Jai Saraswati (and Statehood for the People of DC)
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- Asana, Pranayama, and Yoga Practice | Food for the Body | Food for the Mind (Yoga Philosophy, etc) | Gardening | Meditation | Poetry
Lila (Play of Shiva and Shakti)
Another perfect
Two sweet cherry tomatoes
One yellow. One red.
And some coriander about to flower.
Signs Around Town (Temporary and Best Taken Out of Context)
Peace and light, E — Posted with WordPress for BlackBerry.
Gardening, Cleaning, Cooking (and Vinyasa Krama and Kali)
Vinyasa krama is the art of sequencing. How a yoga practice or flow is sequenced can determine whether it is uplifting or inward going, exhilarating or calming. When we are trained and attentive, we start to know the most optimal order to open our bodies and our focus to align with the time of day, the season, the weather, our mood, and our health. This incredible art helps us be positioned and aligned in a way that we feel free in time and space, rather than being constrained by time and space.
This morning while I was out in the garden, I was thinking a lot about vinyasa krama and the goddess Kali — goddess of, among other things, time and change, and thus, of sequencing. I woke very early, brought to consciousness by the long light of the solstice even through closed curtains. As I went about my morning, rinsing the sprouts while heating the water for my morning coffee; cutting back the greens and herbs before starting breakfast; doing the major pruning and clean-up before doing more decorative garden work; finishing cooking before taking out the recycling; applying a facial mask before starting to vacuum; never walking up or down the stairs empty-handed; waiting to gather the bills until after I was clean and waiting for friends to arrive, etc., I realized how important sequencing is to the richness of my days. By knowing the best way to order tasks for my needs, my day is simultaneously productive, unhurried, and enjoyable.
By the time my friends arrived around noon, I had meditated, taken care of the garden, gathered food for my own breakfast and to share with friends, talked to neighbors, cleaned the house and myself, done a little asana, written in my journal, and sorted the mail. Had I not known from long experience and conscious attention how to sequence all the different elements, knowing which ones went together, which took longest, which ones if done earlier or later would create double clean up, etc, I would have been tired and the tasks unfinished. Instead, after brunch, I came home to a tended garden, a freshly made bed, and time to enjoy a quiet evening.
These sequencing principles also apply for me on major projects at work. If ordered one way, the work is exponentially harder, the deadline a fearsome thing; if ordered another way, everything comes together mostly as it should when it should. When I order my work with attention (this assumes others cooperate with this endeavor), I have time to do a good, careful job and still take breaks, eat well, and leave the office in time to take or teach yoga class.
Whether you are doing your home yoga practice or cooking or working, choose to sequence the elements of your practice, your activities, or your day, with attentiveness, reverence, love, and respect, and Kali will support you and not show you her most fearsome face.
Acqua al 2 (and Community)
Last night, after yoga class, I went with a couple of students to the new Italian restaurant at Eastern Market, Acqua al 2. I’d been shown the inside before it opened, but this was the first chance to go and eat. A long-time neighbor, yoga student, and friend is the mom of one of the co-owners and has known the other owner since childhood. The co-owners were both were raised in the District and have returned after college, along with many of their friends to live, and work, and be with family. I went to eat with the eagerness of knowing my friend and her family better and supporting them, more than for the purpose of needing to be one of the first to check out a new dining opportunity on the Hill, although that was certainly another pleasure.
As we planned the dinner (we have been awaiting the opening for some months and talking about going since then), I thought about how different it is to go to a business where I feel a connection to the proprietor or the workers. I felt more open to what would be there, more joyousness at its very existence, and a yearning to find it wonderful and be supportive. When the business is run by a stranger, or even more removed, some corporation whose duty is mostly to shareholders, the natural forgiveness for quirks that we have for those we like, welcome, and love is missing, and we ourselves miss out the essence of true relationship. Getting to share this new place with my friends was a superb reminder how important is community and how we can support it and cultivate it.
What a delight that, even as a NY-bred food snob, I can cheerfully recommend the restaurant. It is larger than most restaurants on the Hill, so it does not feel like a neighborhood-style Hill restaurant. but I think the neighborhood was ready for something larger. The atmosphere is lovely: communal seating in front near the bar for those who have forgotten to make reservation (yes, you already need them, unless you are coming after 9 [kitchen serves until 11]), spacious, pleasantly lit, comfortable tables, and a great mural on the outside, which transforms a concrete wall a foot along the side of the restaurant into a view of Florence.
We started with the “zuppa del giorno,” which yesterday in keeping with the unseasonably cool weather, was a warm bread and tomato soup that was a rich and flavorful concoction. Given the lateness of the hour, we didn’t have the entrees (though I’ve heard good reports). We shared at our table for three, the pasta sampler (for two), which was five different vegetarian pastas of the chef’s choosing, and the salad sampler (which you can get as all vegetarian if you ask). We each had different favorites of the pastas, but all were good and very classic in preparation and presentation. The salads were light and fresh, with an emphasis on bitter greens, which I like, and were an excellent foil to the rich pastas. The pastas came out one by one, giving an opportunity to have two or three bites to savor, with then a little wait in between for the next one. This was not a meal to be hurried; things come at a European pace. I was too full for dessert, but my friends insisted. The cheese cake is the kind that is more like mousse than the heavy American cheese cake and my companions raved. I had a fruit tart that was well-prepared — most of which I took home. I will enjoy eating it today after speaking on a telephone seminar with people I know are asking challenging questions.
The restaurant is still getting its rhythm. It was packed with lines out the door even at 8pm on a Tuesday night just two weeks after its opening, which is no doubt inviting the staff to live up to intense challenges. The food is sure to be good, and if you go with the generosity you would have for family and friends starting out on a new venture, you will have a delicious experience.
Note: Plenty of vegetarian options with the pastas and salads, but it would be harder to find vegan on the menu (given that it is a Florentine restaurant). My only wish based on last night’s meal, is that the restaurant would use more environmentally friendly containers for taking things home. Right now, it is using foil trays with a plastic cover, so if you anticipate bringing part of a dish home, try to remember to bring your own carry container.
“Yoga is Universal” (Sri K. Pattabhi Jois)
Although I never specifically studied ashtanga yoga, my life and practice have been influenced by Sri K. Pattabhi Jois‘s yoga and his offerings to the west. I practiced a good flow this morning to honor his teachings and his life. Sri K. Pattabhi Jois died earlier this week at the age of 94.
