Illumination and Freedom

"By persistent and sustained practice, anyone and everyone can make the yoga journey and reach the goal of illumination and freedom." — B.K.S. Iyengar

Gardening of the Heart

"If you think you're enlightened, go visit your family."
- Ram Dass

There's a lovely article in the November issue of Yoga Journal based off of this quote. It doesn't appear to be currently available on the website, or I'd give you a link to it. Go buy the November issue - read "Branching Out" by Sally Kempton. By now the December issue of YJ might be the one on Newsstands... but if the November issue is still available - you'll notice it. It's Orange with the lovely KK Ledford on the cover wearing fuchsia clothes and long blonde hair. Actually, I don't care if you buy the magazine - stand in the aisle and read it if you must - just read it.

"On this powerful New Moon plant your prayerful seeds of reconciling with anyone with whom you are in conflict."

- John Friend via Twitter as @anusarafriend

These two quotes go together really well I think. If you have some tension building about visiting family for the holiday - just remember it's never too late to plant your prayerful seeds of reconciling.

Mark Understands Ahimsa

I wrote about Ahimsa a while back... and I've written about my retarded love and protection Of Slugs. Yeah, just some cross-referencing there. No real point.

I like Mark - in this post he seems like a yogi that's worrying quite a bit about ahimsa. I can't really speak on the behalf of the Universe, but I'm pretty sure Mark is in the clear on this one. Must've been accidental - and he clearly feels bad about it. Fortunately (or unfortunately?) law enforcement doesn't count worms as murder victims... so his lapse of attention shall likely be forgiven. Now if only he can forgive himself - he'll be peachy keen.

For more about Mark visit the webcomic Mark Doesn't Understand Animals. I like it.

Shipping Gifts with Ahimsa

You might be asking "What does Ahimsa have to do with shipping gifts?"  Recall that ahimsa means non-violence. As a yogi, I care about doing things in as "green" a manner as possible to avoid undue harm to the Earth. I also want to protect my loved ones' gifts from harm during transit. This can be taken all the way to protecting my friend from the disappointment of receiving a box of broken junk. It's all about taking great care. Get creative and the packing & shipping of gifts doesn't have to be a drag that creates lots of meaningless trash.

Note: Tomorrow is the last day most places can guarantee Christmas delivery with standard shipping.
Baked Goods:
When shipping baked goods things like moist/dry, freshness, and how well it can handle being drop-kicked need to be taken into consideration.

• Pack like cookies together. Cookie bars packed with ginger snaps will soften up your ginger cookies making them lose their snap. I've also had the issue with gingerbread making everything in the package taste like gingerbread. Ugh. 
• Stack and seal small piles of cookies. Flat cookies work well with plastic wrap, round cookies work better with things like jars and tiny loaf pans with lids. Use your imagination - egg cartons, muffin tins, oatmeal containers - all of these can make a fine container for your edible gifts. Just pack it tightly. 
• Fill your container with cookies - now shake it. You should hear nothing. If it actually shakes - things will break. Soft cookies don't care, but brittle or fragile cookies will not make it in one piece if you can hear/feel them move. I like to fill in the spaces between my cookies with tissue paper because it's festive and cushy.

 Cookies & Other Gifts:

• Place your gifts in the smallest box possible. This equals less expensive shipping and less space to fill with packing materials. Again - if you can feel/hear it shake - it's not packed enough. If it seems slightly over-full it's about right. 

• Remember the 3Rs when packing a box. Reduce (see above), Reuse, Recycle. If you have packing peanuts, bubble wrap, and/or a bunch of used paper lying around - use it. I hate packing peanuts and yet they keep showing up, so I try to reuse them to ship gifts. Paper can be shredded and used as packing material. Fabric scraps could work too if you have a ton of them lying about. 
• My Favorite Packing Material - Popcorn. Air popped popcorn is a lightweight, edible, biodegradable, faintly scented, cheap package filler. I use it all the time. Some people love it, some people find it annoying because they don't tend to expect it to come flying out of the box when they open it. *shrug* Sure beats packing peanuts. 
• Pad their gift in something they can wear or use - scarves, towels, gloves, tea towels, small blankets, burp cloths, pajama pants, etc. If your recipient likes to make pillows or small stuffed things you could even use that fluff you can buy in bulk or pull from an old (washed and dried) pillow.

Wrap Your Gifts in Joy

It's Wednesday, so it must be time for another frivolous picture-filled Christmas post! Now that most of the gifts have been purchased... it's time to wrap them. Some people like to wait until all the gifts have been bought and then have a grand wrapping extravaganza all at once. Some people even like to have a "wrapping party" and make a whole social event out of it. I don't do either of these things because I get very excited about each gift and want to wrap it and make a whole presentation out of it as soon as possible - like immediately. Also because I order a lot of stuff online and it shows up when it shows up.

I've always been the person that people would come to if they needed a gift wrapped. Whether because they didn't like wrapping gifts, they had an oddly shaped package to wrap, or they just wanted the biggest perfectionist alive to deal with it. If you need a package wrapped - I am your girl. The last few years, (in the name of my love for trees) I've gone anti-wrapping paper year round. I plan on going all furoshiki and wrapping my gifts in cloth once I'm out of paper, but first I have to use up the paper I already had.  Sometimes I don't even use paper because I like the "rustic" look of just throwing a ribbon on a plain package.

Regardless of how you do things - here are a few creative, sometimes eco-friendly ideas for your recipient's enjoyment and general festive flair. Just remember, wrapped gifts being shipped should be as flat as possible. Pomp and fluff tend to get squashed in transport. As of Saturday, it will be only one week until Christmas, so if your gifts need wrapped or more "Wow" - the time draws nigh.

Treehugger

Scraplog

Bugs & Fishes

Tiny Happy

 
Enviromom

Laikonik

Southern Living

The top two photos are from Jordan Ferney, and Squawkfox - respectively.

How Many Yogins Does it Take...

If you've ever checked out my profile page - you've seen that I follow a lot of blogs. One blogger whose posts I rather enjoy is fellow yogi/teacher Jennifer Waters. I pulled today's post directly from her. I only pulled pieces, so if you want lots more silly yoga lightbulb jokes - you'll have to Go To Her Blog to get them.

How many Anusara teachers does it take to screw in a light bulb? Four. One to hold the bulb, one to outer-spiral the ladder to screw in the bulb, one to say what a great community light-bulb changing creates and one to clap when it is over.

How many Bikram teachers does it take to screw in a light bulb? Three. One to preheat the new bulb, one to screw it in and one to remind the light bulb changer to “Lockyourknees Lockyourknees Lockyourknees!"

How many Karma Yogins does it take to screw in a light bulb? Two. One to screw the new bulb in and one to help surrender the fruits of the old bulb’s illuminations.

How many Bhakti Yogins does it take to screw in a lightbulb? None. They just learn to love darkness.

How Many Power Yoga Teachers does it take to screw in a lightbulb? Three. One to reach for the bulb in utkattasana, one to sweat profusely and one to turn up the volume on the sound system.

How many Ashtanga Yoga teachers does it take to screw in a light bulb? Just one, except it is done while ujjayi breathing at 6am holding mula bandha with one leg behind the head.

How many Kundalini Yoga Teachers does it take to screw in a light bulb? None – they don’t change it, they just revive the old bulb with ‘breath of fire’.

Christmas in La Grande

Some of my family members have requested pictures of my holiday decor, so I figured I'd just share it with everyone. Fridays are good for frivolous picture-filled posts I think. My choices are being inspired by Scandinavian Christmas design, but I just started so it's still mixed in a bit here and there with my older more plastic Christmas items that I wasn't quite ready to part with. I figure within a couple years I'll have my theme good and fleshed out and things won't look so weird. It's not quite right, but I'll get it figured out over time. Eventually I'm hoping for a lot more nature, a lot less stuff.

Highlights: