Verses on the Chakras: Andrea Brook

Andrea Brook plays the Earth Harp, a gigantic ethereal instruments with the ability to actually pluck, or gently massage, your heartstrings. She speaks poetry to the music and truly believes in the ability of vibration to heal and transport her students.

My last sight of Andrea was at YogaDayLA, up in Topanga Canyon. My mother was visiting from the East Coast, and after lunch, we booked it up to Malibu to catch Andrea's class. As we drove away from the coast, we stepped out of a fog and into Topanga's joyous temperament.

This time, Andrea was positioned at the front of a baseball stadium, fully committed to playing the Earth Harp and teaching at the same time. I cannot imagine this is an easy task, but she flowed from one pose to the other with hypnotic tones.

One of my favorite elements of Andrea's class is her sweet caress "I love you", she whispers to the crowd. It comes from that authentic knowing of the self, that at the core, you do love, terribly, intensely, without conditions. Her words come from that place of introspection, and absolute truth.

My first sight of Andrea was at Burningman. All I knew was "yoga at the temple", which is a four-word combination compelling enough to lead me anywhere. As I rode up to the temple, I understood that the same enchanted instrument that I had the pleasure of hearing the other day was now going to headline my yoga session. Delighted, I threw my mat out into the dirt as the sunset climaxed. Andrea wrote verses on the chakras, inspiring phrases such as "transmuting to the sublime".

The practice phased through the chakras, spending a little extra attention on vishuddha and expression. We had some photographer moments (imagine the playa + yogis + temple + sunset), including headstand, shoulder stand, and standing mountain. In a seated meditation, Andrea had us made a temple mudra above our heads with our hands, a symbol of perfection and divinity. We had perhaps 100-150 people, though I'm terrible at counting. It was quite a sight.

"You have the right to be here," I remember Andrea saying, "You have the right to be you. Speak your truth. I love you".

Months later, I'm looking through my notes from post-practice. They look like this:

"EPIC EPIC EPIC. More wondrous than any opera, majestic and poetic truth".