word of the day

word of the day: anomie



an emerging state of social deregulation; social instability resulting from a breakdown of standards and values; personal unrest, alienation, and uncertainty that comes from a lack of purpose or ideals

The Mushrooms Have Arrived!

Well, it's a basketball sized chunk of sawdust colonized with mycelium - in this case a strain of shiitake. Bears a striking resemblance to a giant marshmallow suffering radiation burns. This baby should start producing within two weeks. I'll provide updates. So, it's gotta chill in the fridge for a few days, then get soaked in water for a day, then start producing.

I feel like there's a science experiement in my fridge. This summer's project is to go balls out and inoculate a few logs with plug spawn. It's a longer process, 9-12 months before the logs are fully colonized, but then they'll produce mushrooms for years to come. The result should look something like the pic below.

Chanting with Krishna Das

Here's how I spent my Wednesday evening this week - a thousand man kirtan! How fun! Hearing so many voices joined in the reverberating 'om' was quite moving. I need to learn to play a harmonium...

Maha Mantra-

hare krisha hare krishna krishna krishna hare hare
hare rama hare rama rama rama hare hare

deliver me god, liberate my mind from illusion and ignorance so that i may experience bliss

word of the day

word of the day: somnambulism





Technological Somnambulism is a concept used when talking about the philosophy of technology. The term was used by Langdon Winner in his essay Technology as forms of life. Winner puts forth the idea that we are simply in a state of sleepwalking in our mediations with technology. This sleepwalking is caused by a number of factors. One of the primary causes is the way we view technology as tools, something that can be put down and picked up again. Because of this view of objects as something we can easily separate ourselves from we fail to look at the long term implications of using that object. A second factor is separation of those who make the technology and those who use the technology. This division causes there to be little thought and research going into the effects of using/developing that technology. The third and most important idea is the way in which technology seems to create new worlds in which we live. These worlds are created by the restructuring of the common and seemingly everyday things around us. In most situations the changes take place with little attention or care from us because we are more focused on the menial aspects of the technology (winner 105-107).

Monthly Roundup: January 2009

As a way of checking in and making sure I'm keeping up with those new year's resolutions, I'm going to do a monthly wrap-up and reflection to see where I'm at. It's the year of the Ox, symbolizing prosperity through fortitude and hard work. I'll take it! So far, I've been completely devoted to myself - personal growth and feeding my soul. Let's take a look at the past month's events and accomplishments!

Week 1 - Brought in the New Year at Sivananda Ashram Yoga Retreat in Paradise Island, Nassau, Bahamas. I'm seeing that this trip was the pivotal event that has gotten the 2009 ball rolling. Though I'd done yoga here and there half-heartedly, the time was finally ripe to be engaged and connected with the practice and deeper spirituality. And I was introduced to kirtan! I came home with a commitment to a solid practice and lifestyle change. Got the monthly pass to a new-ish yoga studio right in town, and started going daily. Pretty much had no flexibility to speak of. Also, started a 3 month internal cleansing/detox program - a melange of psyllium powder, liver & colon purifying complex, herbal teas, probiotics, antioxidants, and heavy metals removers. Bought a scale for the first time ever. Weighed in at around 145 with 25% body fat. Eek.

Week 2 - Goin to yoga every day. The body surprises me daily! It's not like going to the gym, where I rarely could feel/see if I'm making progress. Every day my poses got a little deeper, my endurance a little longer. Very gratifying. Experiencing yoga bliss at the end of class, totally feeling on cloud nine. Body feeling lighter, muscles getting longer, generally more energy.

Week 3 - Started attending a meditation group, making more and more progress in yoga. Did inversions for the first time. Balance getting better. Doing a TON of reading throughout the month. Getting excited for the spring, and planning my garden. Reading through spirituality texts and stuff for personal enrichment. Reading 'the untethered soul' currently.

Week 4 - Went to meditation group again, starting to feel a local sense of community here, meeting new people. Got a shamanic energy healing from the woman who runs the meditation group - cleared out some stagnant emotional energy channels. Started seeing an acupuncturist to get that qi flowing. Attended an anusara yoga workshop. Started this blog!

Week 5 - Started grad school! Halle came to visit for the week before she takes off for Uganda. Spent more time in the city in this week than I did in the past 6 months. Enjoyed some girl time. Went to a Dharma Mittra yoga class in the city, followed by a psychic development class, followed by kirtan, followed by some great indian food. (awesome) Went to a NYC Future Salon meetup on the Future of Food. Went to an Antibalas concert, which totally rocked!!!

whew!!! best month in a long time!!

Top 10: (i.e. i like making lists, i.e. another way to see the info; in no particular order)

1. Started yoga
2. Did side crow, headstand, handstand, solid down dog, can touch forehead to knees!
3. Sivananda Ashram Yoga Retreat
4. Meditation group
5. Acupuncture
6. Detox program
7. Grad school
8. Antibalas concert
9. Started blogging again
10. Dharma Mittra

Already have a solid lineup for February! Main goals are going to be figuring out how to manage grad school and all the reading and writing, getting involved with stuff through school, networking with colleagues and faculty, more yoga and meditation, attending at least a few lectures/events.

Himalayan Superfruit: Goji Berries

The acupuncturist recommended I pick these up. They're packed with nutrients and trace minerals, super high in antioxidants, and a great absorber of free radicals in the body. They should help with my disfunctional liver and cleanse the blood, as well as offer generally higher levels of energy and mood enhancement. I got these dried organic ones by Navitas Naturals. I drop a little handful in my tea before bed so they plump up, then just eat em at the end. Just started this week, so it'll be a while before I can say if I notice a difference. They are tasty though!

New Poses: Side Crow & Headstand

I've been really committed to my yoga practice - it's one of my big 2009 intentions. I'm going to get better about charting out my progress, but basically started the year being not that flexible. In the past 27 days, I've managed to keep up with a 5-6 day a week practice at my studio, and my body has been surprising me with its capabilities just about daily. I almost fell over in delight when my forehead actually touched my knees in a forward bend. woohoo! This week's big accomplishments were side crow and headstand.

Disclaimer: I can't imagine I looked quite as elegant as the chick in the picture doing side crow, but I did it dammit.







As for the headstand..... well, I've been struggling with this one for weeks because I have some serious tightness in my shoulders that has made this super frustrating. I did this great anusara workshop this past weekend though that really helped with heart-opening, and somehow I'm figuring out how to break through that tension. I only held the pose for a few seconds, but I had it.

2009 Federal Tax Credits for Energy Efficiency

We're looking to add a wood-burning stove to our house for a little supplemental renewable heat, as well as the added charm and coziness of looking at a fire. (I'm leaning towards this one, a Lopi - isn't she a beaut?)

Anyway, I checked, and it turns out we can get a $300 tax credit for putting it in. There's a whole laundry list of energy efficient improvements you can make to your house this year, thanks to the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008, that will give you some credits. Check out the Energy Star website to find out what qualifies and to download the required IRS forms.

local heirloom seeds!

with spring relatively around the corner, i've been searching online and in the local circulars for a place to get some local heirloom seeds for my garden. and at last, i've found it! Hudson Valley Seed Library, a homestead-based farm, currently has over 25 varieties of local grown seeds. they have a cool sustainability program: you save and return seeds at the end of this year's harvest, and can receive credit to apply to next year's seed purchase and membership. (i got the membership - for 20 bucks you get 10 seed packs, discounts on future seed purchases and events, a monthly newsletter, and come on, it's supporting local!!) and how neat, they even commissioned local Hudson Valley artists to design these nifty art packs for a select number of their seeds!

found an acupuncturist

i strained a ligament or something outside my left ankle that's been sending little zaps of energy through the area when i flex my foot too far (i.e. down-dog). so i decided to try a little chinese medicine before making a visit to my primary care physician. enter jacqueline roman, who conveniently has a practice set up a few days a week right here in beacon. had a very nice consultation and session - very thorough, great (w)holistic approach to health, gentle with the needles. did some kind of smudge therapy on the area, popped a magnet on one of my energy meridians on my leg (still there), and applied a healing pad. was very interesting what she was able to deduce about my overall state of health by just checking my pulse at different areas on the body, looking at my tongue, etc, doing her thing. pretty much nailed all my main complaints and the underlying causes that need to be resolved. going back thursday for another appointment. satisfied so far.


also lent me her copy of this book, which i have to recommend! i think i've gotten through half of it already in less than a week. great overview of the essentials of nutrition, proper food combinations, dietary treatment of disease, recipes and properties of vegetal foods, and some very interesting lists of afflictions associated with specific organs being out of balance. (she had told me right off the bat that my liver wasn't functioning optimally.. the list of physical/emotional issues related to liver disfunction in the book was spot on for me). so check it out!

3am family circle

i keep waking up in the middle of the night the past few weeks, wide awake as if someone splashed water on my face. the energy healer said between 3 - 5 am are the 'elixer hours', or spirit hours, where the veil is thinnest and we have the easiest connection to spirit. she said that's why many eastern religions get up during these hours to do their morning meditation. she suggested that maybe someone somewhere is trying to tell me something, and i shouldn't try to fight the urge to get up; just get up, write, read, meditate, do whatever i'm inspired to do.

so my day began at 2:56am today, gently coming out of a dream.

a quick preface: a lot of the focus during the healing on monday was on my parents and their passing, and especially with my dad, which has been more recent, and was more shocking and sudden, and somehow i seem to have made peace with my mom being gone (3+ yrs already) but there was still a lot of crap tied up with my dad and our relationship and some anger and resentment toward him for being so selfish and not taking care of himself and preventing this from happening to him which was within his control but he didn't want to so we looked at that and practiced some forgiveness and letting go

it's been over three years, and i haven't had a dream starring my mom where there hasn't been an aspect of death or sadness involved. i always somehow know i'm dreaming, and either hug her and tell her how much i miss her, or tell her 'you're gonna die of cancer. you're not gonna make it through this.' it usually ends with karl shaking me awake because i'm crying in my sleep.

now with tata gone over a year, i've generally been having the same pattern of dreams with him. always aware in the dream that he's gone. p.s. i'm just gonna start calling him tata not dad because that's what i called him and dad sounds weird and i don't really need to clarify that at all because who the hell else is reading this blog besides me?

so the dream. wonder if the healing influenced it. but first time since before things changed, i had a family dream. all four of us there, brother parents and me. hanging out together in the backyard of the house where we grew up. my parents looked good, current, the way they would look if they were around, all of us at current ages no flashbacks. marko and tata are jammin on guitars together. tata never played guitar in real life, its been something marko has picked up just in the past year or so. mom and i are digging in the dirt in the yard, getting plots set up for a big spring garden. my mom never had much of a green thumb in real life, and its something i just started doing last summer in my yard. but there we all were, all in proximity, all hanging out, marko and i with our hobbies and our parents participating, having fun, no overshadowing of death or sadness. and that's really it.

when i think of them i feel sad because there are so many things i want to share with them about my life and what i'm into and just have them be involved. maybe some energy cleared and i'm finder deeper peace about the whole thing, or maybe they dropped in tonight to let us know that they're happy we're developing hobbies and are always around sharing it with us in spirit.

an earlier dream in the evening involved my brother driving around the road smashing into other cars, only instead of a vehicle, he was driving an enormous elephant. i have no idea what this means. ganesha???

mood: contemplative
tea: lemon ZINGER! woohoo! it just sounded like fun for my mouth

A Shamanic Energy Healing

Perhaps there is no such thing as coincidence. The more I connect with my inner self, and do things that offer me fulfillment and enrichment, the more people/events/information comes into my life to accelerate the process. Within only the past few weeks, I've established a yoga practice, a meditation practice, an exercise routine, a healthy eating plan, and put myself out there to meet local people and build a sense of community. Every chain of events leads to something.. at the least it leads to opportunities being presented that we can either choose to embrace or ignore.

This chain begins with Kundalini yoga and ends with a healer singing and beating a drum above my head. I checked out Carrie Ward Kelly's Kundalini class last Monday for the first time - finally. I'd met her over two years ago, when I first moved to Beacon, and she was working at the now defunct Chthonic Clash coffee shop. (supposedly pronounced 'thonic'.... or 'sonic', but with a lisp. :) ) She told me about her yoga classes then, and though I was genuinely interested, as I am in so many things, I never followed though to attend. Well this time I did, as her Monday class is conveniently held at my local yoga studio, Shambhala Yoga Center.

After class, we got to talking a little, and somehow got on the topic of meditation and community, and she mentioned a local meditation group that meets at a private home on Thursdays. She gave me the address, and encouraged me to stop by. So I did.

The group started with some meditative toning - creation of extended vocal sounds on a single vowel in order to experience the sound and its effects in other parts of the body; basically a vibrating breath that helps balance and harmonize the body and get rid of stress and negative emotion. Then on to about 20 minutes of group meditation. When that was done, we passed around the "talking stick". So this was an American Indian tribal ritual during council meetings - but whether it's a stick, a peace pipe, or a conch (Lord of the Flies anyone?), the item indicates that the person holding it has the freedom and power to speak their heart without fear or judgment. When it was passed to me, I wasn't sure quite what to say at first, so I figured I'd say something short and simple, like 'why i'm here today'. Yeah, that ended up leading to a free-flow of information sharing about my parents dying, my tailspin over the past few years, and my desire now to reconnect with myself and others. It just kinda spilled out.

And then we all had tea.

As I was getting ready to leave, the hostess, Eileen O'Hare, extended an offer to do an energy healing session for me to release some negative stuff and rebalance me for the new year, and my new journey with starting a master's program. (next week, woohoo!) Turns out she's a shamanic practitioner and teacher of Peruvian Shamanism. Seemed like perfect timing in my life, so why not.

I got there yesterday with no expectations and an open heart receptive to healing. I think everyone's experience is unique, so I'll spare the details, but simply say it was a moving and powerful experience. Connecting to spirit, sounds, opening, releasing, channeling energy, forgiving, loving, tears, joy. I left feeling like I'd made peace with some of the samskaras that were sitting in my heart and let them pass.

A good way to start the week.

4am Inspiration

Ask the universe and you shall receive! I was commissioned by a friend to tackle a redesign of her company's website. So I put some intentions out there to the universe before bed night before last, and let it go to incubate. Sure enough, 3:58am came, and my eyes popped open like someone had splashed water on my face, with images of a homepage design in my head. I tried to fall back asleep and save the ideas for a more reasonable hour, but to no avail. So I layered the sweatpants, legwarmers, hoodie, and robe (yeah, we keep the house at a frosty 60 degrees, which feels much colder in the middle of the night), and headed down to the computer. Over the next few hours, I put together a mockup. And here are the results of the first attempt..... a good start. Very exciting!

quote of the day

i've come across this passage 3 times this morning...compelled to log it:


There is a river flowing now, very fast. It is so great and swift that there are those who will be afraid. They will try to hold on to the shore. They will feel they are being torn apart and suffer greatly.

Know that the river has its destination.

The elders say we must push off into the middle of the river, keep our eyes open and our heads above the water. See who is in there with you and celebrate.

At this time in history we are to take nothing personally, least of all ourselves, for the moment we do that, our spiritual growth comes to a halt.

The time of the lone wolf is over. Gather yourselves; banish the word 'struggle' from your attitude and vocabulary. All that we do now must be done in a sacred way and in celebration.

We are the ones we've been waiting for.

- Oraibi, Arizona; Hopi Nation elder

2008/2009: Year in Review & New Intentions

Things: 2008

• tata died (01/01/08)
  
• went to California (april)
  
• started my first garden (june)
  
• got married (06/28/08)
  
• went to Quebec/British Columbia/Nova Scotia (july)
  
• built deck (july)
  
• took baka to Alaska (august)
  
• went back to school (september)
• quit smoking (10/16/08)
• baka had heart attack (december)
• got accepted for Master's program (december)
• yoga retreat in Bahamas (12/29/08-01/01/09)

Intentions: 2009

• become the witness
• get involved in local community
• expand garden
• committed yoga practice
• job/internship
• write
• meditate
• attend lecture/event/show once a month