Grow your heart bigger

Reflections on Sally Kempton

As many of you know by now, Sally Kempton passed away on July 10th. I hate writing those words for a few reasons — for starters, it sounds final. And although I’m not of the religious ilk and I have very few clear opinions about the the concept of an afterlife, I just believe in my gut that this is not the end of Sally.

I attended her memorial service today, which was a truly lovely and moving tribute held via Zoom. The things that people shared about Sally were precious reminders of how special she was. She left an incredibly legacy and there are many who hope to carry it on in some way.

I was first introduced to Sally through her teaching. If I had to guess, I’d say that the year was 2004. I remember the experience vividly: I’d travelled to Wisconsin to our yoga conference as a young editor for Yoga Journal. It was the opening morning, and Sally was the esteemed teacher who would do an invocation to start the conference.

Mind you, we were gathered in a hotel ballroom — this was not a serene venue that you would envision for deep meditation. I remember the icy bite of hotel air-conditioning, the ugly blue and gold patterned wall-to-wall carpeting, and the creaky metal chairs we sat on.

I knew very little of Sally except what I’d heard in editorial meetings — that she had emerged from 30 years in the Siddha Yoga Ashram where she’d gone by the name of Swami Durgananda and had decided to live and teach as a householder. I knew she was a former journalist and a well-respected writer and thinker, but I hadn’t heard any details about her teaching.

For about 15 minutes, Sally led us through a meditation. The room that had felt cold and unwelcoming seemed to dissolve around me as my attention zoomed in on her voice. She walked us slowly and with great detail into our heart space. I had been meditating for a few years, but I’d never directly experienced the kind of deeply absorbed state of meditation that I did in that hotel ballroom that day.

My life was forever changed by that moment. I fell in love with meditation because I had experienced meditation. I found within myself a place that was soft, forgiving, quiet, and calm. It was like going through a portal to a completely different world. That morning I’d experienced Sally’s unique talent for taking the most esoteric concepts and guiding her students — through her voice, her descriptive stories, and her devotion — to experience them directly and deeply.

Sally loved life and she loved meditating. She modeled this for us, her students. Her teaching was informed by Tantra, and although there are many branches of Tantra, they all converge around one principle, which is that this world that we live in is divine. Beauty and truth and oneness are not outside of us or beyond this realm, they are accessible to us right here and now if we can only just know this. And one of the ways to knowing is through meditation.

Sally was the ultimate feminist, non-hierarchical leader — supportive and subversive and cool with a sharp wit. She didn’t jockey for power. She enjoyed her students immensely and it gave her a thrill to see them thrive and flourish in their own lives.

I got to know Sally much better when, a few years later, I was fortunate enough to take over the Wisdom column as her editor. So often when you get to know larger than life figures, there is something hugely disappointing about them. Perhaps they’ve been hiding an aggressively insecure ego behind all of their superficial wisdom or they’re short-tempered and cranky and become offended when anyone dares to question their perspective.

Sally was even more fabulous and fun and generous when I got to know her as her editor. I can remember having sweaty palms when I first called her to discuss edits — how was I going to articulate my edits to one of the most talented, articulate humans I knew? Sally made it easy. She was respectful and patient always — unlike many others I’d edited over the years. She never received my edits as a personal ding against her intelligence or creativity. She behaved like a grown-up who wanted to make each piece better and could take feedback accordingly. She helped me become a better editor because she could sagely sift through what I was trying to say and say it back to me even more clearly.

I loved working with her and I could feel that she loved me back. She was just like that. Sally was the ultimate feminist, non-hierarchical leader — supportive and subversive and cool with a sharp wit. She didn’t jockey for power. She enjoyed her students immensely and it gave her a thrill to see them thrive and flourish in their own lives.

Sally was born in Manhattan and grew up in Princeton, NJ, the daughter of Murray Kempton, a well-known columnist for the Village Voice. She did all the “right things” that would be expected of a bright girl from the East Coast, including attending Sarah Lawrence College and becoming a journalist herself.

She was an “it girl” in the world of up and coming feminist writers when she published an essay for Esquire that went viral for the times. Apparently, she railed against the roles that were expected of women and wrote about how she wished to bash her then-husband in the head with a frying pan. (Spoiler: the marriage didn’t last.)

A few years after the Esquire essay, Sally entered the ashram. She spent years gaining insight and knowledge, honing her skills as a teacher, and working through her own shadows. But Sally remained staunchly relatable. She was a person who knew what it was to be human with all of our various tragedies and comedies. She never distanced herself as a teacher; she acted as a teacher or a confidant or a mentor and could shape shift between the roles naturally and with great care and humor.

I don’t know if I am truly landing on how to describe her because it’s difficult: She was a special person with superlative human-ing skills.

I can remember one such time when Sally was there for me as a teacher. I was in my early thirties and had just endured a truly awful break-up. I’d fallen in love with a man who decided to go back to Thailand and live as a Buddhist monk. I was never a person to follow a conventional path, but falling in love with someone who chose celibacy in a faraway land over our relationship felt like rock bottom, utterly ridiculous and farcical. It also felt so lonely — no one I knew could relate to their lover leaving them for monkhood. It was like a death. You can’t send follow-up emails or texts to get closure; there is no hope of temporary make-up sex. Being left by someone whom I trusted with my heart brought into stark relief my loneliness and fear of abandonment.

I emailed Sally asking what to do with the feelings that were swallowing me whole. I look back on that sheer fact and can’t believe it — that she made me feel comfortable enough that I could email her with such a personal question. To my surprise, she responded immediately and said we could talk on the phone.

For me, it was life-altering and healing; for Sally it was just a regular days’ work.

It was the middle of the workday. I got up from my cubicle and holed up in an empty office as Sally listened while I cried. Remember how I said that no one could relate to their lover leaving them for monkhood? Well, Sally had seen it many times and it felt good to have a laugh about it with her.

She spent about an hour on the phone with me that day, listening, hold me in my feelings, and eventually leading me through a meditation. The meditation led me deeply into the dark, warm cave of the heart and involved offering my grief to the mother. The meditation itself was deeply healing; the attention and care and presence that Sally generously offered to me in that moment helped me turn the corner on my heartbreak. I’m not sure anyone had ever held me and my feelings with such clarity, groundedness, and compassion before. After that experience, I would be able to do it for myself over and over. I endeavor to do it for my daughter now. For me, it was life-altering and healing; for Sally it was just a regular days’ work.

At the Zoom memorial today I was reminded of Sally’s love and devotion to several things:

The goddess. The goddess. Oh, did Sally love her goddesses. She could tell their stories in prolific detail so that they became tangible and knowable. She wrote a whole book devoted to them called Awakening Shakti, and I was lucky enough to do her early reads and edits on that book. Remembering Sally’s love for goddesses (especially Durga) has reminded me to return to that book and those meditations. I am definitely in need of the brave heart of Durga right now.

The power of the heart. At the end of the memorial, Elizabeth Rossa reminded us that whenever you would bring a question or a problem to Sally, she would implore you to “Grow your heart bigger.” The heart was the way for Sally.

Thank you, Sally, for leading me into my own heart so many years ago. Thank you for reminding me over and over again that my heart can hold it all. My great love and reverence to you, Sally, Durgananda, fierce and loving spirit, teacher, role model, and friend. I miss you and wish I’d had one last chance to connect with you. Thank you, thank you, thank you.