Mary was first drawn to Hatha yoga in 1989, when she was living in Austin, Texas and needed to bring some peace and balance to her life after the death of her mother and a cross-country move. She studied semi-privately with an amazing teacher for several years and briefly managed the Austin Yoga Center. That was the beginning of a lifelong love affair with this beautiful practice. After thinking her dream of becoming a yoga teacher had passed her by not once, but twice, she signed up for some classes at Jai Yoga School in 2019 and realized she’d been waiting three decades for this moment and this opportunity to train with Meg Horan and the wonderful Jai community of teachers and students. She is now an RYT-200 with a focus on teaching Gentle, Invigorating Gentle and Slow Flow. As a woman in her late 50s, Mary hopes her age can serve as an example and a reminder to other older students that it is never too late to pursue a dream or to practice yoga.
When Mary isn’t doing yoga, she is a writer and communications director. The author of six books on Catholic spirituality and five books of spiritual reflections, she is a retreat leader who strives to help people learn to create calm amid the chaos of their lived by finding – and appreciating – signs of the Divine in the everyday. Mary is the creator of the blog Not Strictly Spiritual (www.notstrictlyspiritual.com) and has a podcast called “Life Lines: Learning to Be a Spiritual Being in a Material World.” In her spare time, she likes to read, cook, travel, take photos, sing, paint and spend time with her husband, Dennis, and their three children, preferably on their backyard deck in the sunshine.
