Life is all about moving through a series of circumstances that challenge, stretch and grow us in both unexpected and expected ways. It’s a little like doing a yoga class and moving through a series of poses in a sequence, where you start out with an intention, and by the end of the class you discover something new about yourself. At least, this is what it feels like for author and yogi Jennifer Lang, whose new memoir ‘Landed: A yogi’s memoir in pieces & poses‘ traces her life journey through a sequence of familiar yoga poses, where we get a glimpse into how she is stretching, growing and learning, all while attempting to maintain a sense of balance.

American-born Jennifer traces her journey—both on and off the yoga mat—reckoning with her adopted country (Israel), midlife hormones (merciless), cross-cultural marriage (to a Frenchman) and their imminent empty nest (a mixed blessing), eventually realizing the words her yoga teachers had been offering for the past twenty-three years: root down into the ground and stay true to yourself. Finally, she understands that home is about who you are, not where you live. Written in experimental chapterettes, ‘Landed’ spans seven years (and then some), each punctuated with chakra wisdom from nationally-acclaimed Rodney Yee, her first teacher.

We were lucky enough to feature a few excerpts from the book, published below with permission.

ROOT CHAKRA

“Okay guys, this is it,” said the teacher, clapping his hands. Dressed in a tank top and shorts, he looked more like a pool lifeguard than a small business owner. “Let’s start in Tadasana, Mountain pose.”

Suddenly, the 50-odd men and women on all sides of me stood erect like a military regiment at roll call. I imitated even though the tallest part of me was my married name, Lang, which means long in German. 

Before class, everyone was whispering, asking if Rod was back from retreat. Rod as in Rodney Yee, as in nationally famous yoga instructor, as in the man who guided my body upside down and filled my mind with sagacious words; retreat as in rubbed-me-wrong and sounded cultic. 

“Okay, so we’re going to work our way up the chakra system today. There are seven. Ready?” 

More whispering. Some fidgeting. Since my initial class at Piedmont Yoga Studio a few years ago, I’d come every Wednesday morning barring sick kids or Jewish holidays. But I wouldn’t be able to name any poses or chakras.   

“Stand with your feet inner hip width apart and press them into the floor beneath you. At the same time, reach up through the crown of your head,”he said as if it were simple. “Ask yourselves: do I feel grounded, bolstered?” 

The idea of rooting made me tremble. I gazed at my extremities and tried to spread my toes, imagining myself a mile up the road in my childhood bedroom. As this strapping instructor swaggered around the studio, his long ponytail swung side to side like a pendulum. 

“Cool! You guys look really rooted. This is good for opening your first chakra at the base of the spine and connecting to earth energy. When your root chakra’s balanced, you’ll feel confident and centered, but when it’s blocked or out of balance, you feel needy, insecure.” 

I dug my feet into the California hardwood floor, so different than the icy Israeli tiles in our apartment in Haifa, where Mari and I spent our first five years, desperate to feel the studio’s warmth and weight. 

Warrior I Pose, 2011

While the girls start school and our son navigates his imminent enlistment in the Israel Defense Forces (IDF), my husband Mari shadows the workers in our far-from-finished house in Raanana and suggests I go to yoga. Only a couple of weeks in the country and already I regret our return. 

At Omyoga, the instructor sticks closely to the 41 poses in the primary Ashtanga series, leading us from pose to pose, her words calculated and crisp, her delivery, worldly and wise. The sun penetrates through wide-open windows. No fan, no AC, pure desert heat. Her burnt umber skin glows.

On the mat, I detect active verbs like lilchotz, leharim, leharchiv, making my hippocampus work intensely to recall words from Hebrew immersion class over two decades ago, when I spent an extended layover here before graduate school, when I unexpectedly fell for a sexy smart Frenchman and stayed. My tank top clings to my torso. Buckets of perspiration drip down my sides. 

Eight years earlier, during my teaching training in New York, we studied the battle between two sides of a family in The Bhagavad Gita. Warrior I isn’t about the physical warrior but the spiritual one, facing the universal enemy of self-ignorance, the ultimate source of suffering. Am I warrior enough to live here? If terrorism resurges or war ensues, am I strong enough to soldier through it? If my children grow up and leave the country, is our marriage sturdy enough to anchor me?

As I listen to the 20-something-year-old teacher, everything compresses: the gray matter, the white matter, the water.

Poser

Six days later, another holiday and countrywide closure, beginning the evening before and ending after nightfall. Erev Yom Kippur—the eve of the holiest day of the year—swells with sad air and solemn people. Complete quietude blankets a large strip of the land: no cars, no cafes, no forms of entertainment regardless of belief or observance level.

Even Ben Gurion International Airport is dark. Millions of Jews abstain from food and water and stand-sit for hours in synagogue, close eyes, bang fists against chests, chant prayers, and ask forgiveness from Elohim for sins they have committed over the past 364 days. On the outside, I show up for services, but inside, I bolt to a far-flung galaxy. 

After synagogue, the city’s main thoroughfare is awash in white—the color of purity and cleanliness—as worshippers stroll, stopping to greet friends and to wish each other an easy fast. The kids head to the house, while I accompany Mari, who wants to see and be seen. 

Ahuzza Street offers an unexpected contrast. The devout repent while the secular, more than half of the city’s 47,000-something residents, release. Mobs of boys race each other on bikes. Families ride with total disregard for rules of the road. Parents teach children to pedal without training wheels. Recklessness reigns. Every year, heaps of people land in the Emergency Room. 

On this day, also called Festival of Bikes, I picture myself on my green Trek hybrid, cruising through the city, the cool evening wind fluttering on my arms and legs. I picture myself alone, Mari and the kids walking to and from synagogue, famished and parched. I picture myself flying and free. 

Sugarcane Pose

In hesitant Hebrew, I demonstrate Ardha Chandra Chapasana. With one leg on the ground and the other in the air, I strive to incorporate some relevant yogic philosophy, inherent goodness mumbo-jumbo, to remind the handful of students the meaning of Anusara, but most concepts don’t translate in this language. 

When an Israeli yoga instructor called about subbing, I stumbled over his racecar-fast elocution about his small studio nestled on a moshav, a 20-minute traffic-clogged ride from Raanana. I didn’t care about the commute and accepted, my legs spinning in hula-hoop circles. 

“I’ve never done this before,”a fair-skinned woman says in British English.  

I help her, the lone Anglo among Israelis, make the hand-foot connection. She leans back. Her chest opens. “Ahhh.”   

“Stay in the pose and listen,” I address the two dozen men and women. “Try to lift your bottom hand. As you balance, think about Patanjali, the father of yoga, and his words chitta vritti nirodhah. Chitta is consciousness, vritti is fluctuations, and nirodah is quieting. Can you find that inside?” 

The one-room shack throbs with energy. 

Four years earlier, in 2007, when we’d spent 12 months in the center of the country, no one in the Israeli yoga scene had heard of what was considered the fastest-growing style in America. Anusara was everything I’d learned about precision and alignment on steroids. If ever I’d come close to drinking the Kool-Aid, it was Anusara flavored.

For the past six years, I wallowed at Sage studio in Westchester, where my teacher edified us in the Tantric philosophy of intrinsic goodness. Week after week, I sat across from her at a teachers’ practice, as well as attended workshops, taught classes, and found community. 

When I asked the moshavnik about Anusara in Israel, he assured me it was coming full tilt, which made me think about the passage of time and the power of change.

“Okay, zeho. Second side, y’all!”

 “When are you coming back?” the Brit asks.

Jennifer Lang is a San Francisco Bay area transplant in Tel Aviv. Last September, she gave birth to her first book, Places We Left Behind: a memoir-in-miniature; in October 2024, she welcomes Landed: A yogi’s memoir in pieces & poses into the world. A graduate of Vermont College of Fine Arts, Jennifer was an Assistant Editor at Brevity. Her prize-winning essays appear in Baltimore Review, Under the Sun, Midway Journal, and elsewhere. A longtime yoga instructor, she teaches YogaProse. Learn more about Jennifer here and find her on Facebook and Instagram