Rumor has it that Richard is about to re-materialize in Boulder this week!

It’s not a done deal, and there haven’t been any recent sightings, so don’t hold your kumbhaka. But he is planning to teach his regularly scheduled Yoga Workshop classes, starting this Thursday morning, so you could do the simple mudra of keeping your fingers crossed until then.

We started this blog about a month ago, thinking it could be interesting to track Richard’s travels. It turns out that for those of us who hold down the base camp here at the studio while he’s gone, it’s also been an opportunity to remember that even though it may seem from this perspective that Richard has simply abandoned us to go jetting around to the far off reaches of the globe, it’s not all a vacation for him. Far from it!

This last leg of what has at times seemed like an infinitely long time of travel, has come to an end. Richard was inspired over these past 10 days by time spent with Suddha Weixler teaching at his studio in Chicago. Suddha is a long time Ashtanga practitioner and teacher, and a dear friend of Richard’s. Tapping into Suddha’s Austrian heritage, and his love of philosophy, fine food and classical music, along with his dry wit was a great way for Richard to wind down after Asia and the yoga conference.

The Chicago workshop began with a week-long intensive on the Hatha Yoga Pradipika, taught to an eager group of practitioners. Not long into it, the group learned of Richard’s ongoing fascination with khachari mudra as they sat dumbfounded watching him work his tongue up towards the back of his palate. Fortunately he still hasn’t cut that tendon beneath the tongue, and to the welcomed relief of many he didn’t suggest any of the participants try that mudra or as a general rule that they try any of the other kriyas. The middle path.

Over the weekend a larger group of students got together in the chilly basement of a congregational church and learned the art of generating internal heat. At one point while working on the shoulder stand, attempting not to squish imaginary mice under their necks, reports had it that one church mouse actually joined in for some fun. It was either that, or Ganesh checked in for a moment and his rat wandered near some of the participants. Between classes there was time for relaxing along with Suddha and his partner Diana, and for eating some fine meals out in Chicago. Richard also had an exciting driveway moment when he pretended to drive a fast car in a real city.

In the mean time, since mid August when Richard first left, life here in Boulder has just kept on keeping on. We had the end of summer potluck and our annual garage sale kicked off a community fund raising efforts for our teacher endowment program.

We’ve had public talks at the studio by last year’s endowment recipients, Marcia (who studied Sanskrit with Vyaas Houston), De (who took the prenatal training with Gurmukh), Martha (who attended the yoga/meditation retreat with Joan Halifax and Richard at Upaya Zen Center), and Dan (who studied Mula Bandha and sound with Ramanand Patel).

With fall officially here, the new paint job on the face of the studio is looking like a seasonal fashion statement. The Yoga Workshop making a fashion statement, now that’s a first! And the feeling around the studio is great these days–the classes are hopping with several special courses adding to the curriculum.

One amusing note was that a couple of weeks back a community member who was out for a walk along the foot hills, snapped a couple of pictures of what she thought was Richard, sunning on a rock. In fact it was just a wildlife photographer taking shots of a rare local specimen that happened to look like it was doing yoga. For now, the leaves have begun to turn and there’s even snow in the high country, and with Richard due back any minute, it’s beginning to feel like things are as they should be again.