Welcome to my new website

Good enough. I would say it to myself every time I opened my website these past two years. I updated my classes, workshops and retreats, swapped out photos of my prior studio, Be True (ok, most of them). And then four months ago, while on retreat in Costa Rica, I shifted. Good enough was not enough. Elena Brower invited us to explore a photo session with Australian photographer Pete Longworth and I answered YES.

There was no advance planning —no special dresses, makeup, jewelry or hair stylists to create an image. It was raw—just me reveling in the Costa Rican jungle, the Pacific Ocean, all the while supported by the retreat’s other seekers on the same path to health and wellbeing.

On the morning of the shoot, I awoke to the wailing of howler monkeys. I washed my hair at 5:30 in the morning hoping it will air-dry in time for our 7:00 am start. It didn’t.

But the sun shimmered through the jungle flora, Michael Franti was playing on a tiny portable speaker and Pete, sensing my nervousness, encouraged me to move--to sashay up and down a flight of moss-covered stairs swinging my pleated red dress. Soon I was dancing in place, all improv and 5 Rhythms style, free and unfettered. The two and half hours flew.

The essence of that joy, the photo journal of that morning, is a reflection of how I experience yoga and inspired this new site — iriscohenyoga. It is my hope that this revised portal of information, with my new offerings of yoga classes in NYC and the Hamptons, retreats, photos and blogs invites you to say YES as much as I did that December morning.

YES to nourishment — clean food, pure nature, attuned movement and the possibility of showing up for yourself, your family and friends with awareness, integrity and open-minded possibility.

With gratitude,

Iris