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afield since 2003 · michael joel hall
Saturday
August 8, 2026
Threads
On this day
August 8 in years past
any studio. I doubt that he knows what
"sidebar" is or how to tap it back.
You may not agree with his politics or the
candidates that he chooses to support, but the
people inside of the studios should not be on
the receiving end of any misguided anger or
frustration. Anyone familiar with SoulCycle and
its core values knows the profound impact that
this community has on the world and the
momentum it has created in bringing us all
together. I stand firmly in my beliefs that each
one of my colleagues is preaching a message
of love and equality from the podium of their
classes. Messages that transcend any hate,
bigotry or prejudice. Boycotting SoulCycle
means attempting to muffle these messages in
this critical time when they should be amplified
instead.
True students of SoulCycle know what it means
to lean into work and really sink their heels in
when moments get tough. It's what we've
tirelessly trained our minds and bodies to do.
Anyone can host a fundraiser. Misguided anger
does not provide a solution; It just creates more
noise in an already hectic and chaotic world. I
challenge you to do something constructive,
instead of joining the overpopulated ranks of
online keyboard warriors.
turn into a dieappeinimeni
TO OUR SOUL FAMILY,
At SoulCycle, we wake up every day committed to our
community, and creating a safe space where all are welcome.
We believe in diversity, inclusion, and equality.
SoulCycle in no way endorses the political fundraising event
being held later this week. SoulCycle has nothing to do with
the event and does not support it. Consistent with our policies, no
company profits are used to fund politicians. We're committed to
all our riders and the communities we live in. Mr. Ross is a passive
investor and is not involved in the management of SoulCycle.
We'll always stay true to our values and committed to
our community. We know who we are and we know what we
believe in, and nothing will ever change that.
WITH SOUL,
Melauie
MELANIE WHELAN, RIDER & CEO
Many members raised their concerns about a
political fundraiser taking place later this week.
We want to let you know that Equinox and
SoulCycle have nothing to do with the event
and do not support it. As is consistent with our
policies, no company profits are used to fund
politicians. In fact, we are committed to all
our members and the communities we live in.
We believe in tolerance and equality, and will
always stay true to those values. Mr. Ross is a
passive investor and is not involved in the
management of either business.
We appreciate all who have reached out to us.
EQUINOX
I have friends employed by pure yoga, equinox, and SoulCycle.
They’re not purposefully uncle tomming.
but friends: don’t let these companies lie to you.
spending habits.
I have friends employed by
pure yoga, equinox, and
SoulCycle.
They' re not purposefully
uncle tomming.
but friends: don't let these
companies lie to you.
Cadele acuyin
activities
include:
#NowPlaying Bones by AM!R
https://open.spotify.com/track/32sjFyhWiHUcIlcWnk462x
dc.eater.com12 Options for Steamy Ramen to Slurp Around D.C.The best bowls for comforting noodles around the cityFifteen places to eat ramen in D.C.
Outdoor practice! Meridian Hill/Malcolm X park-- Come through! 5:30p!
http://www.bikramyogadc.com/schedule-fees/yoga-in-the-park/
By the numbers
Writing
- PracticeWaiting to Be Given the Next Pose: Reclaiming Authority Over My PracticeAug 4, 2026
- PracticeA Little Better: On Watching Your Mind Get You HurtAug 2, 2026
- PhilosophyNarayana and PracticeJul 31, 2026
- CultureThe Guilds of PracticeJul 29, 2026
- PracticeThe Intermediate TrapJul 27, 2026
- Yoga ProfessionalsTeaching a Lineage I Never Fact-CheckedJul 25, 2026
Digests
- Twenty Minutes to a Sharper MindAug 8, 2026
A 20-minute yoga session significantly improved reaction time, accuracy, and memory in college students, while 20 minutes of jogging produced no cognitive gains.
- Yoga Filter #1: Who Decides What’s RealAug 3, 2026
This is Yoga Filter!
- Passion Doesn’t Pay RentAug 3, 2026
Your 200-hour taught you to sequence a class. It never taught you to own the platform, the pricing, and the recurring income that outlast your knees.
- When Medication Was Not EnoughAug 2, 2026
People with treatment-resistant depression showed decreased depression and anxiety after practicing Sudarshan Kriya yoga, while those on medication alone saw no improvement.
- Yoga Broke the Pain-Depression Cycle in New StudyAug 1, 2026
A 2020 study found that yoga significantly improved pain levels, mood, and functional capacity in people living with both chronic pain and depression.
- Stating the ObviousJul 28, 2026
A blogger handed himself a permission slip I needed: blogging can just be stating the obvious.
- A Mood Is Not a PracticeJul 28, 2026
Thirteen six-week courses, seventy-eight guided sessions, eleven real techniques — the eighth limb engineered as a practice you can actually operate.
- Regenerating Trust in Local Communities After ToxicityJul 27, 2026
What happens when charismatic teachers extract value from communities and leave?
The Read
lionsroar.comCelebrating an American BodhisattvaLion's Roar essay memorializing Robert A.F. Thurman, the pioneering American Buddhist scholar and Tibet advocate who died June 16, 2026, at 84. The author attended a memorial gathering at Menla Retreat in Phoenicia, NY, celebrating Thurman's life as an 'American bodhisattva' who bridged Tibetan Budd✦ Read ad free and get the full MichaelFilter · $5.50
theguardian.comNational Gallery security staff segregated like ‘second-class citizens’, curator claimsThe National Gallery faces allegations that its outsourced security staff—predominantly from minority ethnic backgrounds—are segregated from the institution's mainly white employees. While permanent staff access a subsidized hub with natural light and quality facilities, security guards are confined✦ Read ad free and get the full MichaelFilter · $5.50The Listen
The Watch
Megaprojects3D Printed Homes Were a Lie Anyway.A methodical takedown of 3D-printed construction hype, grounded in a rigorous 2024 cost study that exposes the full project economics — not just the flattering construction-phase numbers. The prefab comparison gives the argument real teeth.✦ Read ad free and get the full MichaelFilter · $5.50
Y CombinatorGarry Tan: “Personal AGI Is How You Stay Under Your Own Power”Garry Tan threads Spinoza's excommunication through a concrete personal-AGI architecture to argue that owning your skill files is the modern version of owning your tools — philosophy that lands as operational doctrine. The receipts are specific enough to act on tonight.✦ Read ad free and get the full MichaelFilter · $5.50
TODAYNew ‘Gilmore Girls’ Doc to Feature Never-Before-Seen OuttakesQuick but concrete update on the Gilmore Girls documentary with real production details — format, perspective, platform, and archive material confirmed. Worth returning to as a source anchor when the doc drops.✦ Read ad free and get the full MichaelFilter · $5.50
Jregso what if It’s conscious?Jreg performs an absurdist reductio ad absurdum on AI consciousness discourse, exposing the stakes of the rights debate by escalating to a deliberately monstrous fourth position — useful for anyone thinking about where AI moral patienthood arguments actually lead.✦ Read ad free and get the full MichaelFilter · $5.50
VoxHow Google broke the internet | The Gray AreaRyan Brick makes a genuinely counterintuitive case that Google Zero could be liberation rather than collapse — and his diagnosis of how Google warped internet culture from the inside out is precise and damning. Worth returning to for the architecture-of-the-internet framing alone.✦ Read ad free and get the full MichaelFilter · $5.50Pickings
Latest dispatches
Doodles
Unearthed
The full ledger
13,081 entries · 2003–2026 · filter & browse below

Twenty Minutes to a Sharper Mind
A 20-minute yoga session significantly improved reaction time, accuracy, and memory in college students, while 20 minutes of jogging produced no cognitive gains.
Read the essay →
lionsroar.comCelebrating an American BodhisattvaLion's Roar essay memorializing Robert A.F. Thurman, the pioneering American Buddhist scholar and Tibet advocate who died June 16, 2026, at 84. The author attended a memorial gathering at Menla Retreat in Phoenicia, NY, celebrating Thurman's life as an 'American bodhisattva' who bridged Tibetan Budd✦ Read ad free and get the full MichaelFilter · $5.50Look up Greg Cooke Yoga Club's current membership plans and pricing on their website or Instagram.
Send Greg a quick note letting him know the membership is sorted.
Fw: Quick video (Re: 5:30 Choir - July 26 (Seventeenth Sunday Ordinary Time)
↳ Add a closing line/CTA
Edit and proofread
↳ Check for typos
↳ Trim for length/clarity
Megaprojects3D Printed Homes Were a Lie Anyway.A methodical takedown of 3D-printed construction hype, grounded in a rigorous 2024 cost study that exposes the full project economics — not just the flattering construction-phase numbers. The prefab comparison gives the argument real teeth.✦ Read ad free and get the full MichaelFilter · $5.50
Y CombinatorGarry Tan: “Personal AGI Is How You Stay Under Your Own Power”Garry Tan threads Spinoza's excommunication through a concrete personal-AGI architecture to argue that owning your skill files is the modern version of owning your tools — philosophy that lands as operational doctrine. The receipts are specific enough to act on tonight.✦ Read ad free and get the full MichaelFilter · $5.50
TODAYNew ‘Gilmore Girls’ Doc to Feature Never-Before-Seen OuttakesQuick but concrete update on the Gilmore Girls documentary with real production details — format, perspective, platform, and archive material confirmed. Worth returning to as a source anchor when the doc drops.✦ Read ad free and get the full MichaelFilter · $5.50Look up Greg Cooke Yoga Club's current membership plans and pricing on their website or Instagram.
Send Greg a quick note letting him know the membership is sorted.
Fw: Quick video (Re: 5:30 Choir - July 26 (Seventeenth Sunday Ordinary Time)
↳ Add a closing line/CTA
Edit and proofread
↳ Check for typos
↳ Trim for length/clarity

The Harms Are Specific, the Gains Are Vague
I was half-listening to an AI regulation podcast when the pattern landed. Not a new podcast — there are a thousand of them now, all saying roughly the same things with different levels of alarm. This one had someone who had actually read the filings,…
Read the essay →Look up Greg Cooke Yoga Club's current membership plans and pricing on their website or Instagram.
Send Greg a quick note letting him know the membership is sorted.
Fw: Quick video (Re: 5:30 Choir - July 26 (Seventeenth Sunday Ordinary Time)
↳ Add a closing line/CTA
Edit and proofread
↳ Check for typos
↳ Trim for length/clarity
Look up Greg Cooke Yoga Club's current membership plans and pricing on their website or Instagram.
Send Greg a quick note letting him know the membership is sorted.
Fw: Quick video (Re: 5:30 Choir - July 26 (Seventeenth Sunday Ordinary Time)
↳ Add a closing line/CTA
Edit and proofread
↳ Check for typos
↳ Trim for length/clarity

Waiting to Be Given the Next Pose: Reclaiming Authority Over My Practice
The method saved my body and my attention. The power structure around it nearly cost me both. I could have written a post about it. I built a platform instead.
Read the essay →Get Json
mporked, Pashed

Yoga Filter #1: Who Decides What’s Real
This is Yoga Filter!
Read the essay →
Passion Doesn’t Pay Rent
Your 200-hour taught you to sequence a class. It never taught you to own the platform, the pricing, and the recurring income that outlast your knees.
Read the essay →
Jregso what if It’s conscious?Jreg performs an absurdist reductio ad absurdum on AI consciousness discourse, exposing the stakes of the rights debate by escalating to a deliberately monstrous fourth position — useful for anyone thinking about where AI moral patienthood arguments actually lead.✦ Read ad free and get the full MichaelFilter · $5.50
theguardian.comNational Gallery security staff segregated like ‘second-class citizens’, curator claimsThe National Gallery faces allegations that its outsourced security staff—predominantly from minority ethnic backgrounds—are segregated from the institution's mainly white employees. While permanent staff access a subsidized hub with natural light and quality facilities, security guards are confined✦ Read ad free and get the full MichaelFilter · $5.50You wake to find a single word written on your wrist in handwriting that isn't yours—just "Inspo," nothing else—and by noon you realize everyone you pass has the same word inked in the same place. No one else seems to notice theirs, or perhaps they simply won't say, and when you catch your reflection in a shop window, the letters have started, very slowly, to rearrange themselves into something else.
≡ Essay Outline
Finding the Spark: Tracing Where Inspiration Comes From
The Myth of the Lightning Bolt
Inspiration rarely arrives as a single flash of genius; it is usually the visible tip of long, invisible preparation.
Environments That Invite Ideas
Certain places, routines, and sensory conditions consistently make people more receptive to new thoughts, and identifying them can be a practical tool.
Borrowing from Others
Much of what feels original is really a remix of influences absorbed from books, conversations, and art, and tracing these debts can deepen creative honesty.
The Role of Constraint
Limitations in time, resources, or form often sharpen inspiration rather than smother it, forcing unexpected solutions to the surface.
When Inspiration Runs Dry
Understanding the common blocks to inspiration, from fear to fatigue, helps explain why creative output fluctuates and how to work through the lulls.
Turning Inspiration into Action
The final test of inspiration is not the feeling itself but whether it can be translated into sustained, disciplined work.
Your National Holistic Healing Center order is ready for pickup!
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R. tuelstic
practise to
eyrelde enlightenment
via family and
and reasons
a best seller -
woah.
ALL THE DUCKS ARE swimming
IN THE WATER. FaLaLaLaita
The system
tells you what
it thinks of
you. Pro-rated Kit
Kats in the
vending machine
as an amenity to be
celebrated ... hmm...

A Little Better: On Watching Your Mind Get You Hurt
Knowing what your mind does won't stop it—but practice shortens the gap between recognition and reaction.
Read the essay →
When Medication Was Not Enough
People with treatment-resistant depression showed decreased depression and anxiety after practicing Sudarshan Kriya yoga, while those on medication alone saw no improvement.
Read the essay →↳ Propose 2-3 time slots
↳ Add calendar invite once confirmed
Share onboarding info / next steps
↳ Send member guide or resources
↳ Confirm access to relevant channels or tools
Venue Hire last min offer
New member: Maia Wagner — needs follow-up
Send Maia a personal welcome message
↳ Thank her for joining
VoxHow Google broke the internet | The Gray AreaRyan Brick makes a genuinely counterintuitive case that Google Zero could be liberation rather than collapse — and his diagnosis of how Google warped internet culture from the inside out is precise and damning. Worth returning to for the architecture-of-the-internet framing alone.✦ Read ad free and get the full MichaelFilter · $5.50
Essentia FoundationCan We Get Back To The Golden Age Of Meaning? | John VervaekeVervaeke traces the full arc of humanity's psycho-technologies — from shamanic soul-flight to Socratic metacognition to Christian agape — as a single cognitive story about how meaning was built, and how we lost the thread. Dense, generative, worth returning to.✦ Read ad free and get the full MichaelFilter · $5.50
ESOTERICAWhat is Theosophy? How a Shoemaker Invented Modern EsotericismA rare accessible entry point into one of Western esotericism's most impenetrable thinkers, tracing Böhme's theosophical system from the divine abyss through Sophia, the fall of Lucifer, and the practical cure for melancholy. Essential orientation before reading *The Way to Christ*.✦ Read ad free and get the full MichaelFilter · $5.50
Yoga Broke the Pain-Depression Cycle in New Study
A 2020 study found that yoga significantly improved pain levels, mood, and functional capacity in people living with both chronic pain and depression.
Read the essay →
highsnobiety.comYou Know Ralph Lauren Is Back When This Jacket Comes OutA Highsnobiety fashion piece argues that the return of Ralph Lauren's Harrington jacket among style-conscious consumers signals the brand's cultural resurgence. The article tracks Ralph Lauren's momentum through runway visibility, viral product releases, and rising search metrics as indicators of re✦ Read ad free and get the full MichaelFilter · $5.50Mike Minded Daily — July 28, 2026
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