Goat Yoga: Na-maaaaaa-ste

“If you’re like, ‘Lady, I don’t want to go into downward dog, I want to pet a goat,’ that’s fine. That’s what you’re here for.”

Marilva Wedge, owner of Open Doors Yoga in Taunton, knows her audience. Right now, her audience is 30 people who paid $30 each to travel to Taunton’s Pine Hill Farm and take a one-hour class called, “Yoga, Goats, and Pure Joy!”

I’m impressed at the restraint shown to limit themselves to only one exclamation point because, quite frankly, goats are having a moment.”Yoga, Goats, and #PUREJOY!!!!!! SQUEE” seems a likely caption on any of our Instagrams after today’s session, which is 50% gentle yoga, 50% goat wrangling, petting and nuzzling. It’s a socially savvy crowd; an informal poll by Marilva shows the majority of us are here because we saw videos of people planking with goats on Facebook.

Goat yoga went regionally viral in April with a news story about a New Hampshire farm that mixed yoga with the “joyful energy” of playing with baby goats. At the time, the farm was the only New England goat game in town. Today, Rhode Islanders can find practices at Simmons Organic Farm in Middletown or cross the border to take the Pine Hill Farm class. I opted to drive the 20 miles to Taunton and met my friend, Sarah, who drove down from Boston for the hour-long “workout.”

We arrive at the farm early and find the baby goats cuddled in a barn. We take pictures and hope that, god willing, we will have a goat perched on us soon. (Open Doors Yoga tempers expectations by sending out an e-mail of what to expect. One question is “Will goats jump on me like I’ve seen online?” The answer is, “They may but there is no guarantee.” Other FAQs include “Will the goats ‘use the facilities’ around me?”)

Outside, we gather under trees and are directed to lay our mats in five rows of six. The trees protect the goats from the sun, but they also mean that we’re subject to the terror of gypsy moth caterpillars that spiral down from above like aerial artists on silks, and leave our mats covered in feces by the end of the hour. Sarah uses the complimentary bag of goat feed we’ve been given to gently escort caterpillars from her mat to the grass.

At 2pm (there’s also a morning session offered), Marilva greets us, explains that today’s yoga will be a gentle flow, and that, although the goats are also gentle, we won’t be posing on our backs. (Mitigating the unstated discomfort of goats leaping on our vital organs.)

Finally, it’s time.

“Release the goats!” Marilva commands and we murmur from our mats in anticipation. In front of us, a couple begins their yoga practice early by craning and twisting their necks, hoping to catch first sight of a goat. A farmhand crouches toward a speaker shaped like a rock that I hadn’t noticed before and twists a knob. “A Horse with No Name” by America plays and I flick my fingers and catapult an invading caterpillar.

Some goats walk, others are carried by staff from Pine Hill Farm. The kids are all male, with R&B dude names like Bruno, Anthony and Brady. A jack russell terrier named Diesel runs and weaves in between the mats. A woman in a Pine Hill Farm shirt calls him a “big fan” of goats. They’re so young — between three weeks and 10 months old — you can tell the softness of their fur just by looking.

Marilva begins the flow and it’s mostly seated, or on all fours, with sweeping stretches. The goats roam freely, stopping to tug on t-shirts and hoodie strings, leaning in for back scratches. Bruno decides to use the facilities.

We hit a child’s pose — a resting pose where you kneel, lower your forehead to the ground, and stretch your arms in front of you.

“If you want a goat on top of you, we’ll take care of that,” Marilva says.

“We want goats,” I say and goats are delivered to us. A small black goat lies on top of me, peaceful, and then chews my hair. Two mats down, a woman is stretched out fully on her stomach, a brown and white kid curled atop her for a nap. The two of them stay, relaxed, for 20 minutes.

It’s easy to be cynical when something is such a latent fad that you learn about it from your Facebook feed. But there’s also no part of me that didn’t enjoy everything about stretching at my own pace, and cuddling baby animals in between. Sometimes things go viral for a reason, and it’s hard to deny the, admittedly, pure joy of furry little friends wobbling around and getting into YouTube-friendly mischief.