Ancestry.com & Creating Your Personal Yoga Census
This week my father-in-law turned 60. My husband wanted to give him a super elaborate family tree. I say wanted because… we haven't actually finished it yet. Maybe it'll end up being a birthday/Christmas combo gift — you know, the ones you give to people born in December or January. (No comment — said a December baby.)
My husband has been falling deep into the ancestry.com rabbit hole, talking to uncles, uncovering all kinds of history. We found out that his father's mother's family was from a little town in France called La Rochelle. HOLD RIGHT THERE , because my father's mother was also from La Rochelle.
We laughed and decided not to dig any further. Can you imagine?!
Europe makes these things easier: censuses are a big deal. We love our data.
We need to know how many people live in each tiny village and how many centenarians we'll celebrate on the evening news.
And that got me thinking about inventory. How often do we stop and collect data on our own lives? Sure, we can hang our diplomas on the wall, or let our photo albums collect dust, but what about our yoga practice?
Students tell me all the time: “I don't have crow yet.” or “I don't have headstand.” Isn't it funny, this idea of owning a pose? As if crow were a pair of pants or a painting to hang in the living room. The truth is, the fibers that make up a pose are always changing. One day you float up into crow for half a breath. Is that “having it”? Another day you hold it long enough to take a picture — is that the proof? And if it disappears the next practice, did you lose it?
Censuses are funny that way too. They tell us what's true in a single moment, not what's permanent. Not every person counted at 99 will make it to 100. And not every crow pose repeated once will be there the next time.
Why? Because we are all subject to variables: sleep, weather, stress, hormones, too much chocolate cake at your friend's birthday party.
So here's my thought: collect the data, take the picture, but put a santosha filter on it. Let those snapshots be a record of that exact moment in time — not something to cling to or replicate perfectly.
And since I am French and I love a census, here's one just for you ( just copy paste and send it back to me, use it to make a carousel on instagram and TAG ME ( @melie.purdon) or just keep it for yourself as a journaling prompt.
The Yoga Census 2025
Full name: (or the one you remember once you've melted into savasana)
Age: (of your spine today, not your birth certificate)
Place of residence: (front of the mat, back of the mat, or curled up in child's pose)
Number of dependents: (plants, pets, kids climbing on you mid–down dog)
Occupation: (breather, mover, sometimes overthinker)
Frequency of practice: (check one: ☐ once a month ☐ once a week ☐ whenever my body begs me ☐ daily-ish)
Languages spoken: (inhale, exhale, occasional sigh)
Current relationship status: (with crow pose, headstand, or savasana)
Notable accomplishments this year: (holding a plank without cursing, showing up even when tired, finding stillness for one breath)
That's the data that matters.
Have you seen the movie Amélie? There's a character who paints the same Renoir scene over and over again, year after year. It's always the same painting, yet each version is different. If you've never seen the movie, every year he changes the meal they the people in the painting are having. It's so sweet.
That's your yoga practice. You show up, you recreate the shapes, but every day the details are different because you too my friend are. If you were exactly the same I would say something is up! And that is coming from someone who famously hates change.
Ok I think that is enough homework for today. See you on the mat (live or on zoom)
With so much love and gratitude,
Mélie
