Journal

Everyone who knows just enough about yoga to be dangerous assumes that we’re all young tall slender white limber vegan Buddhists. And no wonder — that seems to be what’s on the cover of every single yoga magazine, ad and website. But as we all know, the truth is much more complex. I’m white, sort of, but I’m not exactly THE paragon of young, tall, slender, limber or vegan (though I was for a while). Nor am I Buddhist, though I find a lot to admire about the Buddha himself, and Buddhism in general. I respect the tenets of Buddhism, and I subscribe to...

One of the really awesome things about owning our own business is our ability to reconnect with and serve the people we knew growing up back in our home town. It’s an incredible thrill to receive orders from those we knew in high school or college. This week’s yogi highlight (our 18th!) came to us through the experience of reconnecting with a high school friend of ours, Linette Piercy, aunt to the remarkable and beautiful Riley Gerlinger. Linette has been the most amazing supporter of Big Raven Yoga — we’ve lost count of the number of yoga mats she’s purchased from...

Hello again, my finely feathered friends. It’s already the middle of the month, and in two weeks we’ll have to say goodbye to our September collection and welcome our October collection. (If you’re thinking about buying one of our September mats, you might want to make your move sooner rather than later, so you don’t forget. Hint, hint :-) In the meantime, however, we thought we should highlight one of our favorite designs from this month’s collection: Minnesota Home. This one is clearly special to us based on the description alone: Big Raven is a proudly Minnesota company. We grew...

This is the 17th in our ongoing series highlighting our happy yogis. This week we’re profiling the incredible Rachel Schromen. Rachel is an impressive individual. She is remarkable at helping people make connections and discover opportunities. She is SO good at connecting people whose lives will be better for having been introduced to one another. She is an incredible listener and generous friend. Every time I talk with Rachel I leave the conversation with a little nugget — some food for thought — that I’m always grateful to have in my pocket. She is helpful, kind, thoughtful, funny and beautiful, both inside and...

Two weeks ago we introduced our new Zodiac Collection, last week we (re-)highlighted our Ragnar Collection, and this week we introduce yet another new collection: Our Women Rock! Collection. Like its sibling Ragnar collection, our Women Rock! collection is aimed at both yogis and runners (a group of athletes who probably need yoga more than any other.) Yoga is not just for “yogis” — it’s beneficial and complementary to nearly every athletic endeavor, but especially to runners. You might think “sure, I can see how doing yoga before a big race would loosen up a runner’s leg muscles”, but the importance...