Merry Merry...

I just wanted to tell you all that you are LOVED, that I hope you had a wonderful holiday and I will be back in blogging action once I'm back home in LA (the 30th).

Ode to my Teach-as

Check out this gaw-geous sequence from my mentor/teacher/yoga rock goddess, Dana Flynn (co-founder of Laughing Lotus Yoga Centers)...

I have so much gratitude and respect for this woman...all you gots to do is watch this video and you'll get a little taste of why.

Shanti-Town Hits Newstands!

That's right, shanti-towners, I've been keeping it under wraps until now, but I can't hide it any longer...in the most recent issue of Breathe Magazine (hitting newstands this week), yours truly has her first published-in-print proclamation!

(It's not really a proclamation...I just wanted another "P" word.)

It IS an article, and I DID write it, and I hope you WILL enjoy it...and check out Breathe in the process, it's a super cool magazine, aimed at the active woman.  (Sorry, fellas...)

You can check the online version of my article here:

(It's an article composed of three mini-features, all by different authors...mine is at the bottom.)

One small stride for Shanti-Town, one giant stride for, um...well, also for Shanti-Town.  Okay.  A doubly giant stride for Shanti-Town!

The Talent of Friends...

It's nearly Christmas...I'm drowning in to-do lists...I promise more yoga ramblings to come right quick, in the meantime, please enjoy the amazing things my friends have been doing lately that's been making think/weep/smile/laugh...

First, from the mind of the uber-talented Alissa Ford:




Second...from the funny bone of the lovely Michaela Watkins: (note: this one is for adult ears only)

The Creepy Hand Model: Ellen Sirot with Michaela Watkins from Michaela Watkins

John O'Donohue...Big Celtic Siiiiiiiigh

I stumbled recently into the gorgeousness that is the poetry of John O'Donohue.  I have been reading this poem aloud to all my classes this past week and now, Shanti Town, it's your turn.  As a primer, the title, "Beannacht" means "blessing", and the word "currach" (found in the second stanza) is a kind of hand-made boat (um...I think). 

Enjoy, Shanti-towners, and please know that all of these things he wishes for all of us, I also wish...for all of you.


Beannacht/Blessing
by John O'Donohue

On the day when

the weight deadens
on your shoulders
and you stumble,
may the clay dance
to balance you.
And when your eyes
freeze behind
the grey window
and the ghost of loss
gets in to you,
may a flock of colours,
indigo, red, green,
and azure blue
come to awaken in you
a meadow of delight.

When the canvas frays
in the currach of thought
and a stain of ocean
blackens beneath you,
may there come across the waters
a path of yellow moonlight
to bring you safely home.

May the nourishment of the earth be yours,
may the clarity of light be yours,
may the fluency of the ocean be yours,
may the protection of the ancestors be yours.
And so may a slow
wind work these words
of love around you,
an invisible cloak
to mind your life.

Jillian Michaels, I Am Not the Biggest Loser...

 So, occasionally my subconscious gets completely fed up with me, and instead of filling my nights with complicated dreams full of knotted imagery and up-for-interpretation kinds of input, she just throws her little symbolic hands in the air and BREAKS IT DOOOOOWN for me.

The other night I had this dream...and in it, I'm a contestant on The Biggest Loser (more on that in a bit)--which, if you don't know, is a show in which life-threateningly obese people participate in a glorified weight-loss competition, all under the watchful eyes of two very yell-y trainers, Bob and Jillian.  The Jillian in the equation is a one miss Jillian Michaels, a super fit, tom-boy hot, ass-kicker of a woman who has been known to, on more than one occasion, climb all over contestants like a cardio-crazy monkey in order to urge them on toward that last half-mile on the treadmill.  She is fiiiiiiiiiierce.  But, like all inspiration reality show cast members, she cares a lot and will often coo a "good job, sweetheart" at a sweating collapsed contestant immediately after ravaging them.

In short...I sort of dig her.  (Don't tell.)

So, okay, I'm a contestant on The Biggest Loser and I'm running some kind of race...it's a mid-way through the hour kind of challenge, and though I don't know exactly what the goal is, I know I'm supposed to run back and forth a few times on a long stretch of track.  And I'm supposed to win.  Mind you, I'm not overweight in the dream.  Nor are there any other overweight people running this race.  It's just me and an elderly man.  And in the dream I'm thinking to myself, I have got this. I am going to kick this old man's butt.  There is just no way that I'm not going to be able to run faster than this geezer.

So I'm plowing along, running as fast as I can (which, in that weird dream way, is just not very fast at all) and I think I'm beating the old guy, but after a couple of laps, Jillian steps in.  (And here, people is where the "my subconscious has given up" part comes in.  It's sort of like she always starts out giving me dreams that are like art films, and if I'm not catching on she sort of has to keep dumbing it down for me until eventually I just get accosted in no uncertain terms by a reality show television personality.   It's a little humiliating, frankly.)

Anyhow...Jillian Michaels stops me.  She puts a hand on either one of my shoulders and she looks at me in that really meaningful 'close-up on the eyes' way and she says to me:

"You have to pause.  You're not going to win if you just keep running and running.  You have to take a pause and catch your breath.  THAT's how you're going to win."

Um...

CONFUSED about that, anyone?  Anyone unclear as to what the secret hidden mystery message of my dream might be?  Anyone need to rewind and watch that again to get the full import...the true subtlety of that little missive?

What's doubly interesting about this is that the dream came during a week when I had spontaneously found myself teaching about a very similar thing.  For whatever reason, I had planned a theme for my classes, but had stumbled into talking sort of deeply and specifically about the breath.  I think my theme had been about enjoyment, about sneaking discipline in via enjoyment, but somehow I'd wound my way around to talking about the pause in the breath.  About how there is this inhale, and then an exhale, and then there is this...pause.  I was talking about what a doorway that pause is, and how it's an opportunity, built into the breath, for total stillness.

And as I was teaching I remember thinking about how easy it is to forget that the pause even exists.  So much of breath work and talk, and certainly the breath in the yoga practice, is about either the inhale or the exhale, at any given moment, but rarely are we asked to even turn our attention to this stillness that exists also as part of the breath cycle.  And I thought about how if we ONLY had the inhale and the exhale...my god, it makes me anxious just thinking about it.  We would just be in constant motion.  It's that stillness that really can determine so much.  Our breath dissolves, over and over again, into this state of just...nothingness.  Of sweet full emptiness.  It's like this very quiet message built into our physiology...yes, open up, yes, turn in, but also...pause.  It's really quite beautiful.  And I must have been thinking about it more deeply (or less so?) than I realized, because my dream seemed to be a big resounding DUH!! on the subject, from my subconscious mind.

What does it really mean about our lives, about what the proper balance of our lives is, if built into our breath there is not just expansion (inhalation) and contraction (exhalation), but also this total, biochemical SILENCE?  How many of us are conducting our lives as if we only had an inhale and an exhale?  Or if, rather, maybe we have a year of inhales and exhales, and a week or two where we allow that pause.  What would change in our lives if we abided by the necessity of regular, consistent and necessary...stillness?

I don't know.  I'm giving it a whirl.  I figure if I don't it's only a matter of time before my psyche just gives up on me altogether and turns the reigns over permanently to Tyra Banks...

A Short Treatise on Commitment...

Yes, that's right, I'm getting married.

I'm not going to go all overly-personal on you here, I promise, I just wanted to share a little episode in my day today which struck me as both sweet and promising, as me and my affiance step into the fire that is (dunh dunh dunh duuuuuuh) Wedding Planning.  (oh my god, if this turns into a wedding planning blog please someone come smack some sense into me.  I will provide my address for said smacking upon request).

So, this afternoon as I'm dutifully crossing things off my list (productive things! important things!) I found myself in my local bookstore.  Originally my intention was to find a yoga book I've been hunting for, but somehooooooooow I found myself crouching down in front of the "Weddings and Babies" section with a handful of books spread out on the floor around me.  Books with titles like "the DIY Bride," "Budget Weddings for Dummies," and, "The Crafty Wedding Handbook".  All of which seemed at once completely unnecessary and absolutely invaluable.  What if I DO want to make my own wedding wrap from satin and little fabric flowers?! Won't I be glad I bought this book then?! 

But, luckily my better sense (and the reasoned voice of my fiance) were playing in my head and I quickly passed on most of them.  MOST of them.  Because there was this one book...a fat tome on wedding venues in Southern California, that seemed pretty irresistible.  Hundreds of pages of venues with prices and maps and phone numbers...all in one handy little volume!  Searching on the internet for places has been driving me batty...so much clicking and so little information...so this book seemed like it might actually be worth the $24.

Okay, I decided, that's it, I'm doing it.

I felt very sassy laying the big W-E-D-D-I-N-G book on the counter and made sure the ol' engagement ring was visible as I did so (just in case the guy behind the register mistook me for just another unengaged girl buying a giant book about wedding venues), only to have my credit card get...um...declined.

Heh, heh.

This didn't freak me out, as I knew I had 4 checks in my wallet that I had forgotten to deposit earlier that day, and wanting it to be very clear that YES I was getting married and NO I wasn't concerned that I have no money in my bank account, I asked the guy to please "hold this for me while I run and go get cash."

At which point, with minutes quickly running out on my metered parking spot, I dashed to the 7-11 up the street where I knew my bank had at ATM that took checks.  I was a little annoyed at this ballooning-with-inconvenience errand, and I even debated just scrapping the purchase all together, but the symbolism of NOT buying a wedding venue book because I was too impatient to deposit some checks just did not sit well with me.  Besides, I've been a little on and off in terms of my venue-hunting diligence and I did not want to succumb to my lazier nature on this point any more, damnit.  So, I waited in line, signed my checks, and deposited them one by one, (as is the way with 7-11 ATMs).

When I finally hustled my way back down to the bookstore, the guy working the counter was switching out his spot for the next guy on duty and he pointed out my book for him.  "That's hers." He said, and as my gaze landed on my book I noticed that on top of it was a hand-scribbled note that read, "Still Shopping."

Still shopping?! Have you not seen this ring on my finger?! I am finished shopping, thank you very much.

The new guy grabbed the book.

"I'm ready now." I said, not realizing in the moment that "I'm ready now," said by a breathless woman buying a wedding book might strike some as...funny.  (I'm hoping for "adorable").

He smiled, swiping the little wand over the scan bar, "big commitment," he joked.

And as I took my book under my arm, I said in return, "Yep.  Just one big commitment at a time...". 

If he only knew what it took to get that book...