It’s been about two weeks since I made Sat Kriya a part of my daily practice, and whew, I am feelin’ it! The focus, the strength, the channeling energy: something is going on. I’m not yet halfway through, but I’ve noticed some interesting changes.

1. I am SUCH a beginner; and it’s OK! When I started Sat Kriya, I had aspirations of being able to sit and perform this meditation for 11 minutes. I found when I started, that I could barely do three minutes, the suggested minimum, and at four, my arms are absolutely toast! I spent a day berating myself for not being able to meet my unrealistic, 11-minute goal, but then I realized that if my practice of this kriya is anything like my regular yoga practice, that I’m a beginner, and I’ll be a beginner for a long time. Yoga’s a lifetime practice for me: it’s a marathon, not a sprint. So I’m in no hurry to extend my three-minute meditation. I’m getting good work done even in such a brief period of time.

Gong Xi Fa Cai!* Xīn Nián Kuài Lè!* February 10^th marks the start of the Lunar New Year for billions of people around the world. We say “Peace Out!” to the Year of the Water Dragon and “Whassup!” the Year of the Water Snake. I’m no astrologist, but a quick search on the interwebs reveals that the Water Snake has some career shakeups in store.

I decided to celebrate the lunar New Year with a new yoga kriya. In the Kundalini yoga tradition, kriyas are specific poses, often dynamic, that we take to cleanse ourselves, internally and externally. According to The Heart of Yoga by T.K.V. Desikachar, kriya yoga is the yoga of action, the process by which our practice becomes more than just a physical means of building strength or flexibility, and begins to change us, mentally, emotionally, even spiritually.

Sounds good to me! Almost two months into a bone-chilling, soggy winter, I could use a little fire on the inside to change things up for me. So I checked in with Lo, a fellow yogini who writes one of my favorite yoga blogs, Y is for Yogini. She’s got a ton of great kriyas posted on her blog, chronicling her journey with various kriyas. I decided to try the Sat Kriya.

The giant room was carved up into booths and filled with folding tables. Vegan chefs were selling snacks to enjoy now and to take home for later, and people snaked through the room, clutching their food tickets, ready to order. I was at Chicago Vegan Mania, an annual festival here in Chicago of food, music, merchandise and entertainment that celebrates the vegan community. I wandered over to a table full of stickers and buttons and looked for something I could buy that would encapsulate my veganism—a choice that felt both personal and political—without seeming too preachy, and this bearded guy in a t-shirt that read, “Only Kale Can Save Us Now”, handed me this sticker. It was perfect. Lovers, I thought. I’d had some trouble wearing the vegan label for a while, but this sticker was sweet and tender and still got the point (of compassion and consciousness) across.

It’s been about a year since I went vegan, and in these twelve months I’ve learned a lot. I took this step paranoid about what it meant to slap that vegan label on my forehead: I feared—with my self-righteousness and loud mouth—that I was going to become the kind of person who thought nothing of picking fights with meat eaters, who spat statistics at people with vitriol and contempt. Was I never going to get invites to dinner parties because cooking for me would simply be too difficult for anyone to attempt? A year later, I haven’t figured it all out, but there are some lessons that have dawned on me about veganism that make the journey easier.