When I was 18, I found a website called backdoorjobs.com. I was about to graduate high school, and I wasn’t sure what I wanted to do with my life. I knew college wasn’t for me.
When I came across the listing for Shoshoni Yoga Retreat in Rollinsville, Colorado, I didn’t know anything about ashrams or spiritual communities. I was drawn to the woman in the ad, eating an orange and smiling, and her seemingly overwhelming sense of peace.
I applied for the work study program and was accepted after a phone interview. Shoshoni staff told me I just had to get to Nederland, and they would take it from there.
I made it to Nederland during a full-on blizzard, where I was greeted by a woman named Tanya — or as she called herself, Shakti — a white woman from Florida and long-term resident of the retreat.
Nothing extraordinarily traumatic happened during my first stay at Shoshoni. I left and moved to Denver. After some years of baking and biking, doing LSD, climbing rooftops, making art I never shared and swinging on swings in Cheesman Park, I found myself considering going back to Shoshoni.
While I was in Denver, I stayed in contact with Faith Stone. When she asked if I would be interested in returning as staff, I agreed.
I worked alongside a young white woman from Missouri who went by Tilak. She was almost imperceptibly hostile towards me. She would smile in my face, but I was always uncomfortable with her. I found her antagonistic and irritated by my presence. This was something I noticed in other staff and work study participants as time went on.
One of my most memorable moments with Tilak was when I walked into the communal kitchen while she was whistling and cleaning. When I asked her what song she was humming, she turned to me, smiled and said, “A hanging song” and carried on with her sweeping.
Around the same time, another staff member — a young white woman from Iowa called Varanane — was rapping some song with the n-word in it. I told Faith, who then informed the “guru” of Shoshoni, her husband Jim.
During the weekly “satsang” — a question and answer meditation — in response to the incident, Jim vaguely addressed what had occurred by saying, “People want to talk about race,” taking a deep breath and concluding, “Just breathe.”
He talked vaguely about how Native Americans were “the real victims,” which from where I was sitting seemed like an attempt to downplay the gruesome and ongoing history of violence from European societies toward Africans and the continent of Africa. I found it particularly weird given Shoshoni Yoga Retreat exists on sacred Shoshone ground, even referencing the former inhabitants whose land was stolen in their name.
Places like Shoshoni are where people go to feel better about doing nothing, where (mostly) excessively rich white people go to learn how to be comfortable being apolitical and apathetic. No one is saying having self awareness is fun or easy. It’s incredibly painful to be ripped from the familiarity of a reality that upholds you as the standard of all things good and great. How can you overturn a culture of violence if you refuse to accept you are the purveyor of a culture of violence?
Slavery is white history more than it is Black history. It tells the story of a group of people who have found colorful ways to maintain a genocide that has been ongoing for more than four centuries. Instead of lynchings, we have police shootings; instead of plantations, we have private prisons.
“The world has its own karma,” Jim would routinely claim. But do we not make up the world? Maybe we are not responsible for how it came to be, but are we not responsible for what it becomes? Perhaps we need not be attached to outcomes, but surely we are tasked with making the effort to cultivate a world worthy of our being here while we are here.
It is a luxury to opt out of political life — a luxury many of us can not afford. Actively programming swaths of people into doing nothing to change the situation is irresponsible at best and predatory at worst.
Just a few months ago, I went to their website and saw that my photograph was featured in a number of places. My picture was being used to create the optics of an empty solidarity and inclusion that was nonexistent.
I am writing this as a cautionary tale for young Black African people emerging into adulthood who might get caught in this same trap. We are all looking for places to belong, for something bigger than ourselves, dignity, self worth. My hope is that younger generations of Africans will avoid places like Shoshoni Yoga Retreat, Eldorado Yoga Ashram or Konalani Yoga Ashram – all part of the Shambhava School of Yoga. [Editor's note: Shambhava has since changed its name to Shambhavananda School of Yoga, according to an organization spokesperson. All three ashrams are under the umbrella of SGRY, a 301(c)3 religious nonprofit.]
I’m all for breathing and centering myself — so long as the plan doesn’t stop there.
Erika is an artist, writer and thinker based out of the northeast region. She is passionate about African Cosmology and cats.
Editor’s note: In response to these allegations, Faith Stone wrote via email, “Shoshoni has always been racially inclusive. We have made a huge effort to include in particular Black people. Any racial prejudice is a fabric of Erika’s imagination.”
A second response from Shakti Wood said that Faith's "initial email was not an official response."
Shakti wrote that Shoshoni mediated a dispute between the author and Tilak and was not aware of "other major issues" with other members of staff, "especially not related to race." Tensions among residents are common, she wrote. Shakti also wrote that the organization was committed to working against spiritual bypassing and complacency and "are absolutely not encouraged to passively accept injustices."
The organization's official response is: "As an organization, we are committed to personal and spiritual growth and hold inclusivity at the heart of our values. We are a community rooted in respect, integrity and open communication.
We are grateful for the contributions this individual made during their time with us, and we sincerely wish them fulfillment and success. Our door remains open to honest dialogue, and we remain committed to fostering an environment where every community member feels seen, heard and valued. We hope that the opinion of one does not overshadow the experience of thousands who have come to Shoshoni for peace and nourishment."