Student Spotlight | Macarena González

1. What do you do for a living? Where are you from and where do you live now?

My name is Macarena González Carmona, I have been an Iyengar Yoga teacher for more than 12 years and I am dedicated to it professionally. I live in Santiago de Chile and I am originally from a small town called San Esteban, at the foot of the Andes Mountains. I studied Art at the University and now, several years later, I am a student in the MA in History at the Universidad Católica de Chile (PUC).

2. What originally brought you to Yogic Studies? What was your first course?

At the end of 2015 I finished a long Iyengar Yoga teacher training (almost 6 years). After that period, I started to get more interested in yoga literature and history, reading books and articles beyond the Iyengar literature, reviewing Youtube lectures and museum archives available online. However, without any guidance, it was very difficult for me to know which information or books were more relevant than others, how to sort and understand the information. Then, searching the internet I came across a video of the workshop that took place in 2017 at SOAS, in the context of the Hatha Yoga Project and I was amazed with what was being done, the mix of philological, ethnographic, historical study and there were also yoga practitioners! So, I started to look up the workshop participants one by one, in case any of them gave online courses. That's how I came to Seth Powell and Yogic Studies in 2018, the year I took my first course with YS, which was also the first course YS taught. From then on, I have taken many, many courses with YS, some synchronous and some asynchronous. Also, many courses or classes I have reviewed more than once.

3. What is one of your favorite courses or most memorable experiences studying at YS?

Without a doubt YS 201 | The Yogasūtras of Patañjali with Seth Powell was extremely enlightening on how to understand this text from his commentary. It also made me see the importance of the context in which these texts were gestated and planted the seed of interest in Sanskrit to study yoga texts.

Some other favourite courses include YS 111 | Women and Yoga: A History of Female Practitioners with Ruth Westoby, because this was the first time I wondered about the history of yoga here in Chile, and Ruth encouraged me to research it. YS 113 | Yoga's Past, Present and Future with Mark Singleton was a very reflective course on modern and contemporary yoga; I have reviewed that course and its literature many times. I also took YS 102 | Modern Yoga in the West with Philip Deslippe twice.

4. What did research for the Yogic Studies Advanced Certificate Program capstone research project? 

I researched the peculiar version of the Bhagavad Gītā used by the Suddha Dharma Mandalam, the first school of yoga in Chile. It is a version with 26 chapters and 745 verses written in India and translated into Spanish in Chile in a long and interesting process, with quite free interpretations that reflect the Chilean society of the mid-twentieth century. The research included a review of the translations of the Gītā into Spanish, their contexts and the countries in which they were published.

5. How did this experience lead to presenting at the Yoga Darśana, Yoga Sādhana Conference in Hamburg?

From the YS courses and the encouragement of their teachers I began to research yoga in Chile. The research began with the study of some writings of the poet and Nobel Prize winner Gabriela Mistral. In these texts there were Sanskrit words like bhakti, samādhi, rājayoga, karma, īśvara. Among all the documents I found linking Mistral and yoga, I found a letter sent to her by the Suddha Dharma Mandalam of Chile, dated 1933. My focus then shifted to investigating what this school of yoga was in Chile.

In the class YS 118 | Yoga in Latin America, Adrián Muñoz and I started to talk about yoga in Chile and Adrián guided and encouraged me to continue my research. In 2021, Adrian and Borayin Larios, creators of Proyecto Yoga en Latinoamérica (YoLa), invited me and several Latin American academics to participate in a publication on Yoga in the region. In 2022, there was a Symposium at COLMEX in Mexico, an extremely stimulating instance where almost all the contributors to the book (due out in 2025) were present. We are still in contact with many of the attendees in a very fruitful and fraternal dialogue.

In 2023, Borayin and Adrian invited me to participate in a panel on Yoga in Latin America that they wanted to present at YDYS in Hamburg 2024. Of course I said yes. There was the possibility to participate online and, because some funds I was hoping for didn't work out, I decided not to travel. However, Seth wrote to me and, being the good teacher that he is, he insisted and encouraged me to go to Hamburg, as it would be a great opportunity. And I am enormously grateful to him, as it really was an amazing opportunity!

Scholars from different universities and projects were there, all in one place, presenting their work, talking about yoga and open to questions and comments. Being at the conference in person allowed me to talk to many of the speakers about their research and also about their practices. Many of them had been teachers on YS courses. As for my presentation, I was of course very nervous, but it had already been 2 days and I had seen the good mood and willingness that existed among the participants. There were also expectations about the Yoga in Latin America panel. It was very enriching to receive feedback and questions about the panel and also about my research.

6. How has studying with Yogic Studies impacted your life and career? 

I think the above answers speak in part to the great impact YS has had on my life and career. I always say that YS is my alma mater. It is where I have learnt to question yoga and its many facets, and to take a critical view of it. YS has boosted my career as a researcher and has also, without a doubt, enriched my yoga teaching, broadening it and being able to share with my students both historical topics and texts with inspiring images for any contemporary practitioner. It was also at YS that I took my first Sanskrit courses with Antonia Ruppel, and today I have been studying Sanskrit weekly with Alan Ruiz for 3 years. In short, YS has changed my approach to yoga and has given me the tools and curiosity to develop another professional edge by researching yoga in Chile.

You can follow and connect with Macarena online: https://www.instagram.com/mgciyengar 

Our student spotlight series highlights the experiences and studies of the Yogic Studies community. If you have a story to tell and would like to be featured, send us an email at [email protected].