Her roots are intertwined

Megan Sappington has a sense of kismet - Whether it's her latest theater production

Megan Sappington assumes a pose at Wilson's Yoga Studio on Jefferson City's south side.
Megan Sappington assumes a pose at Wilson's Yoga Studio on Jefferson City's south side.

For Megan Sappington, yoga is the study of life.

Sappington, who is the co-owner of Wilson's Yoga Studio on Dunklin Street, uses the word kismet to convey a sense of the fate, destiny, fortune that has shaped her life.

Caring for her father in the aftermath of a series of catastrophic strokes caused her contemplate living and dying in a whole new dimension.

"I really thought about: What it would be like to be a prisoner in your own body? What would I sit there and think about? What would I regret?" she said. "The first thing that came into my mind is if I never got back on stage."

She believes it was kismet that - on the very same afternoon she was driving home from Lawrence, Kansas, distraught about her father's illness - she noticed an advertisement for a Jefferson City Little Theatre production, Neil Simon's "The Prisoner of Second Avenue."

"Do you see the irony?" she said.

Although she had spent years as a professional actor and model, she was surprisingly nervous about the audition. She thought she did okay, but she didn't expect to hear from anybody.

"But later that night he (Director Alan Bailey) called," she said.

She got the part and has been an active participant in the local theater scene ever since. Her current project is "Independence," a Scene One production, with performances set for June 5-7.

Mark Wegman, Scene One's artistic director, said Sappington has a knack for taking a simple sketch and turning it into a "masterful piece."

"Her acting ability is so spot-on," he said. "Her passion for theater is contagious ... it rubs off and inspires all of those around her."

It's hard to say which came first - Sappington's love of the performing arts or her love of yoga. The two are so intertwined it hardly matters.

When Show-Me Yoga first opened in Jefferson City about 16 years ago, she was one of their first students. Her oldest daughter had just been born.

Again, she said it was kismet that she was in the right place at the right time when the studio's owners asked her if she wanted to learn how to teach.

On faith - not the promise of employment - she took the classes.

"Boy howdy, my whole world changed," she said. "I really felt like I had been called to do something."

She's been teaching since 2000 in the Capital City.

"And when you do what you are called to do, it's not a job anymore," she said.

Yoga has always been a part of Sappington's life. Her mother and grandmother practiced it; her aunt is a Kundalini (a school of yoga) teacher in Los Angeles.

As a teacher, one of her strengths is she has a "really solid understanding - and being able to see - what's going on with someone physically and sometimes even mentally," she said.

Her students say the same thing.

Mary Jo Durkin said she can walk into a class feeling stressed, but she leaves with a new aura of happiness.

"I walk out of there feeling like I don't want to leave, because I don't want to lose that feeling," Durkin said.

Sappington often speaks of opening up the "heart space" to new experiences. A shy person, Durkin said the visualization exercises have "opened my heart to be able to welcome new people in my life."

Although many people envision yoga as a purely physical exercise, Sappington relies upon highly poetic language to guide her students through the yogic postures. Her directions are delivered in a rhythmic voice that is both calming and energizing.

She relies up a shaggy notebook - three actually - to lead her classes. They are filled with series of stick-figure drawings, an easy-to-read shorthand for the movements she leads her students through.

She always has a intention she want to communicate in every class. But an intention is not the same as a "goal," she said.

"It's not: "Do a handstand.' My intention might be to cultivate a sense of courage and fearlessness," she said.

One of yoga's teachings is that the eight "limbs" of a person's life - concepts such as morality, body postures, breath, control of the senses, meditation and union with the Divine - are interconnected.

"It's like the roots of a tree," she said. "I could spend 24 hours a day, until the day I die, and never make a dent into my understanding of the science of yoga."