Sunday, February 10 marks the ringing in of the Chinese Lunar New Year, or the Year of the Black Water Snake. I for one, am thrilled to embark on another NEW beginning, because I was a bit slow on the uptake of the 2013 refresh and reboot.

I just finished setting up my datebook for the year (in February!), and am still writing thank you notes from the gifts of 2012.  Yes, I am hopelessly attached to the medium of pen and paper, and am not fully in sync with all that the CLOUD has to offer.  I prefer to speak on the phone rather then text, I feel guilty when my email inbox has not been attended to by the end of the day, and I am STILL doing battle with my resistance to the Facebook world.  Not a day goes by when I do not ponder my level of engagement in the digital connection of our age, and what, if anything, I need to do about it.

As a self-described “techie” I am constantly surprised by my lack of desire to be techie about connecting. I gaze with awe at those who have it wired and seem to navigate this new world with open arms and ease. How does all of this new technology affect how we interact with each other?  From keeping in touch with our closest friends and family, to dating, to online yoga classes, to education at every level of academia, to reaching across the globe, or starting a revolution, technology can both bring us together and dramatically expand our world and world-view.

How do we balance our need to connect with our need to unplug from it all, and when does quantity start to diminish the quality of our relationships?

In my search for the answers, I was thrilled to come across the award-winning Sundance documentary, Connected: An Autoblogography about Love, Death & Technology, directed by Tiffany Shlain.  We are screening it at MoYo on February 22nd, so if you are unable to join us, you can “connect” with the film on iTunes here.  Please check out the synopsis and trailer above, and connect with your Self and us in person on the mat at any of our class offerings!

First and foremost – HAPPY 2013!

We are still here, which means we must have more to learn. There is something magical about the global resolve to be healthier, do better, let go, move on, go with the flow, and create lasting change at the start of a new year, filled with endless possibilities. Whether you take time to take stock and set intentions for the future, or simply live day by day, you can’t help but feel the desire of our collective consciousness to live better lives. We are in this together, and reaching out for support is one of the best ways to keep us on track.

We can get confused about what really needs changing to be happier in this life, because often times it is not really the extra weight or the unhealthy habits, but what lies beneath – the denial of our essential nature,  o u r   e s s e n c e .

Oriah Mountain Dreamer sums it up in one question, at the opening of her book,  The Dance:  “What if the question is not why am I so infrequently the person I really want to be, but why do I so infrequently want to be the person I really am?”

Our friend and Tai Ji master, Chao Pang, succinctly and lovingly invites us to
F o l l o w  the  C h i  .  .  .  T  R U S T  the  C h i.

Come explore, play, inquire, stretch, move, breath, meditate and practice with us at MoYo, and feel what it is like to be in it  T O G E T H E R.

Double Dutch Anyone?

After wheezing through a treadmill stress test, and proclaiming to the cardiologist that I must have ‘exercise induced asthma’ (a real condition, by the way), she informed me that my cardiovascular fitness was not where it should be for “someone my age.” Whaaaat? When? How? Somewhere between then (when I used to wear athletic shoes for athletic reasons) and well, NOW, I embraced the ease and convenience of CLOGS. Yes, yoga is great, yoga is good, and I can’t imagine my life without it, because after all, it is a LIFE style.  It turns out that the asana practice, while energizing and potentially sweat-inducing, is not technically aerobic exercise, so…

I bought a jump rope.

Of course I “skipped” for a whole 60 seconds before the “exercised induced asthma” kicked in, and I took a break to ponder the joy of sustained aerobic activity. I remembered how much fun it was to jump with friends, so I invited our furry, four-legged family member, Cooper, to join in. She actually scored TWO clean jumps before going after the rope.
Then it hit me…DOUBLE DUTCH! Oh what fun it is to jump with friends to the beat of the feet and the twirling of the ropes.  WHO’s IN?
Seriously, after two random conversations with fellow yogis, I think we have something here.  I am reaching out to anyone who wants to skip and jump and play and most definitely laugh – all in the name of cardiovascular health!
Drop me a line if you are interested and we can get this show and our feet off the ground, one baby skip at a time.

Skipping as exercise from Wikipedia:
Skipping is an activity not only suited for competition or recreation, but also for a cardiovascular workout, similar to jogging or bicycle riding. This aerobic exercise can achieve a “burn rate” of up to 700 calories per hour of vigorous activity, with about 0.1 calories consumed per jump. Ten minutes of jumping rope is roughly the equivalent of running an eight-minute mile. Jumping rope for 15-20 minutes is enough to burn off the calories from a candy bar.

december 2012

1 2 .  2 1 .  2 0 1 2  .  solstice  {or the end of the world as we know it} marks the beginning of winter in the Northern Hemisphere and summer in the Southern Hemisphere. For centuries, winter solstice has been a time to reflect, a time to pause, a time to celebrate. For us, in our particular relationship to the sun, it is the shortest day and the longest night of the year.

The word solstice is derived from the Latin solstitium, or sol (sun) and sistere (to stand still), because at the solstices, the seasonal movement of the sun’s path appears to come to a stop before reversing direction.

These days we “DO” a lot, especially during the hectic holiday season, so it is important to take some time to STAND STILL and honor the “stoppage,”  We can take extra care to nurture ourselves by PAUSING in stillness whenever possible.

So if you are feeling stressed and depleted – YOGA to the rescue!

One of my favorite poses to calm the nervous system and quiet the mind towards stillness is VIPARITA KARANI  (inverted DOing pose, or legs up the wall).

All you need is a wall, a blanket, bolster or block, and some time (just 5 minutes can radically shift your perspective, and 15 minutes can take to that Calgon place)

Just click on the photo to the left for a tutorial, and because this is considered to be an inversion, please read the fine print:

As with any inversion, Viparita Karani should be avoided if you have serious eye problems, such as glaucoma, If your feet begin to tingle during this pose, bend your knees, touch your soles together, and slide the outer edges of your feet down the wall, bringing your heels close to your pelvis.

We wish you a joyfully reflective winter solstice and most splendid holiday season!!

november 2012

On  Sunday,  1 1 . 1 1 . 1 2   MoYo officially turns TWO YEARS OLD!

For everyone who has shared their practice with us over the last two years,
we are deeply grateful, and look forward to our continued, evolutionary partnership.

Are you one of the planetary citizens who, like me, often requires some sort of tangible proof when presented with the intangible? Well, energy, like the air that we breathe, can be elusively invisible to many of us. Some of us are awake to the energetic fields within and around us, and most of us never think about it, feel about it, or consider it to be a bunch of airy-fairy hoo-ha, are frightened by it, or simply don’t believe in it.
By “it”, I mean all of the stuff that we typically can not see, but exists nonetheless – like spirit, or  gravity, and for some…global warming.

With my limited yet evolving perspective, my story has always been that I am not one of “those” people. Yes, you see it right away – duality, separateness.  Even as I perceive myself to be IN clusive,  I  EX clude myself from the “those” people. They are my friends and teachers, who have the ability to see/feel/hear and/or sense the unseen.  Those with healing hands, heightened intuitive or psychic abilities usually tell me that we ALL have these abilities, that we are born with them, and then we shut them off, or we fall asleep to that part of our beings, because of cultural priorities as we grow up to function in what is rapidly becoming the past tense of our human condition.

In my perpetual quest for TRUTH (relative term to say the least), I am always seeking PROOF.  Proof that we are ultimately and always born of the same stuff that made the stars and everything else that we can and can not see.  That WE are good and kind and generous and completely ready, willing and able to WAKE UP.

For most of us, it is most effective and less traumatic to take baby steps. In the physical practice of yoga, a simplistic example might look something like this: You begin practicing Hatha yoga, maybe for the first time in a while or in your life, you connect to your embodied state – this vessel of life that carries us from one moment of consciousness to the next. At first it is about the gross sensations of stretching or pushing the edge of your strength or balance. Then you start to notice things, like how you feel in any given shape that you find yourself in, or how you relate to your body, and what your story looks and feels like.

This can lead to a deeper level of inquiry, which reveals an entire inner atmosphere to contemplate and explore.  We notice our thoughts and we notice the thinker.  In between the thoughts that we either latch on to, identity with, or allow to come and go with ease, we see/feel glimpses of the state of being from which the thinker emanates. This is where the “magic” happens.  For us intellectual types, when we turn our focus towards the magic, it mysteriously disappears, because we are trying to penetrate it with our thoughts, rather then allowing it to flow.  And that is where I am at in my story.  Still trying to use my brain to look for the proof.  At least that is my story for now, and I am sticking to it until someone can ‘show me the money,’ but that is a topic for another musing.

Do you let a day, or maybe even two, slip by without a hearty L.O.L.?

It seems that if we pay attention to the news and notice the fear that it elicits these days, humor is more important than ever to maintain a balanced life on all levels. Whether it is a giggle, a chuckle, a chortle, a side-splittingguffaw, or a full-on, rolling-on-the-floor, pee-in-your-pants, tear-inducing laughter fest, we need it, and we need it badly.

Laughter is strong medicine for the mind and body, and when taken regularly, the benefits are wide-ranging. A good laugh can offer us protection from emotional issues like depression: lower stress hormone levels; boost immunity; and according to some studies, even prevent heart disease. When we laugh, we connect with others, we get an internal workout, we change our perspective, and we see the lighter side of life…and let’s face it, we need the light now more than ever!

Unless you have a toddler handy, or a puppy/kitten, or you are naturally endowed with a great sense of humor, you might need some help getting the laughter going. There are laughter groups and even Laughter Yoga. Check out the official website, chock full of laughter resources: Laughter Yoga International

Click on the photo, below, to view trailer

An unsolicited testimonial from a hippy surfer, flower dude, whom I call my husband:

Forty years of surfing aggressively and 35 years of working physically with flowers have taken its toll on my old fragile body. There have been times in my life when I’ve almost conceded that my run of reckless abandon and hardcore workloads may be facing their final moments.

The two challenges that really inspire such a helpless feeling in me are a neck condition that has been diagnosed as severe and a groin injury that hasn’t properly healed for over a decade. My future looked bleak and as a depression clouded my horizon, I began to eat and drink my way into a worse situation by the day. I was surfing poorly and considering retiring from the sport that gave me my identity.

Denise begged me to practice yoga, something I dabbled in when I was much more healthy. She considered my current state of crisis as the perfect time to attend class and find myself again on my mat. Two years ago, I began to attend Paul Wehrman’s Yin Yoga class somewhat religiously and the effects of his training started to become apparent outside of Montecito Yoga.

Paul’s class is another discipline of yoga that concentrates on the plastic tissues in your body. Poses aren’t balanced oriented and they are held for longer periods of time. From a beginner’s standpoint, the lack of balance related poses seemed easier, but the work is a more subtle approach to developing a better range of movement and softening of the students physicality.

I’m sure Paul could describe it more eloquently. I just know that as my Yin practice has developed, my surfing has returned and I’ve become as hungry as ever for more waves. My lingering groin injury is completely healed and this practice is the only thing I have ever done to address what was one of my most painful injuries. My neck will always be structurally challenged, but my head no longer feels like 10 bowling balls heavy and now, when I attend entry level yang yoga classes, I feel my spine align itself during forward bend poses!

What was a body in distress and clutching around injured areas is now an open space that allows my body to give itself chiropractic-like adjustments, just doing sun salutations.

If you’re a life long athlete, dancer or someone whose feeling plain old worn out, I invite you to join the rest of us and recuperate from life’s experiences in Yin yoga. We all moan and groan a bit, and some of us fall asleep as if we haven’t slept in years in corpse pose to conclude class. Paul keeps us entertained with the “water” that surrounds us all,whether we acknowledge it or not.

If you want to get your golf swing back to where it should be or cover the tennis court like you know you can, Yin yoga is your answer.It’s not a quick fix, but it is a road map back on to whatever highway you enjoy traveling. And if you’re not feeling physically up to it, that’s your biggest signal that you should attend this class.

See you soon,
Michael.

It is time once again – to settle in for a cozy night of movie watching, popcorn partaking and pellegrino sipping fun!

At our inaugural gathering, we enjoyed the butter, cheddar cheese and caramel corn specialties from Garrett’s Popcorn in Chicago, cause you know what they say:

Admission is free, and we welcome you to invite your friends, as this movie selection is a real doozy. A must-see movie!

In Other News

Greetings!

Mother’s Day means many things to many people. Whether you are a new mother, and it is your first holiday honoring your new life, or your children are grown with children of their own, or your children have left this world long before you were ready to let them go, today is a national HOLI day.  Some of our mothers have passed on or are in transition, and others are treated to brunch and family gatherings.

Some of us have/had amazing mothers who help shape our lives with that unconditional, mother’s love. The kind where we feel completely, radically accepted, without feeling like we have to apologize, hide or deny any part of ourselves.  The kind that allows us the freedom to spread our wings with the steadfast knowing that no matter what choices we make, or the outcomes of those choices, we always have the unwavering support and love of our mothers or mother figures.

UNconditional     UNlimited     UNfettered     UNiversal     l  o  v  e .

That is the special gift a mother has the power to give her children, and set them on a course to do the same for others.  But what if we did not have that kind of mother, or no mother/mother figure at all? Whether we feel like we DID or DID NOT receive UNCONDITIONAL LOVE has a profound effect on our own ability to
love ourselves, and therefore, others.

UNconditional love.  Easier said than done, right?  RIGHT, because it is not DONE, but rather a state of BEING. It is HOW we see the world around us and within us.

When we change expectation into GRATITUDE,
we tap into the field of UNconditional love.

When we cultivate a friendly, UNconditional regard for ourselves with radical self-acceptance, we can be the same for others, and THAT is how we can ALL be the mother, that we did or did not have, towards ourselves and the rest of the world.

WE are the mothers we’ve been waiting for.

april 2012

In our Earth’s current location, as we circle around the sun, the season of spring supports any re-birth, transformation, re-creation or SHIFT that is ready to blossom from the depths our beings.  These can be small shifts that lead to a new perspective or major changes that flip our lives upside down.

The first step to shift is pausing to watch your thoughts.  If we all walked around with speakers broadcasting our thoughts, it would be overwhelming to say the least.  Even though we have complete control over what goes on in there, we tend to let our unconscious patterns guide us on a regular basis.  The constant inner dialogue, especially if negative, can absolutely shape our lives in a limiting way, if left unattended.

Practicing yoga, in any form, provides the container to inquire within. Inquiry shines the light on shadowy unconscious patterns and allows for evolution to occur.  How we are in our minds, how we are in our bodies, how we are in relationship to the world within and around us, is a direct reflection of that inner dialogue.

These mental and emotional patterns are called Samskaras, and you can read more about them and how to change the conditioned, deep grooves of behavior in this Yoga Journal article, Stuck in a Rut?

march 2012

SPRING FORWARD!  It might just be the residue of daylight savings time, but it seems like we are becoming acutely aware of the acceleration of time in general.  In this age of multitasking, there can be an ever-pervading pressure to get it all done. There is simply not enough time in the day to complete all the tasks that our minds create for us to do in order to give ourselves permission  to   r  e  l  a  x.

We create our worlds to keep us busy, so we feel like we have purpose and drive, but where are we actually going?  It is, afterall, about our perception.  When we are enjoying ourselves, we wish time would slow down, and when we are in anguish or feeling displeasure, we wish it away as fast as possible.  If you believe that time is a flexible projection of mind, then you might be able to move to a place where time actually stands still. This is an ancient metaphysical idea from the Vedas, achieved through meditation, and accessible to all.

I am always fascinated by our reactions to the shifts that occur on either end of the day during these transitions of our attempts to control daylight.  I find it more difficult to get up and out in the darker mornings, but am energized far longer into the evening with the extension of the sun.  So did we lose an hour of sleep or gain an hour of daylight?

When told the reason for Daylight Saving time, an Indian elder said,
“Only a white man would believe that you could cut a foot off the top of a blanket and sew it to the bottom of a blanket and have a longer blanket.”  ~Author Unknown (no offense intended to George Vernon Hudson, Benjamin Franklin or anyone else)

Like I said, it is all about perception. One person’s reality is different than the next, based on past impressions and their general outlook on life.  As we get older, time seems to fly by.  Is it possible that the novelty of all the first’s of our youth keep us engaged and interested, our brains forming new pathways and impressions? Then our routine experiences over time, as we age, dull our enthusiasm for the present moment, and time slips by.

That’s where a steady Yoga practice comes in handy.  Every moment can be a new first, if we see it as such.  The fascination with “what is” and our relationship to it, is where the practice can transform us.  Relating to what and who is in front of us with a friendly curiosity fosters mindfulness and meaning, no matter how familiar we are with our perceived reality.