I’m in Annapolis tonight although I haven’t seen this town’s raisin d’être yet: the U S Naval Academy.
That will happen tomorrow.
So far I’ve had good old quality time with my family – nephew Mike, wife Karen and kids Grace and Nick. Also my totally gorgeous nieces Christa and Whiney (plus boyfriends).
Warren, their dad came with his financee Marion. He sold the family home and moved in with Marion; my sister Sue’s been gone twelve years now. […]
There’s a lot of positive press these days about the effectiveness of doing crossword puzzles and sudukos to help ward off dementia and Alzheimers.
There was the story a while back about a certain order of nuns who achieved longevity and mental acuity greater than that of the general population by dint of practicing daily mental activities.
So now, many of us emulate the Sisters of Perpetual Brain Gymnastics by doing
our quotidian exercises, ever hopeful….
I saw some good evidence when made recent retirement community visits to Sara Weinstein, my mother-in-law, age 91,.
Self-confessed book-a-day reader, veteran of […]
Crystal balls are not really a necessity. Not at all. To see your future look to the folks in the retirement villages and nursing homes.
Even though fifty is the new forty, sixty is the new fifty, and so on, one day if you live long enough you will get to be an 80, 90, 100 year old. […]
When I first moved to Australia from the U.S., I was much more of a free spirit than I am now. I was a flight attendant for T.W.A. for three years before landing in Oz and I didn’t even quit the job; I just took a leave of absence in case I wanted to move back “home”.
I would say that I didn’t have a sense of place, not even my birthplace, Chicago. I’d lived in N.Y., several suburbs in L.A., and Tucson, Arizona. […]
One of the benefits of doing yoga is that it opens the door to beautiful friendships, ones that can last for decades. It’s easy to find like-minded people in classes, retreats and workshops, and yoga becomes the matrix that reinforces relationships.
I received a phone call from an old friend last week- we’re talking more than 30 years – who asked if he could come for a visit and an overnight stay.
Trevor Tangye and I did yoga teacher training with Martyn Jackson in the late seventies and early eighties. […]
After the busiest day yesterday that I’ve experienced in a while: yoga practice (good girl), gardening, house cleaning, baked a cake, attended book club, and then a four drive to Sydney – today’s yoga class with John Norris was a dream.
Basically, we alternated doing pranayama with “flopasanas” over bolsters and blankets for chest opening over 1.5hours.
At the end of the session, I felt like a cool, clear, and calm pool of vital energy had collected around my heart.
I’ve been practicing pranayama in much smaller doses than what I did today, at the end of my asana practice […]
Two all-time great distractions of the time wasting stakes are watching babies and watching baby animals. Sleeping or waking there is something other-worldly about them that fascinates us.
I confess to losing I don’t how much time today in observing Farmer Scott’s new calves out in the next-door pastures. Their mothers seemed rather indifferent to them and that’s when I started anthropomorphising.
My invented story about why they weren’t looking after their babies went like this: The cows had had rough labours. They needed to graze to get their strength back. Their milk hadn’t come in yet. […]
Defining Moments (Take Two)
We usually think of defining moments as peak experiences or monumental decisions that change our lives forever.
A less common but equally justifiable view is that we are defined by many tiny moments occurring over time. Like the way stalactites or stalagmites are formed – little droplets of water doing their thing over perhaps eons.
I think you know where I’m heading here. Ah, yes, the yoga mat, or, if you will, the meditation cushion. […]
I was enjoying listening to the Dixie Chicks this morning on my iPhone while working out with some free weights (yes, I do weights sometimes and yoga). If you haven’t heard of the Dixie Chicks, I’d be very surprised because, as of 2010, they were rated the top selling female group in the U.S.
They also had one heck of a defining moment in their music careers – one of those “S” bends that shows who you are and possibly spins you off in unforeseen directions.
In 2003, on the cusp of U.S. […]
My sister who is older than I (I won’t say by how much although she looks younger than her years) suggested I follow up my “ageing” topic from yesterday.
I don’t know what to say exactly except something I’ve been noticing for a while. That is, many of my friends have parents who are going into nursing homes or progressive care facilities. They’ve reached an age where they can’t any longer live alone – either for physical reasons or mental decline.
My generation is most likely looking at our future. […]
Just after sunrise today, I woke up early and drove down to the beach to see if I could sight some whales voyaging north.
Debbie who owns the General Store at Manning Point said she saw about 15 whales yesterday in the early am.
It really is the luck of the draw. You better plan not to be disappointed if your will power and the virtuous early hour you arose isn’t enough to conjure them. Even though we all know this is whale watching season, we have to surrender to their rhythms.
I’m reminded of a quote from Dr. […]
When I left Sydney in November of last year, I had a niggling concern that I was going to lose contact with my yoga community there. So, I instigated this almost-daily cyber writing, sending missives off into the ether, like homing pigeons with little messages attached to them. […]
I admire good writing and I’m inspired when human beings are willing to be vulnerable and authentic.
If you are, too, please follow the link below:
http://wickedlibrarianx.blogspot.com/2010/06/note-on-mediocrity.html […]
A friend who is a Passion Map coach has been in a process with me today of walking me through creating a Passion Map. You can look up the topic on line – http://passionmaps.com – but basically a P M is like any map, a device for discovering where you are, helping chart directions and getting you to where you want to be.
The directions relate to interests that inspire you, even thrill you. For me that would be yoga and yoga teaching, for sure. […]
The other day, writing on this blog, I was trying to explain a yoga concept called vinyamaya kosha – not entirely successfully done, judging by a couple of comments I received.
I always put the responsibility for communications which the readers finds are abstruse back on the communicator. […]
I am probably like you in that I have experienced many happy things in my life. Bliss, which is related to the last of the koshas that I’m discussing in this blog, has been more elusive in my life.
One experience I had in which I felt annandamaya kosha, my bliss body, was so unfamiliar to me that I actually became frightened.
At the time, I wasn’t reaching for some kind of out there, spiritual experience; it just happened. I think there is that element of serendipity to experiencing bliss. […]
In this mini study of the Koshas, we’ve come to Jnanamayakosha, also known as Vinyamayakosha. The level of being that this “sheath” represents is sometimes called the wisdom or intuitive body – the level of intelligent thought and conceptualisation.
I have to admit I don’t fully understand all the terminology and perhaps that is because we have gone from looking at the physical level to more and more subtle ones.
So, I’ve intuited what I think this level is about. […]
Have you ever done a ten-day Vipassana course? I attended a couple of these meditation courses in the 80’s with some of my yoga friends. The courses are conducted completely in silence.
I didn’t think the sitting/walking meditation would be very challenging for me because, hey, I’m a yogi!
It’s true that I didn’t suffer as much as some people did from the hour-long sitting sessions. What I wasn’t expecting was that when the room was quiet and my body was motionless, my mind went into overdrive. […]
Following on from yesterday’s topic on people in the winter of their lives, these quotes from Mahatma Gandhi and Ram Dass seem timely:
Gandhi
Old as I am in age, I have no feeling that I have ceased to grow inwardly or that my growth will stop at the dissolution of the flesh. What I am concerned with is my readiness to obey the call of Truth, my God, from moment to moment, no matter how inconsistent it may appear. […]
I love words. You’ve probably worked that out. Why would anyone write books, blogs, and articles if they didn’t like words? I really like words, though. J’adore des mots. Take a word like season. It’s a versatile word. We’re in the winter season now. It’s been getting down into single digits temperatures at night on the island. We’ve had a surfeit of rain recently so things aren’t dying off as early as usual, but they will get around to it, as that’s what happens in the winter season. […]