I AM 50%

With all the percentages in the news today with the 99%, and I posted the 100% to my Facebook page, I thought it appropriate to show how my raw food diet is going. Not so good. I must say I am as raw as I was before I started the raw diet last week. I am always 50% raw. I did eat raw cookie dough for a day before I baked it. But I eat gluten free brown rice tortillas every day. I don't know if I want to live without those, and they are cooked. But other than cooked rice, the occasional bowl of popcorn, and maybe gluten free cereal and oatmeal, I can do this! I prefer raw vegetables to cooked anyway.

My fellow Yogi and I did make the commitment to go completely dairy free, and with all of the vegan choices out there, this is fairly easy. Eating out takes a little more willpower. Okay, A LOT more willpower, as the dish of butter across the table was calling out to me more than the veggie pizza right in front of me.

But I look at temptation like a poker game: "I'll see your butter," (acknowledge it) "And I'll raise it." (to a higher power). I do this exercise in meditation, also. When a thought comes up, especially an unpleasant one, I see it (acknowledge), and raise it (to a higher place, releasing it). You must fully see things before they will leave you alone. If you ignore them, they will be persistent in pestering you until you acknowledge them. Kind of like a child in the grocery store. (Note to moms: Everyone else hears your child; why don't you?)

But I digress...

The point is, I am vegan again, 50% raw, gluten free, and giving up temptation to a higher power!
I AM 100% FREE!

Have a beautiful day!
Namaste^

Going Raw!

My fellow yogi and I are going raw for 7 days. I'll let you know how it goes. I've tried it many times before, but found it very difficult living in a small town with no raw food restaurants. It takes a lot of preparation and forethought.  You really must go shopping to fill your house with good choices ahead of time, or hunger and grumpiness (ok, that's putting it mildly) can overtake your best intentions. This morning, having done neither of those things, I threw together a smoothie with coconut milk, raw almond butter, blueberries, banana, algae powder, and a splash of orange-pineapple juice. OMGEE! Delicious! So I'm off to a good start. Oh yeah, I forgot about the tea I had earlier. It was an honest mistake, as there are mixed messages online regarding the subject of tea being raw, and how hot the water can be. So I overheated the water, and the chai was probably baked, but I will be more careful tomorrow:-)

White tea, heated to no more than 118 degrees. I can do that.

I also took some cookie dough out of the freezer without thinking about it. So I guess I will be eating that raw later. (Sorry kids)

I'm going to save on the gas bill this month, that's for sure. 

Not sure what's for lunch, probably just yoga. It does taste good, you know ;-D

Life Is The Butterfly!

A dear friend once said to me, "Ah, life! It is the butterfly!" I didn't quite know what he meant (probably because he's French), and I waited for some explanation, but never got one. So it was open to interpretation, which for me has changed a lot since the 90's (thankfully). Whereas back then I may have thought of it as an analogy that life is beautiful and delicate and fleeting, now I can see so much more and less in it. Let me explain what I mean by less.

Sitting at my computer last week, feeling overwhelmed with attempting to write a brochure for the new yoga business, and trying to figure out a schedule of class times with the City of Sugar Land to teach in the parks and recreation centers, and trying to download pictures for the new website but the files were unreadable...for a brief moment I lost sight of what it was all for. Yoga. Bringing the mindfulness of yoga into everyday life. As the burdensome tasks began to overtake my peace of mind, with a sigh I glanced out the window and saw a little yellow butterfly flitting across my lawn. Everything stopped in that moment, the need for a brochure, a class schedule, the perfect picture for a website. I didn't just want to be that butterfly with not a care in the world, I WAS the butterfly. In my mind I came back to that center that I come to on the mat, in yoga, in meditation, the place where you realize THIS is all there is, the moment of NOW. And everything is okay, right now. We can be the butterfly at any moment. The butterfly just is.

Know You Are A Bud!

Like the lotus flower growing from the mud, we must know we are really a bud. We are not the mud that surrounds us; we are a bud. As we make our way out of the mud, we find water, and we have a stem. Have we arrived yet? No. We know we are still a bud. We are not the water. We are not the stem. We are a bud, waiting to unfold. We may not even know that there is sunshine above the water, but we know we have a purpose, so we continue to strive upward. As we break the surface of the water, and unfold in the warmth of the sunshine, we bask in the glory of what we knew all along...we really were always a bud, and now we can share our bloom with the world. Here's to the late bloomers! May we all have our day in the sun!

How I got The Name: Yoga Tastes Good

I was soul-searching for a name for my website when I came across this trailer for "Yoga Is".  In this film Dharma Mittra says, "The reason why so many people practice yoga is because it tastes good!" I loved it!
http://www.yogais.com/

Obstacles to Yogic Practice

The six destroyers of yoga practices, as mentioned in the "Hatha Yoga Pradipika" are:
over-eating, over-exertion, useless talk, undisciplined conduct, bad company, and restless inconstancy.
To overcome these obstacles, Patanjali offered the four-fold remedy of friendliness and feeling at one with all that is good, compassion with devoted action to relieve the misery of the afflicted; delight at the good work done by others and avoidance of disdain for or feeling superior to the victims of vice.
The prescription is enthusiasm, daring, fortitude, true knowledge, determination and a feeling of detachment, of being in the world but not of it, as the means to overcome the obstacles in the path of Yoga.
-B.K.S. Iyengar in "Light On Pranayama"