Issue link: https://read.dmtmag.com/i/63982
Promoting Inner Peace "I am only gone for three weeks, but I feel very much like when I return, I won't be the same. I am saying goodbye to a life I have led for years, and stepping into a giant life. I can't wait to say hello to people when I get back!" Ruthie Goldman The Olive Tree Yoga Foundation Blog July 21, 2011 Raucous laughter explodes through the Madison yoga studio, inspiring giggles that ripple through the room full of yogis. Ruthie Goldman steps around and between her students, making suggestions or gentle adjustments to their poses while, every few moments, laughing. Here, in the space that Goldman fills, yoga is celebrated. Like many in the room, for Goldman yoga is much more than a physical practice: It is a way of life. It's been a path that has brought her through a divorce, calmed her guilt and fears as she embarked as a single mother of her two boys, and given her a new career as an instructor at several studios through- out the Madison area. Yoga, she explains, has allowed her to connect with her inner strength. "I realized that I could I do something," Goldman attests, explaining the effect that the practice has had. "I didn't have to just react. I could create." It's a lesson in carving a more peaceful path through life that she's now spreading halfway around the world. It started close to home in January 2011, when Layla Kaiksow, a Madison native who now lives in Palestine, found herself in one of Goldman's yoga classes. Following 44 BRAVA Magazine April 2012 in the Middle East What Ruthie Goldman hopes to achieve with a bold mission and a yoga mat the class, Kaiksow strode up to Goldman with what some might call a crazy idea. "I told her 'you should come to Pales- tine to teach yoga,'" Kaiksow recalls. "She thought it about it for a few moments, and then said 'OK, I'd love to do that!'" Kaiksow laughs as she describes that early conversation. While the suggestion was one she made partially as a joke, her motivation was entirely serious. Having lived in Palestine for eight years, Kaiksow is far too familiar with the intense stress that the residents endure in their lives. Though the conflict that arose long ago over rights to land in Israel and Palestine continues to simmer, the two sides don't fight on daily basis (at least lately). Yet they also haven't reached a lasting truce—creat- ing a situation where violence can erupt on either side at any moment. In communities where the trauma of war is at the forefront of people's minds, resources to combat this kind of daily tension—like yoga—are not readily available. But having enriched her own life through the practice, Kaiksow knew that even if the region could not achieve true peace, those living there could at least experience their own harmony on the mat. Goldman, a believer in the ability of yoga to instill internal peace even amid external challenges, agreed. Two months later, she bought a plane ticket to Tel Aviv, Israel. "I had no idea where I would stay, or what I would do," she recalls. "But I knew I was going." Over the next two weeks, she traveled between Palestine and Israel with the as- sistance of local residents. She was allowed a freedom unavailable to those who call the area home. As a foreigner, she explains, she could access all areas; Residents, on the other hand, are restricted to predefined areas guarded by checkpoints. These restrictions have ramifications that spoke directly to Goldman: Even where yoga existed, it did not move beyond the bor- ders. In Bethlehem, for example, she found that there was limited exposure to yoga,