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In Praise of the Yoga Bolster

I bought my Hugger Mugger bolster in the early 2000s, and more than twenty years later, it is still remarkably dense and supportive. The fabric has softened and the bolster carries the quiet evidence of countless practices, but it has never lost its essential shape, not even a little. It reminds me of a classic wool sweater: dependable, versatile and immune to trends.

The bolster itself wasn’t invented specifically for yoga. Long, firm cushions have supported bodies in homes and contemplative traditions for centuries. Its modern role in asana practice emerged largely through B.K.S. Iyengar, who began experimenting with blankets, ropes, bricks, chairs and cushions to make postures safer and more accessible. By the 1970s, the firm yoga bolster had become part of his system of supported practice. Judith Hanson Lasater later helped bring these ideas into Restorative Yoga, where the principle was beautifully simple: when the body feels fully supported, it can finally let go.

Hugger Mugger belongs to the next chapter of that story. Founded in Salt Lake City in 1986 by Iyengar Yoga student and custom-furniture builder Sara Chambers (can you tell I went down a rabbit hole here?), the company was among the earliest American makers of specialized yoga props. That furniture-making background still seems present in its classic bolster: it is built less like a decorative pillow and more like a piece of supportive equipment. Its firmness matters. A bolster that collapses beneath you cannot offer the same steadiness, whether it is supporting the spine in a backbend, the ribs in a side bend or the hips in a long-held Yin posture.

That may be why the bolster remains such an enduring part of practice. It can encourage opening or invite rest; it can make a posture more accessible or allow you to stay long enough to experience it differently. From backbends to side bends—and so many shapes in between—it does its work quietly.

Favorite Yoga Sutras Book

People often ask which translation of the Yoga Sutras I recommend, perhaps because they know how much I love the text—and that I own close to twenty different versions. This is either a respectable personal library or a very specific problem. I tend to prefer translations that stay relatively close to the traditional meaning. There are some wonderfully creative interpretations out there, along with a few truly wild ones, but the translator’s lens matters. The Sanskrit may be spare, yet no translation is neutral; every version tells us something about the tradition and perspective through which the sutras are being understood.

At the same time, I want commentary that helps modern practitioners apply the teachings—not simply admire them from a safe historical distance. Take brahmacharya: yes, it is traditionally translated as celibacy. We don’t need to perform interpretive gymnastics until it means something more convenient. But we can ask what the teaching looks like for someone who is married, raising children or living an ordinary household life. How might it inform our relationship with sexuality, desire, fidelity, energy and moderation? A useful commentary respects the original teaching and then helps us figure out what to do with it on a Tuesday afternoon.

The book I reach for most often is Swami Satyananda Saraswati’s Four Chapters on Freedom. It is grounded in a traditional yogic lineage without leaving the modern practitioner stranded centuries away from the text. Other versions do a better job of bringing the teachings directly into daily life—Living the Sutras: A Guide to Yoga Wisdom Beyond the Mat is a wonderful example. But Four Chapters on Freedom remains the version I return to when I want to engage more deeply with the traditional text.

Chyawanprash—But Make It Cookies

Chyawanprash (roughly, CHYUH-vun-prahsh) is one of those Ayurvedic preparations that resists an easy modern category. It is part herbal jam, part food and part traditional tonic—a dark, sweet, tart and gently spiced sticky paste. In Ayurveda, chyawanprash is considered a rasayana, a preparation traditionally associated with nourishment, rejuvenation and resilience.

Today, it is commonly eaten by the spoonful or stirred into warm milk—although its intense sweet-sour-spicy flavor can require a little courtship.

Which brings me to cookies. The Himalayan Institute’s cafe has found a particularly friendly way to introduce chyawanprash: folding it into a warmly spiced cookie—think molasses cookie, but different. It easily competed with their house-made chai for my favorite snack.

Here is their recipe:

Chyawanprash Cookies

Soft, warmly spiced cookies featuring the sweet, tart and herbal flavors of traditional chyawanprash.

Ingredients

• 1 cup unsalted butter (2 sticks), softened

• 2 cups dark brown sugar—or coconut sugar or sucanat

• 2 large eggs

• 1 jar (1.1 pounds) chyawanprash

• 5 cups organic white flour

• 3 teaspoons aluminum-free baking soda

• ½ teaspoon salt

• ¼ teaspoon ground ginger

• Natural sugar for rolling, optional

Directions

1. Preheat the oven.
   Heat the oven to 350°F (175°C). Line your baking sheets with parchment paper.

2. Mix the wet ingredients.
   In a large bowl or stand mixer, cream the softened butter and brown sugar until smooth. Add the eggs one at a time, mixing well after each addition. Add the entire jar of chyawanprash and blend thoroughly.

3. Mix the dry ingredients.
   In a separate bowl, whisk together the flour, baking soda, salt and ground ginger.

4. Make the dough.
   Gradually add the dry ingredients to the chyawanprash mixture. Stir just until a uniform dough forms.

5. Shape the cookies.
   Roll the dough into small balls. If you’d like a sparkling finish, roll each ball lightly in natural sugar. Arrange them a few inches apart on the prepared baking sheets and press down gently.

6. Bake.
   Bake for 10–12 minutes, until the cookies are set and lightly golden around the edges. Transfer to a wire rack to cool.

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Most of what ends up here starts as a sequence or a close look at a single pose, built around Yin — something meant to hold together start to finish. But I’ve got a second folder that never quite fits that shape: half-formed cues, a line from a book that stopped me mid-page, a small anatomical thing I can’t stop thinking about, whatever tradition I happen to be sitting inside of that week — tantric hatha, ayurveda, astrology, energetics, whatever’s creeping in around the edges. Usually it just piles up. This is me sharing the pile instead.

Okay. Let’s get into it.

Reclined Leg Stretch

I try to teach with cues that have genuinely landed in my own body — not simply ones that are anatomically accurate. Alignment matters, but it doesn’t always create understanding on its own — sometimes a well-chosen image or an unexpected angle unlocks something precise instruction can’t reach.

Every teacher eventually discovers we’re often communicating the same essential actions again and again. The challenge — and the art — is finding fresh language that helps each student arrive there anyway.

One book that fundamentally expanded what cueing could mean to me was Yoga: The Poetry of the Body by Rodney Yee. A cue could be an invitation to imagine and feel, not just a direction to follow. Consider his instructions for Reclined Leg Stretch:

What I like about it: he guides you to two different places — the leg, the back of the body — and even though the pose itself is still, the mind moving between those two points creates a kind of pulse inside the stillness. The pose is doing more than one thing at once. And notice he never tells you what to feel, only where to feel — “allow yourself to feel,” “feel the resistance.” The sensation is left to supply its own content. That’s a different job than an anatomical cue does. An anatomical cue governs the shape. This kind of cue governs where your attention goes inside a shape that’s already there.

What I Am Reading / Re-Reading / Half-Reading

The Fire Inside by Rima Vesely-Flad: I've been making my way through this thoughtful offering. The book weaves together Buddhist philosophy and contemplative practice with the voices of Audrey Lorde and James Baldwin in a way that feels both grounding and provocative. Rather than offering easy answers, it invites a deeper inquiry into how we meet ourselves, one another, and the world with greater awareness and courage. It's the kind of book I find myself reading slowly, often pausing to sit with a single paragraph before moving on.

Radiant Rest by Tracee Stanley: I keep returning to this one, especially now, as I prepare for my own yoga nidra training this fall. Tracee studied with my own teacher, Rod Stryker, and you can feel that lineage running underneath the book — but she brings a feminine lens to the teachings that feels like it was always waiting to be spoken this way. The yoga nidra and tantric practices she shares are rendered with such warmth and embodied wisdom, centered on rest as a form of reclamation rather than a luxury. It’s the book I keep coming back to as I get ready to hold this space for others.

The Kitchen Garden by Toby Musgrave: What humbles me most about gardening is that there’s no formula — at least not one I’ve found. I can plant something one year and have it thrive, do the exact same thing the next, and watch it fail completely. It forces me to live in the moment, adapt, let go — the same lessons I’ve spent years practicing on the mat, now being taught back to me by a row of okra. This year I’ve grown tomatoes, corn (!!), beans, sweet potatoes, basil, and okra, most of it from seed. There’s something almost embarrassingly satisfying about eating a meal you can trace back to a seed packet in your own hands months earlier.

Summer Bits

There’s something in Ayurveda about proximity to water being cooling in itself — not just swimming as exercise, but the simple act of being near it. In Houston, the heat doesn’t ever really settle, but the pool still does something: dipping your toes in, dunking all the way under, coming up for a second where nothing is sticky or heavy. It’s less a place to cool down and more a place to reset — my closest thing to a seasonal permission slip to do less.

Speaking of doing less, I was recently inspired by Rose Theodora’s writing, The Era of Self-Monetization. It gets at something I think about a lot in this work: the difference between genuine care and the subtle pressure to constantly improve, optimize, or perform wellness. In a culture that encourages continual self-monitoring, her writing points toward something quieter — stepping out of evaluation, softening unnecessary effort, relating to yourself without needing to fix or improve anything.

One small way I’ve been practicing that lately: closing my eyes. Even just for a few postures, it tunes the extreme light and heat of summer out. There’s less visual stimulation to chase, less comparing your triangle pose to the mat next to you — just the shape, the breath, and whatever’s actually happening in your own body. It’s a small thing, but it’s made my practice feel more like rest and less like one more thing to get right.

Thanks for sitting with me this week. Back soon with a new sequence to prepare for sleep. Until then: go outside (early morning or late evening, if you’re in Houston like me), eat something you grew, close your eyes for at least one pose.

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