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Last week Russell Simmons was in the news after his divorce settlement with Kimora Lee Simmons was made public. Simmons didn't comment on the settlement, which revealed that Kimora is getting sole custody of their kids and Russell will have to cough up half a million dollars a year in child support, but today he offers up the heartwarming tale of how he met his current girlfriend, 25-year-old model-turned-yoga instructor Porschla Coleman:

A little over a year ago, I met a very sweet and beautiful girl in Atlanta at a party for my book, Do You! We talked at length about our vegan diets and common interest in yoga. She too was feeling the shift that is happening in America right now of people looking inward. Both excited and energized by this consciousness, we found that we share a common belief — that without our yoga practice, we would not be the people we are today. As our relationship deepened, so did her interest in the science of yoga.

Simmons then explains that he had to ship off Porschla to yoga school so she could become a yoga instructor, making her, he says, the first Black yoga teacher ever!

Her training included a month away from home where she committed to study for eighteen hours a day. While away, she studied anatomy, the holy language of Sanskrit, and of course learned how to teach asana (the physical practice of yoga). Porschla's education came through a scholarship that I initiated with the Jivamukti Yoga Center years ago... The scholarship was created to provide certification opportunities for women of color, since there were literally no women in America certified in this science.

But there's more! His relationship with Porschla and his passion for yoga also helped him realize that Barack Obama would make the perfect president. "His spiritual concern underlies a deep compassion and also a toughness that comes from being in touch with and at ease with yourself," Simmons writes. As for why Obama was actually his third choice in the Democratic primary (behind Dennis Kucinich and then John Edwards) or what it was, exactly, that just a year ago he described Obama to the Times last year as a "mouse" who was controlled "like everybody else," he doesn't say. But that's just because yoga makes you focus on the positive, silly! Despite all the bad stuff happening in the world right now—a faltering economy, the ongoing war in Iraq, the enduring popularity of Jimmy Fallon—Simmons remains totally upbeat. "I am very hopeful about the future of the world right now."

Consciousness Rising [HuffPo]
Previously: Kimora and Russell Settle