Category: Healthy Living

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Beautiful Places Healthy Living Yoga

“Tripping Over Joy”

Persian style tea beautifully served by a beautiful generous soul with a natural touch for impromptu entertaining, pulls together a full dinner at a moment’s notice – I wish I could be more like her … reminded Hafez too was … Persian. Thought provoking and so visual – Even in translation, his way with words are … magical.

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Tripping Over Joy

What is the difference
Between your experience of Existence
And that of a saint?

The saint knows
That the spiritual path
Is a sublime chess game with God

And that the Beloved
Has just made such a Fantastic Move

That the saint is now continually
Tripping over Joy
And bursting out in Laughter
And saying, “I Surrender!”

Whereas, my dear,
I am afraid you still think
You have a thousand serious moves.

― Hāfez, I Heard God Laughing: Poems of Hope and Joy

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Without a mat, my hands and bare feet kept on sliding on the dry leaves and twigs… flipping over joy? tripping over joy? Can you believe that maybe 10-ish years ago, during a period of time when I was “too busy to do yoga”, after a loooong international flight and an evening on a sofa bed in the living room stay as a guest in Tokyo, my lower back just gave up? Guess my lumbar spine was no longer able to take the abuse – Piercing pain with each step I took – luckily a medicine man with a magic touch fixed me as he thumbed his way up each vertebrae from my sacrum to lumbar spine… a quick fix – and now – To Urdhva Dhanurasana or to Camatkarasana (wild thing!) with ease ! That would have been unimaginable back then …Thank you Yoga:)

There’s a lot of “YOGA is …” yogaism out there …

Beyond the physical…

Yoga citta vritti nirodhah.

Yoga is the ending of disturbances of the mind.

—Yoga Sutra I.2

How? Through practice… not only of asana (poses) but with pranayama and meditation.

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Beautiful People Beautiful Places Healthy Activities Healthy Living

Nature Girls in California

Image of California for many might be … beaches? Then, there are forests lining the coast … forest, creeks and river … all streaming down to … yes, flows into the ocean. The Pacific Ocean – It’s beautiful here.

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IMG_8196_small in the forest…oxygen cocktail for this light headed. Simply Delish …Feel the symbiotic relationship with the … trees… the earth … the air. We are one.

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Healthy Living Yoga

Feeling Renewed:)

A very determined looking but motherly teacher at a Iyengar studio I’ve gone to in the past – unfortunately too far for me to commute to but … a treat to get to visit occasionally. She says she’s a grandmother but her body seems more lithe and supple than someone far younger… My inspiration. She displays both strength and flexibility throughout her demos. I am far younger but started to suffer a violent headache after a hand-stand; forearm stand and a headstand … boom; boom; boom … snap your fingers …3 inversions within first 15 minutes – did them. No warm-up other than the shoulder rotations using the ropes on the wall – Yes, sure, I do inversions especially shoulder stands – sure, after all, 200 hrs. RYT stands for something? but do I enjoy them? That is yet to be determined:)

Then afterwards use of chair for back-bends + inversion combo… a violent headache hits. It’s rather debilitating at this point flipped upside down on a chair – rather than feel the luscious opening within, ahhh … ouch, is someone hitting my head with a hammer? so I confessed to my headache coming out of the back of the chair. She peered into my eyes with sternness… I know – I must have been holding my breath (it’s fear. Going upside-down is to me … terrifying … Terror? hahaha, would never make it in a circus) somewhere cutting off oxygen to my head while blood rushed into my head in all these inversions which usually makes me feel … light headed. I have always been one to suffer from motion-sickness and sometimes that comes; sometimes a sense of exhilaration …it’s either Hell or Heaven, little in-between:

Breathe … yes, I know.
Overcome fears… Yes, I know.
That’s why we do them … Yes, I know.

Sometimes a sense of panic can hijack my nervous system at such times of vertigo combined with a headache – but not with this motherly instructor …faith and trust in self and the teacher is the key to override weird sensations. 5 minutes of grounding pranayama and back to re-join the progression in this steady practice. Headache-free, felt wonderful afterwards. Hard to believe only 60 minutes ago, I was suffering from a banging headache. Better than Tylenol.

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At present, (ideally:) I practice Vinyasa style 2 times a week; Iyengar-ish style 1-2 times a week; whatever nameless style ??? everyday and then … Restorative yoga 1-2 times a week (everyday would be dreamy … if only … whenever I need an escape from the grind? No, whenever I need to spend time with “myself”, purge toxins mental and physical, pre-meditate, clear my mind through pranayama…at times, it’s “spiritual” …it’s what you want it to be) …

What about you?

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