“Above all, be kind. You have the power to bring someone hope, if only for a moment.”—David Wagner
As some of you know, I recently had a Stephen King-like horror experience traveling to a mystery convention in California. It started with a series of airline errors that left me stranded at the Los Angeles airport and ended with my ticket back home to Seattle accidentally being deleted by the same airline. In between, my luggage was lost, I was unable to sleep due to recurring travel-related nightmares, and I had a still-confusing incident with a fellow writer who I can only describe as the adult version of the “mean girls” I dealt with in high school.
But that’s not what this blog is about. This blog is about karma. I don’t claim to understand all of the yoga teachings, but I do have a concept of karma. Karma indicates that actions have consequences, not just to others, but to ourselves. Simply put, the law of karma promises that the actions we take in this life will have repercussions in the next.
Who knows if it’s true? As much as I’d love to have a future-life “do-over” to correct my mistakes, I can only say one thing for certain: the kindness of several people stood out this past weekend, and I appreciate them: a baggage claim clerk who went out of his way to explain what had happened to me in LA; a young person who helped an elderly gentleman place his luggage into the overhead compartment on the plane back to Seattle; a TSA employee who treated a Middle Eastern man with kindness and respect when his ID didn’t match his travel documents.
None of this seems major, but it was all yogic, and it was huge to the people it helped. Being kind doesn’t take much. A smile, a “please sit down and join us,” a “I don’t know what happened, but I’ll try to help.” The kindness you show others may have repercussions that are more powerful than you will ever realize.
Five authors made my awful weekend a little brighter, simply by making me feel welcome when others did not. There are a gazillion talented writers out there. Great human beings are harder to come by. I’m already a fan of these authors, and you can bet I’ll be buying more of their books. Please join me.
- Shannon Baker—author of the Nora Abbott Mysteries
- Waverly Fitzgerald—co-author of the Barking Detective Mystery Series
- Gigi Pandian—author of the Jaya Jones Mystery series
- Mary Lee Woods and Anita Carter—authors of the Pampered Pets Mysteries
Has someone made your day a little brighter? If so, please share the story in a comment!
Tracy
Come visit Whole Life Yoga in Seattle, and check out Tracy Weber’s author page for information about the Downward Dog Mysteries series. MURDER STRIKES A POSE is available at Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Whole Life Yoga, and bookstores everywhere!
Today marks the final stop on the 
This week’s blog entry was written by guest author Katie Burns. Katie is a graduate of Whole Life Yoga’s 200 hour yoga teacher training program and a student in our advanced teacher training program. She can be contacted at 
The perfect portraits of Rene de los Santos, Larra Dutton, and Katelyn West meditating in Sukhasana.
Tonight will be an evening of endings and beginnings. At 6:30 I’ll say goodbye to twenty-three yoga teachers-in-training; ninety minutes later, I’ll greet twenty-three newly minted teachers. After certifying eleven classes, you’d think I’d get used to the transition. But each final ceremony remains bittersweet. The twenty-eight of us (twenty-three students, four teaching assistants, and me) have spent 200 hours together over the last ten months learning, growing, sometimes struggling, and laughing—though not often enough at my lame attempts at humor.