THE WHOLE PERSON CALENDAR / DECEMBER 2011

Yogini Power: An Interview with Seane Corn

Founder, Off The Mat, Into the World® by Sharon Hall

May our leaders with their brilliance unite us all, so we can prosper and experience justice as equals. May that unity be the love that connects and unites our souls. Seane Corn at Occupy Wall Street, October 2011

Yogini, activist, and co-founder of the global organization, Off the Mat, Into the World, Seane Corn is a force to be reckoned with. This October, she addressed an Occupy Wall Street crowd in New York. “I went there not knowing if ten people or a thousand would show up. It started with about 200 yogis, and by the time I left, there were at least

500 people there. It was very affirming that 200 people from the yoga community came out to lend support. In a 48-hour period, using social media, we were able to activate a viral phone tree.” Assisted by the “human microphone,” she reminded the attendees that just being there was doing yoga. At the end of her speech she transitioned into Tree Pose, a posture to increase balance, focus, strength, and steadfastness.

For Seane, yoga is not something separate from the world or from political activism. Instead, as she demonstrated that day in the park, Yoga — which means union — is something we can do everyday in all

our interactions with others. It is action from the heart, based in compassionate wisdom with a profound recognition that all is connected and sacred.

Whole Person had the honor to talk with Seane by phone at her home in Los Angeles, a rare opportu-nity as she travels most of the year.

WP: What brought you to yoga initially and what was the inspiration for your activism?SC: I became an activist in New York working with different organizations, like gay rights and pro-choice, when I was very young. I had a lot of rage against injustice, so my way of processing was getting involved in rallies and, essentially, telling other people how to live their life. I

started doing yoga because I wasn’t being effective anymore as an activist.

Prior to yoga, the only way I’d known to release that tension was through the yelling, chanting and cheering. I felt amazing afterward, but by next day I’d be angry again and couldn’t wait until the next rally — which wasn’t a sustainable practice.

In the late 90’s, Seane decided it was time to give something back. “I’d started to teach privates and I was teaching my tail off, making more money then I ever had before.” She had a strong intuition about abun-dance: “When more is coming in, you have to spread it around or you stop the flow and I wasn’t interested in stopping the flow. Initially, it had little to do with altruism and every-thing to do with keeping that flow of abundance.”

WP: That’s an okay motive, isn’t it?SC: When I think back on it, everything was divine and perfect in the way it all went down. I learned about an organiza-tion in Van Nuys from one of my clients, called Children of the Night,* and decided to volunteer.

WP: I remember reading about this non-profit and being very impressed. SC: The work they do is amazing. They are the only organization in North America dealing with this particular population. They were so wonderful and supportive of the work I was doing at that time.

WP: So you just walked in one day and said, “Hi, my name’s Seane and I’d really love to use yoga to help these young people.”SC: I did, but they didn’t immediately say yes. It turns out if you’re working with sexually abused children there are a lot of rules. When they finally did let me work with them, the kids were not impressed. They were rude, indifferent, aggressive, and mean. Afterward, she ran to her car. “I was so angry; toward the shelter and toward the system. I burst out crying and suddenly realized what hap-pened. I’d just met 15 pieces of my own unhealed, unwanted self.”

Seane went back again. “Instead of trying to teach them something, I started to connect and to share. I started to see that what was under their anger was fear, and under that was grief. Just by being who they were, those children helped me understand that under my own anger was grief. I often say during that time in my life I didn’t give service to anybody. Those children served me and gave me back a part of my soul. In exchange, I taught them some yoga.”

WP: That seems to be the truth for many kinds of recovery work; it seems like it’s service to others that ultimately saves us.SC: It has brought me much joy and happiness. It’s a great privilege to do what I get to do, pretty much every day of my life.

Her next step on this path was a program called YouthAIDS.* “They reached out to me and asked if I wanted to be their yoga ambassador. My job was to increase awareness in the yoga community about the global HIV/AIDS issue.” The first thing she did was make a t-shirt with the slogan Off the Mat and Into the World: “We sold them for $20. In a short amount of time, we sold $50,000 worth. I thought, maybe we’re on to something here.” In a year of fund-raising, and with the help of her musician friends, she raised $300,000 for YouthAIDS. It affirmed what Seane already be-lieves: “It’s about community.”

WP: You’re talking about the yoga commu-nity’s response.SC: Yes, because it’s a built-in audience. There’s a shared value system, people tend to be altruistic and educated, and make a decent living. I wanted to use my platform to harness this energy, to see if we could raise awareness and money and see if we could make a difference, both locally and globally. That’s how Off the Mat, Into the World was born.

WP: You have co-founders as well.SC: Suzanne Sterling and Hala Khouri. We started trainings on how to use yoga to get more engaged and involved with service. But, there was this organizational element that I didn’t have time for. Then I

Founders, Off The Mat; Suzanne Sterling, Seane Corn and Hala Khouri.

Sharing yoga with South African children.

New Hope School, Uganda.

Working with youth in Cambodia.

Seane speaking at Occupy Wall Street, October 2011.

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met this woman, Julia Butterfly Hill, who’d tied herself to redwood trees in Northern California when they were clear-cutting. She was the first hard-core activist I heard speak who brought spirituality into activism. And that inspired me because I was a spiritualist who brought activism into the conversa-tion. It gave me a lot of hope. Julia was involved with an organiza-tion called The Engagement Work.* “They reached out to me and said, ‘We see what you’re doing on the road, we think it’s amazing, we see the limitations, and we think we might have a “now what” for you.’” That was what Seane had been waiting for.

SC: They became our umbrella, providing seed money and helping establish our initial trainings. We created a curriculum. The idea was those who took our training would go back to their community and invite eight to 12 friends to meet once a week for seven weeks, for up to three hours. At the end of the curriculum, the group would come up with a project that focused on local issues.

Today, OTM has circles everywhere — including Europe and Japan. Leaders create their own projects; these have included yoga for 12-steps/recovery, and yoga in the LGBT communities amongst others, supporting different needs that exist within the larger yoga community. According to Seane, each town or city ideally has a regional leader who can organize local projects. “If something national comes up, through the social media channels, we can reach out to these regional leaders and let them know about projects and how much money we need to raise. They have access to their communities in ways we don’t. We’re in the business of creating leaders. And, that’s we’ve done.”

WP: Let’s switch gears for a moment. Tell me more about your involvement with Seva.SC: Sure. That’s one of our projects, the Global Seva Challenge. I had been spending time in India, working with YouthAIDS, visiting different organiza-

tions in some of the more impoverished areas. I started thinking; wouldn’t it be amazing to bring people out to these environments to let them see what’s going on in the world — not as a tourist, but as a traveler and a participator. If I had known then what I know now, I don’t know if I would have done it; it was a huge undertaking.

They decided to focus on Cambodia. OTM partnered with and made a financial commitment to The Cambo-dian Children’s Fund. Then, they reached out to the yoga community. “We said, ‘If you can raise $20,000 in the course of one year through outreach and service-related projects in your community, you can come with us and see how your money is being spent. While you’re there, you will get additional training and learn processing skills.’”OTM raised over $500,000 for this project their first year. “The next year we raised $544,000. We went to Uganda and built a birthing center and a seven-room schoolhouse. The year after that, we went to South Africa. We raised about $550 ,000 and built a sustainable bakery, a library, and a halfway house. This year we’re focusing on Haiti.”

SC: What’s effective about Off the Mat is that it’s self-sustaining. We don’t have to go to the government for grants and that means they cant dictate how we can or cannot spend our money. We’ve got relationships with different grassroots and national organizations that have long-term visions and a track record of success. We

It’s a great

privilege to do what I get to do,

pretty much every day of my life.

ask what they need and what would they like our help in creating. What we want in exchange is to spend a day or two with the project and the people and we want to be actively involved — digging ditches or painting, working with children, teaching yoga — whatever we can do.

WP: During these trips, how much time do you spend doing yoga and processing with the group? SC: Well, we do yoga every morning. We go through our day, and in the evening, for at least a couple of hours, we’ll share and process. We’ve found when people are not dealing with their feelings and trauma is getting triggered, things will come up. People may start to over-eat for example, or call home and start fights. It’s all part of how it can play out. All of it empowers the participants to become better leaders. Sometimes they start their own 501(c)(3). Once people become empowered it’s like, move over; watch what I can do.

WP: I can’t imagine what your schedule must look like. What’s it like when you’re home in LA? Do you teach?SC: It depends, because I’m on the road 250 days a year and I teach on the road.

Here, I teach once a week. I have an assistant, and when I’m here we focus on my career or on Off the Mat. OTM has a team of about nine people. There’s a lot happening behind the scenes.

OTM also has local projects, such as their Empowered Youth initiative that works with marginalized inner-city youth and gangs. There are work-shops that help ex gang members via the spoken word, using poetry and rap to process what’s going on in their lives. “We also bring yoga practices into juvenile hall — not just for the kids, but for the parole officers and the staff, to help them deal better with the stress.” OTM has taken people to Homeboy Industries downtown, run by Father Boyle, that only hires ex-gang members.* “It’s a restaurant where you can find rival gang members working side by side, baking your bread, or serving you at the table.” The program has facilities from therapy to tattoo removal in order to help people who are really committed to getting out of a gang. This is something we want to focus on eventually in other cities as well,

but LA is our backyard so we started here.”

WP: If I was someone who wanted to get more deeply involved with one of your organizations, and with what you do, where should I start? SC: Go to OffTheMat.org to learn more about us. Next, take a five-day intensive. The emotional work is the biggest part of what Off The Mat’s about. If we’re going to work with marginalized or traumatized populations, it would be arrogant to imagine that our own stuff isn’t going to come up. It also depends on where you are in your life. If you’re raising three kids, coming with me to India might not be the most practical thing.

WP: What else does Seane Corn or OTM have on their schedules this year?SC: There’s a lot of ways to get involved. Our next big project is something we’re calling Yoga Votes. We want to rally the yoga community around getting out there to vote to remind people that you take action by voting. With Yoga Votes, if we can also collect the data — this is the kind of thing that makes politicians pay attention. If they can see there’s a demo-graphic here — the spirituality, yoga

community vote — they can see we’re not going to put our votes out there if our concerns are not being addressed.

WP: Is there anything else you’d really like people to know, either about you or Off the Mat or anything else before we sign off?SC: I’d like them to know this is a collective effort. There are a lot of brilliant people who work hard behind the scenes to make this happen. The sustainability of the organization is reliant on conscious-ness and community. We’re looking for people in the yoga community to get involved, bring their brilliance to the table, and add to this collective vision. It’s way bigger than me personally, and way bigger then the nine people who run this organization. It’s about the yoga commu-nity that wants to engage and have a forum to do it so they don’t have to re-invent the wheel.

WP: Perfect. Thank you Seane. Thanks for sharing your time and your vision with us.

For more information and to get involved, donate, read the blogs, and see a schedule of OTM’s upcoming events and trainings, visit www.offthematintotheworld.org.To experience Seane’s October Occupy Wall Street speech, go to YouTube Off The Mat, Onto the Street.

*Linkswww.childrenofthenight.orgwww.YouthAIDS.orgwww.engagenet.orgwww.homeboy-industries.orgwww.eomega.org

Seane Corn is an internationally celebrated yoga teacher known for her impassioned activism and inspirational style of teaching. A strong and articulate voice for social change, she started her activism work by creating the yoga program for L.A. shelter “Children of the Night.” Since 2006, her work has been focused on training leaders of activism through her co-founded organiza-tion Off the Mat, Into the World® and bringing awareness to the HIV/AIDS crisis. Over the last 20 years of her career, Seane has been featured in magazines, Oprah.com, The Huffington Post, numerous radio programs such as NPR, and four self-au-thored DVD programs, and, in 2005, was named the National Yoga Ambassador for YouthAIDS. She sits on the board of both the Cambodian Children’s Fund and The Engage Network.

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Seane and the yogis, Occupy Wall Street

(Seane continued from page 5)

THE WHOLE PERSON CALENDAR / DECEMBER 2011