Archive for » March, 2009 «

Mar
30

A Meditation in Walking

meditation in walking
Contrary to popular belief, meditation doesn’t have to happen alone in a room, in full lotus, body silent and still.

No, in fact sometimes the most satisfying meditations happen on your feet, outdoors and covering ground.  Certainly, by now, we are all aware of the benefits of walking.  It has been the foundation to many a weight loss program as it’s inexpensive, outside of a good pair of shoes, it can be done anywhere and anyone can do it.  But can we truly achieve a meditative state by doing it?

Many of us already enjoy walking for some meditative benefits already.  Communing with nature, enjoying fresh air and clearing one’s head, all wonderful aspects to a low-intensity, heart pumping activity that can be done right outside your door.

Up until about two years ago, I walked as I run, not to the beat of my heart or to the sounds of the surrounding outdoors, but to the ear-splitting tunes filling my head.  I will likely always need music to help move and motivate me through a run, but it only took one walk without my earbuds to convert me to the centring, perspective gathering benefits of a brisk walk in peace and quiet rather than a brisk walk, thoughts and mind overwhelmed by the intense beat of drums and base.

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Category: Meditation, Spirit  Leave a Comment
Mar
25

My Husband Has Honey In His Nose….

honey fights infection Tonight, as I was having a conversation with husband, I noticed something dripping from his nose. “Jeez Louise, you’ve got a big greenie hangin’, go blow you’re nose, man! You’ve got something dripping from your nose….” I mentioned quietly, indicating subtlely towards his probiscus.

Rather than reach frantically for the trusty roll of TP he keeps at the ready, he leaned his head back, encouraging the thick, clear fluid to run back up inside his head.

“What the…?”

“It’s honey.  I’ve got a sore on the inside of my nose. I heard it has great antibiotic properties.”

OK.  You heard, huh?  Well, that certainly deserved a Google.

And lo and behold… let the wonders of honey be known.  Understand, dear readers, I’m not endorsing the masses begin raiding combs near and far, opting for a prescription of unpasteurized honey rather than one from their trusted family doctors.  No.  However, the evidence is pretty impressive.

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Category: health  Leave a Comment
Mar
24

CandyGlass: Glass Tile Necklace- Zen Yoga

Another item on my wish list from the wondrous annals of Etsy.  Candyglass offers a lovely selection… and a buy 3 get one FREE deal to boot!  Three great gifts and you get to keep the bonus for yourself… or myself, whatever the case may be….

These tiles, several zen/yoga/meditation themed, are made of clear glass and are a 7/8” by 7/8” square.  This pendant has a decorative graphic image adhered to the back of tile and sealed with a liquid glass.  The necklace is a silver plated chain with a lobster clasp, very beautiful and delicate; it is not a ball chain.  Conveniently they come with a gift box, a 2X2” clear plastic box with a bon bon wrapper inside to hold your pendant, it is then filled with an iridescent filler and tied with a reusable marabou bow.

Just… well, pretty.

Category: Products  4 Comments
Mar
23

Snot Begone!! Some Yogic Solutions.

too congestedI don’t want to characterize myself as a fair-weather yogini… or, to be more precise, a fair-sinus yogini… but in the spirit of full disclosure, I do believe I am.

The first signs of a cold are one thing.  I work through it, snuffling and snorting a little, until I get back my breath.  Several minutes into Sun Salutations I can count on the excess runny boogers fluid draining away… somewhere.

However, once I am suffering with full-fledged head congestion, I give up the yogic ghost.  I just have no patience for struggling for breath through a narrow passage  in my snot, the diameter of the head of a pin… and only one nostril. Nothing cramps my Ujaii style like a nose full of sticky goo.

I recall asking a new yoga instructor years ago, having spent an entire class fighting with my stuffed head, what her best recommendation was for getting the most out of a practice when congested.  After first a long hesitation, and then stammering, her suggestion was ‘well, maybe, holding Downward Dog?’

Erk!  Yes.  Nothing like draining all of the fluid clogging my head…. back into my head!  And so, in the years since, I have managed through congestion, or more often, bagged it altogether once the thickness in my head and the gasping and choking for breath just became too bothersome.  Ahhhhh… holding Child’s Pose… now, that I can see.

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Category: Articles, health  One Comment
Mar
17

The Spinning Lotus: Sterling Silver Chain with Sterling Silver Tree of Life Circle Pendant

From the wonderful world of Etsy and TheSpinningLotus…

The Tree of Life is an important symbol in nearly every culture. With its branches reaching into the sky, and roots deep in the earth, it dwells in three worlds- a link between heaven, the earth, and the underworld, uniting above and below.

It is both a feminine symbol, bearing sustenance, and a masculine one.

18 inch Sterlng silver chain displays a Sterling Silver Tree Pendant (just more than 3/4′s inch wide). Perfect for bringing a peace and focus to your everyday wardrobe.

Category: Products  One Comment
Mar
16

Practice Yoga… From the Right Brain

According to scientists, if you see the dancer turning clockwise, you’re operating more dominantly from the right-brain… left-brain if she’s turning counter-clockwise.  Supposedly, if you stare at her foot and its shadow, you can actually turn her in the other direction.  Ummmm… OK… yes, but now I have a headache….

To summarize the characteristics of each…

LEFT BRAIN FUNCTIONS:  uses logic, detail oriented, facts rule, words and language, present and past, math and science, comprehension and knowing, order/pattern perception, reality based, forms strategies, practical, safe;

RIGHT BRAIN FUNCTIONS: uses feeling, “big picture” oriented, imagination rules, symbols and images, present and future, philosophy & religion, can “get it” (i.e. meaning), believes, appreciates, spatial perception, knows object function, fantasy based, presents possibilities, impetuous and risk taking.

The bottom line is we need both to function.  But sometimes… say, when you’re trying something new, or wanting to accomplish a work of some creativity… or perhaps just needing to get through a yoga practice with a shred of self-esteem (ahem!), it’s nice to just turn off that left side… that pesky and insistent part of your head that continuously reminds you how ridiculously bad you are at whatever you are doing.  Sometimes it’s important- no, essential-  to just go with the flow and allow the freedom of imagination, fantasy and creativity, the right- brain, to take hold.

Not an easy task.  However, as I found during my last practice, it’s possible…

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Category: Articles, Features, Kids, Practice, Spirit  One Comment
Mar
13

If It’s Good Enough for Oprah….

I think by now everyone is familiar with Oprah’s revelatory January ’09 issue where she essentially came out of the closet about “falling off the wagon”.   While I, along with millions of others, have followed her weight loss battles over the past two decades, I found this admission, accomampanied by the before and after picture on the cover of her magazine, to be particularly admirable.

Given my own experience over the past six months or so, I found it resonated pretty profoundly.

I began this blog, or more accurately, plog (practice + blog), to provide some additional motivation to implementing and maintaining a regular practice schedule in addition to initiating a forum to connect with others plagued overwhelmed with good intentions.  At the time I began writing here over a year ago, I was close to the best shape of my life.  In the months following, my fitness continued to improve as I trained for two shorty triathlons, and when all was said in done after these events, the last being July 1st of last year, I was feeling- and looking- pretty darned good.

However, sitting here eight months later, for a variety of reasons and excuses, the story is dramatically different.  I am up two pant sizes… my practice is, as I’ve mentioned in previous posts, undulating… and, between work, travel and winter, my usual training routine has never really re-gained any real traction.

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Category: Eating, Good Intentions, Practice, weight loss  One Comment
Mar
12

Spend Some Time in The Gap… Meditate!

meditate_001-sm1

The Gap.  It’s not just at the mall… no, it’s also the place that is the silence between your thoughts… a place few, if any, of us even know exists, let alone visit.

But it doesn’t have to be that way.

Meditation can be the path that allows us a way in which to access this space.  It is a space of compassion, surrender and peace.  Consider your thoughts.  They are of the past and of the future.  Active, energetic, and largely unaware.  It is in the space between those thoughts where the present- awareness- lies and as long as we remain disconnected from that space, we exist disconnected from the present… and ultimately, true contentment.

Learning to meditate, and making it a regular part of one’s day, allows you to practice presence- awareness.  However, it’s not merely a function of sitting in quiet.  It’s more than that… more work, to be honest!  To simply sit in quiet often invites the monkeys to come to play… say, the Wickersham brothers on ‘roids, where you are sure to wish each of them a pleasant, ‘good day’, perhaps take an occasional do-si-do, as they pass through (some days, seemingly on loop)… ummm… OK, maybe that’s just me!

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Category: Meditation, Spirit  Leave a Comment
Mar
10

Manifest Your Magnificence

Manifesting goodness, positivity and empowerment can be difficult for adults these days… let alone the children in our lives who experience our stress and anxiety on an entirely different level.

These wonderful Manifest Your Magnificence Cards from Blue Skies Yoga & EcoStore may be just the thing to introduce and reinforce important messages as well as remind children- and parents, too- that they are Magnificent Creations.

Once the child picks a card, you can reinforce the power of the affirmation by having the child express how it relates to them by:
1.  Writing, talking, drawing;
2.  Singing, acting, dancing;
3. Carrying a card with them as a reminder of who they truly are.

Each set contains 64 full colour cards, with gloss lamination to ensure high quality and durability.  All cards are packed in a beautiful full colour hi-gloss gift box to keep cards within reach and organized whether as a game or for those important teachable moments!

Category: Kids, Meditation, Products, reading, Spirit  Leave a Comment
Mar
06

Etsy: Beyond Yoga Pants by HerbanDevi

OMG!  I so looooovvvvve these… and particularly the waistband with the silkscreen print. Without a doubt, aptly named…  Beyond Yoga Pants!

Leave it to the talent over at Etsy to bring us the so very unusual and wonderfully cool!

These pants fit to flatter, hugging you in all the right spots.
Beyond yoga pants are designed to be functional, comfy and sexy for dance, yoga, shaking your booty at a reggae show or what ever your forte. They also double as a hot ass pair of pants for a night out on the town.

The waistband/skirt features a silkscreen print of cascading flowers in black on cream,cotton/Lycra fabric-  printed by HerbanDevi, herself!)
The legs of the pants are a beautiful olive green.

The exposed serged seams throughout the pants are done in black thread.

Unique, pretty, athletic and just plain cool!

Category: clothing, Products  Leave a Comment
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