My jewish new year wish for you is...

to not feel the weight of the city so heavy on your shoulders.
I wish for you to feel like a little bird that can soar up, dip down, see for miles, and then decide where and how to land.
I wish that you will ride a bicycle and feel the wind on your skin.
Lastly, and most importantly, I wish you crazy amounts of love. Really gigantic amounts!

yoga + blog = bloga!

beautifully imperfect computer desk/windowsill~

I'm realizing that a blog is a yoga practice too.
Just like with a physical yoga practice, I'm thinking once a week is good, twice a week there might be some progress, but three times a week, that's asking for enlightenment...
This is going to be way more difficult than a perfect tree pose.
I am a serious perfectionist.
And blogging and perfectionism do not go hand in hand. Actually, they pretty much sock each other in the face, and then just sit and glare at each other. A standstill, like an old western movie but not as interesting...

So here is the deal: It takes major faith, or a leap of consciousness to put something out there when you don't know how it will be perceived, or if it is even worthy of being perceived. That's my first thought in need of a serious yoga-makeover.

Inhale, and exhale all the way down to the palms of the hands. Close your eyes and feel the smooth keys under your fingertips. Drop your shoulders down your back, relax your elbows. Listen to the cars drive by in the rain and know that everyone is trying to connect in someway to the world around them.

So maybe its not about what to write, maybe even in some way what specifically gets written doesn't matter. It really is just about a rhythm, a pace, an ongoing probing or trying to find myself/yourself in space.

Its the same in the physical practice of yoga. It doesn't matter that you can stand on your head. It matters that you are able to breathe while you stand on your head. And that you keep on standing on your head. It matters that you are settling your brain against the pull of the earth. It also matters that a headstand turns your perception upside-down. Or that you were scared and you did it anyway.

so the exciting thing is in the doing, not in the doing perfectly~

What is the opposite of yoga?

I was sitting in my neighbor’s yard (yes there are a few yards in bklyn!) and we were talking about deep stuff…like YOGA, and he asked me what the opposite of yoga was.

Good question!, I thought. Really, one no one had asked me that before. I even had to think for a moment, which felt nice in my brain, like scratching an itch in one of its corners.

I’m still thinking about it, but what I have come up with so far is the situation of separation. Like if you pulled apart the small white pedals of this little flower, the flower would be no longer, you would just have a pile of mush.

Separation can take many different forms: like saying yes when you mean no, or that this is mine and that is yours. Or grades in school. Chapters, pages of a book. Raindrops. Chocolate chips.

But separation can’t be all bad. In the womb we start out as one cell and keep on separating. And that little flower's separate petals are connected to its center.

So yoga is what connects the pedals to the yellow part. Or your mind to your breath to your body. The opposite is very lonely, and precarious too.

Ha!, and you thought you were just standing in warrior 2!

Steve & the Yogic Art of Dressing

Steve is my neighbor and the snappiest dresser on the block.
He lays his clothes out on his bed to decide what to wear. He doesn't try everything on to see which outfit makes his stomach look the flattest.
This is a perfect example of egoless dressing, or the art of yogic clothes picking in action. And he looks so good! He makes the neighbors happy. My upstairs neighbor agrees. You see Steve and you smile. What a serious gift.
I was an expert when I was, maybe 5 years old ~ and now I would love to relearn.
Here is a story, as my dad told it about this expertise:
It was Halloween in Seattle and I was a ballerina. I was a real ballerina because I was wearing a pink tutu, very tight and stretchy on top and poofy on the bottom. Seattle on Halloween can be really cold and of course rainy, and sadly not tutu-only wearing weather. My dad insisted I wear my winter coat on top of the tutu. Of course I was very upset and would have none of that. So we compromised and put the winter coat UNDER the tutu. Then I pirouetted around the living room floor with my lumpy stretchy tutu thinking I was the most beautiful & graceful girl in the world.

rhythm

yoga and music and music and yoga and yoga and cooking and doing laundry and music and sleeping and eating and sleeping and riding a bike and sitting in the park and kissing and sleeping and eating and doing laundry and riding a bike some more and eating and sleeping.