Culture is not just books and paintings.

Culture is one of the means through which we express the human experience and human nature.

And yoga? We will borrow its stretching, breathing, and focusing—but use it to stretch the mind, enhance our visualization, and nurture our imagination.

Culture Yoga.

1. Read each of those random sensory phrases I created—listed below.
2. Close your eyes. Focus on each one. Picture it in your mind.
3. Notice the textures, the scents, the sights, and the sounds.
4. Move on to the next sensory phrase.
5. Repeat this as many times as you like—feel as if you are letting go and immersing yourself in the setting you are imagining.

• a brick of dark chocolate
• a gondolier at the stern rowing in the middle of a dark and quiet 15th-century Venetian night
• a heron on a large rock along the shore on a cloudy day
• one of the chairs alongside a long medieval banquet table, about to be set
• the imprint in the sands left behind by a caravan of camels passing through the desert
• the sound of cars passing along the large puddles of freshly poured rain on the street
• cinnamon