Movin’ on up

>> Ascent magazine spreads the real meaning of yoga

by GENEVIEVE PAIEMENT

Ascent might just be the best yoga magazine you’ve never heard of. In fact, given that most magazine-store shelf space is infested with colourful, cleavage-splattered monthlies, how can a Montreal-based quarterly with a subhead like “Expanding the mind of yoga” compete?
“We’re trying to open a new way of talking about yoga,” soft-spoken editor Clea McDougall explains. “There are a lot of misconceptions about yoga—either it’s seen as an Eastern thing where strange men contort themselves or a more Americanized fitness craze. We want to bring back the depth and spirituality to yoga and make it more contemporary and accessible.”
Though it’s only been a national quarterly magazine for three years, Ascent has been around in one form or another for about 30 years, starting out as the Yasodhara Ashram newsletter in rural Kootenay Bay, B.C. “It’s still the ashram’s project, though they’ve given us a lot of room to work. They have editors and visionaries we are in constant contact with,” says McDougall. She and a small team of editors worked from the ashram for about two years before the magazine started really picking up and they realized that “it was too hard to do it in, essentially, the middle of nowhere.” So McDougall, a native Montrealer with a degree in creative writing, spearheaded the move across the country to our fair city.
With an environmental bent and an activist edge, Ascent has already built up healthy Canadian, American and U.K. readerships and managed to garner an Utne Reader Alternative Press Award nomination in the category of Best Spiritual Coverage. And in keeping with their mandate to remain accessible and inspirational to urban hipsters and seasoned yogis alike, recent issues of Ascent have included a photo essay on the yoga craze in New York City, the urban ecology of yoga, and scientific reflections from David Suzuki. So yoga, as defined by Ascent, is a pretty broad term, covering philosophy, physical discipline, ecology and more.
“It manifests in our daily lives in every way,” says McDougall, “in how we live our lives, in asking ‘How do I live my life?’ That to me is yoga. It doesn’t have to be about a specific daily yoga practice or philosophy or teacher. It can be about our attitudes.”
As for their plans for the new year, Ascent have just bought a building, with offices on the second floor and plans to turn the first floor into a yoga studio, gallery and community space—“a space that reflects the spirit of Ascent,” says McDougall. Watch for it on Gilford at the corner of St-André or visit www.ascentmagazine.com for more details. :