I recently spent 8 days in silent retreat, sleeping in a tent below the mountains of North Carolina practising mettā (loving-kindness) meditation. The late summer air was thick with gnats, clouding my face as they vied for the salts in my sweat.
On the last day, I went out to the meadow. Afternoon sun billowed through giant oaks, eagles pealed overhead. As the gnats brushed my face, I suddenly felt a sense of warmth for these tiny flying creatures. And for a moment they were no longer bothering me, but caressing my cheeks and kissing my forehead. I sent them mettā. “Enjoy your life, little ones.” “Go ahead and sup on my tears.”
Please know that this is not an outrageous experience after a week of mettā meditation.

Standing in the meadow – captured on my cheap film camera from the airport.
The day I left retreat, Hurricane Helene hit the region. I got a flight out hours before the roads were violently washed away and roofs ripped off houses. They called it a once-in-1000 year weather event. The folks over there still have no drinking water. That was four weeks ago. I have cried many times listening to their stories.
The neurophysiology of compassion shows that we care more about things when we feel connected to them. As human creatures, our existence is woven into the world around us through complex systems of relational ecology. So what does care look like if we are interconnected to everything?
First Nations cultures know the answers. For millennia, they maintained thriving reciprocal relationships with country. Enter capitalist imperialism merely a few hundred years ago, with it’s assumed dominion over natural resources, and we now have these catastrophic consequences (sweeping hand gesture). Indigenous wisdom shows that if we care for the land, we also care for ourselves. Humans are a continuum of country.
“Despite all our accomplishments, we owe our existence to a six-inch layer of topsoil and the fact that it rains.”
– Paul Harvey
Thich Nhất Hạnh, the great monk and peace activist, described this as ‘inter-being’. A notion that straddles the borders of biology, buddhist philosophy, and quantum physics.
Consider when you eat an apple, you become an extension of the pollinating insects and the blossom. The farmer and the grocery truck driver. Individualism is an illusion. When you know how to look, everything is overlapping.
The insight of interbeing is where our practices lead us.
You might first walk into a yoga class or physio session for exercise. That’s where I started, 20 or so years ago. I remember feeling like a newborn giraffe, primarily concerned that everybody else was looking at me. Some of you will relate.
You might spend a bunch of years assuming that spiritual practice is based on making shapes. There’s nothing wrong with this. All doorways are entry points. And everything begins in the body, anyway.
As you build awareness of this skinsuit you inhabit, you learn to breathe. To regulate your nervous system. Difficult moments elicit less reactivity. Self-awareness grows. After a while, as your heart/mind gets stable, you start attuning to other bodies, other hearts. More-than-self awareness grows. Care comes out in unexpected places.
At least that’s where I find the path has led.
This is why we don’t want to call ourselves a ‘yoga studio’. It doesn’t convey the bigger picture. So here’s a new description to try on together. What do you think?



Here’s how we measure interconnection and care. We’re still learning how to put numbers to the things that really count so it’s a work in progress.
With gratitude to all who support this collective effort. And especially our members, you are the heartbeat of Human.Kind. Click below to read your collective impact:
Whether you visit us for exercise, or to receive support, or to fall in love with gnats, welcome in. May your wisdom and compassion continue to expand. As the poet Rilke said,
“I live my life in widening circles
that reach out across the world.
I may never complete this last one
but I give myself to it.”
Yours in kindness,
Tessa
