Olmec Kriyas

Three thousand years ago, on the Gulf Coast of what is now Mexico, carvers made bodies in stone and clay. They kneel with their hands on their knees, fold their legs into stillness, turn upside down and bend backward into a circle. Anyone who has practiced yoga will feel a jolt of recognition.

Olmec Kriyas sets these Olmec figures beside the postures of India, the sacred body language of Egypt and the moving yogas of Tibet. Side by side, a seated Olmec figure with its hands behind its head meets a Tibetan yogi in the same shape; a kneeling lord meets the Lion posture; an inverted vessel meets the shoulderstand. Along the way the book follows the jaguar, the serpent, the sky goddess Nut, the sacred numbers, the rubber ballgame, and the names and sounds that seem to echo across the ocean.

Each finding is marked as documented history, living testimony or sound resonance, so the reader can weigh it. Each chapter ends with an invitation to move and with open questions to carry.

This is a contemplation and an invitation: to look closely, to wonder why so many peoples shaped the body alike, and then to get down on the floor and explore.