Michael McColly...the writer

Metropolis Coffee House

15 January 08/Tuesday 4-8:30 p.m.

“Yoga will eventually bring you to darkness and you better be prepared to go through it”
“If you really trust your body, listen to your body…it will tell you things.”

“You don’t know where it’s going to take you, this yoga journey.  I think that is an important story to tell.”

Born and raised in small town Indiana, Michael was a natural athlete, but unlike the typical jock, he practiced transcendental meditation and started yoga in college as part of an acting class.  He joined the Peace Corps and lived and worked in a Muslim village in Senegal where people are “mystified by the invisible, where spirits are real beneath the visible.” Afterwards, Michael returned to the States to the University of Chicago and explored religious studies, theology, and ethics while immersing himself in Zen Buddhism at Yoga Circle with Suddha Weixler.  Eventually he started teaching yoga and was one of the first students to work with Daren Friesen back in the early days of Moksha.  At this time the AIDS epidemic was ravaging 3rd world countries and Michael was asked by the International AIDS Society to return to Africa to lead HIV workshops in which yoga was a major form of therapy. 

Michael has written a fascinating book about this experience:   The After Death Room-Journey into Spiritual Activism.  He now teaches creative non-fiction at Columbia College and leads yoga and meditation workshops around Chicago. 

Check out his website:  mccolly.ecorp.net

Favorite Asana:  Inversions
Favorite Food:  Yams, tofu, and brown rice
Favorite Book:  The Snow Leopard by Peter Mathiessen