2.13 A Queer Dharma

Jacoby Ballard is a social justice educator and yoga teacher in Salt Lake City, Utah. He leads workshops and trainings around the country on diversity, equity, and inclusion. As a yoga teacher with 20 years of experience, he leads workshops, retreats, teacher trainings, teaches at conferences, and runs the Resonance mentorship program for certified yoga teachers to find their niche and calling.  In 2008, Jacoby co-founded Third Root Community Health Center in Brooklyn, to work at the nexus of healing and social justice. Since 2006, Jacoby has taught Queer and Trans Yoga, a space for queer folks to unfurl and cultivate resilience and received Yoga Journal's Game Changer Award in 2014 and Good Karma Award in 2016. Jacoby has taught in schools, hospitals, non-profit and business offices, a maximum-security prison, a recovery center, a cancer center, LGBT centers, gyms, a veteran’s center, and yoga studios. He lives with his three best teachers, his partner, his toddler, and his wily dog. Jacoby just released his first book, A Queer Dharma: Yoga and Meditations for Liberation. 

In this special interview we discuss:

  • A Queer Dharma

  • The Four Brahma Viharas

  • Loving-kindness 

  • Compassion 

  • Equanimity 

  • Joy

  • Anger

  • Discharging anger

  • Acceptance

  • What it means to be trans at this time.

  • Dharma

  • Devotion

  • Black Feminism

  • Accountability

  • Combatting white supremacy and the right role for white folks 

  • Anti-racism

  • Transphobia

  • Liberation

  • Grace

  • Engaging in a practice for the long haul

You can connect with Jacoby on his website or Instagram @jacobyballard

Order Jacoby’s book here: A Queer Dharma

Podcast music by Charles Kurtz

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2.12 The Times are Asking us to be Engaged