As a child, I struggled with a certain awkwardness, and a strange sense of longing. I attended a small Catholic school for many years, and my awkwardness attracted bullies from all directions: in the halls and doorways between classes, on the school bus, even from my friends during sleepovers. I realize now that, due to my sensitivities, making sense of the world was an insurmountable task for young me. I don’t believe that I could have navigated my life with less awkwardness if I tried.
I always enjoyed attending mass, even though I could never quite connect with it. Confession, Communion, praying the rosary in the garden between the chapel and the priests’ residence, walking the Stations of the Cross, Confirmation—all such lovely rituals, and enjoyable, but somehow hollow for me. Many members of my extended family are deeply religious, and the women in the cold church on a Wednesday morning, scarves covering their heads, certainly appeared to have a connection to those rituals that I longed to understand.
There was a mystery there, in that dark, echo-y space where I spent so much of my childhood. The house of God was at once comforting and frightening, and above all other things, elusive. Try as I might to feel that visceral knowing that this was the truth, I never could.
Occasionally, I’d daydream about becoming a nun, thinking that if I just dedicated myself harder to God, His mysteries would unfold themselves to me. And, when that happened, the hunger, that sense of searching for something I couldn’t find, would be sated. Though, by the time I was in high school, I understood that Catholicism wasn’t for me and turned my energies toward studies and achievement and friendships that filled that need for purpose.
One thing with which I did connect, and deeply, was the teaching about service. To seeing all people as equal in the eyes of God and deserving of aid when in need. Feed the hungry, shelter the poor, forgive. I marvel now at my good fortune, growing up in a parish that was poor itself, with visiting priests from Latin America who had lived poverty and suffering. Where I never heard hateful things about women or homosexuality or other ugliness commonly associated with the Catholic church. Where we had field trips to help at sandwich lines and had to accrue community service hours to graduate.
“Love and serve thy neighbor”
This message magnetized to my soul. I’m certain it’s the reason I chose a vocation in Social Work and now why I teach, knowing that there are other roads on which I could travel to achieve more security and material comfort.
By my mid-twenties, I had traveled the road of achievement and education and social norms. Married and loving our two wonderful dogs, establishing a career in public policy, renovating and landscaping our small home in Northwest Denver. I had taken my first Yoga class in a Littleton rec center when I was 19, and practiced intermittently with videos and magazines until a grad school friend suggested that a group of us attend class together to help us stay in touch as we were establishing our careers.
How I first found Yoga at 19 is a bit of mystery to me, even today. I have no idea where I heard of Yoga or even knew what it was, but somehow, I’ve always known that it’s something that I do. Not something that I’m supposed to do—and there are many things that I know that I’m supposed to do—but something that I do.
Sedentary and overweight, I always felt betrayed by my body. It was a source of shame and embarrassment, a reason to be abused by others. That I couldn’t run as fast or as far as other kids, that I wasn’t skinny and desirable to boys when I wanted to be, the number of times that I did something that I enjoyed (like dancing) only to be met with cruelty because I looked so ridiculous. I faced that shame full force on the mat, struggling to make transitions between poses when my friends made them so easily, encountering so much fear that I wouldn’t be able to do certain things—or, worse, that I would taste the bitterness of my shameful unworthiness if I tried and inevitably failed.
And yet, I was drawn to the practice like a moth to flame. I was truly terrible at Yogasana in my first several years of practice. I can’t say that I remember even enjoying it much, and yet I found myself on that mat week after week. It was an Ashtanga studio where I began to practice regularly and, when they closed, I found myself asking for recommendations for somewhere new.
It was my sister-in-law who made the suggestion. “The Kriya Yoga Center on Tennyson. I really like Michael there.” And so I went. Michael taught a beginner’s Hatha Yoga class on Monday nights and all-levels on Saturdays, and I can’t remember which one I first attended, but I remember vividly the first time I heard him speak.
Seated on a blanket on my mat, second-from-the-front along the south wall of the studio. To Michael’s right. It was my favorite spot, and I can see myself sitting there even today. I have no recollection of the topic on which Michael was speaking—he always started class with sitting and philosophy—but the knowing that happened in that moment. It still takes my breath away.
That this was the thing for which I had longed, and almost forgotten. To this day, I don’t have words to fully describe that thing, somewhere at the intersection of truth, wisdom, practice, and discipline. “Yoga is itself,” Michael used to say, that it defied definition because it was simply Yoga, no more and no less. My soul was prostrate on the floor at Michael’s feet as he spoke, and I knew that I had found my way home.
Those early days of blossoming into the practice fill my memories with such joy. My bestie Jess coming all the way from Broomfield for the Monday night beginner’s class, a weekly break from her infant twins and our little bit of time together. Saturday mornings with the studio so packed that we practiced mat-to-mat, with someone in the back hallway and another person in the prop closet so we could accommodate all comers. Sunday Satsang, delicious chanting and sitting and teaching and togetherness. Sangha. I came to feel the meaning of sacred community.
It didn’t take long to work every class that Michael taught into my schedule. To begin to understand meditation and try, poorly, to weave it into my daily life.
To fill book upon book with notes from his teaching. I took my first astrology course during this time—and still refer to the notes from it, although I didn’t understand that art/science until years later.
Gradually the world began to make more sense to me. I had more tools with which to navigate it. In those early days, my understanding of the teachings were largely intellectual and therefore surficial, and yet my body and my life were changing for the better. I was happier, more confident, more observant, more alive. And hungry, so hungry to learn more.
Somewhere along the line, Michael began to see me, too. One afternoon, we were speaking near the pew in the studio’s foyer, and I said or did something flippant. “You have a great deal of anger, don’t you?” he asked. Taken aback, I’m sure I denied that I did. I had never seen myself as having anger, and my ego was so ashamed to stand next to such a wise and gifted Teacher in such ugliness. Michael met my defensive outer shield that day, and called me on it. Yet not with the reproach to which I had become so accustomed.
I came to know that I could turn to him for counsel. That he would see me clearly and lean into the painful and difficult conversations with honesty and helpful teaching. I trusted that, in his gaze, I would find neither judgement nor cause for shame. That I would have space and support to grow.
The space between that time and now is filled with the story of human existence. My own, and his. Of the ebbs and flows, and ebbs of the Sangha and the Kriya Yoga Center. Of his guessing my pregnancy with Ally, weeks before a test confirmed it. Of my descent into obesity and crippling depression, and later the crumbling of my marriage and the life my now ex-husband and I had built together.
For years, I stared into inky blackness, no energy to lift my spirit or my life to be found. My life was beautiful and yet I could see no beauty. My babies, so wonderful in their opening to the world. My husband, working so hard and with such dedication for us. And it was lost to me. An empty shell exhausting myself as I served my family, whom I loved so deeply, numbing this nonsensical and all-consuming pain with food and ego.
Om in the darkness. Photo credit Ally Bucknam.
During those dark times, the mat and cushion were my refuge. I still remember the emptiness I encountered when sitting, this strange sound of a water droplet, falling forever and finally hitting the impenetrable blackness of that hole, lonely and wasted. And somehow, it comforted me.
I lacked the energy to attend class, but knowing that the studio was there, that Michael was there, was a beacon for me in the dark, a salve to my soul.
He read my natal chart for the first time during those years, and in some frustration with the death grip with which I held my pain, he told me with force,
“Serve or suffer! Serve or suffer, tiffany. If you cannot serve, you will suffer.”
I’ve pondered the mystery of that teaching for many years. I was serving my family full-time, and yet my suffering would not abate. What was I doing wrong? In retrospect, I think that the wily ego was causing some mischief. That the mind thought that my actions were service, but misunderstood the meaning of the word. For how can one truly serve if their actions come at their own expense?
We beings of light are not destined for martyrdom. Life is rooted in reciprocity. That which we sew returns to us—and if it doesn’t, there’s likely something out of balance..
The mat and the cushion. Photo credit Elimar Trujillo Photography.
Yoga is the sutra, the thread, by which I have woven together this life. The mat and the cushion, the mat the cushion. I never leave them for long, and when I do, it is often pain that motivates my return. Somewhere along the line, I found my way back to asana practice. Mat in the middle of the living room, toys everywhere, dogs licking my face and children using me as a jungle gym as I practiced what little asana I could remember to do.
I attended class maybe once every month or every other month. Inconsistent but slowly working my way back into some light, normalcy, discipline. Then two things happened, in close succession: Michael announced the convening of a study group that required a twice monthly commitment, and decided to close the studio on Tennyson.
Personal Spiritual Transformation the study group was called, and it promised a personal application of the Teachings “for those who are truly ready.” Even recognizing the burden it would place on my family—on my husband especially—to have me away from home two Sundays per month plus 1:1 counseling as needed, I knew I would do it. For the chance to study alongside other seekers, to bathe in the light of this ancient wisdom. A pack of stampeding animals couldn’t keep me away.
And transform my life it did. For the first time, I practiced Sadhana—daily spiritual effort. PST sparked discipline in me that continues to this day. And, far more importantly, it tamed the grip that the intellect had on my life. During a lecture on the chakric system, I realized that, somewhere along the line, I had shifted from relying on the mind to decide a course and direct my actions to listening to myself.
Photo credit Emma Ambroziak.
My inner voice began to call to me through the darkness. And it felt right. I heard my instincts and, though I mistrusted them at first, I came to rely on myself for direction instead of doing the things I thought I should do. I started reflecting on the Teaching and observing its impact on my life, instead of simply recording it verbatim and mechanically trying to follow. I began to live this path instead of thinking it.
I noticed that my face betrayed an anger that I didn’t feel or recognize, but seeing it in pictures scared me. I approached Michael for help, and he suggested that, “the heart is the antidote to anger. Open your heart.” The road paved by that advice found me telling him years later (and 75 lbs. lighter), “I think I’d like to teach.”
“Tiffany,” he replied, “you have studied with me for many years. You know everything that you need to know. Go teach.”
“But I don’t know what I’m doing,” I stammered.
“Everyone feels that way when they start. I did. Do it anyway,” He replied.
These few sentences remain emblazoned across my heart. Michael’s confidence in me shook my ashamed, wounded, unworthy ego to its core. It is the most important and meaningful conversation that I have had in this lifetime. Some months later, during a chart reading, Michael told me I would be an excellent teacher.
Badda Dandasana. Photo credit Elimar Trujillo Photography.
While I’m not quite ready to apply that adjective to my teaching, my life is now dedicated to earning it, and to earning the right to stand on the shoulders he so generously shared with us.
Even as this new vibrancy erupted in my life, moving the Center to Wheat Ridge seemed to deprive Michael of some of his. Still so wise, such a passionate and talented teacher, there seemed (at least to me) to be a growing pain there, a dissatisfaction. My God, Michael was so beautiful in his humanity. He was always Michael. No fancy Yogic name, no Swami in his title. At once a rare and elevated being and just a guy. Who, like any of the rest of us mortals, suffered and struggled and walked this real and sometimes painful world where even the highest mind cannot protect you from the dark.
At first occasionally, and then more frequently, his teachings would have a certain . . . negativity? Though I hate to use that description because I know how much he disdained it. A hardness, rigidity, insular-ness? I digested beliefs that most Yoga isn’t real Yoga, that only this path was “true,” and other Western Yoga is loaded with deception and falsehood. That it couldn’t be found elsewhere or with other teachers.
And I believed it, for a while, until I went to the Temple of Kriya at Michael’s urging to complete my teaching certification. And there I found, from all over the country, other seekers like myself, who drank from the cups offered by their own Teachers and walked similar paths to my own. And I found other Teachers—also disciples of Kriyananda—whose wisdom I trusted and under whose tutelage I flourished.
Preparing to practice Nadi Shodhana, one of Michael’s prescriptions for my personal imbalances. Photo credit Elimar Trujillo Photograpy.
That which I believed to be a dying path instead burst exquisitely to life, and with it, my own heart. I found, and still find, myself energized and ever more committed to and in love with the practice of Yoga. And as this love blossomed inside of me, a schism erupted between Michael and I. Even as I finally felt prepared to seek discipleship from him, our roads were diverging. He twice denied my request for initiation, to my great disappointment.
Kriyananda expected his students to ask their questions three different times so that he was sure they wanted an honest answer. I wondered if Michael wanted me to do the same regarding initiation, until, during class one night, he explained that it is the job of the Disciple to understand the dream of the Guru and serve it. “Love the Teaching, not the Teacher,” he used to say, and this seemed in line with that aphorism.
So the next time we were together, one of our last conversations, I told him that he had been my Teacher for many years, and I was sorry that I didn’t know his dream. Would he tell me what it is?
Michael grew quiet, and thoughtful. A single word passed his lips, uttered with such gravity that I knew what it meant to him.
“Freedom.”
Knowing that entering a Guru-Disciple relationship would necessarily bind our souls in a way that would inhibit his freedom, I stopped seeking initiation. And the chasm between us widened.
This time period, the early days of my teaching and continuing Yoga education, is blurred with this weird mixture joy and pain, from which I am still recovering. Between Michael and I, there were painful words uttered on occasion. He let me know that he did not support the direction where I was headed, that the things I enjoyed and believed were “not Yoga.” More often there was this empty sense of growing distance, of being ejected from the nest and not understanding why.
I sought counsel for my pain and confusion from other Teachers to whom I had grown close. There was help there, but little solace. Then one fateful night, I found myself in a pose—was it Down-Facing Dog maybe?—at the front of class, to Michael’s right, when he uttered the words, “Yoga is dead.”
My heart stopped beating. The Teacher who fed me the milk that sustains my life now tells me that it is rotten? These Teachings help me organize and make sense of the world around me. I turn to them when I am lost and find my way home. How, how could he believe that this is death? How could he say such a thing?
I wonder sometimes if I had the courage to speak up, to counter him, if it would have made any difference. But I know the answer. As he had once met my defensive shell, I believe that I was now meeting his. And I was not of the strength to call him on it.
The labyrinth at Joyful Journey Hot Springs, Moffat, CO. Photo Credit Tiffany Bucknam.
So I went my own way. Quietly, painfully working to reconcile my gratitude for the Teacher who led me into the light with the darkness that I perceived him to now project. And even as I type that sentence, I know this is a gross oversimplification, that there are layers to this story beyond even what I can see.
I have lived with this hole in my heart for years now, trusting that I honor Michael’s Teaching by offering the best of myself to my students, even though he expressed disgust for the way in which I do it. We spoke for the last time about a year ago. There was a chance encounter in a grocery store, where he took offense to an offhand comment that I made, and walked away without a word. A few moments later I found myself next to him in line; he didn’t acknowledge me, and again I watched him walk away.
This morning finds me sick of scrubbing the dried salt of my tears from the inside of my glasses. As much peace as I like to think I’ve found with this situation, clearly it pales in comparison with the depth of my feelings. Since learning of Michael’s passing early this week, I can hardly stop crying. I am seeking desperately, blindly for words to explain how I feel and why. And there are none.
The Teacher who set my feet on the path that feeds my soul with passion and purpose is gone. Rarely are there actions in my life or Teaching that don’t have a root in that which Michael taught me. Daily I am grateful for him. By all accounts, his life ended in tremendous pain, and that breaks my heart in unspeakable ways. I loved this man. I still do.
A prayer flag that hangs outside my home. Photo credit Tiffany Bucknam.
Michael Bonamer, I bow in the deepest gratitude. May I honor your life by my service to the Teaching and to my students. By the weaving of this thread, may you continue to touch lives, lives that will touch other lives, and go on to touch still more lives extending far beyond our own. May your soul reside in peace, peace, and greater peace.
Om Shanti, beloved Teacher.
May you find the freedom that you seek.