Hunter - Spiritually Fly: Wisdom, Meditations, and Yoga to Elevate Your Soul

For Mother,

Dad, Mark, and Michael:

my soul is your soul.

To my 5-year old self:

I finally see you!

g od, where are you? This is Faith, and I need you now. I need you to free me from the angst, discomfort, and overall bad luck. Screaming uncontrollably, Im falling to my knees, and begging for mercy. If you dont answer, Im walking away, and cursing your name. Im done with the play on my emotions. Im sick of you delivering a moment of joy, and then months later, you snatching it all away. I second-guess myself on every decision, and regardless of failure or success, I regret the direction I decided on. Im also exhausted by guilty feelings around spirituality and fearful of what excruciating experience is around the corner as a believer or not. Seriously, God, Ive been a good girl, praised your name, and still, horrible things have happened. The pain, shame, and suffering has paralyzed my mind and tainted my heart. Im standing here naked, womb exposed, belly rotating, and spiraling into darkness with the hope of you grabbing my hand. Please help. I cant do this any longer.

This was my internal testimonial for many years. As a young black girl growing up in rural Louisiana, I spent most of my childhood steeped in the doctrine of the Baptist church. God was my lord and savior, and this was where I found strength. Even to this day, I can easily recite the Lords Prayer on command. As I write this paragraph, the prayer is racing through my mind, flecked with memories of the New Rocky Valley Baptist Church. I hear the choir, I see myself wearing a white gown, and I recall the pastor telling me to walk into the water. I was ten years old, getting baptized and committing myself to God. There was nothing more divine than to feel I was saved through glorified ritual, but little did I know that it would take more than a dip in holy water to free me from sin.

In the 1980s, I struggled daily as a young girl to find the answers and salvation within biblical text. I regularly flipped through the Bible for Gods guidance on such matters as the Mount St. Helens volcano eruption and the divorce of my classmates parents. Multiple times per week I would open my little green King James Bible and just read. The more I experienced in life, the more I would read and attempt to understand. I even found myself drifting off during Sunday school wondering why God talked to my grandparents but never answered my questions or prayers. My greatest question revolved around why my brothers were infected with HIV. I simply couldnt figure out why, if God was real, he didnt stop this from happening. As a result, I drifted into my twenties with a lack of divine alignment or spiritual connection. While my outer layer was glittered with southern charm and perfect manners, my inner self was a hot mess.

At the age of twenty-three, while my older brother was fighting for his life, I rolled into my first yoga class. It was the 1990s and an interesting time in my life, but it was hard for me to focus on anything but work, graduate school, beauty pageants, and a family in turmoil. The yoga experience was odd, but a dear friend thought it would help.

I recall doing a little yoga on PBS with Rodney Yee around the same time, but the yoga room surrounded by the noise of men dropping weights was nothing like Yees Hawaiian practice. Wearing all white, the teacher opened with a chant I didnt understand, guided us through some type of deep breathing, and told us to keep up or be kept up. Then somewhere between thinking Im strong and collapsing in tears, I felt a spark. Within the spark appeared a moment of silence in my head. For a few breaths I didnt ponder the looming death of my brother, the arguments between my parents, or the fact that I probably needed to leave grad school for a semester. There was something about this yoga class that gave me a moment to be alone in a crowded gym.

Soon I realized I was practicing kundalini yoga. As I related to the physical intensity of the practice, the teacher created a safe space for my emotional breakdowns. The class literally became my weekly cry fest. I curled into forward bends and cried almost every time in final relaxation. With tiny bits of belief in my heart, I even prayed the purifying power of Breath of Fire would do the trick.

Soon elements of the class merged into my life. After a long day at work and evenings in the hospital visiting my brother, I would return home and meditate before bed. And somehow that one yoga class a week gave me hope. On yoga days I would wake up less depressed, rarely argued with my mother, and always felt excited to stop by the hospital to kiss my brother good night. Yoga didnt supply the answers, but it was enough to release a few layers of pain.

Throughout the late 1990s and into the 2000s, I diligently practiced yoga and meditation. At the same time, I battled with my belief in God and the self. Even when I found vinyasa yoga, there were moments in the flow of Sun Salutation that I thought of floating away from it all. I hated my life and thought God and all those religious teachings were a joke. I would hear yoga teachers talk about how lovely it was to be alive, and those talks would trigger the same crap I questioned as a girl.

By 2001 my brother had died, my father had been diagnosed with cancer, and I was on the verge of getting a divorce. There was nothing joyous about my life or the people in it. My self-pity was over the top, yet the paradoxes of my childhood spiritual beliefs were strong. I felt very disconnected from the teachings but still aligned with the scriptures. For instance, in the morning, I would read Psalm 143:8: Let the morning bring me word of your unfailing love, for I have put my trust in you. Show me the way I should go, for to you I entrust my life, and I trusted that the upcoming day would be better and less painful than the day before. I would say to friends that I wasnt religious or spiritual, but I prayed before eating a meal. Oddly enough I remained attached to who I am, Faith Hunter.

In college, I had an amazing philosophy professor, Dr. Horton. Its strange how the universe works. I was a marketing major and was only required to take one philosophy class, but out of all my college professors, Dr. Horton was one of my favorites. He had a brilliant ability to relate philosophical principles to modern life, and he introduced me to the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali. As he creatively guided us through the 196 threads of spiritual awakening, I was drawn to the beauty of the text and the concept that I could actually experience bliss. One of the sutras I found most intriguing was 1.40. It referred to how we as humans have the capacity to control the mind and the ability to concentrate on the smallest atom or the vast universe. Within this purified mind, all is possible. As I struggled with my religious God, the Yoga Sutras opened a door to the belief that I was powerful in some way. Although I didnt reopen a copy of the Yoga Sutras until I enrolled in yoga-teacher training in 2003, I held on to the hope of experiencing spirit in some capacity.