Monday, September 29, 2008

Anusara representing Obama

I was just in the hotel bar and noticed the lady in the top left of
the screen has an Anusara 'Light the Sky' shirt on! I think Obama's
giving this speech right now in Colorado.



note the lady to the left of Obama









Awesome.


what's really cool is that when they panned out on the screen you notice that there are only a select group of people that got to sit behind him.

On the road again...

I'm back on the road for work. After a busy morning at the office, my
colleague and I rented a car and have been in it for the past five
hours!! We're just about to our destination tucked in among the cows
and farms and Colgate University.

Monday, September 22, 2008

Happy Equinox!

This gorgeous sunrise started the first day of the Anusara Gathering
out in Estes Park, Colorado. We scrambled to get to morning meditation with Sally Kempton which was really wonderful.

We just finished today's master class with John Friend. What an
amazing place to be and come together as a collective group. John has been talking a lot about the underlying idealology that Anusara Yoga starts from a place of honoring the spirit. At a time like the Equinox, the dusk of the yearly seasons, we can take a pause and reflect upon the past year and from a perspective of openness we can assess what we've gained. Talking a pause to look back and honor life.

Being a part of this community has changed me. Not only has it taught me to honor myself but it has also taught me that I am worthy of love and goodness. This past year has been a total testament I that. The best thing I gained this year was the understanding that I am worthy of love. And from that understanding love came to me.

Sometimes all the effort in the world is not as powerful as just
letting yourself allow things in and learning to receive.

Namaste

Friday, September 19, 2008

vacation time

i'm off for a well-needed vacation to the 1st Annual Anusara Gathering, which is part of the yoga journal confernce -- i am so excited to be going to this (i really need a vacation that is outside of a cell service range). it should be a real treat. Each day you get to join in with group meditation, then a master class with the man, the myth, the legend.... john friend and then a daily workshop with a senior teacher. i decided to take this opportunity to take classes with teachers i haven't studied with before. i typically go for the noah maze, sianna sherman, niame jezzeny, ross rayburn set, so this time around i picked some names i haven't practiced with. Here are my picks for the conference:

  • Darren Rhodes- Adhikara: Experiences of Expansion as a Student (All levels) Fuel the fire of your Adhikara (studentship) in this intimate class. Learn as Darren shares his key experiences with John Friend that continues to inspire and sustain him on the path of yoga. Includes forward folds, twists, and hip openers.

  • Desiree Rumbaugh- Hearts of Courage (All levels) Explore the practice and principles of backbending in order to enter the cave of the heart and dwell inside to experience further expansion. Learn to engage the heart's courage to move deeper into the fullness of your backbends.
  • Amy Ippoliti- Power in Numbers: The Kula That Plays Together Stays Together Celebrate the power of community (kula) and the potency of raising consciousness through individual and group intention. Through heart openers, hand balances and other poses, explore harmonious vibration, communication, and sensitivity as they pertain to health in community relationships.
Note: i took the pic in the corner while hiking up in western mass with brian, sage and jared.

luckily i get to share a room with some great fellow yogis. this should be a blast. i'm sure i can live-blog from my phone, cause i'm a yoga nerd like that.


mountain girls reunited! (me and atg) @ marseilles in manhattan

in other news, alpha 'n is in town. i got a chance to catch up with my favorite cocoa puff and her new man, mr. scandanavia himself, martin. i think he's a keeper. it was sooooo good to have alpha around again. atg, if you are reading this, i think you should follow jared's lead and move on back to jerz!

also, i broke down and joined facebook since my friend, neal, told me that it's myspace for adults. if you're reading this and are on the 'book, friend me.

Monday, September 15, 2008

cleansed.

i made it through the three-day cleanse easily! i would definitely do it for five days next time. i feel great. yesterday when i broke the fast i wasn't starving or cranky, plus i got homemade indian breakfast (courtesy of joyti, mona's mom) which is totally amazing and gluten free!! i was pretty impressed over all with the cleanse. the hardest part was going out to dinner for mona's birthday at a thai place and just drinking the juice. i almost caved and had some soup, but i am so glad i didn't. overall i would recommend this cleanse.

the weekend was really great, too. i went down to ocean grove, nj to celebrate my dear friend/mentor/former youth leader/ former boss/ former roommate's 40th birthday. mona is pictured to the right, she was my young life leader whom i met my sophomore year of high school. it was great to be around so many people that had been touched by the way she lives her life. we spent the weekend at this gorgeous bed & breakfast where we had the run of the place, which was also a block from the beach. it turned out to be a gorgeous day to get some sunburn - which i did. mona's parents came down on sunday to celebrate and we got the opportunity to get some words of wisdom from manu, her father. he read our palms and told us all to get married asap!

it was a little strange to be with so many religious people. but i guess it really comes down to what you love and how you express it. there were a few that were taken aback with the fact that i was a yoga teacher. granted most of them thought i was a bible-thumper, but they had this misconception of what yoga was and thought that if they did it they would become evil or something. it's strange, but i understood where they were coming from. growing up catholic and then becoming a born againer, i was taught that things like yoga were associated with 'the occult'. the idea of chanting or mediating was totally out of the question even though those things aren't much
different from their concept of prayer.

i remembered my first experience with yoga. i was kidnapped by my friends and brought over to the ananda ashram. it was there that i got my first taste of yoga, chanting and meditation. i was horrible at all of them, but the chanting part totally freaked me out. they chanted for like an hour, all in sanskrit, and i couldn't handle it. all i thought was, this is evil, this is 'the occult'. but as i looked around, i saw people that loved and supported me, people that definitely weren't evil and though maybe they were a little eclectic, they definitely weren't assocating in 'the occult'. i got so overwhelmed that i cried, and then some monk guy came over and gave me a translation of what they were chanting. i read it and realized it was not unlike the psalms or hyms that i knew. it took me a long while to get comfortable with a lot of the aspects of yoga, but that day i drew a distinct connection to the idea of devotion and worship that is inherent in all religions. (ps: i took the pic to the left in front of our b & b - the flowers and butterflies abounded!)

it may be something you have to experience first-hand, but the power of god (big g or little g/ higher power/ shiva/ mohammed/ jesus, et. al) is there ready to be tapped. sometimes it takes a different name, or a different space. it was hard for me to explain this to people that were so engrossed in their own world. i am lucky to have experienced a few different spirtual things. it wasn't like i went there to preach, but i definitely told people how i believe. maybe it's just the act of believing - in anything - that's so powerful.

Friday, September 12, 2008

rock the vote!

i just had to update my addy for voter registration; i definitely want to make my vote count and be counted.
if you live in jersey and need to register or change your registration check out this site, vote or die nj - that's not really the name but it sounds so much cooler than the nj division of elections (yawn).

just a note here, the registration deadline is 21 days before the election. so that means it is rapidly approaching.

Day Two - feeling good, a little manic

so i made it through day one and am onto day 2. i had my first 2 juices and am off to get a mani pedi at lunch. i might just bring juice #3 with me to enjoy while being pampered.

it's funny, i'm not really hungry, but i totally have this craving for a gluten-free homemade soft pretzel. i came across this recipe on the net and am totally psyched to try it (once i am off the juice that is). i can't wait for the fall/winter to really expand my gluten free cooking;it's too hot in the summer to really try too hard. i plan to learn how to make gluten free bread this fall bc god only knows how freaking expensive the store bought kind is. my lovely friend, soffia, is going to share her icelandic bread-making skills. it's likely that we will listen to bjork or sigur ros whilst we bake.

other thoughts for baking -- depending on what time i get home today, i may bake up some chai cupcakes for mona's 40th bday weekend. it all depends on how much i want to torture myself.

Thursday, September 11, 2008

Day One almost over -- i'm still alive

i made it through the meeting which lasted over two hours! the real test came when i walked over to duane reade with my boss and noticed how much junk food is all over that place. even the food that is semi-ok to eat -- it's everywhere!! i resisted and am now back enjoying my juice #4. juices #1 and #3 were a green mix, #2 was a pinapple-apple mix and this is the lemon, cayenne and agave mix -- not too bad. i still have two more, #5 being the green mix and #6 is rumored to be this awesome almond mylk. i'm saving that one for after hillary's yoga class!

2 down -- 4 to go




it's just past lunch time and i have had two of my six juices. i am feeling a little out of it but not really hungry. that's good, i hope. the real test will be this hour and a half meeting that i am going to. if i can stay awake through the powerpoints without my stomach growling, then i can hack this stuff.

cleanse, repeat.

it's been a while since my last blog. so much has happened. update: the iPhone 3G sort of sucks. I am still holding out for them to come up with some magical update that will fix it, but let's just say that i get dropped calls where i didn't before. i trust that it will work out.

other news: jared is moving to NJ!! we have been discussing this over the past few weeks and he will be moving here next spring. yes, spring is a long way off, but he needs to set things up here for his business. i am just so excited that he is coming here and that we can get a place together and that life is so good!















ok and with all that, i decided to do a juice cleanse. i have been feeling pretty shitty lately and thought why not clean things out. i signed up for the blueprint cleanse and will be doing it for the next 3 days. hopefully i can handle it. i will definitely blog about it. i chose the second level of the cleanse over a three day period bc i really wanted to restart my system. i had my first juice so far and am feeling ok. i might just make it through!

hopefully i can get over to take another iyengar class. i took one earlier this week and ended up as the only person in the class. surprisingly that is the first time in my yoga experience that i was the only student in the class. the teacher was very different from what i am used to. but basically we did a lot of poses over and over again. he pushed me a lot to engage the muscle at the top of my knee to really fire up my thigh muscles. it seemed to really sink in. earlier in the week i had a discussion with a yoga friend about the iyengar people being sort of sadistic. i get it, and maybe i just like it. i need some discipline every once in a while -- maybe we all do. i am just not sure i need the discipline of an hour and a half of parvrita parsvotonasan.

lastly, it's the 7-year anniversary of 9/11. i usually get all choked up when i think of this time, but for some reason i am feeling settled about the whole thing. yes, it was 7 years ago that we all had to witness the attack of our country, but things continue to move on. the word anniversary seems to be the thing that is most disconcerting. i am beginning to see how there is a need for rememberance. that rememberance can be as physical as me engaging the muscle at the top of my knee but it can be as broad as remembering the events of 9/11. they in essence are always there but need a specific energy focused upon them -- and from that there is a stregnth that supports. in a lot of ways the events of 9/11 served a purpose jump start a lot of action in our country. i know it changed me.