All's Well In The World

Eat HAPPY, Not SAD article published in Yoga Chicago

I have expanded on this idea of eating HAPPY and wrote an article for Yoga Chicago.  You can pick up a copy around town or read it on line at:

http://www.yogachicago.com/sep06/eathappy.shtml

The happiest thing I have eaten lately is miso soup for breakfast.  We got up for Laughter Club on a chilly Tuesday morning and decided a hot bowl of miso soup would be the perfect thing.  It was!  We both felt energized and clear for the day.  It is super easy and fast to make.  I think it will become a winter staple.

I must admit, I did also enjoy the big basket of fries I shared last night with my friend!

Your Children Are Going to Love these Yoga Classes in Chicago

These are the open classes starting this month or next that you can bring your children to or tell your friends who have kids.  They will all be LOTS of fun.

Mondays at Bloom Yoga Studio
(773) 463-YOGA
info@bloomyogastudio.com 
4663 N. Rockwell, Chicago, IL 60625

 
6-Week Session: Mondays, October 9 - November 13

 

$80 if registered by October 6, $90 thereafter

 

Ages 4 - 7 from 3:30 - 4:15pm

 

Ages 8 - 12 from 4:30-5:30pm

http://www.bloomyogastudio.com/oct/kidsyoga.html

Wednesdays at Yogaview
2232 N. Clybourn Ave.  @ Clybourn & Webster 
773.883.YOGA

6 week session:  Wednesdays, September 27 - November 1

Ages 3- 6   from 4 to 4:45pm

Ages 7-10  from  5 to 5:45pm

Cost: $75

http://www.yogaview.com/index.php?page_id=44&oaks=

You have to check this one out just to see my bio photo!  My sister put it in there just as a place marker when creating a flier and it has just stayed there.  That must have been kindergarten or even younger. 

Laughter Club getting press, growing in size

Our Tuesday morning Rogers Park Laughter Club is getting good press. A couple weeks ago, a journalist showed up to take some photos.  I included some of them in an earlier post.  He works for Crain's Chicago Business magazine and a little blurb on our laughter club appeared in this week's issue.

We have new people showing up every week along with a steady group of regulars.  The weather has been just fine and even when it is cold or rainy, I think it will be fun to have the drops tickling our cheeks as we throw our heads back in raucous laughter.  It's only about a half hour! 

8am every Tuesday.  Loyola Park at Lunt Ave.

It is always a sure mood lifter and a great part of my weekly schedule.

click on the photo so you can read it.   Crain's Chicago Business 9/11/2006

Home Spa

Last night I whipped out my Ayurvedic Beauty Care book by Melanie Sachs and followed her instructions for an Ayurvedic facial treatment including:

Cleansing, massage, herbal steam, gentle scrub, toning and moisturizing.

I used rose water for toning and the remnants of my recently deceased aloe plant* for moisturizing.  I had no clay to make a mask so have it on my list of items to purchase next time I head to Little India.

I then took a long, hot salt bath.  Here is the recipe:

1 c. Epsom salt
1/2 c. sea salt
1/4 c. baking soda
1-3 drops essential oil (your choice)

While I was having my home beauty treatment, I thought of a nice DIY Ayurveda health and beauty weekend we could offer at our retreat center.

Over the weekend, on our way to visit grandmas, we stopped to look at some land.  Our intention is to find a place where we can hold our trainings and other yoga, art and wellness programs.  This will be one of the fine offerings available to our guests.  We can build a wood burning sauna for the herbal steam part and do the rest outside under the full moon.

My grammas are fine.  Both were delighted to see me.  One got to meet my man for the first time and one got to see him again.  He was so gracious to travel with me to Iowa to connect with my roots.  We went out to dinner with my aunties and uncles and poured through photo albums of family reunions past.  We stayed at my mom's new apartment in Ames and had lots of time to let our thoughts wander through the 16 hours of driving. In knowing my family better, he let me know more about his.  We compared and revealed, laughed and cried.  It was a nice weekend.

*I had a big old aloe plant, nearly twenty years old, that didn't survive my time away in August. I am not sure what happened.  Maybe it was the heat wave...  I had it for so very long and it survived many moves, being handed off to friends and coming back to me.  It almost didn't survive the move to Chicago and I related it's struggle to survive with my own.  We both bounced back.  It's sad to let it go but this is the nature of life.  It was a good plant and now I am using the contents of it's big juicy leaves for moisturizer to acknowledge the full circle of life.

What got you into yoga?

This question was posed to me while practicing with a 14 year old boy.  It was in the middle of an asana so I asked him to let me think about it and when we sat back up (we were lying on the floor) I would answer.

It was a good question.  A big question.  I told him how I first found yoga as a physical practice upon the advice of a chiropractor I was seeing as a result of a fortunately minor car accident. I told him how I then traveled in India and came to love the philosophy, the way yoga supports all aspects of life and is a practical guide to living.  I told him how I had always worked with kids and found yoga to be a safe, organic way for children to be well and that anyone, anywhere could benefit from practicing.

He listened and then said, "Okay, what are we gonna do next?"

Who knows what resonated with him or why he asked in the first place.  This is where the farmer analogy comes in.  We sprinkle seeds, ideas, practices, not knowing what will take root or what will grow. 

I will keep this in mind as we drive through the farmlands of Northern Illinois and Iowa this weekend looking into land and visiting relatives.

Back to School Biking

Crossing guards, school buses, moms in SUVs, hundreds of thousands of kids in white tops. And this is just one street in Chicago.  Traveling through the city between 2:30pm and 4pm is quite another adventure now that school is back in session.  It was amazing to me the shift in the whole pace of the city with literally millions of children now doing the same thing at the same time every week day.

This swell in population added a good ten minutes to my commute.  While I may be able to disregard a stop sign or light here and there on my bike, there is no disregarding the crossing guards.  They are dressed in Chicago police officer uniforms to I take them to be proper officers.  The only difference is they tend to be women, exclusively as far as I have seen, and tend not to look as imposing as the rest of the Chicago Police Force.  Still, they mean business and of course I will wait my turn behind 12-15 cars while moms and kids go bouncing across the walk. 

Since most of my after school yoga classes start, well, after school, I will just need to factor this flush of friendly faces into my commute time.

Loyola University is also back in session now and the quiet sidewalks I had to myself as I would cut up from the Lake Shore Trail to Roger's Park are now shoulder to shoulder with cute first year college students.  They are so cute.  I love to look at each one of them, stepping out into the world for the first time, on their own, ready to make their mark. 

AND, the panniers are AWESOME.  Much more sturdy than the milk crate and very functional.  I would recommend these to anyone who has a bike.  I have a complex carrying system now with the basket and two panniers.  I can use one, two or all three for an infinte variety of carrying options.

Eating Dessert First at the Chicago Diner

Saturday night is our night out.  Sometimes we stay in but it's always our evening to just enjoy.  Last Saturday we went to The Chicago Diner.  They have all manner of fabulous entrees but we were heading there for dessert.  As soon as we were seated out back on the patio we ordered the special vegan peanut butter chocolate cake and some mint tea.  Yum.  Once we enjoyed every last bite of cake, not having to worry about being too full from dinner, we ordered some nice vegan sausage/cheese noodle bake thingy for our entree.  While dining, a lovely couple was seated next to us.  The tall gentleman bonked his head on a low hanging lamp.  All four of us started giggling and making silly comments.  His was about being electrocuted and mine was "Not vegan."  It was a bonding moment.  We struck up a conversation later on in the evening and ended up chatting quite a while.  They were living in San Diego but moving to New York at the end of the year.  She was Swiss and he was Swedish.  Lively conversation flowed effortlessly and after we left we wished we had exchanged numbers.  They were only in Chicago for the weekend but they were the kind of people with whom one would be friends for life.  It made us miss our own friends.  Those far away and those nearby who we neglect to make time for.  Maybe we'll have to expand a Saturday night now and again to include some of the many interesting people in our lives.  We are fortunate to have them.

But this is about dessert, not friends.  The point is, I highly recommend dessert first.  I may start another movement.  Ayurvedically speaking, dessert first is sound.  Sweet whets the appetite. Also it is quite practical when you are hungry as dessert comes out even quicker than a salad or appetizer.  Most importantly, you never wind up stuck in that awkward situation of desiring a dessert that you have left no room for. Stuff it in?  Take it home in a styrofoam container?  Pass it up?   These vexing issues are no longer a dilema when you eat dessert first.

Refined foods falling out of fashion

My man and I were enjoying a Labor Day lunch while conversing about a bakery across the street.  He said it was meant to be something special but every time he peered into its windows he saw nothing that appealed to him the way a yummy bakery would.  We wondered why.  He went on to describe what he saw and I said, "Oh ya, sounds like an old fashioned bakery."  Not old fashioned like cute or retro but like people just aren't eating that way anymore.  Sickly sweet, highly processed, artificially white food just doesn't have the appeal it used to.  Think about it.  In the 50's it was a big deal to have these slick packaged foods that were so "convenient".  It was a symbol of status in society to have packaged foods.  Brown breads and whole grains were considered working man's food.   "Refined" actually means cultured and polite in habits, tastes, or appearance or developed to a high degree of sophistication and effectiveness.  Sounds good!  It was a symbol of progress, the industrial revolution.  We had machines that made our food pretty colors and textures we had never dreamed of.  What our elder generation didn't realize at the time is that this manufactured food was being stripped of its inherent beauty, nutrition and good taste.

I smiled inside at the shift I had just become aware of.  Refined foods are falling out of fashion.  People now know more about food and personal health than in the 50's when machines and technology wowed us.  There is a trend towards wholeness, within ourselves and our food.

More likely to be packed now is the Bleeding Heart Bakery in the Ukrainian Village with their vegan marshmellows or Blind Faith Cafe, Lakeside Cafe or The Chicago Diner.  They all have wickedly awesome desserts and baked yummies prepared in a wholesome HAPPY way.