“Something, when you love it, is always tugging at you and itching…” ~ Jay-Z, on releasing his comeback album Kingdom Come in 2006.

I’m happy to join the ranks of basketball stars and rappers by coming out of retirement and resurrecting it’s all yoga, baby! As Michael Jordan said after his first retirement: “I’m back.” And I’m excited to be here!

The past six months have been creative, fruitful and introspective. But I’ve missed blogging. I’ve missed connecting with people. I’ve missed the vibrant community of yoga bloggers. I love/d this community, this blog, and it’s been tugging at me and itching to be brought back to life.

The strange thing is that since I closed it’s all yoga, baby in January, things haven’t changed that much. My stats stayed the same (March, two months after closure, had the second highest hits ever), people kept joining the Facebook fanpage, people kept following me on Twitter, and people kept linking to and commenting on posts. It was like the blog continued to live on: the only difference was that I wasn’t blogging. Which is actually the fun part!

And some things have changed. I’ve been sitting back and watching the yoga blogosphere, which has grown up quite a bit. It’s been exciting to watch the ascension of elephant journal, as it’s turned into a real hub of respectful and informed conversation on yoga and the mindful life. I’ve been inspired by projects such as Recovering Yogi, Teachasana and Yoga 2.0, and The Magazine of Yoga has added a touch of refinement and class to the sphere. I’ve also been watching saucy yoga bloggers like Y is for Yogini, Curvy Yoga and Flying Yogini step up to the plate and find their voices.

Things have changed for myself, too. I’ve co-launched yocomo (yoga community montréal), a project to highlight all the amazing but underground yoga happening in Montreal, and am co-planning a yoga festival set for 2012. I’ve stopped practicing asana because of a back injury and have cut back on teaching (I now only teach privates and a beloved long-term volunteer class at a community mission in my hood). I’m less militant about the commercialization of yoga and more interested in how yoga intersects with daily life, activism, politics and culture. I’m still interested in the ramifications of the popularity of yoga and its representation in popular culture, but I have more faith that yoga will maintain its integrity.

There are some exciting changes on the horizon here at it’s all yoga, baby: a new look, a revived mission, more conversations. I’m going to explore video and podcasting, and use this space as my professional presence on the web. Stick around, see what happens. Show me what you got, yo.