About Us
Beautiful, Meaningfully Embroidered Apparel for yoga and dance.
Speak your truth...
As a teacher/student of yoga and lover of dance, I have spent 35 plus years studying spirituality east and west. Although there are plenty of quality clothing options for yoga and dance, I wanted to create a clothing line that expresses the spiritual values I've come to embrace. Quality fabrics, comfortable fit, and embroidered with beautiful and meaningful designs, our products let you speak your truth without uttering a word.
Our name, Atta Apparel is based on the first word of the yoga sutra's, Atha, and pronounced At-Ha. This is similar to the pronunciation of the word Hatha, which is Hat-ha or Hatta, rather than Ha-tha; there is no "th" sound. We spell it Atta in order to get the correct pronunciation for English speakers.
The word Atha is defined by BKS Iyengar as "now, auspiciousness, a prayer, a blessing, benediction, authority, a good omen." The first yoga sutra is "Atha Yoganusasanam", which to us means the that the key to yoga (connection or union) is found in the blessing of the present moment (atha). It reminds us to savor the experiences we are having in this moment.
We like to think that the clothing we offer will help connect others to the blessings of the present moment, and allow the wearer a beautiful & comfortable way to speak their truth.
Our Logo
Our logo is symbolic of the "Serenity Prayer" by theologian Reinhold Niebuhr:
"God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change,
Courage to change the things I can,
And wisdom to know the difference."
We evolved this symbol by taking a Yin/Yang symbol and merging the two centers into a single center. One wing of our symbol is accepting the things we cannot change, the other wing is the courage to change the things we can, and the empty center is the midline - the wisdom to know the difference - the place from which we consciously engage life.
Yoga
My yoga studies led me several years ago to Kashmir Shaivism, and then to the Shakta Tantra tradition of Rajanaka. I'm currently studying Rajanaka with Dr. Douglas Brooks. You can find out more at www.rajanaka.com.
Dance
For me dance is a spiritual practice. The normal relationship between our conscious awareness (Shiva), and the body (a form of Shakti) is that our conscious awareness controls the body and tells it what to do. In the authentic movement practices that I embrace, that relationship is reversed, and the conscious awareness gets out of the way to allow the Shakti of the body to express itself freely. The most well known of these authentic movement practices is Ecstatic dance as taught by Gabrielle Roth. My own preferences run toward BodyMantra and Wild Dance. You can find out more about BodyMantra at www.body-mantra.com.
