Signs Around Town (Multiples)
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Unexpected Bloom
I looked up this morning to notice that an orchid from Trader Joe’s from before the pandemic, decided to bloom.
Geeta Iyengar, in Yoga, A Gem for Women, sums up the proper diet according to Ayurveda as follows:
“A balanced diet, in moderation, is the best. Ayurveda says that the stomach should be filled with two parts of solid food and one part of water, and that one part of the stomach should be kept free for the movement of air. Food which is not congenial to the system should be avoided. Too oily, dry, spicy, and sour foodstuff are not good for the system. A diet which is balanced, light, varied, and well cooked is ideal for health.”
In other words, to be healthy, we should eat fresh, varied, well-prepared, tasty food. We should eat with sufficient awareness to know enough the effects of what we eat on our energy level, sleep, digestion, and ability to move and think that we know what is good for our system in small, large, or any quantities (and eat mindfully in accordance with that knowledge). We should not eat to the point of fullness and beyond (this is a common suggestion in the West for losing weight, i.e., stop eating when you are full or right before — think getting away from the unrealistic American portion size). Any other dietary practices should serve to find this place of moderation and enjoyment, the two real keys to health and happiness with and in eating. Diets that take us away from balance will be hard to follow, unhealthy, and cause all sorts of other shifts in our mind-body. What is best for you depends on your own knowledge of yourself and your environment.
When out shoveling (see photos from tonight here), use these Anusara alignment principles as a mantra to keep yourself doing them: shins in, thighs out, tailbone tucked, upper arm bones integrated into the shoulder socket, shoulder blades hugged to the back of the heart. Oh yes, arm bones integrated, shoulder blades onto the back of the heart.
Afterwards, try a few slow sun salute variations to reintegrate and align. Follow with vipariti karani (legs up the wall), supported supta baddha konasana (supported reclining bound angle pose, and a few hip openers of choice.
I looked up this morning to notice that an orchid from Trader Joe’s from before the pandemic, decided to bloom.
The guy in the Apple store in Georgetown who showed me why I really wanted to walk out of the store with the IPad 2 had never heard the song “New Toy.” The year it came out, I was in London studying and being tragically hip; he was a year old give or take a few months. I suggested he find it on ITunes.
Three days of Ipad 2 ownership later, “New Toy” kept running through my head. Oh my god, and then I started hearing Nina Hagen infiltrating from the past. Was I really in New York when this song came out and kind of out of my mind? Yes I was. Does anything we experience ever completely fade away? Probably not, which is why the great yoga masters advise us to be careful what we bring into our consciousness, lest we establish new samskaras that draw us away from the light.
