Day 248 April 9, 2011

Today is a day of deep work in Mayhar's ten hour yoga workshop.  Today we spend five hours in the embrace of yoga asana.  The first time I studied with Mayhar at a ten hour workshop, by Saturday evening all I could manage was to nearly crawl to the bathtub and soak my aching muscles.  Food was out of the question.  So was even a nap.  I needed immense heat.  After a long soak then I napped.

Finally awake, I did get to eat supper.  It felt like quite a miracle to find myself at a restaurant pretending that all was normal in the world.  I was staggered by the deepness of the work on the mat.  It reverberated for days afterword.

Fortunately, Mayhar is very gentle.  She knows exactly how much her students can take.   I offer thanks to all the wonderful teachers I've had the honour to study with over the years: Jawahar Bengara from Mumbai, Pam Stewart from PEI, Patricia Walden from Boston, Mary Dunn from Conneticutt, Marlene Mawhinney from Toronto, Donna Fornelli from Ottawa, Ingelise Nherlan from BC, Liz McLeod from Winnipeg, Maureen Carruthers from BC, Father Joe Pereria from India, Barb Winsor from Newfoundland and of course, my David, David Thomas of Nova Scotia.

Once again, thank you to all the teachers we meet who inspire us.

Day 247 April 8, 2011

David and Bob's living room mantel

Today David and I are driving to Fredericton so that we can stay with friends and then attend a ten hour yoga workshop with Mayhar Raz, a senior Iyengar teacher who operates a yoga school in Toronto and in Iran.  She is a wonderful teacher, as are all the senior teachers in the Iyengar method.  They've all gone the distance and come back to help others along on their paths.

Inspiring folks, teachers.  How would the world ever get along without teachers?  I mean all teachers.  Elementary teachers all the way to professors and beyond.

Thank you teachers, for doing such great, meaningful jobs.

Day 246 April 7, 2011

Half way through the book Born to Run: a Hidden Tribe, Superathletes, and the Greatest Race the World Has Never Seen by Christopher McDougall I find this quote by Jenn Shelton an ultramarathoner, "When I'm out on a long run, the only thing in life that matters is finishing the run.  For once, my brain isn't going blebblebbleh all the time.  Everything quiets down, and the only thing going is pure flow.  It's just me and the movement and the motion."

Now that is what I'm trying to spread the word about too.  When you find your bliss, your passion, everything totally gets quiet.  You are lost in the process, time is meaningless.  Whether your bliss is making art, doing asana practice, baking bread, writing the next great novel, or rocking your baby to sleep,
you'll know it when you're there.  It's unmistakably peaceful.

namaste.

Day 245 April 6, 2011

The day lilies are coming up.  Soon we'll be able to smell them.  In this climate they are so easy to grow it is ridiculous.  If you ignore them they flourish.

Day lilies are so easy and yet so beautiful they make me grateful for the other pleasures in life that come easily.  Like baking your spouses' favourite cookies and seeing the look on his face when he comes in the door and smells the fresh baked cookie smell permeating through the house.  Divine.  It's the look of divine gratitude.

Bake some cookies today and get to that state of divine bliss.  

P. S. As I wrote this blog my cookies were still in the oven.  Guess what?  They didn't turn out so well.  I tried to make the recipe vegan, gluten free, and sugar free (except for some chocolate chips)  and even though it was a gluten free recipe to begin with the changes I implemented made the cookies so wet and crumbly I cannot successfully lift them off the parchment paper.  Oh well, at least they still smell good :)

Day 244 April 5, 2011

Here they are, those brave baby garlics sticking out their first green tips from a warm burrow of hay into the cold spring air.  They make me think of myself, waking up in the middle of a cold Nova Scotia winter morning in my chilly bedroom.  Stolen from a deep sleep underneath countless covers I realize it is morning and I am awake.  Ready to live another day.

Hurrah for the cycles of nature.  Hurrah for spring.  A new chance for life.  It's the same feeling you get after a really long and wonderful savasana at the end of a yoga practice.  You become another kind of being in savasana and then when you awaken, your known life begins again.

Day 243 April 4, 2011

*** tiny tips of garlic
push through
gray hay

Arise
for it's spring


*** the yoga mat
whispers
rest here

Arise
for it's spring


*** the Irish B & B keeper
greets us in the kitchen
Ah yes, another morning
above ground!

Arise
for it's spring



*** choose your
own strategy

Arise
for it's spring

Day 242 April 3, 2011

Jen and Tai 

The word yoga has several meanings.  One of its meanings is yoking together or joining.  Removing dualities from our awareness joins us together with all the rest of this earthly experience.  After spending six and a half hours in a workshop with a wonderful teacher named Pam Stewart from PEI who has over thirty years experience in the Iyengar yoga tradition, I came away with a glimpse of understanding of this falling away of dualities.

After pranayama practice, and a quiet asana practice, when you quiet yourself down thoroughly to a very deep level then when you slowly reawaken to embrace your sensory awareness, and in the very moment of transitioning to this very busy world of ours, you realize yoga.  You realize that we are joined to the rest of the world.  We are the wooden floor, we are the air, we are the blankets underneath us, we are everything.

As Pam said, let go of the dualities..... of male and female, ..... rich and poor, .... illness and health.  Softly let go.

Day 241 April 2, 2011

Quiet. 


Try to get some this weekend and see how it affects you.

Day 240 April 1, 2011

Norma R.'s luscious lunch

Sometimes it is our friends who show us the beauty right in front of us.  Yesterday at a friend's home I was offered this delicious lunch that I've posted an image of here today.  It was so beautiful I asked the "artist" Norma if I could photograph it.  The colours of the food were reinforced by the complementary colours of the plate.  And yes, this lunch tasted even better than it looked.  It was so delicious because it was cooked with love.  The placement of the orange sweet potatoes on the opposite side of the dish from the mottled orange border of the plate only highlighted the symmetry of Norma's composition.

Yes, sometimes we create art in a stunning plate of food.  When we eat, we first eat with our eyes.  If the food looks beautiful it tastes even better once it enters our mouth.

Take a bit of time today to see the beauty around you.  If you hurry too much, you might miss it entirely.

namaste.

Day 239 March 31, 2011

 gluten free English muffins

Yesterday reminded me of day's past when my girls were young and I used to make all the family's bread.  Due to my wheat sensitivities, yesterday I made gluten free sourdough bread, in the time honored 'make your own sourdough starter' tradition.  Thank you Edward Espe Brown for the cult classic the Tassajara Bread Book.  By day's end I had lovingly dry grilled more than 2 dozen English muffins and baked 2 loaves of bread.

Yum.

Good food makes my heart glad.  What is your favourite food?