heyamberrae:

we have a strategic plan. it’s called doing things.

shanereiser:

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Yesterday I ate some chocolate chili cherry cupcakes from Edith, who currently sells them through the Pailin Thai restaurant on Wiener Strasse. Even though I usually don’t like cupcakes, hers are delicious! Very moist, not too sweet—go try them out for 2 euros each.

today you are doing everything right

a reminder to do something strange and extravagant

yes and yes: Karma Cards! These are some awesome cards! Even though they are meant to be left as gifts for strangers, I’d like to keep them around to remind myself to not put off my happy life

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Become extremely aware. There were billions of micro decisions that lead us to the state of the world we live in today. We need to know that every single action matters and we need to make it count.

Q & A with Yehuda Berg: Spirituality, Soulmates & Relationships – MindBodyGreen—Yoga helps you become extremely aware of every breath, every muscle in your body, and eventually every thought. Every single action matters.

A relationship should not be viewed as the goal, it is the means to achieve the goal of becoming a more spiritual being. When we are in a relationship with others, we will get uncomfortable, we will be challenged and we will be forced to grow. That is spirituality. Today we look at relationships like a Hollywood movie, the wedding day is the last scene. They should make movies where it is the first scene.

Q & A with Yehuda Berg: Spirituality, Soulmates & Relationships – MindBodyGreen

Believe in yourself. Think about the future once a day and keep doing what you’re doing. Because I’m impressed. My regards to the family. Don’t let a day pass without a kind thought about them.

We’ll Know When We Get There: Sincerely, John Hughes — from John Hughes to his normal-person-non-celebrity teenage penpal

Remember, you’re only a stranger once. The more you talk to, the fewer there are.

The Importance of Talking to Strangers | Advanced Riskology

Don’t Hold Back (by nan lawson)

via 2.bp.blogspot.com

Sounds pretty cool but the coolest part I think is that she recommends as one possibility Savasana / corpse pose for 15-30 min a day as the yoga portion. So many people think that yoga is exercise, which it can be. But that’s not the most transformative part of yoga.

I love how she explains Savasana to people who don’t do yoga. For me, it is the most important part of my yoga practice. Giving myself the time to do absolutely nothing in our day of never-ending to-do lists and 24-hour news service and 1000 interesting blogs to read is LIBERATING.

If you are wondering if you should do Savasana, I’ll say this: Rest is wildly and tragically under-utilized and under-valued in the modern world. We push and push and push ourselves to the point of exhaustion and then we drink more coffee to keep up with our lives. So. If you are fried, hate yoga, have several children under the age of three, just had a root canal, are exhausted, and/or are energetically behind the eight-ball in every way, PLEASE DO SAVASANA FOR THE 21 DAYS. I promise you the pose will do it’s magic.

Savasana. Sava means corpse and asana means posture or pose. So corpse pose is the translation from Sanskrit. In Savasana, the idea is to imitate a corpse. Why would anyone want to do that you are thinking right? Well, folks, one thing that a corpse is, is STILL. By remaining motionless for some time, and keeping the mind still while you are fully conscious, you LEARN TO RELAX.  For a brief period the body, the mind , and the speech are still.  All parts of the body, skin, muscles, and nerves are relaxed.

Pretty starry nights is a cool tumblr of inspiring quotes.

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After I wrote my last post on my research concerning eco-friendly yoga mats, I decided to buy a rubber rather than plastic yoga mat.

While researching rubber mats, I found an enthusiastic review of the PrAna Revolution mat, a mat I hadn’t considered before. The only downside is that it weighs like a baby at 8.8 pounds and costs $90, which is a lot for something without a lifetime guarantee like a Manduka mat. There is a narrower and hence lighter version of it—the PrAna Neo Natural Yoga Mat, which weighs 7.6 pounds and costs only $40.77 if I buy it in hot pink from Amazon. For the other colors, it costs $67.95.

I decided not to get it, because a lightweight mat is important to me. I used to have back pain in college when I carried too many heavy books around town, so now I pack and travel light.

So back to the original contenders: Manduka Eko Lite, which weighs only 3.5 pounds, and the Barefoot Yoga original eco mat, which weighs around 4.5 pounds.

Unfortunately, the Manduka Eko Lite doesn’t seem to hold up well over time when one has a very active vinyasa or ashtanga practice. This comment confirmed my fears that the mat will biodegrade as I am using it:

“This mat isn’t everything I thought it would be after daily, intensive use. And now, about 6 months later, I’ve had to give it up altogether coz it’s started peeling even more and become just like the regular PVC mats with bits of flaky stuff. Then again, I’m a regular ashtangi, so unless you’re doing constant vinyasas and rolling over your toes and jumping through all the time, then I’d say don’t get this mat. Otherwise, if you’re doing a regular hatha or bikram practice, this eko-lite mat should be pretty cool. No break-in period either – it was great after the first wash and extremely grippy right out of the box.”

It seems to be a problem as well for the Barefoot Yoga mat. A reviewer complains about almost instant biodegradation unless one does only ‘gentle yoga’.

All this disintegration talk made me reconsider after all the Manduka Pro Lite yoga mat, especially after I read that all rubber mats are open-cell mats, meaning that they collect sweat and breed bacteria. I so do not want another open-cell yoga mat, since the only reason I am replacing my cheap yoga mat is not for cushioning, environmentally-friendly, or weight reasons. I am getting rid of it because it stinks!

It’s time to research a new yoga mat.

My current purple yoga mat is almost 10 years old. I bought it at the first yoga studio at which I regularly practiced, because they were charging $1 for a mat rental. They cut it from a long roll, so the edges are irregular. That’s partly why I love it: it has stuck by me since the beginning, and I have yet to meet someone with a self-cut mat edge.

Unfortunately, my yoga mat was made probably from PVC, short for polyvinyl chloride, a toxic material connected to cancer and off-gases toxic emissions. At first I didn’t mind. I thought that throwing away something I could still use and would replace just because it wasn’t green enough was wasteful. I found the little bits that came off of it little annoyances that I would just wipe away with my palms in between poses. The wear marks are reminders of my commitment to be on the mat every day.

But then it stunk. And there seems to be no way of getting rid of the smell of hours of sweaty practice from the plastic, since it is an open-cell material. Open-cell means that there is more grip to the mat, but that sweat can seep in. This is a breeding ground for bacteria and fungi. And after almost a decade, it is.

Based on this review of eco-friendly yoga mats, I have narrowed down my choices to a Manduka eKO Lite mat ($39 on amazon), Barefoot Yoga’s original eco yoga mat (normally $72, now with 15% off, so $61.20), and the Manduka ProLite ($58 on amazon).

Both Manduka eKO and Barefoot Yoga’s original eco yoga mat are made from rubber, but the latter has jute fibers mixed in. The reviews from both are great. In fact, in 2007 the Barefoot Yoga mat was recommended by the New York Times as their No. 1 eco yoga mat, when it was only $45.

But rubber, while a renewable and biodegradable material, is becoming a cash monocrop, leading to deforestation in the Amazon. Another negative is that it smells. And rubber can’t be used in direct sunlight, so I can’t use it at sunny vacation spots.

The Manduka ProLite is not advertised as eco-friendly, but it comes with a lifetime guarantee. And after having been married to my mat for 10 years, the lifetime guarantee is comforting. I like the idea of buying one mat that will last me in various incarnations for the rest of my life, since rubber is supposedly not as durable as other materials. Especially since for the price of the Barefoot Yoga mat, I could get the ProLite for life.

Unfortunately, it seems to be made from some scary material called TPE, short for Thermoplastic Elastomers, basically a cocktail of chemicals I have to sound out to read. On Manduka’s own site, they say that “the PRO line is made from a blend of polyester and eco-certified PVC.”

There seems to be no one right answer. And very few unbiased reviews (ie, not part of an online shop). So should I get a rubber mat, a rubber mat with jute mixed in, or a plastic mat that lasts a lifetime?

To stay calm and still: “her aim was to end her suffering. “I remember asking myself, what if I don’t make it into a fight?” she says. Retaliating and being fixated with right and wrong, she reasoned, would only cause spiraling suffering.

sunday life: in which i learn the beauty of not being right | Sarah Wilson

Instead of complaining about the questions I get, I should answer the question by sharpening the question. People almost always know the answer to the real question but the real answer is often scary. So we conjure up an ancillary question to distract us from reality. I also need to be more kind about peoples’ questions, by helping them figure out what their real question is.

In the second part of the book, the author Elizabeth Gilbert goes to her Indian guru’s ashram. A guru is just a teacher. Gilbert defines a guru as someone who brings light to darkness, someone who enlightens you.

I thought that Elizabeth Gilbert’s guru would have to be Amma, the hugging guru, whom I’ve seen twice in New York, but the internet tells me that her guru was Gurumayi of Siddha Yoga, someone I didn’t know before. 

Upon googling some more, I see that Gurumayi is now in seclusion and her ashram was in scandal. In fact, there is a blog devoted to “critical news of various yoga and guru groups.”

When I was in my ashram, we had Guruji, who was almost never there but didn’t display any of the 10 myths that Guruphilia busts about gurus. He gave me a great recipe to clear my sinuses with steaming cabbage. The only complaint I had about him was that he didn’t answer all of our questions in class. He didn’t hold himself up as the supreme ego, even though there was someone else in a leadership role who did so sometimes at the ashram.

It is really sad that people who have the power to affect positively so many people then abuse that power. It’s only human, isn’t it? One more reason I want to teach everything I know to my students, so that they become their own teachers—learning through their own bodies.

From Lagusta:

Do you know those gorgeous little bonbons that have adorable pink stripes or a plaid print, or even a tiny image of a Scotty dog or bow on them? Many, if not most, high-end chocolatiers make them. It’s really fun to color the ears of your chocolate Easter bunny a pretty pink, or to make a raspberry chocolate that’s colored with tinted red cocoa butter. I’ll never make these pretty chocolates, however, because all those colors are 100% chemicals. They are sold in sheets that you press onto chocolates, or in squeeze bottles or pots, and it’s just food dye.

“You must charge for your art. In everything – everything – there needs to be an exchange of energy. An equal one. One that fills me up. One that fills you up. If I give you a massage that nourishes and sustains and relaxes you, I ask you for money to nourish and sustain my life too. We must both be involved in the exchange, otherwise it is one sided. We must both be invested, so we both receive value. If I do not allow you to pay money for my service, I do a disservice to myself, but also to you. You must contribute too, in order to be fulfilled. You will value the things you pay for more. And my life will be better because I have helped your life be better. And your life will be better, because you have helped my life be better too. Everything – everything – must be an equal exchange of energy. It is sacred. Money is the manifestation of energy. Money is sacred too.”

Chic Vegan writes

most of us are raised with a poverty mentality. We think that cheaper always wins. We think that if we tough it out and pay our dues, one day we will be worth more. This couldn’t be any further from the truth. People equate dollars with quality – the higher the price the better the product. If you cheapen your value, whether it be your wages, your self esteem, or your relationship choices, people will consider you to have less value than the next person that holds themself in high regard.

I’m choosing to make my yoga class donation-only for 2 reasons.

1. I want yoga to be accessible to everyone,  whatever their resources—yoga to the people!

and

2. I am not totally legal to do this in Germany, so doing it on a volunteer basis not for pay is one way to get around that until I am fully legal. I didn’t want to wait for the paperwork to go through before I teach, simply because with or without paperwork, this is work I enjoy and find challenging.

But I think Chic Vegan raises a good point, that in our capitalistic society where people are judged sometimes based on their earning capacity, perhaps people won’t think that I am good because I am asking for donations.

But my integrity tells me to stick to donations for the moment. I love the idea that some people might donate more so as to compensate for others who can’t. If it doesn’t work out and my papers come through, I’ll start charging a sliding scale.

Are you happy?

A few months ago I read a piece in the New York Times about a woman who ran many marathons throughout her life. On her death bed she turned to her husband and said, “I understand now why we do it, why we run.” Puzzled her husband replied, “Why?” She answered, “Because we can.”

I’ve been thinking about that a lot for the last few days. Because we can. While we are healthy and able bodied, we must move about as much as possible. When my mother was hospitalized for the last few years of her life, I would go to see her almost every day. I traveled by bus two hours each way, and started my illustration career by her bedside, using her phone to talk to art directors and using the hospital fax machine to send rough illos. I recall trying to “give the impression” that I was working in my studio when talking on the phone, when in reality I was trying to feed my mother terrible puréed hospital food. It was challenging at times. And every day that I would leave the hospital I thought, “I must enjoy this fresh air, this sunset, this rain, this snowstorm, this movement, for every person in this hospital who cannot.”

And i still remember this feeling thirteen years later. And on my runs I do not think too much about distance or trying to be good at it, or perfecting something. I just want to feel my muscles and my lungs and breathe the fresh air and feel the ground under my feet (I wear barefoot shoes so it’s as close to shoeless as possible).

Keri Smith is always so clear and dead-on. She never holds anything back. This is how I feel about yoga too: not trying to be good or achieve every posture perfectly. I just want to be aware of every single part of my body and to feel alive in every cell until I am tired.

I love this! No correct clothes! Even I caved in to the Lululemon marketing in February, I have always worn the most beat up clothes to yoga…

I usually don’t like white, but this combination of gold and white makes me think of angels…specifically, my angel of a honey.

So, there are morels in Berlin to be found!! But no one on the internets is telling me either in English or in German…

I’m a really big believer that we all have this voice inside of us, & that voice is God talking to us, & we are all magical, & we all have something as specific to do as our fingerprint. & everybody should go out & do that. & I think between the ages of 15 & 32, don’t worry about getting married, don’t worry about settling down, don’t worry about having a baby. Give birth to yourself.” — Kelly Cutrone

http://galadarling.com/article/things-i-love-thursday134

If I’m not saying “HELL YEAH!” about something, then say no. Meaning: When deciding whether to commit to something, if I feel anything less than, “Wow! That would be amazing! Absolutely! Hell yeah!” – then my answer is no. When you say no to most things, you leave room in your life to really throw yourself completely into that rare thing that makes you say “HELL YEAH!

No more yes. It’s either HELL YEAH! or no. | Derek Sivers

Current menu from Dos Palillos in Berlin—doesn’t look so great for vegetarians.

From the 12-course 45 euro menu, there is marinated vegetables / tsukemono mix, egg omelette / onsen tamago, tempura, vegetable dumpling, and mango mudding…meh. Of course, I could also drink the aperitif + maybe eat some maki.

From the 16-course 60 euro menu, there is catonese walnuts, salad, the same egg omelette / onsen tamago, tempura, baby vegetable wok, sponge cake and seasonal fruit preserved through osmosis with ginger and sake. Again, the aperitif + some maki.

The man who sent me this email assures me that there would be more seasonal offerings that are vegetarian, but I just don’t know if they would be delicious or special enough to justify the high (for Berlin) prices.

Plus, I hate leaving expensive meals hungry!

For whom is the class?

If you work a lot with your hands as a musician, massage therapist, cook, or computer worker, you have active hands. But then again who doesn’t do everything with their hands? New mothers, gardeners, everyone uses their hands a lot. Come to my yoga class, and learn how to stretch and relax your hands and arms along with the rest of your body.

Sarah Wilson tells everyone how to lose weight and make your skin glow:

Tips to sleep better: eat turkey and pepitas to sleep better; please don’t eat avocado, cheese or rice (!) at night (they contain tyramine which blocks melatonin production), nor grapefruit. Go to bed by ten. If you don’t, your body will ache (body repair occurs between 10pm and 2am). And get 7-8 hours. Or you’ll get fat. There that woke you up! Sleep debt causes cortisol to rise, which shuts down metabolism (more on this in a few weeks).

However, the real secret to perfect, age-restoring, fat-fighting, cancer-preventing sleep is….got your fluorescent highlighters ready?…routine.

sunday life: in which I learn to sleep | Sarah Wilson

That means,

on Day 1: eating only raw fruits and vegetables (no bananas or mangos—too much sugar)

on Day 2: drinking warm water with lemon juice

and on Day 3: drinking juice in the morning, soup for lunch, and a light dinner.

Unfortunately, thinking about the cleanse is already making me want to load up on chocolate croissants and coffee….

The Koenigliche Gartenakademie in Dahlem, Berlin, which are gardens designed in the English style. Plus, they have lovely confections to eat at their Café Lenné!

She makes it seem so much easier than a blog…and a fun way of taking notes on the world.