For a period at the beginning of this year, I framed my yoga classes with the yamas and niyamas: ten guiding principles or ethics of yoga philosophy. I listed them at the beginning of each class, and invited participants to choose the most resonant precept, the one that caught their ear, and to draw into deeper consideration of it.

The precept that continues to resonate for me through this whole year, is the one taught first, the seed of all the others: ahimsa, or non-killing, non-harming, non-violence. Read how sangha, aversion, and a big bug show up as teachers.