Journal Posts
posted: 6/11/12
Over time I am realizing that just because I am a yogini doesn't mean that I always have to look, act, or feel happy. Far from it. Rather, to be a yogini means being what is true. Not always easy in a culture where the answer to the question "How are you?" is most always followed by a perfunctory "Fine," even if you may just be having a bad day.
Being true for me, for now, means admitting that life feels pretty intense. As my teacher, ShantiMayi says, "The world is balancing on the head of a pin." The realization of this feels saddening, bewildering,...
posted: 6/11/12
Bitter, dark green vegetables help to cleanse and lighten the body (and the liver) after a long winter. Enjoy!
You will need:
* 2 cups young fresh kale, stemmed, ribbed and shredded into thin strips
* Rock salt or sea salt to taste
* Fresh-ground black pepper to taste
* 1/8 tsp ground turmeric
* 1/8 tsp sweet paprika
* 1 tbsp ghee (clarified butter) or olive oil
* the juice of one lemon (to taste)
Place the shredded kale in a steamer above rapidly boiling water and steam, covered, for about 10-12 minutes.
Heat ghee in a pan until clear, add the turmeric, paprika...
posted: 6/11/12
How to work with, not against, your fellow yoga instructors
Many of us turned to yoga for its promise of happiness. The four walls of a studio and its community of like-minded Sun Saluters offered solace from the rat race outside. When we stepped onto our yoga mats, we stepped intoa world where joy and harmony reigned.
Later, we became yoga teachers. Sometimes this entailed leaving behind careers that brought big paychecks (for some) an even bigger burnout (for most). Ready to serve students by offering them the scrumptious fruits of yoga, we were bright-eyed, enthusiastic, and, in hindsight...
posted: 6/11/12
When and how can you get your students to commit to one practice- and should you even try?
Walk down the street and witness the shapes and sizes of pedestrians, the colors and makes of passing cars, and the dazzling array of merchandise in shop windows. Abundance bombards us from every angle.
This smorgasbord of options also seeps into yoga. Ashtanga, Anusara, Bikram, Iyengar, Sivananda - the list goes on.
At a certain point you need to make some important decisions. Just as you determined whether of not you would be a vegetarian, how you would earn a living, or in what neighborhood you'...
posted: 6/11/12
The summer after I graduated from college I headed off to fulfill a dream -- I traveled solo through Europe for two months. Sauntering on Parisian streets; sipping vino in Italy; snuggling under down comforters in Switzerland and Austria; and noshing on pastries in Belgium, and Prague -- I was finally free of all the obligations that my schooling had entailed and was embarking on the path of my adult life.
At least that's how things seemed on the outside.
What I actually felt on the inside was a whole other story. Before I had left the United States, I was diagnosed with the early stage...
posted: 6/11/12
We can all relate to eating from a paper bag in the car during rush-hour traffic or gobbling down a snack bar while running to catch the train. Nowadays, it is easy to neglect the sacredness of our food. But the quality of foods that you eat, and the attention that you give to the act of eating, deeply affect your health and consciousness.
The practice of conscious eating honors the inherent divinity of food as the sustainer of life just as it benefits our bodies and minds. Today millions of Americans suffer from digestive disorders such as heartburn, gas, constipation, and irritable bowel...
posted: 6/11/12
During the dog days of summer we're familiar with the usual methods of cooling off: AC, dips in cool lakes, watermelon, and tall glasses of iced tea or lemonade often do the trick.
Yogis, however, use yet another way; and it's one that we doesn't require paying an electricity bill or going on vacation.
We can cool down through our very own breath. That's right, one particular form of yogic breathing, called sitali (pronounced sheet-ah-lee) in Sanskrit, cools down the body when it's feeling overheated, as well as the mind and heart, when fiery emotions like anger and...
posted: 6/11/12
The last day of school used to mark my favorite day of the year (second to my birthday, of course). On a humid mid-June afternoon, with the shrill ring of the final dismissal bell, my daily regime of studies would dissolve like a Popsicle on hot pavement. The expanse of summer vacation stretched out in front of me, beckoning with promises of suntans, starry nights, bare feet, lazy mornings, and, if I was lucky, summer loves.
As an adult, estranged from the rhythms of a school calendar, responsibilities last year-round. Now my own five senses, rather than a school bell, cue me to break out the...
posted: 6/11/12
Here's a delicious and refreshing summer treat. While it's dairy and sugarfree, it's certainly high in the yum factor.
Peel and freeze very ripe bananas in a plastic freezer bag. (Very ripe banana skins have no green, they have black or brown marks all over, and the stem is brown or snaps back effortessly.) Freeze a minimum of 8 hours. Depending upon your freezer, it may take at least 12 hours.
Place in a food processor, Champion Juicer or Green Star Juicer, using the blank plate. 1 to 2 bananas is a normal serving. If you using a blender or processor, use a little fruit or...
posted: 6/11/12
Your stomach is growling as you try to hold off from eating until yoga class is over - two hours from now. If you don't eat anything before class, you might keel over mid-Sun Salutation. If you do eat something, you'll wish you hadn't the moment you spring into Handstand. What's a hungry yogi to do?
"Yoga practices traditionally should not be done after taking solid food." says Dr. Sarasvati Buhrman of the Rocky Mountain Institute of Yoga and Ayurveda in Boulder, Colorado. "Liquids, however, are permitted, including the hatha yoga recommendations of milk and...
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