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Beautiful Places Healthy Food

Easter is next week …

It’s about the balance getting across the stream …Stream of conciousness runs through you like this flowing stream … it’s a constant unstoppable reality.sm_IMG_6520Restorative on a tree?Feel the energy in reposesm_IMG_6584Blossoms are everywhere – it’s spring:)sm_IMG_6600
It’s been 2 years since … the pilgrimage to the wonders of Nature here in Northern California.
Devoid of Shinto shrines, maybe Mt. Shasta, is a nature’s shrine that evokes that spiritual feeling where one can tap into the earth’s energy.
It’s very grounding to feel the mountain’s energy and drink its spring water. BUT if one can’t go, one can find that earth’s energy in the herbs harvested by hand …by Yasuko.
Yasuko-san has a beautiful line of products, hand-made… of course, hand picked from either wild woods and meadows at the foothills of Mt. Shasta or grown in her garden overlooking that majestic mountain … she painstakingly makes tinctures, ages them
under the New Moon light for good luck and fortune.
Her craft brings you that
essence of Nature and Harmony:)
Here is her site: click here:)

Our last discovery while staying with Yasuko was …
Most amazing – that there’s an authentic Indian restaurant tucked away in Weed – very funky next to an American BBQ.
Glassy Junction … feels so funny to walk in and the waiter or the owner looks like an actor from a Bollywood movie.
He has a general look of disinterest and boredom watching some Indian version of soaps. This kind of unfriendly service which makes the place even more surreal as we were the only ones showing up – Yet the food was delicious! Yummy Chai:)
naturehahaha … you need a good guide on any journey:) Mt. Everest can’t be climbed without a sherpa; can’t really see the ancient city of Kyoto without a good guide … otherwise, its all a tourist trap …All the apps and GPS I will trade in for that guide who has gone a step further to find what’s unknown to me – far far ahead of me for that authentic adventure.

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Excerpt from New York Times – it’s yoga …Hyper-Awareness?

or rather, it’s zen …when it comes to Marie Kondo method:

She proposes a similarly agreeable technique for hanging clothing. Hang up anything that looks happier hung up, and arrange like with like, working from left to right, with dark, heavy clothing on the left: “Clothes, like people, can relax more freely when in the company of others who are very similar in type, and therefore organizing them by category helps them feel more comfortable and secure.”

Such anthropomorphism and nondualism, so familiar in Japanese culture, as Leonard Koren, a design theorist who has written extensively on Japanese aesthetics, told me recently, was an epiphany to this Westerner. In Japan, a hyper-awareness, even reverence, for objects is a rational response to geography, said Mr. Koren, who spent 10 years there and is the author of “Wabi-Sabi for Artists, Designers, Poets & Philosophers.”

“Think of the kimono, and the tradition of folding,” he said. “There is also the furoshiki, which is basically a square of flat cloth used daily to wrap packages. Folding is deep and pervasive in Japanese culture. Folding is a key strategy of modular systems that have evolved because of limited living space.”

He added:

“More spiritually, the idea of non-dualism is a relationship to reality that proposes that everything is inextricably connected and alive, even inanimate objects. If we are compassionate and respectful to everything that exists, then we would have to be compassionate about the socks in the drawer that aren’t folded properly.”


No wonder I love restorative yoga – folding the blankets! (but not socks!!) And Judith is definitely quite a “crazy fanatic” about that with all her “how-to’s” – it resonates …

Rather amazing … it merges right into my homework assignment I am struggling with – “Application of one of the Mahavakyas in yoga therapy” as I ponder on The Upanishads.

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Anything Cute Beautiful People Healthy Living

“Tokimeki” = “kyun”!!!

Some words do not have an exact translation – “tokimeki” I guess translated to “Spark Joy” in Marie Kondo’s best seller … I think the onomatopoeia of “Kyun!” did not get special attention by the interpreter. (8:35 min. into the utube video referenced below), when she said the criteria for what you keep vs. what you discard is the feeling of “kyun”! That piece is a keeper, when you hold and touch an article of clothing in question, if every “cell” of your entire body can feel “KYUN!” – feeling of going positively “up”! – it’s the sound of the heart/mind “kokoro” feeling the adoration … it’s like falling uplifting/rising in love but … more for a puppy or a sweet baby. You know, your heart just … melts but no, that would translate to “toromeku” not “tokimeku”.

Onomatopoeia of “Tokimeki”, her criteria is when your heart goes “kyun” … almost like heart skipping a beat – the heart throbbing…UP – finger points up like an arrow up as she demonstrates. There really is no exact translation but closest would be something like a “vibe” that’s upbeat and exciting. Okay, so “Spark and Joy” will have to do…

She’s kind of like a doll but one with OCD. She’s just so cute but once she opens her mouth, definitely seems to have an Obsessive Compulsive streak. Yet there’s a spectrum to every disorder (or is it a disorder or a gift? what’s normal?) and we need the extremes who helps other extremes – the hoarders – and all in-between. It’s also a bit cultural – in the less disciplined anything goes anarchy like world, what’s seen as OCD, in Japan can only be admired and aspired to. Orderliness, neatness and cleanliness is next to Godliness there, she can only be admired as someone of great virtues and desired skills. In fact, she’s practically like a “life coach”. We all have an element of various tendencies to hold onto things we no longer need – as we favor brevity and speed, abbreviate and expedite how we live, we surround ourselves with objects that impedes living in the presence. Slow down. Reflect, Re-evaluate; then Regenerate through Restoration of Self by knowing how best to take care of ourselves. More restored we are, the more occasions in which our heart can positively spike UP …”kyun”! It’s an UP-tick:)

Here’s her talk from AirBnB – you can search on google or facebook:)

MK “Safe to assume, I am a crazy tidying fanatic!” Indeed.
It would be interesting to see how motherhood may change her…transformative I would guess:)

She may even let a little MESS slip by…