KonaYoga.com

Looking Through Different Lenses

There's a great message on Senia.com today titled "6 Ways to Do SOMETHING DIFFERENTLY- exactly where you are". Her premise is, why wait to go somewhere in order to be more observant or to enjoy life? Why not do it just where you are?

Focus close-up as I did with the bottles on my windowsill, or focus wide-angle and enjoy all of the trust that every driver along with you at the 4-way stop possesses.

Today, I think I'll look for something that I haven't noticed or paid much attention to at the studio. Something to appreciate in a new way. Thanks, Senia!

4:45pm Here it is...

The studio floor. It takes a daily beating from hands and feet pressing down on yoga mats, to massage tables laden with bodies at rest. Lately, some of the underlying spackling is peeling off and exposing bare plywood and when I look at the floor I'm usually thinking about ways to replace it.

Today, I want to acknowledge our floor, represented here by the two hard working fellas who hold our movable walls in place. When I hold yoga classes and face the ocean, I look down at the floor and see them smiling up at me.

Painting the floor would have been a back breaking job if not for my years of uttanasana, and the sliding walls would not have been possible if not for the ingenious woodsmen, Albert and Mike. I think I'm going to look at the floor through softer lenses so I can see a way to transform rather than replace it.

We're Taking the Challenge

 

I've made the commitment to Eat Local for the month of September. I signed myself up on the Locavores website and added an Eat Local Challenge logo to the Kona Yoga site. I want to make this fun so if any of you would like to join me, let me know.

I'd like to write to the Eat Local Challenge folks to let them know about our food choices here on the Big Island and some of our specialties. We have a wide range of tastes and choices. My friend Nora Bow is eating raw these days so I'm going to take some pictures of her as she makes some wheatgrass juice/smoothies. I also want to get a recipe or two from my mom, who's been a Kona resident for over 70 years. Maybe we can even have a Local Foods Potluck dinner.

Until we eat again, Aloha.

Eat Local

"The two biggest sellers in bookstores are the cookbooks and the diet books. The cookbooks tell you how to prepare the food and the diet books tell you how not to eat any of it."
--Andy Rooney

After I came back from my last trip, my body had a strong desire for water, fresh fruits and vegetables. Perhaps my cells were parched by the desert heat or actually in need of certain nutrients. Whatever the reason, I welcomed the change because I felt lighter and brighter.

Then during the last yoga workshop, the therapeutic applications of the Mother Sequence and other specific postures, were usually coupled with suggestions for meals. Fruit for breakfast and fruit at tea time (4-5pm). Lunch and dinner should begin with fruit or a vegetable salad before any cooked foods are consumed, the fresh foods making up a half or more of the volume of the meals. Luckily for me, my body made up my mind for me.

I've also learned that it's what you feel when you eat that is more important than what you eat so I've been looking for more ways to feel good about my food. Adding veracity to Andy Rooney's statement, I bought a couple of new cookbooks (do books on raw foods qualify as cookbooks?) and find myself out foraging every other day or two. It's become a welcome practice as I look for more sources of food.

The Keauhou Farmers Market that's held at the Keauhou Shopping Center every Saturday from 8am to 12 noon is now my Top Shop, edging past Amazon.com because of instant gratification from my purchases. The feel good factor is that I'm taking steps to Eat Local . Foods are fresher, less energy has been consumed to get the food from the farm to my table and I'm supporting the people in my own neighborhood. What a beautiful concept.

As I was hunting and gathering on the Internet, I found out that there's going to be an Eat Local Challenge held nationally during the month of September. I just love it when everything rolls out in front of me like a red carpet. I'm beginning to think that the carpet has been out there for a long time, I just had to turn a little more to the right and take a step.

Photo:restaurantswaikiki.com

How do I Stop Complaining?

I ended the last post with the admonishment I've heard quite often in yoga workshops, "Never, ever, ever complain!" Since we are responsible for the outcomes in our lives, complaining essentially disputes that fact and places the blame on someone or something else.

Complaining is a habit that takes a lot of focus to overcome and I like the suggestions given by Steve Pavlina in his article, "How to Stop Complaining": become aware of and control negativity, begin to consciously create what you want, and assume total responsibility.

Think again and again.

"As a single footstep will not make a path on the earth, so a single thought will not make a pathway in the mind. To make a deep physical path, we walk again and again. To make a deep mental path, we must think over and over the kind of thoughts we wish to dominate our lives."
Henry David Thoreau

It is amazing how we move about in life through so much of our habits. Some of our habits simplify our lives and help us to maintain an orderly existence. But then we all have a few habits that trip us like shoes removed and left in mid-stride. Every now and then, our habitual postures, speech and thought patterns make it very difficult for any kind of change to occur.

In his workshop last weekend, Jehangir Palkhivala encouraged us to "consider whatever we have to be a gift." People usually look at their weaknesses and try to fight it, but in the ultimate yoga, if you have a weakness you use it.

If a yoga posture is new and challenging, you could say, "I can't do it, so I won't do it." A more progressive statement chosen by Jehangir would be to say, "I can't do it so let me modify it until I can do it."

A few days ago I came across an interesting article on The Happiness Project about a man who claims that he lost weight, started exercising, ran marathons and then triathlons, became successful in business, and wrote a book, just because he learned to "flip his thoughts". He took his negative, expectant thoughts of the outcomes of any given situation or task and flipped them toward the positive with great results.

In time, observing your speech and directing the flow of your thoughts becomes the ultimate yoga/life practice. In fact what prompted this article was a piece by the Dalai Lama entitled Proof of Love. The Dalai Lama believes that there is so much love and compassion in the world (evidenced by our ever increasing population) that we take it for granted and allow it to go unnoticed. That's why all the unpleasant things become "news". What a beautiful belief system he has.

Our consistent thoughts become our beliefs and our steadfast beliefs become our reality. The path that we tread on over and over, becomes Our Way (the only way?). If our thoughts become our reality, then we should also be able to look at our reality to see the thoughts that we keep thinking, over and over again.

That is the reason why another wise teacher said, "Never, ever, ever complain!"

Photo: ILLUME

A Man Who Bears Gifts

Three things cannot be long hidden: the sun, the moon, and the truth.
-Siddartha Gautama (Buddha)

Those of us fortunate enough to have attended Jehangir Palkhivala's workshop this weekend, graciously received the gifts that he offered, and believe me, they were numerous. There was something for every level of yoga experience. Whether you were new to the Mother Sequence or have been practicing it for several years; new to yoga or a yoga teacher; the presents that Jehangir kept pulling out of his bag were perfectly chosen.

As I assimilate all that I have received, I'm sure they will spill over into my classes and future blog posts. It will no doubt, permeate my life.

While Jehangir may have been changing lives during the workshop, he was also actively seeking to bring joy into the lives of his family and friends back in India. During his spare time, he searched for items on a list that were meant for a specific person. He restocked the gifts in his bag as quickly as he handed them out!

When I left him at the airport last night, I had no idea if his heavy, gift laden bags would meet the weight limit. Jehangir was serene and ready to handle anything, although he made a mental note to inspect his gift buying "habit".

As I drove toward home, I thought about the last four days of yoga postures, mantras, copious notes and fascinating conversations. I thought about gifts: giving and receiving, in a new light. There are gifts of a material nature and the gifts couched between the words and actions of a gifted teacher.

A wise man named Frank Clark said, "You may give gifts without caring, but you can't care without giving." So it is then, that Jehangir is a man who cares so much about so many that he cannot stop giving. It is simply his Nature. I'm still finding his gifts, tucked into my written and memorized notes and nestled within my heart center.

Illustration: Exotic India

Do You See What I Mean?

It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye.
-Antoine De Saint-Exupery

My friend Jerrie Stafford, just opened a photo exhibit at Peaberry and Galette in the Keauhou Shopping Center. It's a fascinating display of human eyes and because of the way she's cropped the photos, it's difficult (if not impossible) to recognize her subjects.

I guess we're so accustomed to seeing a face in its entirety that features viewed separately, may leave us clueless as to a person's identity. What we see, is not always correct and at times we could be looking directly at the object we are looking for, and not see it.

"Seeing is believing" and "I'll believe it when I see it" are long popular mantras and so the painting above illustrates that for me: people worshipping the sense of vision. Oh, All Mighty Eye.

There is a neurological condition known as prosopagnosia which renders a person incapable of recognizing faces. I found one woman's explanation of her "ailment" very captivating. Since she cannot recall features, she relies on emotions and the sound of peoples' voices.

As we learn more about optical illusions, blind spots and color blindness, it's easier to admit that what we see, is not necessarily what we get. How do we learn to see with our hearts? Nature and the arts, I believe are logical starting places.

Jerrie's photographs will be on exhibit for another week and a half and my eyes are part of the show. See if you can find them!

Who are you going to believe, me or your own eyes?
-Groucho Marx

Artwork:Mandalas.com