Last night the sunset was a drawn out, pink and purple slow dance on the softest clouds, with a backdrop of sky on a dusky dimmer switch. When night arrives like this, in long, deep breaths, it feels like I shift – becoming still enough to notice the subtle and unpredictable undulations of the light. The camera attached to our phones is not able to hold it, not even close. So we lean in and observe, with our bodies, with all levels of our being. And even after the sun of the next day
has come, already fierce and bright, we talk about it.
This kind of leaning in (and talking about it) feels a lot like the co-stewardship work at the Ashram right now. From our elders to new-this-month karma yogis, it is interesting andimportant to note that everyone is asking the same questions: What is the plan for the future? How will the Ashram keep going? What if there are no swamis?
From this place of care and future thinking, the Ashram has been hosting a series of Co-Stewardship gatherings with next-generation teachers and deep friends of the work. In 2024, there were 7 in-person gatherings with the younger cohort (a group spanning four decades!) and three elder board members. We realized that as much as we were gathering to talk about
the future of the Ashram, we were gathering to meet each other and deepen in relationship and community. We began to define our co-stewardship work together as an emergent, organic
collaboration.
In early 2025, a multi-generational Steering Committee was formed, with the aim to create space and structure for this collaboration. We started calling it “soft structure” so that in our tendency to define and regulate, we remember to allow space for things to emerge; space to have resonance arise; space to lean into.
This year we have expanded our group to include all of the Ashram elders and began to gather online in addition to gathering in person. We are learning about how different parts of the Ashram function, how they interact and work together, and most importantly, how decisions are made. On Thanksgiving weekend the Ashram will host the first ever Co-Stewardship Retreat and it is looking like we’ll have a full house! So much is still not clear but there is a tangible sense that we are leaning in, showing up to look together into the unknown, all of us pining to see subtle undulations of Light to illuminate the next step and the next and the next.
By Sara Torrie