There is no spoon

In January 2011, I walked into the first weekend of the Anusara Immersion with an open heart and absolutely no idea what I was getting myself into.  Until October of that same year I had never even heard of Anusara Yoga, and my decision to sign up for the immersion was pretty much based on "100 hours of yoga, that sounds fun LET'S DO IT UP" rather than any understanding of what I was embarking on.  I was a poor grad student - I didn't really have $1500, but somehow I found it.  There were so many finals and projects - I didn't really have time to spend entire weekends immersed in the Tattvas, inner spiral, and discussions of the Gita but somehow I found it.

I walked out of the immersion a different person. I can't adequately express in words the shifts that took place in me over the course of those six months, so I won't even try.  Above all, the most amazing gift I received from the Anusara Immersion was the community and the amazing people I met.  We laughed together, we cried together, we balanced upside down together, and when we came out the other side we were changed, and we were a family.

This week my teacher resigned her Anusara license.  If you've followed yoga news at all you're probably aware of all the shenanigans that have gone down with John Friend and Anusara Yoga since February.  If not, check out the Elephant Journal archives or any number of blogs, I won't get into the gory details here.

I've been grieving on-and-off for Anusara for the last few months - for the slow falling apart of the community, and for the pain I was sure my teachers were going through.  But at the same time, we still practiced the UPAs, and we still sang the invocation before every class which made it easier to stay in denial.

It's hard not to feel like now, Anusara is really gone.  For some reason, the invocation has been the hardest piece to let go of.  I guess that as a musician, this shouldn't surprise me but after a long stressful day at work, singing those four simple lines I felt like my heart was coming home.

For me, that chant will always be love, possibility, and memories of some of the best six months I can remember.  It's the music that tied us together.  For my teachers, that chant has totally different and complex associations.  It's like this one picture - we're looking at the same thing, but to me it's a rabbit and to you it's a duck.

WHAT ARE YOU

I know Anusara isn't gone - it exists independently of John Friend, of trademarks and licenses.  One thing that's become clear to me since everything blew up in February is that what Anusara is to me, is totally not what it is to someone else.  To one person, Anusara is John Friend.  To another, Anusara is the last fiftneen years of their lives and it's very complicated.  To another, it's a wiccan cult where everyone wears rose-colored glasses and sings Kumbayah for hours on end.  This doesn't make my experience (or theirs) any less real.

Like many things in life, our experience with Anusara is what makes it real.  I'm sticking with my teachers and my community regardless of what brand or label they practice. I am so grateful for the immersion - for the way it changed me and for the friends I found there.  For me, Anusara will always be this time, and these peeps:

There is no spoon.  There is no Anusara.  There's just yoga.

Om Namah Shivaya Gurave

Satcitananda Murtaye

Nisprapancaya Shantaya

Niralambaya Tejase

I honor the true teacher who resides within me and all things

Who embodies truth, consciousness and bliss

Who is never absent and is full of peace

Illuminating all with divine light

This has been cheesy.  Thanks for reading, goodnight :)

The Leap

This past weekend's workshop with Noah Maze was, as expected, awesome.  My shin muscles are sore.  I'm not sure how that is possible exactly, but it means I'm working my shins so that is good I think?  Anywhoo... five hours on Saturday (hand balances, twists and hip openers) and three hours on Sunday (backbends...lots and lots of backbends...).  Eight hours of pure awesome.

It's always hard to recap a workshop.  I cant really put into words the internal and shift that takes place during some of these weekends, and sometimes putting my inner experience with yoga so openly on the internet feels a little to exposed.  It's easier to hone in on one key idea or takeaway and pull it out, like a single golden thread from a complex tapestry.

The weekend was structured around the story of Hanuman, the moneky god who leaped across the ocean to rescue Rama's wife Sita from the demon king Ravana, and who had the power to shapeshift and become as large or as small as he wanted.  

In the Ramayana, Hanuman took two leaps - the first to the sun, and the second to Sri Lanka.  Hanuman took his first leap because he saw the sun, thought it was a juicy ripe mango, and decided hey I would like to eat that.  I can't really blame him...I mean, mango right?  Delicious.  Anyway, this caused some drama and Hanuman ended up being struck down to earth by Indra.

Hanuman's second leap, the leap to Sri Lanka, came during his journey to find Sita.  Hanuman is with a group of buddies looking for Sita, and encounters a slight obstacle in his search - the ocean.  Hanuman feels defeated and believes that his mission to find Sita has failed; but, just when he wants to give up, his friend Jambavantha reminds him who he is.  He sings Hanuman's praises, and Hanuman remembers his own powers and leaps across the ocean.

Wheeeeeee

As children, we aren't afraid to leap for the sun.  We don't yet realize that if we take a huge risk,  we might get burned.  I love watching kids play because they just throw caution to the wind.  They might fall down and scrape their knee but they aren't thinking about that when they try to do a backflip off of the swing set.  All that matters is the joy of being airborne.

As we get older, we lose that sense of infinte possibility.  We forget our own power.  I think this is partly because the stakes get higher, and by the time we reach the ocean we've experienced what it feels like to leap for the sun and be struck back down to earth.  We know from experience that we need to be skillful and cautious in deciding whether we are up to the task of leaping across the ocean.  To overestimate our ability is to fall in the ocean and drown.

But, I think we also need a to be reminded of our own vast capabilities.  Sometimes we see a mango, and we think it's the sun - we only see all the ways in which we might get burned.  But what if this time, it really is a mango and we are too afraid to leap?

Yoga is my constant reminder to play.  It's OK to fall out of handstand, because it means you tried.  And because you tried, it means that some part of you knows you are capable of balancing in handstand.

Through asana, yoga has taught me that things I once thought were impossible are completely within the realm of my ability as long as I keep doing the work.  When I started practicing two and a half years ago I could barely touch my toes and was struggling to master bakasana.  Now I can see the light at the end of the tunnel in hanumanasana, and arm balances are some of my favorite poses.

Yoga is also my constant reminder to bring my best self to the table.  It reminds me to be grateful, even when gratitude is hard to find.  Forgiving, even when I am frustrated or angry.  The ability is always there, I just need to remind myself tand let that part of me rise to the occasion when obstacles and challenges come up.

And sure, occasionally the best version of myself falls out of handstand...but sometimes that's just what happens when you go for the mango.  No big deal.

Live the Questions

I would like to beg you, dear Sir, as well as I can, to have patience with everything unresolved in your heart and to try to love the questions themselves as if their were locked rooms or books written in a foreign language. Don't search for the answers, which could not be given to you now, because you would not be able to live them.  And the point is to live everything.  Live the questions now.  Perhaps then, someday far in the future, you will gradually, without even noticing it, live your way to the answer.

~ Rainer Maria Rilke, Letters to a Young Poet

You guys... I am SO fired up right now.

I am also sitting cross-legged on the couch with a bag of chips in front of me and a jar of salsa balancing on my feet.  You didn't really need to know that, but in case you were wondering I realize it's a terrible idea and that disaster is imminent.  When Ben comes home and finds salsa all over the couch, I'll blame it on the pets and only you and I will know the truth.

Anywho....  I just came home from a two-and-a-half day workshop with international yoga teacher Christina Sell.  I recently finished reading her second book, and couldn't wait to study with her in person. Every workshop I've been to has been amazing, but honestly I haven't felt this inspired since the immersion.

For those of you not familiar with Anusara yoga, Anusara is a school of tantric-based hatha yoga founded in 1997 by John Friend.  John was an Iyengar student who found that his own practice was beginning to deviate from the Iyengar philosophy, and he decided to found his own method.

In terms of metaphysical philosophy, the key differences between classical yoga (Iyengar) and tantric (Anusara) is that in the classical tradition, the physical world is inherently inferior to the spiritual world, and by practicing yoga and meditation we can glimpse the divine.  In tantra, the physical world is a manifestation of the divine, and yoga is the means by which we remember our true nature.  In terms of the physical practice, classical styles of yoga often focus more on the outer form, where as John Friend, wanted to turn the focus back on the alignment and the action behind the creation of that form.

One of my favorite examples of this is in the chatturanga to bujangasana (cobra) transition - until I took an Aunsara class, I'd always been told to keep my elbows pinned close to my body.  I started to have all sorts of problems with my shoulders and couldn't figure out why.  Turns out that in order to keep your shoulder safe, the armbone needs to stay plugged into the socket, which in the case of the shoulder is quite shallow.  When students only try to keep their elbows in, the shoulders tend to round forward and come unplugged, which can cause injury after too much repetition.  If you bring your hands and elbows a bit wider it's easier to plug your armbones in, keeping your shoulder joint safe.  It also makes it easier to bring the shoulderblades onto the back, facilitating a safer backbend.  Eventually you can bring the elbows in, but the most important thing is to keep the shoulders in alignment, whatever that looks like on the outside.  This is just one example of the much bigger picture of how Anusara is different.

Nerdyness.  I geek out over this stuff.

Anyways, last fall Anusara had a bit of what was referred to as an exodus.  To me that sounds a bit dramatic, but basically what happened was that three key members of the Anusara teaching community - Christina Sell being one of them - resigned their certifications.  Just this week Amy Ippoliti, another key member, handed hers in as well.  This had a lot of implications for them and their students, the nuances of which I won't go into here, but needless to say this wasn't taken lightly and there has been a lot of talk on the internets around what the heck was going on in Anusara yoga.  I was curious to see how her decision to split from Anusara would affect her teaching.

Oddly, the session I loved the most was the one I almost didn't sign up for - the teachers' session on sequencing.  I'm not a teacher, so I questioned whether I belonged there but I am so glad I decided to attend.  A lot of what I learned can be applied to my own practice - plus it's the kind of yoga-nerd fodder that I go crazy for.  Christina's sequencing is masterful, and she does an amazing job of breaking a pose down into its components, studying a pose's related poses and shapes, and working all of this into her sequencing in a way that is pretty genius.

Christina describes her teaching style as "making the obvious, obvious."  I'm about to do the same, so bear with me.  So...take a pose like the full form of vasistasana:

Wheeeeee!
(not a picture of me, btw)

This pose is a combination of being able to balance in vasisthasana combined with the key actions of utthita hasta padangustasana:

Hey girl, I love when you inner spiral that top leg

...and think about the shape of these poses in comparison to utthita trikonasana.  I KNOW.  I could geek out over this for hours - figuring out which poses to use in order to prepare the body for another pose, and how these are all related to each other in terms of components, shapes, and key actions is just about my cup of tea.

One of the many things that made me fall in love with yoga - and especially with anusara yoga - is how it's challenged me to live the questions and look for the beauty in everything.  I can absolutely see where a combination of these two aims would lead to a break from a school or style.  If I keep living the questions I start to wonder why I should practice only one style.  I see so many wonderful things about each, and am hesitant to say yes, we should just pick one and live (or practice) only this way.

Anusara teachers moving away from the style is really not that crazy - after all, Anusara itself was formed when John Friend felt himself moving away from his teacher.  Christina did an amazingly skillful job of paying homage to both Friend and Iyengar, while at the same time creating something that integrates on both styles and builds on them.  We have the Anusara Alignment principles, and we have the bhandas and classical form...why do we need to choose between them?  Why can't we have both?  Together they may be even stronger than they are apart.

Yoga, by its nature, almost necessitates evolution and division.  If we are to be discerning students - if we are to keep living the questions - we must challenge our teachers.  But at the same time, we are asked to look for sameness and harmony even in the most glaring contradictions and differences.  It's not easy...but it isn't really supposed to be.

ANYWAYS.  I learned a ton this weekend, and am just pumped about yoga and life in a major way.  The tapas are fully stoked.

Namaste

Sleep? What sleep?

Yesterday I got up extra early (OK 15 minutes early), partly because I wanted to be productive and partly because I couldn't sleep for some reason, and had already been awake for about an hour. I haven't been sleeping well at ALL this week for some reason, and hadn't practiced since Sunday's John Friend insanity, so I stumbled dterminedly into the kitchen, fully intending tobrew some coffee, which I would then drink while doing a 30 minute Yoga Glo.

Unfortunately I was out of coffee. This was unacceptable. Rather than just making tea instead, I put on my yoga pants, bundled up and walked across the alley to the gas station for a 12 oz (don't judge me - Butter was closed and the 3 blocks to Bull Run just felt too far... plus the gas station serves Peace Coffee).

Once I was back inside with my coffee, I sat down, opened up my laptop and realized that it was almost out of battery power. I could have carried the laptop AND the power-cord into my yoga room but that seemed like way too much effort, so I proceeded to sit on the couch, read news articles, and not practice yoga...which is exactly how Ben found me when he and Sid got back from their early walk.

No.

No.

Helllll no.

But my body needed yoga. I knew that if I got all my work done, I could scoot out of the office in time to make Laura's 5:30 pre-choir yoga class. I became a work machine. I don't know if I've ever pounded out that many deliverables in an 8.5 hour period before, but by 4:30 I was done with everything and ready to head out the door. Unfortunately, it was raining (in December in Minnsota, no that is not normal), and rain tends to make my fellow Minnesotans completely forget that they know how to drive. I was 20 minutes late for class but I still went in...and Laura promptly had me do a drop-back.

Choir rehearsal was next on the agenda, but sometimes life has other plans. Sometimes life leaves you 8,000 missed calls from your husband (OK it was like two), two voicemails and a text message, explaining that your dog suddenly decided to have explosive diarrhea all over everything. It wasn't clear whether he could keep water down or whether he needed to go to the emergency vet, so I bailed on choir rehearsal and went home so Ben wouldn't have to deal with our exploding dog by himself.

Luckily, everything turned out just fine. Our best guess is that he either a) finally got a piece of that dead bird he's been eyeing on the sidewalk, or b) he had a little snack from Mini's litter box (YES I realize that is disgusting...but, he has done it before, although the results have never been quite this dramatic).

We both went to bed exhausted...and then I woke up again at around 4:30 to Mini trying to burrow herself into my body and purring with the approximate volume of a large power generator.

Speaking of Spazzy McGee, she is fully recovered from her surgery and back to assisting Ben with grading student papers. Hooray.

Back, bitches.

On a more serious note, though, experiences like this make me even more glad we decided to go the rescue/adoption route with our pets. It was pretty clear that being petted, given a bath and told that everything was OK is not the reaction Sid is used to after having an accident. Poor little dude. Every pet deserves love and understanding.

Well that's all - almost Friday!

Dancing with the Divine

I was fortunate enough to spend all of last weekend in a workshop with John Friend, founder of Anusara Yoga. I'm still sort of unwinding and coming down from the awesomeness that was spending two straight days in classes, hanging out with my immersion friends and studying with one of the most inspiring teachers alive today.

I also am sore all over my entire body. Especially my thighs. We did five Urdhva Danurasanas in a row on Saturday morning. Really long ones. Five of them. And then we did thirty more on Sunday. Ok it was probably only two or three more, but it felt like thirty. At least my thighs are burning as opposed to my lower back, so I must be doing something right!

Battle wounds.

So, in no particular order, here are some of the things I learned this weekend:

Dance with the Divine Every Day

The theme of the weekend was "Dancing with the Divine" - because "everything we do each day is a dance with the divine." If you have ever seen a pair of truly skillful dancers (and I have - several of my good friends are talented swing dancers), they move as though they were one person. You can't tell who leads and who follows - there is no discord, only the dance. Think of your life as a dance with the greatest dancer of all time. We have to just look for and feel the forces that are guiding us, have the humility to go with the flow and be open to the dancer is leading us. Even if you are ridiculously uncoordinated (raises hand) a great dancer can make you look like a ballerina. Or...at least like there's a slim possibility you might know what

you are doing.

Going with the flow does not imply that every light will turn green for you, or that everything you want will miraculously fall into place. The point is that shit happens, and we can either fight it, or we can choose to dance with it and be skillful.

By the way, this is one of the first images that comes up when you do a google image search for "Anusara"

I just... there are no words.

Don't think so much

I'm pretty sure I will be learning this lesson over and over again for the rest of my life. I overthink EVERYTHING... probably a lot of us are guilty of that (especially Anusara yogis...I mean, why else would we be drawn to a yoga style that has codified principles of alignment, studies anatomy and science as deeply as metaphysics, and requires 100 hours of immersion studies before you can even begin teacher training), but this weekend I was reminded how much my brain gets in the way of where I really want to be. Almost universally, when John reminded us to "stop, and breathe," and I backed out of my head, softened, and listened to where my body needed to go, I went much deeper into the pose.

I have amazing teachers

John is a fantastic and inspiring instructor, and I definitely learned a lot from him. But if anything, this weekend just re-enforced what amazing Anusara teachers we have in the Twin Cities. There were no surprises, nothing I didn't feel prepared for - even the most difficult poses were ones I had at least attempted sometime during the immersion or in Ali's class. Beyond that, the languaging and level of instruction were so consistent with what I experience every week at my studio. Ali and Ronna are the best of the best, and our community is lucky to have them.

Monsanto is evil

Fact. It's not like I didn't know this beforehand - I mean, when you look the big/evil trend line, they are not even on the graph - but since John Friend said it, it's probably even more true.

There is light even in vast darkness

This weekend was also my friend Sam's memorial service. When John was talking about going with the divine flow and recognizing beauty and dharma in everything that happens, even if it seems sad, I just couldn't buy it. I am not in that place yet - I can't see how there could possibly be anything good in something so violent and cruel happening to such a good, kind and loving person, and I can't imagine what his family must be going through.

A vacuum, according to my reliable source Wikipedia, is "a volume of space that is essentially absent of matter" - a volume of space containing nothing. Sheer and utter darkness.

However, what we observe is not necessarily the way things are. If you observe rust growing over time, what appears to be a continuous process actually turns off and on at a quantum level. It isn't continuous at all. In the same way, a vacuum is full of particles that are continuously fluctuating in and out of existence, known as "virtual particles." Recently, scientists at Chalmers were able to bring 'virtual' protons into reality using the Casmir effect - literally creating light from a vacuum.

I hope that Sam's family can find a way to create light from the vacuum that Sam's passing has left in the world. I hope we all can, otherwise it was pointless...otherwise it was all for nothing.

Sorry if none of this makes sense, I'm writing from an emotional place right now.

Just remember:

Your life is a dance with the divine, whatever that means to you

Don't think so hard

Monsanto is evil

We can create light

That's all. Namaste.

p.s. I apologize for my terrible attempts at explaining science. If any actual scientists want to tell me what's what, please feel free to do so.

Yoga for Warming, and apologies!

Hi everyone! First off, I just wanted to let you all know that I finally discovered that my comment settings were locked on "members only." Oops. I changed it so that now anyone can comment. I had no idea what Blogger's default settings were and never thought to check, so if you ever wanted to comment before and couldn't because of my ridic privacy settings I am really sorry! Please don't hate me...

Anywho, this summer when it was approximately a gajillion and five degrees, I wrote a post on holistic ways of cooling the body using ayurveda and yoga. I had always planned to do a follow-up warming post in the winter, and since the thermostat here in Minneapolis dropped into the single digits this week I think the time has come!

AYURVEDA

My research on this one was a little shady - different books and websites kept telling me different things. Some said that fall was Vata season, some said it was winter, and some said it was late fall and early winter. Either way, I think I can safely say that we are currently in a Vata cycle.

Vata dosha is associated with air: it is dry, light and moveable, like the wind. Vata is my primary dosha so I'm all to familiar with its imbalances... I am prone to worry and anxiety, having a bajillion things going on in my mind at once, being kind of spacy and forgetful, sensitivity to cold, and some certain, umm...digestive issues. Let's just say it's important to make sure I'm gettin my fiber...

Too much?

Moving on. Even if you are not prone to Vata imbalance, the cold and dry weather of late fall and early winter can bring out these qualities. Fortunately all of the things you should do to balance Vata are pretty awesome and involve butter, cheese and alcohol (in moderation obv). So, here are some things you can do when you feel like Vata is getting all up in your business:

AYURVEDA

• Eat warming foods: Cook all your fruits and veggies - avoid raw (especially apples, pears, and dried fruits in general), and eat a lot of warming soups and stews. Root vegetables are great for Vata (pumpkin, beets, carrots if cooked, parsnips, rutabaga), as are beans, lentils, and some grains (quinoa, cooked oats, and rice are great - but avoid millet, spelt, rye, buckwheat and barley). And pile on the butter and cheese - eating and cooking with dairy, butter and ghee helps keep Vata grounded and sane (supposedly...). However, avoid plain yogurt. All spices are good for Vata, so load up on th
  ose, too :)
• Drink warming beverages: Drink lots of tea!! And apple cider, hot chocolate, whatever you want, and avoid cold beverages. Official guidelines also say to avoid coffee...but that is a blanket guideline, not specific to one dosha. I'm a coffee lover, and have no desire to give it up completely, so I just try to be mindful about when and how I drink it. I've noticed imbalancing effects from drinking coffee in the summer, but in the winter I've never had a problem - so I would say, see what works best for you. Beer and wine also have warming properties...I know, right ;)
• Stick to a routine: Imbalanced Vata is crazy erratic, and keeping to a schedule helps to put those tedencies in check. Try to go to bed early and get up by 7, but if that is not possible just keep it consistent, and make sure you are getting enough sleep.
• Turn up the heat: Not literally in your living space necessarily, but steam rooms, heated oil massage, baths, and long warm showers are great for vata. I also usually kick up my hot yoga practice during the winter - I always feel more calm and grounded after a good hot class.

YOGA
The temperature of the room isn't yoga's only warming property - there are also specific asanas and sequences that work to stoke the inner fire (OK that sounded wayyy more dramatic than I intended...).

• Surya Namaskar (Sun Salutations): Sun salutations are great for getting your body and muscles warmed up, flexible and ready for the rest of your practice - even more important when it's cold out and our natural tendency is toward hunching and tensing our body, which increases stiffness.
• Sirsasana (Headstand) and Handstand
• Backbends (Danurasana, Urdhva Danurasana, Ustrasana etc.): In addition to bringing warming energy to the body, these poses can help manage anxiety
• Trikonasana and Pavritta Trikonasana

So essentially, enjoy eating lots of spices, cheese and butter, drink some
beer and do some fun yoga poses! Stay warm friends :)

Sources:

www.yogajournal.com

www.ayurveda.com

Poof

The opera last night was fantastic - and the story was such a great reminder that across the world, despite our outward differences and conflicts, we are all connected in our humanity.

MN Opera's sets are always amazing

Adults.

Also, I seem to recall promising you guys pictures of Sidney post-groomer. Hard to believe our wild and feral pup of the earth would, only hours later, be transformed into...this:

Who am I?

How could you let this happen to meeee....

hides his head in shame

I'm sure the real Sid is still in there somewhere - a good roll in the snow or two should do it. But, he is clean and that's what counts! Meanwhile, Mini decided to make her presence known lest we forget that we do in fact have more than one pet:

I can wash your hair?

bleh

What.

The Anusara Immersion was great - so fun to see everyone again, but sad that some people couldn't make it :( Great practice, great snacks - and I almost got into full king pigeon! I've been working on it for a few weeks, but I have really tight shoulders... it'll come eventually :) That's one of the many things I love about yoga - I never feel like I have to push myself to "achieve" a certain level or pose. I have total confidence that my body is physically capable of every single pose in the syllabus, it just takes commitment and practice.

Now we're just hanging out watching Party Down Season 1 on DVD with dinner and a glass of wine. At this time last year I probably would have been writing a paper on a Sunday night...nope, don't miss homework at ALL. Giant comfy sweatshirt, yoga pants, and wine - yesssss....

Another weekend gone, another Monday morning upon us...but luckily this week isn't too bad, because it is extra-short! I'm in the office Monday and Tuesday, and working remotely (from home) on Wednesday, and then... holiday weekend!!! Happy Thanksgiving week, all :)

Poof

The opera last night was fantastic - and the story was such a great reminder that across the world, despite our outward differences and conflicts, we are all connected in our humanity.

MN Opera's sets are always amazing

Adults.

Also, seem to recall promising you guys pictures of Sidney post-groomer. Hard to believe our wild and feral pup of the earth would, only hours later, be transformed into...this:

Who am I?

How could you let this happen to meeee....

hides his head in shame

I'm sure the real Sid is still in there somewhere - a good roll in the snow or two should do it. But, he is clean and that's what counts! Meanwhile, Mini decided to make her presence known lest we forget that we do in fact have more than one pet:

I can wash your hair?

bleh

What.

The Anusara Immersion was great - so fun to see everyone again, but sad that some people couldn't make it :( Great practice, great snacks - and I almost got into full king pigeon! I've been working on it for a few weeks, but I have really tight shoulders... it'll come eventually :) That's one of the many things I love about yoga - I never feel like I have to push myself to "achieve" a certain level or pose. I have total confidence that my body is physically capable of every single pose in the syllabus, it just takes commitment and practice.

Now we're just hanging out watching Party Down Season 1 on DVD with dinner and a glass of wine. At this time last year I probably would have been writing a paper on a Sunday night...nope, don't miss homework at ALL. Giant comfy sweatshirt, yoga pants, and wine - yesssss....

Another weekend gone, another Monday morning upon us...but luckily this week isn't too bad, because it is extra-short! I'm in the office Monday and Tuesday, and working remotely (from home) on Wednesday, and then... holiday weekend!!! Happy Thanksgiving week, all :)

Into the Wild

This morning, we took Sidney and met our friends Emily and Eric at the dog park. As far as we know, he's never been to an off-leash park so we wondered how he would handle it, but nothing could have prepared us for how thoroughly Sid would embrace the wilderness.

Emily and Eric brought their dog Emmy - Emmy was Sid's "sister" for a few weeks when he was a foster at their house (we actually found Sid through Emily :) ), so at least there was one familiar face.

At home, Sid loves three things:

1) Napping on the couch

2) Napping on the bed

3) Eating

At the dog park, Sid loves other things:

1) Running and bounding

2) Barking

3) Becoming one with the earth

It didn't take long for this to happen:

How did I get in this lake?

We totally did not see it coming. He just bounded in like he owned the place. After his dive in the lake, and subsequent run through/faceplant in the mud and dirt, Sid decided that the woods were his home.

I fly unseen through the wild forest...the trees are mine

This log is mine

After his adventures, our formerly white dog looked like this:

Oops

Good thing we'd already planned on taking him to the groomers this afternoon. Now he looks much different -I haven't uploaded the pics yet but um...he looks hilarious. Poor Sid. They floofed him and it is ridiculous.

It also seemed that we picked the right time to head home, because by 12:30 it was SNOWING. As in, white stuff on the ground. Luckily, I was prepared:

Best tea on the planet

This mug makes me laugh

Mug of tea in hand, I turned on the Frank Sinatra Holidays station on Pandora and set to work putting together some paper snowflakes! The snowflakes came in a kit from paper source and were a bit of work to assemble ... they also called for extra materials, some of which I didn't have, so I had to improvise a bit.

Mini totally snuck up on me while taking this photo. Luckily she didn't actually destroy all of my hard work, but it was close!

Tonight, Ben and I are headed to the opera! This means I have to put on respectable clothes on a non-work day, but that's cool. I'm really excited to see Silent Night - the story is based on the screenplay for the film Joyeaux Noel by Christian Carion, a recounting of the Christmas Eve truce that took place on WWI's western front. MN Opera tries to incorporate a new work or premiere into each of its five-show seasons, and Silent Night is a world premiere. Can't wait to see it!

Tomorrow I'm skipping choir for the Immersion reunion! In case you're wondering what the heck that is...two of my teachers held a 100 hour Anusara Immersion last year and I took the plunge and did all three parts! The immersion is a deep-dive in to Anusara immersion and philosophy, delivered through practice, lecture and conversation. It's also a pre-requisite for teacher training, and to be honest, I think every TT program should have such a prerequisite. I had such an amazing time, and even though I've seen most of my immersion friends since we finished in June, I can't wait for us to all practice together again!

Have a great Saturday night!

So disappointed...

For at least 10-15 seconds during yoga tonight, I somehow managed to convince myself that it was Saturday. The realization that it was, in fact, Sunday night came as a rude awakening. In any case, we had a great (if too short) weekend. Friday night involved a lot of this:

Curled up on the couch with Community, a warm and comforting bowl of soup, my amazing husband and two fuzzy friends - a great, relaxing start to the weekend!

The soup is Heidi Swanson's "A Good Soup for the Sick" from 101 cookbooks - I added kale and collards for some greenery

dawww.....

DAWWWW....

Since we adopted Sidney, we've gotten into the habit of getting up early on Saturday so we can take him for a good long walk. There are three necessary components for a successful Saturday morning walk - coffee, a puppy, and a beautiful lake path. Check, check, annnnd check!

8oz Black Miel from Bull Run - my favorite drink from my favorite local coffee shop!

Lake Calhoun

And puppy :)

Sid behaved himself quite well, and only barked at a couple of other dogs. His interactions with his peers are quite odd - when he meets another dog, he's fine until they've been sniffing at each other for a few seconds. Then, he flips out and starts barking like crazy...but when we remove him from the offending dog's presence he starts whining like "hey guysss why are we leaving our new friend?!?" So we've come to the conclusion that he doesn't actually hate other dogs, he just has terrible social skills. Barking = friend making...right? No, Sid. False. We'll get there.

We went to two parties on Saturday night - I really wanted to spend time with both groups of people and would have preferred to stay for all of both parties...but I didn't want to miss either so we had to split our time. We started out at my friend Ellie's place for a potluck with a few friends of mine from grad school. The food was fantastic, but the highlight was definitely Ellie's dramatic reading of... well... I don't want to get into too many details, but let's just say it was hilarious.

"...the accused then plugged his nose and proceeded to jump in to the water, yelling 'I'm not scared of you!"

From there, we headed north of downtown to my friend Emily's place for board games and wine! It was a great time. I know board games sounds totally dorky...and it is...I'll own my dorkishness any day. Only great things can come from an awesome group of people, a few bottles of wine, and charades. True story.

Emily, Tyler, Amanda, Ben, Justin, Biz...good friends, good times.

Portrait of a Tyler. The bow tie confuses me.

This morning after choir, I had a great afternoon at my parents' house while Ben was running errands. I haven't been up to their place in six weeks - since I cat-sat Maggie - and I love being there in the fall. They live on a lake in the woods, and the leaves are just beautiful. I went for a walk with my parents, and then had a long chat with my sister Julianna, who was there working on her CV for grad school applications. My little sis is an adult...how did this happen??!?

In a related story, Mini has recently discovered her long-suppressed love for empty paper bags. Leave a paper bag anywhere and within approximately one nanosecond she is all over it, driven wild with excitement by the endless possibilities of a portable cavernous space with handles. Earlier this morning she managed to get her head stuck in the handle of a Whole Foods bag - unperturbed, she proceeded to wriggle her entire body through the handle.

Inspired by this earlier success, while I was gone at yoga she decided to try the same trick with a Patina bag containing my new, very glittery Christmas wreath. The result was that the wreath went for a joy ride through the living room, glitter was all up in everyone's business and I'm still picking sparkles off of the cat. Wreath is fine. Cat is bejazzled. Living room has been vacuumed... just a normal day.

The traumatized wreath

Now, Ben and I are having a Bollywood extravaganza! Homemade hyderbad-style Mango Chicken (thanks Ben!), Kurkure and a Shah Ruk Kahn film... perfection.

Yes.

Happy weekend everyone! And if you actually managed to stick it out and read this entire post about my somewhat lame and boring life...I now reward you with this photo:

The cuteness may kill you. Seriously.