13/03/2026
When I was about eight years old, I remember sitting in the living room and watching a woman on television move slowly and speak in the calmest, kindest voice. Her name was Lilias Folan.
I didn't understand much of the yoga she was teaching at the time, and I certainly was not doing many of the poses along with her. But something about her presence stayed with me. Her voice was gentle. Her way of speaking felt deeply empathetic. Watching her felt soothing in a way I didn't yet have words for.
Lilias Folan was one of the first people to bring yoga into American living rooms. In 1972, her PBS series, Lilias, Yoga and You, began airing across the United States. At a time when yoga was still unfamiliar to many people, she made it approachable, warm, and deeply human. She did not present yoga as something extreme or exotic. Instead, she shared it as a path to feeling more at home in your body and more at ease in your life.
For many people, she was their very first yoga teacher. Not in a studio, but through a television screen.
For decades she continued teaching, writing books, and sharing yoga as a practice of kindness toward the body and compassion toward oneself. Her influence quietly shaped the early growth of yoga in the West, especially for women who may never have stepped into a yoga studio otherwise.
When I look back now, I realize that even though I didn't follow along with many of the poses as a child, something was being planted....a seed of curiosity. A sense that there was a way of moving and being in the world that was softer, more attentive, more connected.
Thank you, Lilias, for bringing yoga into so many homes and hearts.
May you rest peacefully, knowing that the seeds you planted continue to grow in bodies, minds, and hearts around the world.
(p.s. Your calm voice reached farther than you could have known.)
