Love is the mission,… and the domain extension
“.love, what the heck? Is that even a real domain extension? I have never heard of that….” Yes, I was expecting that reaction and I welcome the question!
Small details are important to me. As I first planned and took steps to launch YOGApothecary nearly a year ago, I spent a lot of time considering details and the impressions that things would make on others. I want everything about what I do to align with my values in the most consistent and intentional possible way. One of those details was my domain extension. I know that a lot of people barely think about the meaning and resonance of the letters that come after the dot on their website and email address. Many people grab up a dot com or a dot net and feel pleased and confident that the most commonly typed and known domain extension will lead customers to their business. While an easy path to find a website is important, and a basic dot come is a safe method, I felt differently about it. I chose a truly unconventional and largely unheard of domain extension because I wanted the pause and the double take that people will inevitably give when they see or hear it. I want to be extraordinary, not ordinary. I want to put intention into the smallest things.
The reason that a reaction like that feels desireable to me, is because my mission is to be inclusive of all— the different, the marginalized, the ones who people double-take about or have questions and judgements about. I want to normalize difference.
One way to do that is to do different things publicly so that people get used to them and they eventually seem less weird or suspicious. We are able to be conditioned to all kinds of behaviors and ideas, and safe and conventional has never been my way. One of my most esteemed teachers once evaluated me as “an appropriate risk taker” and it felt like a high compliment that I will never forget.
What is the significance of dot love other than to be an oddball and normalize that? It has everything to do with my inclusion mission. My yoga therapy and herbal practice have a niche clientelle, serving people who live with neurological conditions; and that is my passion, but something I care about even more is loving kindness, and as the same teacher who called me an appropriate risk taker calls it, “radical inclusion”.
It is my mission to do what I can to abolish the “stigmas, isms and phobias” from our communities and from the spaces I both occupy and facilitate. These include nasty things like sexism, homophobia, racism, fat phobia, agism, transphobia and ableism”. It is my idea that when we take away all of the opinions, judgements, fears and stigmas behind those words, we are left with something soft and warm— a simple thing called love. I decided that I wanted to ground, steep and promote my business and my practice in love. The more that I can refer to love and direct people to love, the better.
Just to make sure that my idea about dot love was going to land in the hoped-for way, I decided to do a facebook poll. I listed several domain extension options and described what I wanted the mission of my business to be. I asked for the opinions of others. A lot of people did tell me to do something more conventional (.net, .org, etc.) as expected. This is understandable and sensible. I then counted the comments from the folks who I knew were disabled, queer, transgender, black, indigenous and other sometimes less priveledged and more often mistreated populations. Not 100 percent, but a very high percentage of those people felt drawn to dot love. These are the people I am wanting to draw lovingly into my safe and welcoming circle, and therefore, these were the opinions that I chose to weigh the perspetive of more heavily. Also, my gut was telling me, dot love is IT.
Someone asked me if I might feel too cutesy, trite or sappy saying my domain name out loud: yogapothecary.love. The answer is absolutely not. When I say it out loud, I am thinking of and referring to the core of my mission. I am passionate about my mission with each instruction to another of how to find my business— “Go to yogapothecary.love”. Email me at Satya@yogapothecary.love. Find me on my insta: @yogapothecary.love. Oh my gosh, I LOVE it so much, pun completely intended. I envision a warm, fuzzy blanket of love surrounding and grounding my work, my website, my email account, my social media and the invitations that I extend to others. I feel so dang aligned with goodness and the good work that I hope to achieve in the world and that is incredibly important to me.
