all the fabulous people in my life!

in case you were wondering where i've been all summer (or winter as it was in the bay area), i've been entertaining and being entertained by all the fabulous people in my life. dance festivals (boston), camps (fareta), outdoor concerts, yoga classes, pizza parties, picnics, pillow fights, rollar coasters, day trips (santa cruz), family visits (mom), stay-cations, the olympics (gymnastics!!!), ecstatic kirtans (keith! dave stringer!), spontaneous stand up comedy routines (mama SIA AMMA), performances, and the beat goes on.

i'm fascinated, blown away, challenged, and star struck by the people in my vastly intimate group of friends. as the 25th year of my life comes to an end and we move into indian summer, babies are being born, friends are getting married, businesses are launching, dance/yoga festivals are being organized, degree programs are kicking off, plays are being performed, lotus's are blossoming out of the mud, concerts are selling out, and roommates are backpacking through asia. my community of friends and loved ones are the world changers, the dreamers of the dreams, the risk takers, the thrill seekers, the ones making it all happen...and it's all happening NOW.

for my network, 2008 is about going balls out! buying the convertible you always wanted, traveling around the world to dance, quitting your job and starting your own vegan cupcake business, voting for political and personal transformation, not holding anything back, living LARGE in the moment. i can't help but wonder (note the carrie bradshaw reference) where i fit into this pool of innovation and enthusiasm. but, i guarantee my days as a spectator are fading with the seasons.

CELEBRATE INDEPEN-DANCE IN MY COMMUNITY THIS FALL:

Sia Amma presents the SF Cultural Dance and Drum Festival AND the SF African Dance and Drum Festival- http://www.celebrateclitoris.com/

Kira Ryder's collage of yoga wonderfulness- www.ojaiyogacrib.com

Delina Brooks' play, "Beauty, the Beast" at Dance Mission THIS WEEKEND- www.brownpapertickets.com

Joti Singh artist in residence dance performance at Counter Pulse Sept 11-14th- http://www.counterpulse.org/calendar.shtml

Laughing Lotus 1st B-day Party- www.laughinglotus.com

Andrea's NEW vegan cupcake biz- http://comehithercupcakes.com/

Antioquia at the Elbo Room- http://www.myspace.com/antioquiaband

article and video from camp fareta!!!

http://www.fresnobe e.com/263/ story/727866. html

i'm dancing with djeneba again!

summer is the season of indepen-DANCE

http://www.dancingvillage.com/camp_fareta.php

i'll be teaching yoga! bring your mat!

P2P is my birthday weekend!!!

http://www.powertothepeaceful.org/

maybe michael franti and seane corn will sing happy birthday to me!

xoxoxoxo

Change.

Lately, I've found myself asking "yes" or "no" questions in my meditation practice. Do I want to commit to Laughing Lotus Yoga teacher training? Do I want to surrender and try to be a full time yoga teacher? Do I want to go to Ghana for a month this summer? Mexico in the fall? Open my own yoga studio? Open my own yoga studio now? NYU grad school? NYU grad school? NYU grad school?

In every class I've taken with Erich Schiffmann, he's addressed meditation as the process of "getting online" or "googling the Internet." Asking "big mind" questions, listening for the answers, then trusting yourself enough to follow the guidance you receive. He compares the beginning stages of a meditation practice to the first days of the Internet when we relied on dial up modems and AOL. "We would get online for a few minutes, begin surfing the web, then BOOM we'd be booted off...suddenly one day we got DSL." (If I haven't mentioned it recently, I love Erich Schiffmann :) )

I'm relatively confident I'm still in the modem stages of my meditation practice. I can stay online long enough to ask questions, listen for answers, and chant for 45 minutes. I can even loose myself for 15 hours at Ammachi's Ashram during the Devi Bhava. However, I'm obviously struggling with the trusting myself enough to follow the guidance portion of the equation.

Allow me to bring this back down to earth...I love yoga. I love dance. When I say love, I'm referring to a deep, longing love that sustains me everyday. A love stronger than any romantic relationship I've ever had. Dance is my food. Yoga is the rhythm of my pulse. My nourishment. My home. My family. My medicine. My adventures. My choice. My struggle. My freedom. My home.

So, why is it so challenging to incorporate my love into my life?

The majority of the population spends their life searching for love. Trying various careers. Online dating. Moving from one city to the next. Buying new shoes. New cars. New lives.

Here I am cheating. I know what I love and I'm so afraid to move into it. To live in the house that love built. To move into my Kali roaring power. To be me in the world.

Tonight as I was riding the BART train home from dance class in Oakland, I ran into an old acquaintance from Boston via Providence via NYC via San Francisco, Hannah. Hannah consistently resurfaces in my life. She's a consistent sign post reminding me of my path. Hannah studied West African dance at Brown with Seydou Coulibaly, one of my first teachers. I was always struck by her unique, expressive, bird-like style of interpreting the movements. She was never afraid on the dance floor. I reconnected with her a few years ago at a dance class in the Bay Area, where she lived before pursuing her Master's degree in Dance Choreography at UC Riverside and becoming one of us; a certified yoga teacher.

Hannah was glowing this evening. A glow so illuminating, it threw me off balance. She's thrilled with her MFA program, teaching yoga, and moving to NYC for the summer to work with a choreographer. I think I may have started crying as she was telling me this. Hannah took the risks I dream about. Obsess over. Long for. Turn down. Now she stands in front of me radiating a glow so powerful it could light up the entire Mission.

Maybe it's time for me to sign up for DSL...

CAMPING WITH GHANA, DANCING WITH ANGELIQUE KIDJO, PRANA FLOWING WITH SHIVA REA, and PARADING WITH THE SAMBA STILTING ALLSTARS: HARMONY FEST recap

While I was enjoying my magical weekend at Harmony Festival, I realized what I miss most about living in Ghana...hanging out. Just simply hanging out. It was delightful to be reminded of this feeling while spending the weekend dancing, yoga-ing, parading, laughing, camping, eating, chanting, and lounging with my dear lovebug friends, old and new.

There is an abundance of time in Ghana. Time to relax. Time to chat. Time to eat. Time to enjoy life. Time to fall in love. Time to fall in love again...Life happens in the in between moments. People live close to each other, connected to the earth. There is less space between individuals, both in proximity and spiritually.

I often forget the importance of these basic necessities in our car, office, fast, anxious, rushed, urban, over committed culture. I'm amazed at how easy it is to loose the feeling of relaxation after I return home from a weekend at a festival or a week of teacher training. When I experience a large dose of rasa (essence, flavor, taste, juice of life), it's difficult to incorporate that sensation back into the daily grind. The Pitta energy takes over: alarm clock, BART, cell phone, work, rush, yoga, rush, dinner, rush, bed. The feeling of pure love for life rapidly dissolves in the stream.

My practice for the moment is yoking the two feelings. Relaxation and productivity. Sukam and Sthiram. Steadiness and Lightness. Bringing more festival energy into the office. Practicing yoga in the park during my lunch break. Making room for love in my stacked routine.

It's indescribable what happens in those moments when nothing is happening. I'll attempt to highlight a few from this past weekend:
-camping at a festival for the first time with leah (thank goddess for her!!)
-spending the whole weekend with the kusun ensemble (old friends from ghana)
-parading with team santa cruz (sierra, taj, sally, kevin, cj)
-practicing yoga in the earth temple dome (yes, i just said that and i'm still from boston) with Shiva Rea
-wearing booty shorts with a printed OMM symbol on them
-DANCING ON THE MAIN STAGE WITH ANGELIQUE KIDJO ON SUNDAY NIGHT
-watching suzanne sterling and marla leigh rock out the LA Durga/Kali energy on the goddess stage
-being in the SUN
-eating a pizza chocolate chip shortbread cookie

competetive yoga???

http://news.opb.org/article/2293-competitive-yoga-enthusiasts-seek-spot-future-olympics/

oh my goodness! what's next, meditation triathlons? thanks for forwarding, alex smithster :)

HARMONY festival this weekend!!

i'll be there vinyasa-ing in the grass with shiva rea and dancing around with the kusun ensemle from GHANA. let me know if you want to have dinner with me at the ghanaian food booth! eating fried plantains outside and seeing sierra on stilts are the first signs of summer.

www.harmonyfestival.com

the earth is really humming

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/g/a/2008/04/23/notes042308.DTL&nl=fix

great article in the sf chronicle today written by fellow yogi mark morford about the earth omming :) thank you for forwarding, ms. eliza! xoxo

no, i don't need an organic seedless watermelon

whole foods market is a trip. it's eye candy for the consciously hungry, and torture for the starving indecisive. i journeyed all the way over potrero hill this evening after a long, active day of dana yoga church, chilled thai coconut soup at cafe gratitude, teaching my alice arts sunday diva yoga class, and dancing (doundoumba, komodenu, and serouba) in alseny's sunday dance class party.

as soon as i arrived at the whole foods palace, i immediately forgot about everything dana addressed this morning in regards to "lightening up your luggage." in between ESG jams, shoulderstand and backbending, dana described the travellers in India who had backpacks dangling below their knees and towering above their shoulders. apparently they didn't look very comfortable with all their extra stuff. it seemed to hold them back a bit from fully experiencing India.

i come from a "stuff" family. in my childhood home there was a whole extra bedroom for my mom to keep her "stuff:" unfolded laundry from 1979, piles of blank birthday cards, stamps for the next 10 years or until they changed the value. we also had a basement where we stored enough food to feed a small village in west africa, under the condition they were open to eating canned progresso soup and pop secret light microwave popcorn.

being comfortably surrounded by stuff followed me into young adulthood. in 2004, when i went to live and teach in ghana, i boarded the plane with 3 LARGE suitcases. this was after dasha helped me downsize my tank top collection! imagine the looks on the children's faces when i pulled up to my village with 3 giant suitcases...

i naturally gravitate towards stuff. even in the yoga world. in the last 6 months i've gone from 1 set or mala beads to 4. i've purchased tiny statues of ganesh and hot pink buddha heads for my sudo-alters. i own 4 different colors of the laughing lotus signature cotton pants. almost every book on saul's reading list is under my night table. my music collection has tripled in size with the addition of every kirtan cd i can find. and yes, i have my very own copy of erich schiffmann's freedom style yoga dvd. if you don't, you should.

this evening at whole foods i began super market sweeping through the store. filling my basket with fresh corn on the cob, bright peaches, a bag of cherries, melon agua fresca, heirloom tomato salad. then i paused in front of the organic seedless watermelons. with jackson five blasting and a young girl laughing, i asked myself: "do i really need this?" no. the corners of my mouth perked up as i promptly removed the cherries and agua fresca from my basket, leaving a little extra space in my pack.

on becoming a "san francisco love warrior"

on friday morning, may 30th 2008, i had the pleasure of practicing yoga in mighty powerful, dana flynn's 9am class at the sf laughing lotus temple. i was surrounded by a duo of ojai's brightest love warriors, kira ryder and alana mitnick. after a fiery practice, a delicious savory crepe brunch, and some of the best yoga talk i've ever had; i was INSPIRED, FASCINATED, and REFRESHED. inspired by kira's passionate, wide open heart and honest encouragement. fascinated with dana's ability to transform mud into lotus flowers and create doors where there were no doors before. refreshed by the blossoming teacher and angelic curiosity bubbling in alana.

my morning with the fabulous yogini's led me to discover kira's insightful, quirky, entertaining "blog of a yogi" http://kiraryder.blogspot.com/. i was instantly overwhelmed with the urge to create my own blog and release some of the creative energy overflowing inside me.

this blog is a new beginning. a home to share the BIG and lil moments of growth, change, and joy that guide my life. a reminder to be present, listen, breathe, sit, and reflect. it's a tribute to all my amazing teachers who have entered and transformed my life in the past three years since i began dancing on the yoga train. thank you for helping me develop a voice and a language to allow my heart to speak...alseny soumah, djeneba sako, saul david raye, dana flynn, denise kaufman, bill wyland, gizella donald, elizabeth herrick, sean johnson, kira ryder, jasmine tarkeshi, mariama bangoura, keith borden, baxter bell, youssouf koumbassa, erich schiffmann, seane corn, amma, rod stryker, katchie ananda, nathalie canessa, kristie dahlia home, gigi chiarello, julianne reynolds, richard wegman, liza matlack, and my family.