS last month approved our 501(c)3 status as a non-profit charity. This allows us to accept tax deductible donations and to seek grant funding from foundations, which we are already seeking. Our biggest needs at the moment are for proper mats and yoga blankets for all our students, and for money to fund our youth education and outreach efforts. If you feel so inclined, you can donate online anytime. It would be greatly appreciated.

I haven't done book reviews before, but this one cut into me and deserves mention. Based on the author's own experiences growing up in Chicago, A Life Without Consequences is a semi-autobiographical novel that traces the life of a young man of 13 as he flees to the streets, lives atop a store for a year, becomes a ward of the state, gets moved from deserted group home to brutal detention facility to a self-driven chance at redemption. Life without shelter, income and family support --and for most such forgotten children-- life without hope, is cruel, despairing, and merciless.

Having myself always been safely sheltered and protected by the buffering womb of friends and family, the glimpse into a life so unsupported is sobering, saddening and at times difficult to even comprehend in terms of how many young people are abandoned by our society and left to survive in the cracks of the sidewalk.

You will see some of our students in this book . The book rocks! Take a look.

We held our first nutrition class at Outside In last month. We had five students attending, and we engaged each other in a lively discussion about nutrition, food labeling, brain food and sane shopping. One youth was diabetic, and knew all about counting carbohydrates, and another was pregnant, and she was able to share information about vitamins and vegetarianism. We prepared a simple snack of whole grain bread, natural peanut butter, fruit preservers with sunflower seeds, along with bananas, carrots, celery (not too popular), apples and oranges. The youth were appreciative and two of them asked if we would have another class, which we intend to, sometime this Spring. For that class, we want to focus on a cleansing diet to increase elimination of winter's buildup and prepare the body for the activities of the warmer months.

We had our first class today at CTS. What a blast!! We started off with a song by the Lifesavas -- a Portland hip hop band that is fully down with LIFE. We wove together the themes of Perseverance, the CTS's word of the month, with a profound and joyful admiration at this exquisite miracle called Life.

The kids moved and breathed with us, they giggled and asked questions. We did sun salutations, lunges ( ‘I'm too young to die...’ ), Virabhadrasana I, Trikonasana, tree pose, bridge pose and half hand stand at the wall. We did some more stretches and finished with Savasana to the sounds of David Darling on the cello and a drizzle of chatter and giggles.

For me, there are two ways i tell if a class for young people is ‘successful’ (and how subjective is that?!) The first is how many of the young people can find ease and stillness in Savasana (most of them did) and the second is how much they linger after class, asking questions, telling us true bits of their lives, and they were in no hurry to rush out of the gym today to return to the rest of their day.

I want to deeply offer my heartfelt gratitude to the people who founded and run the Community Transitional School. It is an amazing place and it is an huge honor to be allowed to share our joy of yoga and life with these fabulous young people.

We will be starting classes at the White Shield Center the end of March. We'll be teaching in the cottage program, to a group of five young women between the ages of 12-16. We are finding similarities between this teaching and the CTS classes, so we are excited to be developing curricula that can be used in more than one setting.

Over time, we would like this to become a model for yoga and wellness instruction within the foster care system. Most of us take yoga for granted, and we hope that over time, young people who live as wards of the state, fully at the mercy of employees and systems beyond their sight, can breathe stillness every day, and know the unique beauty of their own selves.

We are in the process of building our first Seattle classes. They will be at the 45th St. Clinic near Woodland Park, and will begin with four dedicated teachers. These efforts are being spearheaded by committed yoga practitioners in the Puget Sound area, with support from folks in Portland. This is a very exciting chance to continue to grow the work of providing yoga and wellness teaching to people who lack traditional access.

There are other resources in Seattle which have offered, and might wish to expand their yoga classes, including Peace for the Streets and other locations. If you are located in the Puget Sound area, or know folks who are, please feel free to email us and we'll see about making solid connections.

As i mentioned last month, we have interest from all over North America. To last month's list of cities we can add Albuquerque, NM and New York City. Please let me know if you are in any of these places and want to create some classes. Or, if you know someone in one of these cities, feel free to send them this newsletter and we'll see about making connections.

Yogi Times magazine will be featuring Street Yoga in an upcoming issue. There will be an article about Street Yoga (when i can get it written) in an upcoming issue of the Yoga Everywhere newsletter. We are very appreciative of the support of these publications, and look forward to putting the word out to ever larger audience.

If you know magazines or journals in your area that might be interested in writing about Street Yoga, just let them know about us or let us know about them. Thanks!

We will be participating in a Teacher's training with Living Yoga on the topic of Yoga & Obesity on March 14th. Future classes will cover Yoga & Sexual Abuse Survivors and Yoga for Anxiety & Depression. We are very excited to be working with Living Yoga to create these trainings. We will also be creating a training with them focused on teaching yoga to homeless and at-risk youth later this spring.

As always, if anyone has any interest in helping put these trainings together, or has special experience or expertise in any of these topics, email us anytime.

Teaching this week at the Community Transitional School reminded me once again to be so grateful for the comfortable shoes i wear, the regular meals i enjoy, the soft bed i relish at the end of a tiring day. To be without these simple pieces of my everyday reality would be a huge loss, and hugely stressful. With perseverance, perhaps, one day we will see to it that no one shall suffer from want and hunger for something as simple as a full belly and a safe place to lay their heads.

Namaste, mark