JUMPER- Mud Lover, Movie Star, Outlier

A Story Of Success

"No one—not rock stars, not professional athletes, not software billionaires, and not even geniuses—ever makes it alone,"

Malcolm Gladwell

In Malcolm Gladwell's best selling book "Outliers" he tells thought-provoking stories about people whose achievements in life fall outside normal experience. People like the Beatles and Bill Gates for instance whose extraordinary success and accomplishments are so far out of the ordinary that they represent something analogous to one single day that falls below freezing in the middle of a hot summer.

That is an outlier.

Something or someone that appears to deviate markedly from other members of the sample in which it occurs.

In the book he demonstrates that our understanding of success has much less to do with ones talent and ambition and much more to do with ones surroundings, their family, people whom they knew and most importantly being in the right place at the right time.

In other words those who have been able to excel in the world and really "make it big" so to speak, have done so with opportunities that were provided externally and with a whole lot of luck mixed in as well.

But imagine how different the notion of "making it big" in the world might be if we were a someone born into the body of a farmed animal.

Someone who is raised simply to be killed. The idea of success would be even more preposterous than the notion of one freezing day in the middle of an August heat wave.

So here it is then..... following this sentence.... an exercise in creativity, imagination and deep empathy.

Suppose we were a pig living our life trapped inside a few feet of steel bars on an industrial farm.

Suppose that success is, as Gladwell infers in his book, terrifyingly contingent. That in order to escape from what is the normal life of everyone else, our situations need to break just right for us and we need a huge amount of help from those around us.

But now imagine that those around us who control our fate have been told over and over via a misinformed culture that they must eat our flesh to be healthy. To use our skin as clothing and other products is a necessity as well.

Imagine that those who control our lives are convinced that our lives don't matter.

Then realize our body and the life contained within are actually their property, their path to prosperity and profit and..... we have no voice.

The notion of achievement or success within these circumstances and these predicaments looks nearly non existent or quite different than what we would imagine success to look like.

When we live as a being whose life has little joy, is filled with misery and pain the concept of success changes completely.

Success might result in that we feel the warmth of the sun on our back for the first time as we are loaded onto a truck bound for the slaughterhouse.

Success might be that our impeccable sense of smell will hopefully fail us on the day we reach the killing house so that the language of death is not comprehended in it's full extent, moments before we brutally leave this earth.

Success might mean that the human who is electrifying us before we are stabbed and bled performs their job properly because he has not yet been jaded from the vicious, repetitive work in a slaughterhouse which has the highest turnover rate of any profession.

Success in the world for people and animals owes something to parentage and patronage. No one rises up from nothing on their own. We all need someone whether it's family, friends or those others who believe in us.

Yet ironically none of the billions of animals killed this year for food will have ever been betrayed by friends..... for they had none to begin with in the first place.

If abandonment and loneliness means anything.... it is certainly defined by the way the animals raised for food will live and die in their short lives.

Yet this is not a story about loneliness and death. It's attempting to be a story about success. This is a story about someone with luck statistically far greater than blessed upon Mozart or provided any silicon valley billionaire. It's the story of Jumper a true outlier if ever there was one.

Jumper was the runt from a litter of piglets born on a gestation crate facility in the central valley of California. Her opportunity for success came about when a worker noticed and took pity on her as she was so tiny and so helpless. They contacted someone who kindly put them in touch with Animal Acres. Jumper was smuggled out and away to freedom. The downside was she would be taken from her mother who unfortunately at no fault of her own will suffer her entire life in a metal crate. Jumper's brothers were taken soon after to a slaughterhouse and her sisters to be used as breeding sows themselves.

The tallest tree in the forest is the tallest not just because it grew from the hardiest acorn; it is the tallest also because no other trees blocked its sunlight, the soil around it was deep and rich, no rabbit chewed through it's bark as a sapling, and no lumberjack cut it down.

Malcolm Gladwell

We know that success arises out of a steady accumulation of advantages, relationships and extraordinary opportunities. Animal Acres represents that combination of necessary resources in the climb to the top for this little piglet. It was here at the sanctuary that the kindness of strangers gave Jumper the greatest of opportunities which would propel her to fame and fortune.

Denis Hennelly and Casey Suchan two independent filmmakers took notice of little Jumper and decided she would star in their poignant new film Bold Native. This lucky break opened the door to the nurturing, affection and trust that Jumper desperately needed in order to adapt to humans and achieve a successful life at Animal Acres.

So weeks before the film began producer Casey Suchan set about getting the tiny Jumper accustomed to being held. Casey spent many days with Jumper, feeding her bananas and becoming her friend. Yet it didn't take long before Jumper learned to settle into a humans arms. When it came time to film she was more than prepared as she graced the big screen with a presence that recalls Kate Winslet on her best day. Jumper also became a favorite on the set and easily stole both cast and crew's hearts.

To this day Jumper still remembers it all and every time Casey goes to visit Animal Acres the little former runt talks up a storm and runs as fast as she is able...

to visit with her dear friend and mentor.

Jumper now lives her life like the most successful person in the world might live. She has round the clock care, nearly non stop belly rubs from her staff (volunteers and visitors), and she is free to run, to roll in the mud and of course most importantly to jump.

What more could a person ask for?

Our human minds are not sufficiently capable enough to understand statistically what someone like Jumper's success really represents.

Appreciate for a moment that there are approximately 300 million humans living in the US. The stories of human success are actually quite numerous and in the hundreds of thousands to say the least. Yet now fathom that more than 10 billion farmed animals are slaughtered for food every year in the US and the stories of those animals being rescued or making it to sanctuaries are perhaps in the hundreds.

With these lopsided numbers one can easily discern that the few animals living their life at places like Animal Acres are what we may describe without exaggeration as truly lucky beyond measure.

It may not seem to us at first glance that most all successful humans are the beneficiaries of some kind of unusual opportunity and luck. They are however much more the products of good fortune and additional help from others than we care to acknowledge. When this argument is investigated, studied, it is revealed to be the truth and the rule, not the exception.

Statistically however the farmed animals at rescue facilities and sanctuaries are even more the outliers in the true scientific definition of the word then are the few human billionaires, movie stars and big time athletes.

Plus the non humans liberated from farmed exploitation give us a concept of success we usually overlook. There is a real lesson to be grasped from all of the animals saved from slaughter houses and we rarely apply those lessons to our own lives.

In our human world of money, power, greed and consumption success means something very different from what in reality it might actually be comprised of.

The link we find between altruism and happiness shows us a path to success we unfortunately ignore. Living with compassion towards others and the connection it has to our own well being may lead us closer to understanding success than studying someone playing in a world famous band or running a fortune 500.

There is a form of well being that transcends our daily notions of what real success might resemble.

We see it all the time and have many examples of those persons, humans and non humans who are not just happy about their lives but in their lives.

We all feel it and have intuitions which run deep within who we are and signal to us what success actually seems to be.

While our concept of success often seems bound up with the belief in acquiring things.... it really arrives when we are transformed through kindness from ourselves to others and by kindness from others back to us. Transformed by experiences that bring us closer to love than to hate. Transformed by the experience of living in the presence of our similarities rather than our differences.

Yet.... the challenge for all of us is to begin recognizing these possibilities and living them.... through direct action.

Living vegan is an incredible step toward that transformation and a very successful way to bring real life benefits to those who may not have a voice the world can hear... yet have a life they cherish in the same way anyone who strives to make it big in the world treasures their own life.

In the same way Animal Acres provides sanctuary for Jumper and how Casey and Denis provided the necessary trust she needed to blossom into the big happy round love boat she has become we can all contribute to the future success stories of animals we will never even know by living vegan.

Be a success. Become vegan.

Rescue/adopt an animal!

Casey Suchan and Denis Hennelly can't stop talking about Jumper.

"We are very lucky to know this beautiful, funny, precocious soul. Making a film about animals' rights isn't the same as getting to know them as individuals and earning their friendship... Jumper brought spirit and meaning to an idea, and for this we are eternally grateful. She has blessed our life and our film and is a potent reminder of the millions of individual spirits like hers that are imprisoned each year in our country's factory farms. The film is for all of those who have not been saved."

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About the song.

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The Pig Who Sang to The Moon is a beautiful and powerful book by Jeffrey Masson about the emotional world of farm animals. In the book he describes how pigs living on animal sanctuaries will make a moaning, almost sad yet musical sound when they mourn for the loss of one of their friends. He explains how pigs seem to enjoy the moonlight. He interviews people who share their lives with these highly emotional intelligent animals and they all tell stories of how pigs will make mournful sounds at night much like singing. All this while gazing up at the moonlight.

This song below is dedicated to Jumper's family.

Her brothers, sisters, father and mother.....who never made it out of that prison and were never given the chance to be a success.

This song is also dedicated to all pigs living as property on farms and who have not yet been saved.....Maybe even as a metaphor.... the ones who've already died are the Angels On The Moon.

Click Here to listen to ANGELS ON THE MOON

"Do you dream that the world will know your name? So tell me your name....."

Angels on the Moon

SHARON GANNON

Yoga is an ancient sanskrit term that means to join, to connect and to unite.

Although yoga's origins are from India it predates Hinduism and is not tied to a religion. Yoga is open to any faith or none at all.

Yoga is not about beliefs, ideas, stretching or even practicing anything. It's really about a way of experiencing ourselves and about feeling/discovering who we are. Yoga is more about breaking the identification we have with our thoughts and then recognizing the conditions which have created those thoughts.

One of the best comparisons we may have to yoga might actually be therapy. Yoga is very much like therapy in that the goal is to change our state of mind or our state of consciousness.

When we investigate the nature of who we are and what we feel through a prolonged practice of introspection like yoga, it's merely another way of explaining what might also be called a spiritual practice.

In this aspect yoga is very much aligned with ethical veganism in that there is a transformation of the mind that occurs in the way we experience ourselves and who we are after we have felt something. They are also both about a way to liberation.

A liberation from the ordinary way we see ourselves, see our relationship to others and to the world around us.

When we utilize yoga as a tool to deepen the connection of our compassion for animals and others there is also a profound feeling of oneness and unity with others and with the entire world (universe) that begins to open up to us. Without a means to go inward and uncover those intimate, central properties of who we are, this task remains difficult to achieve in our everyday life.

Yoga does make the possibilities of this experience, this connection, this transformation which we can call spiritual, available to us and much easier to achieve.

Sharon Gannon

Part 1

Sharon Gannon is a 21rst century Renaissance woman who excels in many artistic, spiritual and social mediums. Sharon is best known for creating, along with David Life, the Jivamukti Yoga Method--a path to enlightenment through compassion for all beings.

The Jivamukti Yoga method emphasizes vinyasa, music, meditation and chanting as well as a major focus on animal rights, veganism and political activism.

The Jivamukti Yoga Method is taught worldwide at Jivamukti Yoga Schools, and affiliated centers, which are in NYC, Charleston, Washington, DC, Toronto, London, Munich and Berlin.

Sharon is a pioneer in teaching yoga as spiritual activism and is changing the way that people view animals, spirituality, life, themselves and each other.

I attended her lecture The Diet Of Enlightenment at the San Francisco Yoga Journal Conference January 31. With an inspiring positive attitude Sharon explored the five yamas of Patanjali. Patanjali is the author of the ancient yoga sutras which is the collection of essays on the philosophy and practice of yoga. With wisdom and courage she related each yama to animal rights and living vegan. She was graceful yet explicit in a moving and humble way that any animal activist would be impressed by. Let it be known however, she was in no way preaching to the choir in this lecture. Although the audience was filled with wonderful compassionate yoga practitioners they were very much like the majority of humans and were completely un-informed to the realities of how non human animals are exploited and turned into food.

YOGA JOURNAL Magazine has called her an innovator and VANITY FAIR gives her credit for making yoga cool and hip. JANE Magazine nominated her as Gutsiest Woman of the Year and FARM SANCTUARY awarded her the 2008 compassionate living award. She is a long-time vanguard member of PETA and has helped with many of their campaigns.

She resides in a wild forest sanctuary in upstate NY, USA.

THE INTERVIEW

Philip:

The first question I want to ask you Sharon is simply.... what brought you to becoming an ethical vegan and an animal rights advocate?

SHARON:

In 1982 I saw a film, entitled “The Animals Film.” At that time I was an artist living in Seattle Washington where I was a musician in a band. I went to see the film with some of my band mates only because I had seen on the poster at the theater that Robert Wyatt had done the musical soundtrack. I was a H.U.G.E. fan of Robert Wyatt. He was the drummer and singer for The Soft Machine, which was and still is one of my favorite bands.

The Animal’s Film was a British documentary film made by Victor Schonfeld and Myriam Alaux, narrated by the actress Julie Christie (who actually put her acting career on the line by being associated with this film. I have tremendous respect for her.) The film depicted our (human) exploitation of animals. The film covered many aspects in very graphic detail from the all too common and casual euthanisation of unwanted pets, to animals used for entertainment, to animals used for food and clothing, and as victims of military and “scientific” research. The last scene was of the Animal Liberation Front rescuing animals from a laboratory. The ALF appeared to me like modern day Super Heroes…I wanted to join up immediately.

But I faced (or thought at the time, I faced) a big obstacle---I lived in Seattle Washington, USA and I didn’t know of any members of the ALF in my town nor did I know any vegans. I was a poor artist living in a dark dank basement apartment. I didn’t have a car, phone or bank account. Non-the less,I decided after seeing the film that I would devote my life to doing whatever I could to stop the insanity I saw depicted in that film. I didn't know exactly what I was going to do at that point, but I knew that whatever it was it had to help the animals and it had to shatter the ignorance inside of us human beings who would think that it is okay to treat animals as if they had no feelings and existed to be enslaved and exploited by us.

Very soon after that film I became a vegan. Very soon after that I became a yoga teacher as a way to be more outspoken about animal rights. For me teaching yoga provided a better platform than music, dance, painting or any of the other artistic genres I had been working in.

The Animal’s Film was the first feature length animal rights documentary. Many other films since that time have borrowed not only footage, but formatting from that seminal and very important film. It was seeing this film that changed my life and moved me to become a yoga teacher/ animal rights activist.

Because it was a film that transformed me I feel obliged to share films with others. I make it part of my teaching to show films like this to students all over the world. Talking about the issue is one thing….when people actually have a chance to see the reality (albeit on the screen)….it can be very very effective.

Usually when I am on the road (on a teaching tour) I teach 2-4 workshop classes and during the last class I show Chew on This (a 3 minute film produced by my friends at PETA with the appropriate subtitles in Chinese, Japanese, Spanish, Russian or whatever is the language spoken in the country where I am). I also often show 10 minutes from the Chapter on Food from the Earthlings Film. After these films the discussion about the link between Yoga and Veganism takes on a depth, sincerity and zeal that would not be possible without seeing the films first. After viewing the film(s) there is little or none of the defensiveness that often comes up when there is just a talk followed by a Q&A about the vegan/animal rights issue.

Philip:

Each and every one of the beautiful non human residents living here at Animal Acres were destined for the slaughterhouse. It may sound a bit crazy but when I meet the animals here at the sanctuary or when I meet any rescued animal who's been given a new life they in some way represent to me the ultimate Jivamukti persons. Do you know what I mean?

Can you talk about Jivamukti Yoga, its meaning and practice?

SHARON:

The word Jivamukti is taken from a Sanskrit word:Jivanmukti, which is a combination of two words—jiva which means individual soul, like one’s personality or ego and mukti which means liberation, freedom, enlightenment. So a Jivanmukta is someone who is living liberated …who is in the state of enlightenment, which is what Jivamukti means.

The term Jivanmukta is equivalent to the Buddhist concept of the Boddhisttava—which describes one who has attained some level of enlightenment but has devoted themselves to helping others attain that enlightenment…before retiring themselves into Nirvana (total enjoyment).

What is realized in the yogic state of enlightenment is the Oneness of Being—all disconnection disappears. You do not feel or think of yourself as just a separate individual—a skin encapsulated ego. One realizes their inner and inter-connectedness with all beings and things—with all of life. A Jivanmukta knows themselves as whole as a whole/holy being…. a part of the whole web of existence—they have healed themselves from the disease of disconnection which is a pandemic in our Culture.

I appreciate your perception of the rescued animals at Animal Acres as Jivamuktas –maybe they are--but I do not know if that is a true perception or not. I don’t know if they are enlightened beings or not. To be able to see an enlightened being you yourself must be an enlightened being, because it takes one to know one. I don’t think of myself as there yet! Although I’m trying my best to work on it!

I do know that everyone of us finds ourselves in whatever situation we are in because of our past karmas. No one is an innocent victim. Now don’t get freaked out by that word karma. It is a Sanskrit term that simply means action. It does not mean ‘good’ action or ‘bad’ action--- it is neutral—it simply means action. Everyone’s actions are important--they determine how reality unfolds. How we treat others determines how others treat us. How others treat us determines how we see ourselves. How we see ourselves determines who we are.

Whew! So it all starts with how we treat others. If we treat others with kindness and consideration for their happiness this will come back to us eventually, but inevitably.

Dr. Albert Einstein reminded us of this fact or law of nature when he “discovered” that space is curved—what ever you throw out there will come back to its place of origin.

So the message is: be careful with what you throw out there. In other words be careful with what you think, say or do because you will be revisited by it. Only sow the seeds you want to see blossom. As singer/activist Michael Franti says in his song, Yes I Will:

“I believe that what you sing to the clouds will rain upon you when the sun has gone away and I believe that what you bring to the moon will manifest before you rest another day….” So treat others as you would want to be treated, I think Jesus said that! It is an old saying but one that is so easily put aside in our world today in the quest for “success.” Patanjali has a sutra in his yoga sutra: Maitri Adishu Balani PYS.24, which means: Through friendliness (maitri) and other such related feelings, like kindness, (adishu) your strength and success will surely come. Wow !--that is radical stuff for those of us who have been conditioned by a Culture, which has beaten it into us that the “Earth Belongs to Us”, and that it is our right to exploit the Earth and all other beings if we have the means and the might to do so. Yoga tells us that Might Is Not Right! Yoga tells us that through kindness and friendliness we will be successful.

I love the system and practices of Yoga because it provides us with the tools to dismantle our present culture—a culture based on slavery and exploitation of the animals and the Earth. Our present Culture has been at war with Mother Nature for at least the last 10,000 years. It was roughly 10,00 years ago that human beings started to enslave animals (the polite term is domestication). The enslavement of animals is the foundation of our culture and still is. The terms, “stock market” and “capital” all derive from our original culture, which was a herding culture where the central economy stemmed from exploiting animals.

I joyfully and unapologetically reject this Culture and embrace Yoga as a means to not only dismantle this Culture but to provide the tools to build a new way of life a way to live harmoniously with the earth and all other beings. This is why I practice Yoga—this is why I teach Yoga. Yoga means to come together to unite with….I want to heal the disease so rampant in our culture of slavery—the disease of disconnection. I am trying to start with myself—to heal myself—to try to see more clearly—to try to rid myself of the misperception that I am separate from everyone else. Yoga means connection. I like that! I want to commit my life to that.

I must admit that I still like living inside a house that has electricity and hot and cold running water, with a refrigerator and stove and I still find comfort in wearing clothes and bundling up against the cold, rain and wind. But I will say that I do question all these habits and addictions and often try to imagine myself living naked in the forest like the deer and foxes who we share our home with in Woodstock NY.

Philip:

You and David have brought so much awareness and activism into the yoga world about animal rights. You've been such an outspoken yogi for the animals over the years and have never wavered away from the issue of animal liberation at all either. What motivates you about the issue of animal advocacy and in making it such an important part of your yoga teaching?

SHARON:

Yoga means to yoke--to unite-- to come together. My teacher Shri Brahmananda Sarasvati often said, “Yoga is that state where you are missing nothing—you know yourself as whole and complete.”

Yoga and enlightenment are synonymous. Enlightenment is the ultimate coming together…where there is no disconnection. The yogi in the enlightened state feels/realizes the Oneness of being…all disconnection disappears.

So what is the biggest obstacle to this realization? Others! Perceiving yourself as separate from others. Deluded—thinking that others are separate and that what you think, say and do does not make a difference to them or to you. Most people spend a lot of time blaming others for their own unhappiness: If only my parents would wake up and understand why I don’t want to eat Turkey with them on Thanksgiving. If only my girlfriend was vegan then we could have better sex and then I would be happy. If the president of the United States passed a law, which disallowed factory farming then all our problems, would be solved.

The first step towards the realization of yoga is to realize that there is no out there out there—others do not exist as separate entities from you. Everyone and every situation that you find yourself in has come from you. You created the world you live in. How? From your own thoughts, words and actions—in other words from your past karmas. We live in the world of our own making. The Sanskrit term shunyata describes this. Shunyata means emptiness. Emptiness does not mean a void of nothingness; rather it describes a reality of infinite possibilities. With this concept of shunyata,the yogic teachings put the responsibility on what reality becomes on the observer. Whatever you see is a projection of your own mind. Your own mind is made up of your past experiences. Your past experiences are made from your interactions with others. Your perception of others comes from how you have treated them.

We all say we want a peaceful and happy world—we value ideals like freedom and respect. But if we cannot provide for others the very things we want for ourselves, and value most in life—then we will never have those things.

To put it bluntly: If we deprive other animals—and I say other animals because we are animals too--that is a biological fact. If we deprive others of what we ourselves value most…then we will never achieve our goals—we will never be at peace if we cause havoc in the the lives of others we will never be happy if we cause so many animals to be unhappy—(and enslaving them and taking away their rights and mobility does cause them unhappiness) then how can we expect to be happy? If we ourselves want to be free then it will not suit our purpose to enslave others.

We (human beings) keep animals as slaves. We have been conditioned by our culture to do this. We, for the most part think of it as normal to pen or cage an animal, to saddle a horse, to use, abuse and exploit animals for our own gain…not giving a thought to the animal’s happiness aspirations or freedom. This type of perception does not lead one to happiness and freedom, which are the goals of yoga.

So if you want enlightenment then it is quite logical ---treat others as you would want to be treated. Treat them as holy beings—not as slaves. Treat them as enlightened whole beings—as you would want to see yourself.

I realize that yoga may not be for everyone. Perhaps not all human beings really want to be free---to break free from the cycle of samsara-the eternal wheel of suffering. Suffering does have its upside---it can help to clear perception. Perhaps most beings love suffering more than any other pleasure. It certainly keeps things going around and around!

The Sanskrit word, samsara is made up of two words: sam which means same plus sara which means agitation. So samsara means the same agitation. Samsara is a way to describe life on Planet Earth for most of us.

Life gives us many opportunities many possibilities for enlightenment: to break free of the samsaric existence.

But remember many, perhaps most people don’t want to or aren’t ready to be free yet. But for those of us who are then a vegan diet is an absolute necessity! It is the first Big step.

Philip:

Something I've noticed over the years is that it seems so many people in the yoga world want to emphasize Ahimsa as a restraint regarding how we treat ourselves and being kind to ourselves rather than looking at the altruistic meaning it holds. I've always felt that ahimsa was about the importance of being kind to and about not harming others which includes not eating others. Can you explain ahimsa, it's non violent roots and your experience with this issue in the yoga world?

SHARON:

Patanjali lists ahimsa in the category of the yamas. Yama means restriction. Yamas refer to actions that you take in regard to others. Patanjali, let us remember, is speaking to aspiring yogis, those who are still seeing others--those who are not yet enlightened. To an enlightened being there are no others. An enlightened being sees only the divine (or their own-self) in all. So he says in the sutras, as long as you are seeing others, don’t hurt them (ahimsa) don’t lie to them (satya), don’t steal from them (asteya), don’t abuse them sexually (brahmacharya) and don’t be so greedy as to cause them to become impoverished (aparigraha).

If Patanjali had meant ahimsa as a directive to be applied to oneself I think he would have put it in the next category, which is called niyama. The niyamas are actions that you take in regard to yourself, and he certainly has a lot to say about that!

Philip:

When we choose to live vegan for ethical reasons we also want other humans who care about the world and what happens to animals to be educated with information about living vegan.

What is the best way to forward or share this message with others?

SHARON:

An affective activist has to have more of a greater purpose than just venting anger or to prove how much more they know about the issue than the person or people they are speaking to do. Allow your interactions with others to be guided by humility and respect not arrogance and anger. When you speak to others, who you would like to influence, speak to their highest potential. See them as good people. Speak to them as holy beings—as beings who are kind and compassionate. See them as people who are giving you an opportunity to be kind-- an opportunity to communicate non-violently. If you have contempt for them they will feel this and all chance of positive communication will be disallowed.

Remember everyone you meet is coming from you. If you don’t like the way someone else is acting. Say to yourself, “I have to stop treating people this way.” Search inside yourself and change what you don’t like about that person by ridding it from yourself from the inside first.

THE END OF PART ONE OF THIS INTERVIEW.

Sharon travels extensively teaching and presenting at American, European, Canadian, Asian, South and Central American and Conferences. She has produced numerous yoga-related DVDs and music CDs including the 2010 release of Sharanam, her solo duet album on the White Swan Label. She is a prolific writer and has authored several books: Jivamukti Yoga, (also translated into German, Russian & Italian) The Art of Yoga, The Jivamukti Chant Book, Yoga and Vegetarianism and Cats and Dogs are People too! Her writing has appeared in numerous publications, including Toward 2012, Music &Spirituality, Semiotext(e) and Yoga Journal. She writes a monthly essay called the Focus of the Month, which can be read at www.jivamuktyoga.com

Here is a selection from Sharon's new album Sharanam which translates from sanskrit to english as "refuge" or "sanctuary". Sharon's music is created from ancient mantras and meditation chants and are designed to lead us to the sanctuary we each have inside ourselves.

Listen here to OM SHANTI

Part 2 of our talk with Sharon Gannon coming soon.