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Gardening from the Heart
Today’s harvest somehow wanted to be shaped into a flaming heart. The pest control technician came for the quarterly visit. I gave him a sack of beans for him and his wife to have for dinner.

Love Magic/Magic Love
I looked at these words hanging together and thought I wasn’t quite certain what was intended to be said. Consider:
Read from top to bottom or try it out from left to right.
Put in a comma or an exclamation point.
Just an period or perhaps two. Omit punctuation entirely.
Think of all the meanings of both words and mix them around with various punctuation marks.
What about a question mark (or two)?
Then stop all that and just let meaning come to you.Afternoon Nap — Sometimes a Necessity (Like Savasana)
Sometimes, the best thing to do is nothing.
The past few days have been very full. Last week was an intense week at work. I am enjoying having a house guest and deepening a new friendship. The workshop sessions on Friday night and this morning with Amy Ippoliti at Willow Street were wild and rich with information and play. I always enjoy teaching my two Saturday classes. Among all this activity, I hosted a little dinner party last night, which was quiet, but bubbling over with conversation.
After the workshop this morning, instead of going right home, I rode to Dupont Circle and had brunch with a fellow yogini, after which we walked up to Columbia Heights through Meridian Hill Park. We had a fantastic time talking and catching up, and I loved doing a little exploring in a part of the city that is outside my usual haunts.
All of these activities were healthy and life enhancing, but still, it was a lot. Just as including savasana is critical to assimilating the benefits of a good yoga practice into the fabric of being, taking a nap this afternoon before having one more evening of visiting with my friend Elisa and my getting ready for a couple of jam-packed, demanding work days, the sweet rest of a Sunday afternoon nap was critical for me to allow all the delights of the weekend to settle and integrate, to feel rested and enriched, instead of feeling like I need another weekend to rest from the weekend.
One Bright Rose
The first wild flush of the rose in the back garden passed a couple of weeks ago. But even in the heat, with leaves distressed by the beginnings of summer black spot, there are still a few exquisite blooms.

- Asana, Pranayama, and Yoga Practice | Community and Family | Food for the Mind (Yoga Philosophy, etc) | Meditation
Overheard in the Stairwell at Work
When I was coming downstairs in my building today, I overheard someone say to her colleague, “she said it wasn’t yoga; it was a core workout.”
I didn’t hear anything else. I wonder whether it was the teacher, a student, or an observer who was the “she” being quoted. I wonder what the person I heard speaking and what the person she quoted meant by yoga.
As for the “core workout,”I’m pretty sure, based on the location of the conversation–stairwell in a Federal office building–that by “core workout” it meant a class in the gym focused on toning and strengthening abdominal muscles.
In contemplating this snippet of conversation, I decided that yoga is the best core workout I know, if by core we mean center or essential–the very heart of being. What is yoga other than practicing and applying certain techniques to try and better live and act from the core of our being? Toned abs, if we get them, are just a bonus.


