YOGA’S MAGIC
After her husband of 32 years passed away, Floridian Melanie Camp, a member of the Tower Club in Fort Lauderdale, looked to yoga for consolation and discovered a new profession. Some five years later, Camp continues to “challenge her fears.” And her résumé is expanding, although not in a way she might have predicted in the days she assisted her husband in his publishing business. She is a certified yoga instructor and a “YogaKids” associate teacher. She also is certified in basic keelboat sailing and coastal cruising. And she’s taken up oil painting so she can illustrate a book she’s compiling of yoga tips. “Since yoga, the magic has happened,” she says. “Everything I put my hands on, I get a benefit, a revelation.” She even found the positive when Hurricane Frances flooded her home publishing office in September 2004. Today, the space serves as a meditation and yoga studio, complete with a view of an overgrown butterfly garden in her backyard. The pursuit of yoga has taken Camp around the world and has shown that there are no limits to her “flexibility,” both literally and figuratively. Now, when she completes a class, she leaves her students with an affirmation. “My favorite,” Camp reports, “is ‘No matter how dark the tunnel, it always leads to light.’” — Patricia Baldwin

Photography Michael Price.