yoga and digestion

Aryuvedic medicine practitioners say that our digestion is like a fire.
You want to stoke the fire and give it the wood that it needs to keep burning, but if you put too much wood on, the fire smothers.
They say you should have 1/3 food, 1/3 water, 1/3 god(whatever that may be for you!)

Familia and Buddhism

I was just scooping my homemade version of the tasty swiss cereal Familia (recipe below!) from its mixing bowl, into a jar and feeling impatient.
It was taking a while! I was dropping oats on the floor and my hand was cramping.
Then I thought, how would I be scooping this Familia if I had to fill one thousand jars?
How would I go about scooping if there really was no end in sight?
If there were 1,000 jars I wouldn't, or couldn't think about the end. And as a result, I'd probably move more slowly and have more awareness of the grains falling from the little red scoop into the glass (really quite pretty!)

From that moment on, my scooping became much more enjoyable.

I think about this with food and eating sometimes too ~ Like what if this chocolate-chip cookie I am eating was the size of of the borough of Brooklyn!? Would I still be devouring it as quickly? I really can't imagine that (both a bklyn sized cookie, plus devouring).

So there you have it, a Buddhism inspired kitchen experience, and a Familia recipe.
Enjoy! :)

Eva's Homemade Familia~
(all of this is very approximate!)

6 cups rolled oats
10 dates, chopped fine (may be mushy its ok!)
handful of dried apples, chopped fine
handful of raisins or currants
1 cup almonds
1 cup roasted hazelnuts
1/2 cup sunflower seeds
3/4 cup wheat germ
1 packet (about 3/4 cup) dried milk powder
a little salt
sugar (optional - I like to leave it out so eaters can choose their own sweetness)

Toast the oats in a 350 deg. oven for 30 minutes, stirring every 10 minutes.
Add the dates and apples to the oats and mix well
Turn the oven down to 200 and bake oat mixture 15 minutes longer, take out from the oven and let cool.

While the oats are toasting, grind the hazelnuts and almonds. A food processor helps, or you can be very yogic/buddhist about it and chop them mindfully until they are teeny-tiny.

In a big bowl mix the almonds/hazelnuts with all the other ingredients and add in the oat mixture.
Stir well.
Scoop, with awareness and love and a never ending sort of feeling into glass jars.

Serve with cold milk (better if you let it sit 5 or 10 minutes), or with hot water, a little milk and maple syrup - yummmmm

light on life

I just started (again) to read Mr. Iyengar's book Light on Life.
It's good! I highly recommend it, though I should admit I'm only on page 16.
But what a page it is ~
I especially like this sentence:

"Asana [yoga postures] bestows the firmness to live with equanimity in the vicissitudes of the world's hurly burly."

He's got passion and is very to the point, a lighthouse in the storm of hurly burly!

teacher please!

Does a person need to have a great teacher to become a great teacher?
I'm in the market, myself.
I'm calling out to the world, "looking for a great teacher!"

dance

I went to see the Alvin Ailey dance company perform last night.

It was amazing to watch the dancer's bodies defy the notion of what bodies are supposed to be able to do.

It also felt odd to be sitting still and watching such defiance, such movement. The audience and the dancers were experiencing the two opposite sides of an enormous spectrum.

I think its important to remember that we are the whole spectrum (that is what the yogic sages would say!) , and we happen to be where we are inside of it, i.e. sitting, leaping, spinning.

Not that I am able kick my leg up to my ear, right now, on this rainy Sunday afternoon. But it is in the realm of possibility, with a little practice...

the yoga of...

I often try to think in this way.
Like for example: What is the yoga of waking up early? It is a new day, and a new breath; you can surround yourself with quiet.
What is the yoga of animals? They are present in each moment, and don't know if they are pretty or silly looking.
The yoga of biking? Relaxing as the bumps come and go. There is concentration and grace in action.

Now with Thanksgiving in two days and with my baking skills warming up, I am wondering now: What is the yoga of Cheesecake!?

:)

Remember this~

Yoga does not = Perfection!

pulling silk

I try to teach my students how to use enough muscular effort to be in a pose, but not so much that they squeeze the possibility out from what it is that they are doing.

There needs to be some tension, but just enough to vibrate the energy within them.

I learned recently that in Tai Chi, there is a way of moving that is called pulling silk.

Besides the fact that I like to say "pulling silk", I think that imagining the idea of pulling silk can soften your yoga practice into something even more beautiful than it is already.

yoga health

I'm thinking about how health is not gained by beating yourself up.
Yoga is not the pursuit of strong muscles.

Yoga can be what roots you to the earth so that your tree isn't blown over quite so easily,
The health that comes is effortless, in the fruit of that tree.

Resistance

happens when you come up to something and then back away from it.

Within your person, resistance can happen when you come up to a sensation and your body/mind changes the subject. It happens in a snap.

Then what happens after the snap!?