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DEAR FRIENDS, Instead of running errands yesterday, I took both dogs, Rainbow and Bella to walk the trails at Harms Woods located at Golf and Harms road. It was a perfect day with the warm air and sunshine. The colors were magnificent. The dogs had a blast and my spirit was nourished by nature. Give yourself a gift now. Take time out to slow down. Walk, sit and meditate and absorb the colors around you. You need to absorb and store the healing colors down as we hunker down and prepare for the winter months! Many people of all ages are...

Enjoy this clip of Janet Stone's DVD's...

Combining spin, hoop dance and more than eight styles of yoga, Breathe yoga studio offers classes to suit every body.  This is Denver’s premier boutique studio, giving the student a very different experience that can be found in a sterile gym space. The intimate class sizes ensure individualized instruction from Breathe’s diverse and experienced teachers.
Breathe’s current classes are as follows: SpinFit, Vinyasa yoga, Ashtanga yoga, Hatha and Hatha Flow yoga, Integral yoga, Hoop Dance, Rocket yoga, Restorative yoga (with yours...

 
Yoga has been a part of my life since I was fourteen.  It has always been there for me in many different stages of my life and I have come to rely on it deeply.   The most tangible and profound stage was giving birth to my children.  During the birth of my first child I had childbirth classes that were invaluable to me and I had a wonderful midwife that supported me and answered my questions.  But… it was the consistent practice of yoga over a period of time that allowed me to translate that knowledge into my body.  Yoga enabled me to feel what it was like to tap into a needed boost of strength and energy.  It reminded me how important and powerful focusing on the breath is; especially in the moments of feeling uncertain or inadequate.   During...

A little over a year ago I returned from three months of travel in Bali and Australia.  The time spent outside of my ‘yogasphere’ proved rich and rewarding.  I put a few of the nuggets I dredged out of the stream of my consciousness into my pocket to be carried along and worked smooth like my great grandmother’s worry stone.  While some are still jagged with neglect, repression and hard-wired tendencies, others are showing glimmers of their True Nature.  I am simultaneously the mineral and the process revealing it, distinct but not separate, layered with the mud of identification and attachment yet essentially and irreversibly super shinny and bright.  Heat (tapas), or the physical and mental discipline exerted in the practice of yoga, is the seat of the alchemical fire that converts base metal into gold. 
Sometimes I reel from all the hot pokers I have in the coals; my practice, my community and my family keep me putting one foot in front of the other.  I’ve stopped looking for the end of the proverbial path because it’s all about the here and now.  I don’t imagine that I’ll ever stop shedding my skin and, if I do, I can trust one of you will get me with a hot poker of my own design. I am grateful.   
This article was to be focused on yoga for climbers.  Clearly I digress, but there truly is a connection, albeit tenuous, that led me down the above rabbit hole.  Mainly, that one of the gems I took from my time Down Under was the desire to remain connected to the Earth upon my return to Seattle.  Oddly enough, my re-entry was marked by a house-sitting job worlds away from the little caravan in a Eucalyptus grove outside of Gympie Australia - an ultra modern condominium on the corner of 5th and Mercer, complete with a view of the Space Needle.  I don’t have much Earth in my astrological chart, I am steamy combination of fire and water.  I realize now that this is why a sense of place and home has always been so important to me.  Even when halfway around the...

 
Stepping back into life after a nourishing and transformative retreat can parallel navigating a class four rapid; scouting the run prior to putting-in is recommended.  When genuinely open to the retreat experience, the ‘to-do’ lists that clutter and fill my fast- paced urban lifestyle, fade away.  Attention is now free to explore the moment-to-moment unfolding of my existence.  In the beats between I am succinctly aware of the awesomeness of my perfectly unique experience while humbled to the omnipotence of Mother Nature.  And so it was with the Rafting & Yoga Retreat I co-lead with Winding Waters Rafting of Joseph, Oregon. 
A teachers once said that energy follows attention and that attention, at its core, is Love.  So hard did I fall for the majesty of the Salmon River that upon my return to Seattle I felt a stranger to my self-identified city girl reality – naked and disoriented.  On the massage table a few days later I realized that I had essentially left a piece of my Self on the river.  The image of a piece of my heart quite literally flying out of my body to commune in the wilderness sent ripples down my spine.  And what of the vacancy sign flashing in my chest?  Lyrics from the Postal Service song titled “Such Great Heights” chime in:
I am thinking it’s a sign that the freckles in our eyes are mirror images and when we kiss they’re perfectly aligned and I have to speculate that God himself did make us into corresponding shapes like puzzle pieces from the clay.
Is that what love is?  A Donnie Darko style worm flowing from my chest toward a reciprocal sized portal in another?  Is that why after a break-up the clichéd, “I’ll always carry a piece of you in my heart” is universally understood, even by the cynic.  One Valentine’s Day a lover sent me an anonymous story chronicling the valor of the heart’s trials and tribulations:
One day a young man was stood in the middle of the town proclaiming that he had the most beautiful heart in the whole valley. A large crowd gathered to admired his heart, for it was perfect. There...

Winding Waters Rafting & Yoga Retreat ~ Salmon River, Idaho ~ August 17-21 2009
Notes and recollections collected by Rob Brooks, participant (no dates or times  - we’re on river time):
Day 1 – Fear, doubts, new experiences…
Put in at Pine Bar and get wet…
Matt did his first set of rapids… he was jostled, drenched, and wondered if the guide knew what he was doing
Elizabeth was petrified and exhilarated after riding the first rapid on a raft… her infectious laugh made everyone smile
Penny, the geologist, was a font of river knowledge and lore… her mantra for handling the raft is ‘face my danger and be ready to  back away with my strong pull stroke
Gail let the yellow jackets eat her grape, called them her environmental friends, and enjoyed shared spirit with natural creatures, especially the mating dragonflies
Scott enjoyed watching Craig’s challenge of getting back into his kayak after the first time he fell out, and seeing a million stars in the sky at night
Christy enjoyed falling asleep and waking up under the stars
Rob (Frisbee Boy) hit the wall in the rapids and managed to push off and stay in his kayak (upright)… brought out a Frisbee and managed to get hit on the nose with it… Craig (Mother Theresa of the trip) applied bacitracin ointment for the rest of the week
Shannon had a perfect Pine Bar Rapid run, and enjoyed naming Rob ‘Frisbee Boy’
Craig had fun helping everyone do handstands on a chair and sharing his supply of MonAvi with anyone who would let him pour it down their throat
Putting up tents for the first time was amusing… how does this pole go through and over there?
James did a perfect job of cooking the salmon he brought back from Alaska
Yvonne enjoyed the fabulous dinner and making new friends
Laura enjoy singing around the campfire (everyone knew one verse – but only one - of dozens of songs), geology lesson, and petroglyphs… she didn’t enjoy getting stung by a wasp, whose sting troubled her for the rest of the week (environmental friends???)
Penny enjoyed watching everyone get into ‘relax mode’
Day 2 - Gaining Confidence and Skill
Laura fell out of her kayak in Lorna’s Lulu rapid headed for a big wall… in less than 5 seconds, she was back in the kayak, skirted disaster with deft paddle strokes , avoided the wall, and shot on down the rapid (which was renamed ‘Laura’s Lulu’)… she celebrated by doing Bird of Paradise asana on her duckie… the best Craig could do to match that was Lounge Pigeon
Elizabeth enjoyed the feeling of power on her first duckie kayak ride… like everyone, she really liked the...

BY JOHN ZIELONKA
 
Front Street in downtown Issaquah buzzes with activity throughout the day.  In the middle of this busy thoroughfare sits Hot Yoga of Issaquah, a sanctuary of relaxation, spiritual healing and rejuvenation. 
Owner Carina Ostebovik opened her studio in 2003 after eight stressful years at Microsoft.  “Yoga changed my life,” Ostebovik said.  “It started as a physical activity, but it eventually became a way of life for me.”
Carina’s yoga background encompasses over 14 years of practice and instruction.  Her studies took her to various parts of the world, including the University of São Paulo in Brazil...

I would honestly like to help devise teaching techniques to utilize when dealing with sufferers of ED & PTSD, but truthfully I don’t think empathy and compassion are things you can teach and even if you had catch phrases to hand out – they would be just that, insincere and inauthentic.
I am not sure you can teach someone how to empathize with a survivor of rape, someone dealing with PTSD or an ED – they can sympathize surely, but empathy is a whole different level of understanding that accompanies having gone through similar sets of circumstances.
The best advice I can give is to be sincere in concern, to wear appropriate clothing (this was stressed in my own teacher training through the temple as a way to follow Brahmacharya but in dealing with a student with ED I find it even more important not to wear clothing that draws too much attention to the body), and to keep in a yogic context and teach the importance of the yamas (with Shaucha being more for the teachers than the students since that one could aggravate students with ED):
   1. Ahimsa :Nonviolence. Abstinence from injury, harmlessness, the not causing of pain to any living creature in thought, word, or deed at any time. This is the main yama and all others serve to support this one.   2. Kshama : patience, releasing...

 
PLEASE CONSIDER THE FOLLOWING:
Up to 90 percent of the doctor visits in the USA may be triggered by a stress-related illness, says the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Today's business demands have put a tremendous strain on our global workforce. Longer hours coupled with fewer resources are pushing more and more management and employees to their breaking point. Combined with the need to achieve work-life balance stress is taking a tremendous financial and personal toll on US business profitability:
 

$300 billion per year or $7,500 each employee is paid out for stress-related compensation claims

1 million workers went on stress-related disability in 2004

75% of doctor...