Namaste Yo

This is where I like to start my mornings. We should all be so lucky to have a great community space. 

Talented Yoga teachers who create the art on the walls or sing "Let it Be" with a ukelele during savasana. I love my local yoga studio and its about to get bigger... with good coffee. So excited!

Class this morning was packed. Its just amazing to me how so many different people can come together and move. The joining of voices sets the space and always gives me tingles.

Sat next to a nice woman from Kansas City this morning and she expressed the same feelings. She mentioned how many great people she's met through her yoga studio back home. 

She even mentioned an 80 year old couple who walks a mile and back to the studio to practice. So cool.

I started last year with 108 sun salutations and I had no idea what was ahead. Looking forward to the same tomorrow. 

Its been a good year.

Bug Break

With a side of feet.

Happy Solstice!

Happy Solstice everyone!

Ahhhhhhh, the longest night of the year. A time when we start to come out of the darkness and back into the light.

On this blessed day, I take a lovely bike ride down by the water and think of all the things I'm grateful for. 

Family and friends. Friends who are like family. My yoga community. (which is quickly becoming a part of that realm)

I'm grateful for my two work families as you can see above. Both crazy groups of people who all try to work together to help other crazies who visit here.

And on this day, I set an intention. That intention is to make my trip to Iceland a reality this year. I want to do yoga all over the world and especially in the land of Fire and Ice with a dash of Bjork.

Is it lame to get excited when you get an email back from someone in Iceland? Or to find out at a movie last night that there are artist residencies to be had there too?

In sharing more of what I read with you I offer this cool article about celebrating the darkness of solstice. 

But most of all I'm grateful for surviving both Christmas work parties. 

Too bad the inflatable sheep didn't make it...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=26sP2WsA5cY

Nervous Talking

I am a nervous talker.

When I get nervous. I talk. 

A lot. 

Today while getting stitched up and starting to feel the thread going through my skin I talked about all kinds of things. 

Places to go in NYC for my doctor's upcoming visit. The best place to skate and get hot chocolate. The Gugghenheim. The Met. Trinity Church. St. Patricks Cathedral. Buddy Rich's manager driving me in a burnt sienna limo into the city for the first time and telling me Johnny Carson stories.

What I did not expect was finding out my doctor's husband was from Gijon Spain and her kids go to soccer camp over there.

That they stayed in Aviles last time and she really wanted to not put out their 70 year old relative but the family would be insulted if they did not stay with them.

Oh my God! No one ever knows this place. Oh my God! No one ever understands the family housing situation over there. 

"Did you go to the Sidra festival?!?"

"No, but my husband knows the proper way to pour."

"Did you go to the Sagrada Familia in Barcelona?"

"No, Barcelona was tough. The town was packed and everyone looked like they were on heroin."

"Did you like the museums in Madrid?"

"Um, the Prado had a lot of dark images. We didn't really like it too much with the kids"

"I know! Too many paintings of Jesus getting killed, right?!"

"Yes!"

We talked about the end of the world in Spain where all the Camino travelers end up at. 

I told her she needed to visit the Tower of Hercules next time they went to visit. Got me to thinking of this picture at the top of the tower.

This was at the top on a cloudy day with no flash and I've done no editing to it. Crazy, right? I got a few pics like this over there like this complete with blinding light where there was absolutely none around. 

So many random shots of things that I found a few to look back on and am glad I didn't delete out of habit.

Like this one from Gijon:

Pretty much sums up how I roll on my trips. And I so miss those Spanish walking shoes with a passion. I was so bummed when I realized I left them in Ecuador.

But most of all the greatest find was this one - My Tio talking. I filmed him without his knowing, per our usual conversation (him talking. me listening.) In the car he told me he would never let me drive. I miss him mucho.

This was quite possibly the best way to receive stitches for the first time. It is also how I know I definitely chose the right doctor.

A little sore but not too bad. Our conversation definitely took my mind off of it and flooded back some great memories.

All is good.

Always Keep a Journal...

My favorite art teacher in college always used to say "Keep a journal with you at all times. You never know when you'll need it". As he showed us the multiples he had in his bag. 

I thought it odd, cause I used to think if you were going to sketch it had to be a perfect finished product. 

I think of him a lot cause these days when I get hit with an idea, I have some kind of journal in my bag. You never know when it'll pop up again, he was right.

Another friend of mine always told me to have multiple paintings going on at one time. Cause you never know what kind of mood or feeling you'll be in to paint. 

This morning I woke up needing to paint this. 

Pinwheels were the first thing I started painting with down here and today I felt the need to start this. I sketched it out a while ago. 

Out of curiosity I looked up the symbolic meaning of pinwheel and what I got was this. 

"In Chinese culture pinwheels are an instrument to turn obstacles into opportunities."

I like to read a lot of different things and one thing I've been following for a long time now is a particular astrologer who writes in a really irreverent way I love. 

Michael Lutin was featured in Vanity Fair for a long time until he told some painful truths and got booted out of the magazine for it. 

So his weekly reading last night hit a nerve:

"Dark thoughts. They are merely inventions of your own mind. Even the darkest thoughts, don't be afraid of them. They are attempts to frighten yourself. And keep you from experiencing happiness."

He goes on to talk about the process of healing and how the darkest of thoughts, feelings need to be released before that healing can take place.

You can read his entire entry here.

Felt this a lot last week and wondered what the hell was going on since I had been feeling so good. Now it makes sense. I am excited for this. Its been a long time coming. 

Must be why in scheduling my second doctors appointment I also scheduled one with my intuitive healer to help me move a block I've had for a long long time. 

Let the healing begin. Inside and out. 

Thank You

A very strange 24 hours. Which included me literally running away from a Christmas party, a scary phone scam call and a diagnosis.

I guess 2014 continues to be a year of luck. First escaping an earthquake within 3 hours of it occurring and today finding out I was one step away from melanoma. "You're a very lucky lady" my kind doctor said. 

Whoever was talking to me in my dreams. Thank you. 

Well, it looks like my plans on avoiding stitches for life are scrapped. Instead I'm starting to think breaking through some fears which seem to always pop up at a familiar juncture in my life will be necessary. 

Ok, lets learn how to deal with this. I want to keep moving forward. 

Feel a little numbed out right now. The prescription? A bike ride and an egg and cheese sandwich. Some sustenance to paint today since I was a little too wound up from the past 24 hours to eat last night.

Hopefully the luck will continue to roll on and I finally figure this out.

How to Get a Man's Attention

Apparently it is by wearing yoga pants paired with an AC/DC Heat Seeker T-shirt. Loving the double takes and mischievous smiles today.

Also like thinking of my 90 something year old Tio and having to hide this shirt from him cause I didn't have the Spanish vocabulary to explain it.

Or it is by pummeling Santa at a Christmas parade? Friends don't scare friends in Santa suits. 

I thought I was going to die when my friend Clayton jumped out and grabbed me in his Santa costume last night. 

I unconsciously hit him repeatedly and screamed "Clayton! Don't do that! I thought you were a bum!" in front of a bunch of kids. Ho, Ho, HO. 

Is it strange that I see guys in Santa suits and automatically think bum? I blame Trading Places.

Can I Bring it Back on Friday?

And my obsession with gas masks grows...

Holy full moon, Batman. Last night I had to stop a woman from leaving with one of our sangria pitchers at the restaurant. 

"Wow, you caught that pretty quick, huh." she said as I asked for it back while she was rounding the street corner.

"What? Don't you know who I am? I bring this place a lot of business! I'll just bring it back on Friday." 

Um, no. While I'll agree that you drinking your own personal sangria pitcher with a straw in it shows us how much you love the place, we actually need that pitcher back tonight.

Besides nothings screams open container violation like a sangria pitcher being drank while walking down the street.

I told her to check in with the bartender cause he'd probably want it back too. He did and she proceeded to get into a full blown argument with him at the beginning of our shift. 

The holiday cray cray people are starting waaaaaay too early. 

Thank God for three consecutive days off. Happy Saturday....