here & there

Whew, I feel like I've been running around like crazy in the few days that I've been home! And this weekend appears to be a busy one....driving to Whitesburg tomorrow, teaching/working a half day at the studio Saturday, then Andy and I are going to Richmond to have a slumber party with the nieces and nephew (should be quite the party). Next weekend we'll be in Owensboro to celebrate Christmas with Andy's parents. And the next weekend will be fun with holiday parties, holiday baking get together, a very special class that I'll teach for a group, and the chakra workshop. Then we're off for a week to DC for Christmas! Yippy! Weekdays will be busy with getting ads ready for the new year, planning a very special new year's detox flow class (details in your newsletter that I literally JUST emailed out), working out a great partnership with the local Good Foods Co-op, getting ready for teacher training, getting #'s together for Mr. TaxMan, learning the in's and out's of this yoga software, getting the big blue house ready for the holidays, and finding time to gather round with family and friends to toast! Ahh, love the energy that goes hand in hand with the holiday season. I choose to view it as good positive energy swirling around instead of "oh my gosh I'm gonna go insane" energy!

Tis the season my friends! Don't forget that during these busy times, it can be very easy to "X" the yoga practice off the list. Don't do it!! Stick to your practice and it will help you to sail through the season!

PS - You have ONE more day to save 10% off our retreat to Mexico!!! Come, join us on the beach to do yoga, feel the warm breeze, walk the white sand beach and drink the best mango margaritas ever!

baby boy extravaganza

I got to meet two very special little men over the Thanksgiving holiday, Luke and Gabe. Luke belongs to Andy's sister and Gabe belongs to one of my BFF's I met and worked with in Texas. Andy and I had loads of time to relax, hang out with family and friends, and bond with these little boys. How precious are they?!

yoganese

I love the universal language of yoga. Last night we had a great guy from Philadelphia that visited us at Barefoot Works for the Level 2 class. I loved it that he was right up front and didn't miss a beat with any of the class. Once you learn "yoganese" and are familiar with the poses and their English and/or Sanskrit names you can roam from city to city, studio to studio taking classes and feeling like you're part of this great big worldwide yoga community. It really is pretty special.

I'll be taking a little break from the blogging world as Andy and I travel for the holiday. I hope that each of you have a happy and joyous Thanksgiving. I appreciate all of you near and far.

Gratitude unlocks the fullness of life. It turns what we have into enough, and more. It turns denial into acceptance, chaos to order, confusion to clarity. It can turn a meal into a feast, a house into a home, a stranger into a friend. Gratitude makes sense of our past, brings peace for today and creates a vision for tomorrow. ~Melody Beattie

teacher

"The mediocre teacher tells,

the good teacher explains,

the superior teacher demonstrates,

and the great teacher inspires."

William Arthur Ward

yoga this week

The following changes have been made to this week's schedule:

Wednesday: Yin Yoga cancelled. Please join me at 12:00 for a wonderful pre Thanksgiving day flow that will focus on gratitude and heart opening poses.

Thursday: Studio closed. Try to get your practice in early at home before your day begins. A few minutes of mindfulness will do wonders for the rest of your day.

Saturday: Join Teresa at 9:15 for a wondeful flow class that will help you to burn off the pumpkin pie!

good karma photos

Karma (Sanskrit: kárma (help·info), kárman- "act, action, performance"[1]; Pali: kamma) is the concept of "action" or "deed" in Indian religions understood as denoting the entire cycle of cause and effect described in Hindu, Jain, Sikh and Buddhist philosophies.

My dear sweet friend Shelli is hosting a holiday bazaar at her yoga studio this Sunday in Louisville. And I will be there selling my photos! Click here for the scoop. I've been working very diligently in picking them out, framing some, matting others, preparing a fun little statement for the back, and making a good karma card that goes with each one. I pondered what to call my "product". I wanted something that would be representative of me, my photos and what I believe. And I wanted it to be yogic of course. ;-) Good Karma Photos it is!

As I look at each of the photos I've chosen, I can recall the exact location and moment when I took them. Noting I took this one during sunrise as Andy and I left St. George Island to drive back to TX. We were excited for that vacation and excited for the upcoming months because we were moving back home to KY. Oooh and I took this one when my best friend and I happily strolled the streets of London and I took pictures of everything...like the beautiful red roses in a big bucket on the street corner, and this one was taken in Lake Tahoe on the morning of my lovely friends wedding on the beach. And this was was taken on the last morning of our Tulum retreat. I couldn't sleep so I got up at 4:30, waited for the sun to rise and strolled around taking pictures....taking all the beauty in one more time.

These photos remind me of the power of the present moment. I realize now in going back and seeing those photos, how real that ONE moment was when I captured the picture. These photos are infused with all sorts of positive energy and good karmic thoughts. Shouldn't we all be so lucky to be surrounded by pictures and memories that keep our spirits happy?

What I don't sell I'll have at the studio so you too can have the chance to surround yourself with good karma. ;-)

best seat in the house

I'm here at Coffee Times, like I am most Thursdays. I was quite excited when I walked in and found my favorite spot available. It's a hot seat, so it's usually taken...a cozy corner seat, next to the window AND an outlet to plug your laptop in. When this spot is taken (or when I really need to focus) I find my way to the back corner of the coffee shop where I'm not enticed by the action going on outdoors or all the pretty little books, journals, decorations and such.

I've been going through old emails, deleting those that I no longer need and filing those away that I may need. Feels good....kinda like cleaning out your closet and getting rid of the clutter. Each email that I delete feels like I'm throwing an old tshirt in the goodwill pile. I've been looking at stats for my web page, wondering about all the peeps that visit it. Who are you and where do you live? Have you done yoga, or want to? Does the website look friendly and welcoming? Do you love the soft pastel colors or do they remind you too much of Easter? Will you come and take yoga, or just think about taking yoga? I find comfort in knowing and believing that the people that come and do yoga at Barefoot Works are meant to be there.

I'm getting ready to do some planning and prep work for teacher training. It starts in January and I'm so excited. I have ten lovely ladies signed up so far. Ten more gals to go out and teach yoga to the world. I just LOVE it! Here are some moving words to ponder this afternoon...

"In my experience, most people are unhappy because they aren't being honest with themselves. Being truthful with yourself plugs you into your inner power. Whether it's your relationship with money or with a partner, you aren't going to be content or successful until you are connected to your heart and operating with all your energy. Quite simply, by making the right choices from a position of strength rather than weakness, you are bound to be happy."
Suze Orman

baby breathing

If you want to see how we all should really be breathing, look no further than a little baby. Now, they my friends know how to breathe properly. They sip air in, their bellies deliciously take the breath in, you can easily see their rib cage expanding side to side and it moves all the way into their chest filling their whole torso. Now that was a breath! This is how we all are meant to breathe. But we're not babies forever. We grow up, become adults, we worry about money, we stress about jobs, we get scared and nervous about many things in life. All of this "stuff" takes a toll on us in a number of ways. One thing being our breathing. We become accustomed to taking shallow breaths, we suck our belly in and breathe straight into the chest, or we simply hold our breath during stressful and challenging times.

Anyone that practices yoga knows the power of their breath. Pranayama is the practice of controlling your breath. It's also one of the 8 limbs of yoga, and considered the heart of a yoga practice by many. Your breath can do powerful things. Several times througout your day (and especially stressful times), simply notice your breath. What sensations do you feel? What are the qualities of your breath? Does your breath feel smooth and deep, or shallow and forced.

And even better, practice the yogic three part breath. Find a comfortable seat and begin to inhale and exhale slowly and deeply through your nostrils. See if you can feel and envision your breath moving up your body and filling up your torso. Inhaling to fill the abdomen, then the rib cage, then the collar bones. Then exhaling and reversing the breath from the collar bones, then rib cage, then gently pulling the abdomen in to completely empty the lungs. Continue this for 3-5 more minutes. Be very happy that you're breathing. It means that you're alive!

Enjoy your breath and enjoy y0ur day. :-)

global warming diet

A friend of mine sent a link to this article today. Health experts list a few ways that you can cut calories AND cut carbon dioxide....at the same time. How? Instead of driving your car, how about walking or biking for half an hour instead. There's bound to be somewhere that you can walk or bike instead of driving. Andy and I walk to our local CVS and a few local restaurants, my friend Shelli rides her bike to her yoga studio, Leigh Ann walks to her job at UK, and my brother Joel walks everywhere in Whitesburg. Where can you walk to?

In addition to walking, you can cut calories and help save the planet by eating less red meat. If you can't imagine yourself going completely vegetarian, maybe you and your family could have "Meatless Mondays". If more people would do this is would make a HUGE difference. The CNN article states, "A diet shift away from heavy meat consumption would also go far because it takes much more energy and land to produce meat than fruits, vegetables and grains." Plus the average American man eats 1.6 times as much meat as the government recommends.

Saving your health and the planet at the same time, simply by making a few simple changes.

weekend plans

"I still find each day too short for all the thoughts I want to think, all the walks I want to take, all the books I want to read, and all the friends I want to see." John Burroughs

Aren't you just amazed when I hear people say "I'm bored." I know I am. I look at them with this astounded look and ramble off random things they could do to fill their time. They look at me annoyingly and say "That's what YOU would choose to do." Ahh, good point.

What's on your list of fun things to do this weekend? Andy and I will be traveling to TX and spending Thanksgiving with his sis and her new babe Luke. So we're hosting a" giving of thanks" par-tay here at the big blue house with my family. We're all gathering to hang out, catch up, cook and bake, dance, laugh, and cause a little bit of trouble. I'll be doing some fun things for this. Like making goody bags full of treats and surprises for the kids . For the adults...baking bread to put in these cute little mini Thanksgiving bread pans I found at Michael's. I need to have some kind of idea about what we'll have, although we'll all be in the kitchen bopping around making desserts and other yummy things. I need to make a new cd for the dance party that always occurs on the dance floor...also known as our foyer. And I'm sure I'll take a photo or two of the nieces and nephew....probably in some yoga pose. They love to have their picture taken, so it's typically not hard to do. I do love a good Thanksgiving get together.

I'll also be leading a motivational, inspirational, fun and festive flow class tomorrow at 9:15. Care to join me?

have you ever tried to enter the long black branches

Have You Ever Tried to Enter the Long Black Branches

Have you ever tried to enter the long black branches of other lives -
tried to imagine what the crisp fringes,
full of honey,
hanging from the branches of the young locust trees,
in early morning, feel like?

Do you think this world was only an entertainment for you?
Never to enter the sea and notice
how the water divides with perfect courtesy,
to let you in!
Never to lie down on the grass,
as though you were the grass!
Never to leap to the air as you open your wings
over the dark acorn of your heart!

No wonder we hear,
in your mournful voice,
the complaint that something is missing from your life!
Who can open the door
who does not reach for the latch?
Who can travel the miles
who does not put one foot in front of the other,
all attentive to what presents itself continually?

Who will behold the inner chamber
who has not observed with admiration,
even with rapture,
the outer stone?

Well, there is time left -
fields everywhere invite you into them.
And who will care,
who will chide you if you wander away from wherever you are,
to look for your soul?

Quickly, then, get up,
put on your coat,
leave your desk!
To put one's foot into the door of the grass,
which is the mystery,
which is death as well as life,
and not be afraid!

To set one's foot in the door of death,
and be overcome with amazement!
To sit down in front of the weeds,
and imagine god the ten-fingered,
sailing out of his house of straw,
nodding this way and that way,
to the flowers of the present hour,
to the song falling out of the mockingbird's pink mouth,
to the tippets of the honeysuckle,
that have opened
in the night

To sit down, like a weed among weeds,
and rustle in the wind!
Listen, are you breathing just a little, and calling it a life?
While the soul, after all, is only a window,
and the opening of the window
no more difficult than the wakening from a little sleep.

Only last week I went out among the thorns
and said to the wild roses: deny me not, but suffer my devotion.
Then, all afternoon, I sat among them.
Maybe I even heard a curl or tow of music,
damp and rouge red, hurrying from their stubby buds,
from their delicate watery bodies.

For how long will you continue to listen to those dark shouters,
caution and prudence?
Fall in!
Fall in!
A woman standing in the weeds.
A small boat flounders in the deep waves,
and what's coming next is coming with its own heave and grace.
Meanwhile, once in a while, I have chanced,
among the quick things, upon the immutable.
What more could one ask?
And I would touch the faces of the daises,
and I would bow down to think about it.
That was then, which hasn't ended yet.
Now the sun begins to swing down.
Under the peach-light, I cross the fields and the dunes,
I follow the ocean's edge.
I climb, I backtrack.
I float.
I ramble my way home.

Mary Oliver

Love this poem. Love that photo. Sadly, I didn' take it, but gladly I'll gaze at it and imagine her entering the long black branches and rambling to find her way home.

just be

I'm currently teaching yoga to a great group of gals at an elementary school. I really enjoy teaching yoga to teachers as I feel that they have a big, special, and many times stressful job. I received an email yesterday from one of the teachers and she said that she's finally learning to slow down, something that has never been easy for her. She said that her parents were always on the go and that many times they equated slowing down with being lazy. I'm sure they're not the only ones, haven't we all thought this as some time?

I promptly emailed my yogini back and talked about the fact that sometimes we simply need to "be". We need rest, we need relaxation, we need some space that encourages stillness. And I was so happy to hear that she was getting this message that really is instilled in yoga. It makes me so happy when I see people making these connections.

Soon after that email, I had an "aha" moment. I called my mom to say hello and good morning. Here's a bit of our conversation....she's in red, that's me in purple.

Are you at the studio this morning?

No, I don't teach until noon. I'm upstairs doing some work.

It's not even 8:00. Won't you be at the studio all day?

Yes, but I feel like I should be doing something.

Hmmm, I'm gonna practice what I preach now. I'm off to have a cup of tea and hang out with my dogs. Have a beautiful day and take a couple times today to wonder off and do nothing.

full fun weekend

This has been quite the wonder-full weekend. I haven't blogged because I really haven't even been near my laptop. I left bright and early Friday morning to drive to Whitesburg. It was such a beautiful drive into eastern KY. I got to watch the sunrise while driving on the Mountain Parkway, see the fog lifting off the river in Jackson, and see the most beautiful mist hovering about the mountains in Whitesburg. It was truly breathtaking. So much so, that I was taking pictures while I was driving. For once I found myself very happy to behind the relaxed (or rather slow) drivers on highway 15. It allowed for many more (safe) opportunities to capture the fog. I haven't had a chance to download the photos yet, but will be sure to share. In Whitesburg I spent time with my mom, brother, and the kind tax man. Summit City has turned into a family affair and I've somehow found myself dealing with my least fave part of Barefoot Works....the accounting. But I'm happy as a clam to be working alongside family. It's really quite exciting all the things Summit City is bringing to the mountains of KY.

Saturday Andy and I left bright and early for a workshop in Cincinnati with Will Tuttle, author of World Peace Diet. It was a very interesting, fascinating and enlightening discussion. He hit on one of the points that was pretty much the reason for me going vegetarian. He spoke of the ways in which we place a value on everything, including animals....which are living beings just like we are. We would never eat a horse, dog, or cat. Animals that most people value. But we consider it OK to eat pigs, cows, chickens and such. Even when I ate meat, I didn't like to eat anything with bones. It was much easier for me to disassociate when I was eating boneless chicken. Eventually I chose to view my dogs and the cows that I drive past everyday with the same compassionate eyes. After the workshop Andy and I spent some time at my fave store, did some shopping at the mall, and ate at Maggianos.

Sunday I spent a large portion of the day at the studio catching up on work and cleaning/prepping the studio for our restorative workshop taught by Anita Courtney. The studio was packed with lovely gals ready to renew with some restorative yoga. I had even convinced my sister to drive up from Richmond to participate. When she got to the studio, I was walking out with keys and purse in hand. We had completely filled the studio and there wasn't enough space left for the two of us. We decided that spending time at the bookstore, sipping coffee, catching up, and browsing books and magazines was the next best thing.

I hope that each of you found a way to enjoy this long beautiful day. Was it just me, or did the day seem much longer with the extra hour?!

yoga journal

I received the new issue of Yoga Journal earlier this week, which always brings a smile to my face and some excitement into my heart. You see, I am a lover of the magazine. Home decorating magazines, cooking mags, smut mags, girls mags, exercise mags. I don't think I've ever met a magazine that I couldn't look at. In fact I have this thing....I don't like for anyone else to read "my" magazine before I do. It drives me a little nuts.

So I was super happy today when I got to combine reading my Yoga Journal while sipping yummy french vanilla coffee and Coffee Times. I usually go there once a week (at least) to work on my laptop. It's a second office of sorts for Barefoot Works. But today, I didn't even take my laptop. I just wanted to take my pretty little mag with a pretty little notebook and make some notes....you know of things that caught my eye.

I made some notes of poses, sequences, inspiring words, pretty pictures and this t-shirt and this jewelry. Too cute.

And since I didn't get to fully read Yoga Journal, cover to cover...I'm off to curl up on the couch, eat some tasty pumpkin chocolate chip bread (the same bread we had after class last night. yum) and read some more.

Good night friends. Have a wonder-full Friday. :-)