What I Read – November 2009

Links take you to Goodreads.com and *’s mark books that I really enjoyed.

A Countess Below Stairs, Eva Ibbotson

* The Master: A Novel, Colm Toíbín

Light on Yoga, B.K.S. Iyengar

The Sherwood Ring, Elizabeth Marie Pope

** How Yoga Works, by Geshe Michael Roach and Christie McNally
If you teach yoga or want to deepen your personal practice by understanding HOW yoga really works, this is THE book to read.

Changeover, Margaret Mahy

* The Queen’s Man, Sharon Kay Penman

Breathless, Laura Lee Guhrke
recommended by Super Library Wendy

The Nightengale’s Song, Kathleen Eschenburg
also recommended by Super Librarian Wendy, though I didn’t love this one as much as she did … at all

Did you read anything you really enjoyed this past month?  What about really disliked??

Wring It All Out: Post-Turkey Detox

twist & shout!

Vinyasa Flow
60 minutes
20 peeps
Music: Waiting on the World to Change, John Mayer and Right to be Wrong, Joss Stone

rag doll
downward facing dog
runner’s lunge with gentle twist
tadasana
3 Sun As
3 Sun Bs
utkatasana – vinyasa – warrior I – humble warrior
crescent lunge twist
windmill up to warrior II
side angle lunge
half moon
revolved half moon
standing leg split
utkatasana twist right
padagustasana
::repeat from last Sun B on left, ending with padahastasana::
vastistasana
table top for some cat/cow tilts
opposite hand/opposite leg core work
half bow
spider
::repeat opposite side::
1 bridge
1 7-count bridge or wheel
supta baddha konasana
happy baby
half pigeon with three-legged dog core work before landing in pigeon
(I know, I’m so mean)
spinal twist
savasana

More of an hour of power than a flow class, I wanted to focus on twists and bringing energy and breath into the belly following such a heavy food holiday.

Hope you all had a great holiday!  Did anyone go to a post-holiday detox class or do their own home practice?

For the teachers out there, any special plans for your classes leading up to the holidays?  Special poses you’ll be teaching or themes you’ll be working with?

A Break with Tradition

Inspired by friends and family who last year re-evaluated some of their holiday traditions and made some changes, I’ve jumped on their bandwagon.

This year, instead of sending Christmas cards and gifts, I’ve donated the money to yogaHOPE, a local non-profit organization that provides therapeutic yoga to women in shelters, substance abuse programs and escaping domestic violence.

Are there any holidays traditions that you could spruce up, par down or do away with?

Note: Just found the post I wrote last year declaring it was the end of Christmas cards.  Yay me for follow through! ::wink::

Loving Less

Coming off the Thanksgiving Challenge, wherein each day I wrote about something I was grateful for, I came across a couple alternative approaches to counting one’s blessings.

Instead of being thankful for something, Yoga for Cynics made a list of things they were thankful not to have.  The list included the major things like illness, injury and the recent deaths of close loved ones, but also included little gems like

…no fear of the dark…no desire to go on American Idol, star in my own reality show, be elected President of the United States, win the Tour de France, or be sixteen again…no desire to murder, rape, molest, or seriously maim…not nearly as much anger or hatred as I used to carry around with me…fewer enemies, fewer people I’m unwilling to forgive….no belief that I’m inherently better than anyone…and I’m working on getting rid of the belief that I’m worse…

Pretty brilliant little list.   YfC closes with “…might sum it all up with thanks for nothin’, but suspect I’d be misunderstood…because nothin’ has always been underrated…”

Which leads us to the next related post on mnmlist on learning to love less where the idea that “nothing is underrated” is given deeper exploration.  This brilliant post from mnmlist focuses on enjoying a lesser AMOUNT of things (food, clothes, Twitter, TV, etc…) which increases the quality of the enjoyment.  It’s the basic concept of quantity versus quality.

Look at the clothing example.  It makes more sense financially, emotionally and spacially to have a few quality pieces of clothes that you really love than it is to have a closet full of cheap trendy pieces that fall apart after one wash and go out of style a month later.

Trying to keep your closet stocked with the latest and greatest is a drain on your budget and sticks you firmly in the rat race of trying to always stay on top.

And in the end, you’re just a broke rat.

When the focus shifts towards enjoying quality and not quantity, your whole life opens up.  Relationships become deeper and more meaningful. The beauty and abundance inherent in every little thing is made clear.  Learning to enjoy  less increases our ability to be content and happy with the few, meaningful things we have.  As mnmlist says, “the only limit to your happiness, then, is how much you can learn to enjoy less.”

Thanksgiving, Maine and So Much to be Grateful For

This year the Husband-Elect and I spent four awesome days with my family in Maine.

at the thanksgiving table

We had so much to be grateful for!

The Thanksgiving Challenge/Gratitude Challenge over the past couple weeks has been a great opportunity to be consciously aware of all that we have to be thankful for.  Even on the most difficult days, once I started to think about a couple little things that I was grateful for: mascara, my hairdryer, rubber boots, it was easier to snowball it into bigger things so that even in the midst of a very challenging moment, when it would have been very easy to get negative, I was able to find the positive and look at the situation as an opportunity rather than giving up.

While I won’t be continuing a daily gratitude on a daily basis here on Perusals, I will post once a week or so if there’s something especially striking.

Thank you to all who read this blog and participated in the Thanksgiving Challenge.  I hope that you, like me, feel so much more abundance in your life after taking the time to remember all you have to be thankful for.

In the meantime, here are a couple snap shots from the few days in Maine:

howling winds and sand on Wells Beach

BIRDS!

daily gratitude – it’s spelled vay-cay-shun

Today I am grateful for five days out of the city, in Maine, with my family and the Husband-Elect.

Have a wonderful Thanksgiving holiday, whether you are staying home or traveling.  Be safe, be happy and take some time to breathe in all that you are thankful for.

Note: I’ll still be posting on Perusals through the next five days thanks to my new netbook and a wireless router at my parent’s house.

The Grateful Core: Part II

Vinyasa Flow
60 minutes
17 peeps
Music: Drum Trip and Send Me On My Way by Rusted Root

child’s pose
down dog
down dog to high plank
runners lunge to gentle twist
rag doll
tadasana
3 Sun As
Sun B 1 into crescent lunge
sun B 2 with ab work into crescent lunge
open to warrior II
reverse warrior
side angle (hovering elbow over knee for core strength)
reverse warrior
reverse triangle
triangle (with core-supported option)
pivot into parsvatonasana (gratitude pose)
repeat from Sun B with ab work through gratitude on left side
table top
core work with opposite arm/leg extension
half bow
spider (YOWIE!)
repeat on left
2 bridges
1 wheel
supta baddha konasana
happy baby
half-pigeon (modified if needed)
wide-legged baddha konasana
inversion (a lot of handstands/headstands today)
spinal twist
savasana

Another well received flow.  The core work seems to be going over well — no one likes doing it, but there’s always a lot of thanks when it’s all done and over with.

One student had concerns about her wheel and feeling panicky and short of breath.  The issue seems to be really arching her spine and neck to get lift, rather than pressing down through the feet and hands equally.  Anyone else dealt with this before?  What did you recommend for the student or have others recommend for you?

In a 60 minute flow, how do you get in the core work?

daily gratitude: The Grateful List

A short list of the things I’m grateful for today:

- mature and clean roommates
- hazelnut coffee
- green tea
- my yoga students (they rock!)
- the ability and passion to teach yoga
- modified half-pigeon pose
- my job
- my paycheck
- morning check-in phone calls with Mom
- five days of vacation starting in 48 hours!
- the Husband-Elect and his boundless enthusiasm
- being out of high school for 10 years (yes, time heals all wounds)
- pie

daily gratitude: triple threat

Saturday, 11/21/09

Grateful for quiet weekend days when I can putter around the house, run errands, do laundry, get to the yoga studio and still have time to sit with a cup of tea and read a good book.  These days are so rare they are a true gift and the best way to recharge my batteries.

Sunday 11/22/09

Grateful for good friends and good food!  Had a lovely and successful (if I do say so myself) dinner party last night with my roommates, the Husband-Elect and a couple friends in town from NYC.  Earlier in the day the H-E and I gathered with his friends from high school and college for a huge brunch hosted by the magnificent Alyssa and Rob.  It was a day of shared laughs, drinks and food.  A beautiful way to spend a Sunday.

Monday, 11/23/09

Today I am grateful (and hopeful) for my farm share.  This year was a rough year for all farmers and I am excited about the chance to sign up again for a second year.  The experience was wonderful (and much blogged about here on Perusals … check out the CSA (community supported agriculture) or Parker Farm tags for all related blogs) and I learned a ton about using, preparing and cooking a lot of new fruits and veggies.

If you’ve never done a farm share, I highly recommend it!  Your money goes to support a local farmer and in exchange you get a weekly delivery of fresh, in-season produce.  It will also cut your grocery bill in half for the summer and fall!

Check out Local Harvest for csa’s near you, as well as farmer’s markets.

The Gift of Thanks

In the New York Times Books section, their “Book of the Times” is Margaret Visser’s The Gift of Thanks.

In the review, the author touches on the intersection of gratitude and yoga.  Obviously, this was not deliberate but since yoga is (always) on my brain and since I’ve been doing this Thanksgiving Challenge now for about a week, the words resonated with me.

Here are a few snippets:

In the book, Visser,

“writes about the humility required to be genuinely grateful, and the essential ability to climb out of one’s own head.

“Gratitude is always a matter of paying attention,” she writes, of “deliberately beholding and appreciating the other.”

Gratitude is, fundamentally, about not taking things for granted, a kind of worldview.

Heck yeah!  If this week has taught me anything it is that gratitude is absolutely a worldview.  It is a way of teasing out the positive and consciously beholding. Remembering to be thankful.

In yoga, the practice of asana (the poses) and meditation (silent sitting) teaches us to be aware and in the present moment, to behold our thoughts, actions and the actions of others around us without engaging and without judgment.  When we feel gratitude, we release any attachment we had to the person or action and deliberately choose to feel only joy in that moment.

As the Thanksgiving holiday approaches and stress levels and emotions run high, it’s even more important to take a step back, climb out of our own heads and behold the beauty and joy of the people and things around us with compassion, humility and gratitude.

Thank you, Margaret Visser, for reminding us of that.