I am a writer, teacher. I am a person fascinated with our minds and bodies — the work of living with sensitivity and care in our (amazing/painful/fragile/resilient/tender) bodies, and the task of making meaning of our complicated lives.

I am a lover of bodies in all our myriad shapes and abilities and limitations. I taught yoga and mindfulness for over a decade, but my health and care needs have taken me away from teaching for a while.

I am so grateful to be part of social justice and radical imagination work. I hope my art and teaching are pieces in the puzzle of our collective work of building a world we all deserve.

 

My short bio (in third person)

Krista Lee Hanson lives in Seattle, home of the Coast Salish people, with her partner and two children. Krista’s writing about care, parenting and disability has appeared in The Rumpus, The Normal School, “Rad Families, A Celebration” and other publications. Krista loves helping things grow: wild yeast into bread, seeds into an accessible garden, audacious ideas into organizing strategy and piles of paper into stories to be shared.

 

More of my writer story

My life as a writer began when I got a Cabbage Patch Doll pink square journal in the first grade. I immediately wrote in crayon “MY MOM IS ANNOYING ME” followed by a list for Santa. I have been writing into paradox ever since.

I’ve been filling journals for forty years now! When I was young, I wondered what my biographers would think when I died and they went through these notebooks and found out about… my junior high crushes! My drinking beer at a party! The scandal! Now that I’ve filled so many boxes with journals, I mostly wonder what my kids will do one day with all this scrawling that led to some meaning making. Which led to some essays that I could publish and share.

I am incredibly lucky to live in Seattle and have access to inspiring writers including my first mentor in creative nonfiction writing, Anne Liu Kellor. I am grateful for the Hugo House, for my writing group (Amabel, Amelia, Kristin, Julene, Lenna, and Leticia), and for other inspiring Seattle writers including Reagan Jackson, Marcus Green, Jen Soriano, and Corrine Manning. I am currently studying at the Rainier Writer’s Workshop at Pacific Lutheran University, where I am working on writing a book about care, interdependence, disability, parenting, acceptance and advocacy.

 

Krista Lee Hanson, a yoga story

I started practicing yoga in college eons ago, but it was the birth of my son fifteen years ago that led me to my deep dive into yoga study.  Yoga and mindfulness meditation have helped me ground, grow, heal and become more flexible mentally and physically, and I have felt so fortunate to be able to share these practices with my students and community.

I have taught yoga and meditation to all ages and abilities, including open level yoga classes, prenatal yoga, private yoga therapy, yoga for children with disabilities, yoga for activists, yoga for beginners, and yoga for athletes.  I know that all people can find joy and peace in our bodies, even if it’s just a tiny bit at a time.  My family is affected by multiple disabilities, so I am especially committed and interested in making my classes accessible to everyone.

My training as a teacher and yoga therapist began in Washington DC with teachers in the Iyengar yoga and the Scaravelli yoga traditions. In Seattle I studied with Jenny Hayo, AnnePhyfe Palmer and Melina Meza through the 8 Limbs Yoga. In 2018 I completed the Mindful Self-Compassion teacher training. My best teachers are the people I spend the most time with – my students, my colleagues, my friends and especially my family.  I have had no better mindfulness teacher than my children, who constantly ask me to bring my attention back to the present moment.

From 2016-2022 I was part of a team of parents who offered mindfulness meditation classes to parents of children with disabilities and other health challenges through Seattle Children’s Hospital. We now meet informally, and we hope to continue to build this community.

Despite what our culture teaches us, we all have the right to live fully and comfortably in our bodies, and I hope my classes create space for participants to practice living a fully embodied life.

 

And a picture of non-perfection…

And finally, about the pictures on the blog.  I went back and forth about whether or not to include pictures of me “doing yoga,” since I feel so strongly that there is no perfect pose, and that anyone with any kind of body can do yoga.  And yet… in my body I love playing with balance.  I especially used to love doing headstands. (I also love taking care of my neck, which is no longer as young as it was a decade ago when I took these pictures, so I’ve stopped doing unsupported handstands.) But still. I come back to my yoga practice to keep finding wisdom and joy in my body. And these pictures are from one moment of joy.