And some interblog miscellany.  Btw, M really is watching American Idol.  I’m keeping a safe distance.

Stupid blackberry pictures; it looks like leftovers. IT'S FRESH.

I wanted you guys to know that I made the quinoa salad up with barley ’cause I ran out of quinoa and it was actually great, maybe even better in terms of consistency, cause barley is such a toothy grain that it soaked up the dressing and extra liquid in the veggies in a most marvellous way.  Here’s a variation that includes black beans, some heirloom tomatoes, a bit of crumbled feta, wilted [on purpose!] kale, and half a shallot that I rescued from the fridge.

Also, some of you have expressed interest in a mala, and I’m happy to make one for you to your specifications [or just freestyle one], but I gotta be honest:  these stones weren’t cheap:  depending on what you want I’d love to hook you up but be prepared to set aside some coin for materials.  If you’re STILL interested in spite of my baleful fiscal caveat, please let me know in comments or email me at my first name backwards at gmail dot com.

OH AND!  I think for Mayday this year it’s time to bring back Big Rock Fridays.  And by “bring back” I mean going all the way back:  Big Rock Friday I, the jam that started it all, back when we only had 35 people in there instead of 229 [Note to building inspectors:  /sarcasm/].  My original intention was to create a set of wicked awesome playlists that we could play with every Friday and I think we have enough wicked awesomeness to proceed, don’t you?

This was far FAR too amazing not to link to.  This guy is…well, just watch the thing, would you?

Okay, now M’s watching Notorious, a bit better, although it’s worth noting that just in time for the return of BRF Classic, Slash will be the guest on American Idol next week.  COINCIDENCE??!?!?!?/1?!??!slashslash??one?!  I gave up believing in coincidences a long time ago, actually.

This is an even more specialized-audience post than my usual posts, which are themselves fairly rarefied.  When I bought this laptop [my first] I bought it with the hope that I could install Ubuntu and therefore do more with my meagre funds.  Open source software fascinates me, for the same reason that the internet fascinates me…I love the idea of a bunch of ponytailed dudes from MIT coding frantically For The Children, pushing their granny glasses up on the bridges of their nose as they dream of a world where you can easily find a PERL script for any purpose, no matter how arcane…

I don't even see the code. I just see blonde, brunette, redhead...

And I did have some success with Ubuntu, even marred with an [at the time] obligatory Vista dual-boot.  I had trouble installing the most recent version, so a friend hooked me up with an older version and it worked like a charm.  I went full-on geek, too, putting The Matrix on repeat, opening multiple terminals, sudo-apt-getting my face off, turning pasty and intense.  Gradually the fire diminished, and I was afraid to upgrade because of the aforementioned failed recent install, so I stuck with the increasingly arcane Ubuntu 7.04 for…hmmm…like a year and a half now I believe.  Meanwhile, the good folks at Ubuntu were tinkering away, turning that little Debian kernel this way and that, releasing increasingly elegant and sophisticated versions that yrs truly was too scared to try lest the whole laptop dissolve into a pile of steaming goo…

Okay, I haven’t been entirely forthcoming with you regarding open source software.  You know why I REALLY wanted Ubuntu?  I

OMG ITS KUL

wanted a desktop cube that I could rotate in three virtual dimensions, toggle back and forth between the cube’s desktop faces, and geek out in such a spectacular way that my glasses would actually get thicker just while I was sitting there.  Most of my Matrixy code-jockeying was to that end, and I could never get it to work, and eventually used the lappy for so much actual work that playing around became less and less wise, and I gave up.

Finally I got so fed up with my outdated version that I decided to go for broke.  I figured the good folks at Ubuntu wouldn’t have left Dell out in the cold with their new builds, and I was so exasperated by stupid Windows Vista that I obliterated the drive partition, and swallowed hard and installed the fresh new Ubuntu 8.04*…

…and I’m typing to you now from my floating desktop cube, flipping around in laptop inner space, finding links and indulging my inner geek to her hearts’ content.

And my screen saver is the descending green characters from the Matrix.

*Which is not even the newest, I see.  But I am more bold now….

Lives there who loves his pain!

John, soften the skin around your mouth. Open to grace. That's better...go

Who would not, finding way, break loose from Hell,
Though thither doomed! Thou wouldst thyself, no doubt/And boldly venture to whatever place/Farthest from pain, where thou mightst hope to change/Torment with ease…

John Milton, Paradise Lost

Hi bloggy ones! Tis I, your neglectful blogmistress, fresh from another batch of Chris Chavez Immersion 1 goodness [another 3 days to go...holy moly]. Note: I won’t be Big Fridaying it up this week, since I’ll still be up at Highgate rocking out with the YYCCTT [ZOMG!].

We’ve had a fantastic couple of days so far and everybody is working so hard they are sweating out of their temples sideways. I don’t think that anybody thought that Virabhadrasana II would be such exertion! I’ve had a great time assisting and I hope like heck I’ve been helpful at least here and there, although Chris is all over everything like white on rice.

One of the cool things about this Immersion that doesn’t actually seem that cool [bear with me] is that there are a bunch of people dealing with injuries of varying duration/intensity/calibre…from some weapons-grade shoulder injuries to lowback stuff and so on and so on. Now, it’s almost impossible to dodge all the injury bullets that are out there when you’re doing any sort of practice of the body. If you’re honestly out there at the limit of your ability and you’re striving to do your best, sometimes things just go sideways. Or, maybe like me you were studying a form of movement or technique that didn’t really serve you and so things started to go a bit out of whack. Whatever the case, it’s rare to get to a stage where you’re interested in shelling out for 5 6-hour days of yoga training and not have some sort of injury in your past or present.

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This might be more properly termed “Big Soul Friday”, but once I have created some sort of blogular phenomenon, no matter how arbitrary, I like to stick with it for consistency’s sake.  I’m pretty excited about this one.  We’re going to have a good time.  And you know, I ended up singing a lot of these songs when I was working on the cruise ship; it’s nice to hear the originals, and to do yoga to them.

RIP, you stallion you

“Ain’t No Sunshine”, Bill Withers

“Can’t Get Enough Of Your Love”, Barry White

“Green Onions”, Booker T and the MGs

“You Can’t Hurry Love”, The Supremes

“Jimmy Mack”, Martha Reeves and the Vandellas [What exactly is a Vandella, anyway?  Does one generally need more than one Vandella?  And is Jimmy's last name really "Mack"?]

“Baby I Need Your Loving”, The Four Tops

“Shaft”, Isaac Hayes [O NO SHE DI'N'T]

“I’m Gonna Make You Love Me”, The Supremes, with what sounds like a dude…Jamie Foxx?

“Just The Two Of Us”, Bill Withers w/Grover Washington Jr.

“Trippin’ Out”, Curtis Mayfield

“Mercy Mercy Me [The Ecology]“, Marvin Gaye

“O-O-H Child”, The Five Stairsteps

“Tired Of Being Alone”, Al Green

“Oh Girl”, The Chi-Lites

“Smooth”, D’Angelo

“Someone To Watch Over Me”, Etta James

“Don’t Give Up On Me”, Solomon Burke [Who is awesome, by the way...holy moly...]

“How Long Has This Being Going On?”, Brad Mehldau [I know this has been in like 4 different playlists but it just feels so very tasty when it comes on]

Test…test…sibilance….thibilanth, thibilanth…is this thing on? “Blog”, that’s like short for “Web Log”, right? like a record of my life but on the World Wide Web?

I’m just trying to think of fancy and hopefully vaguely humourous ways of pointing out that I haven’t been here in a while. Frankly I’ve felt mired in an Ouroboros of thinking-about-getting-certified-trying-to-teach-to-the-realities-of-not-being-certified-and-
wanting-to-be-certified-and-yet-not-wanting-it-so-much-that-my-class-is-crappy &c. DFW has this whole short piece called “Octet” where he writes about wanting so badly to actually ask outright, in the short piece, whether the short piece is working or not, and so therefore actually DOES ask. I read it last night prior to a [probably expected, for you mental health professionals out there] 90 minute anxiety attack at 4 am. There are enough blogs and, God help us all, LiveJournals out there dedicated firmly to the vicissitudes of daily mood swings [is citta-vritti.wordpress.com registered yet?]….”I feel ok today! Hurray for my feeling ok! Up with people! Let’s do this crazy thing!/Ugh, not well at all. Unspecific abdominal complaint./Man, you thought I felt bad the last time? Much worse today. Check in later for updates on the worseness./ Sorry for being such a drama queen over the last 45 posts. Everything’s totally fine./Who’s been blogjacking me? This crazy miserable person? Couldn’t be better. The thing with the jaw? Expression of overall fineness.” And I really did not want Heavy Metta to be that, because OMGrly? a daily chronicle of moods? Terrible when you’re in those moods, and not much better to read.

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Happy longish weekend!  I love the vibe of scheduled holidays.  Even though I’m working today it was appallingly easy to sleep in, and the whole day has this pleasant glow to it.  A perfect time to come and try out Big Friday, especially if you usually work at this time…spring is in the air, a young yogi’s fancy turns to love, under the boardwalk, some enchanted evening &c. &c.  Also will help you work off your ham or ham-analogue Easter dinner.

I’m also teaching Freestyle Friday this evening, a class with very little instruction where we groove to somewhat more subtle music and you can pretty much do whatever you please, so if you can’t make the 4 pm and you have a self practice, come up and see us at Yaletown at 6:30.

“Call My Name”, Prince

It was around this year that they perfected the jacket/vest synthesis

“The Way You Do The Things You Do”, The Temptations

“I Want You Back”, Jackson 5

“Do I Do”, Stevie Wonder

“Here I Am [Come And Take Me]“, Al Green

“I Second That Emotion”, Smokey Robinson and the Miracles

“In The Midnight Hour”, Wilson Pickett

“What Becomes Of The Broken Hearted”, Jimmy Ruffin

‘You Really Got A Hold On Me”, Percy Sledge

“Baby, Baby, Baby”, Sam Cooke

“Until You Come Back To Me [That's What I'm Gonna Do]“, Aretha Franklin

“Let’s Stay Together”. Al Green

“[You Make Me Feel Like] A Natural Woman”, Aretha Franklin

“I’ll Be There”, Jackson 5

“Smoke Gets In Your Eyes”, The Platters [This is such a great song, even though it's a bit outside of the vintage/style of the other songs...I couldn't resist.  The big timpani smash at the end?  Deadly]

“Beautiful Wonderful”, Anthony Hamilton

“My Funny Valentine”, Etta James

“Blame It On My Youth”, Brad Mehldau.  Everybody enjoys the Brad at the end of class these days.

Inspired by good friend and teacher Todd, I’ve been looking for the perfect mala since I *ahem* *blush* lost my sandalwood-bead one somewhere in the sands of Wreck Beach. It was such a silly way to lose a prized possession. Many a mantra was chanted on that ol’ girl before she finally came to moulder with the hippies and little naked kids. Maybe some Québecois homeless guy will find her. Anyway.

My teacher John says that mantra is one of the most effective ways to raise one’s vibration and overall consciousness, since what you’re essentially doing is taking out the broken-record/corrupted-mp3-file of thoughts that are in your head and replacing them with the name of the divine, or a concept that is more useful than the usual monologue. Mantra practice takes you from the dark and cloaked to the light and free in a very efficient path, with minimal self-censure. My personal experience definitely bears this out. But I did bail on mantra for a while, because I couldn’t personify the divine in the way that I used to.

So when my mantra practice was reinspired during the Costa Rica retreat I thought this would be a good souvenir: a new mala. There were some beautiful gem-based ones in the gift shop there, but they were understandably costly. The usual rudraksha beads, although sacred and classic, lacked the inspirational spark I was looking for.

This afternoon, on a tasty and fresh early-spring Sunday, Granville Island called us, and apparently called everybody else too cause it was like a mosh pit up in there. As long as you’re not in a hurry, that’s just fine, really [although I think it makes M's eyes itch; that could be hay fever]. We’ve spent hours poring over the magnificent local handcrafts and salivating in the textile art shops &c., but we usually end up just getting dinner. Today in a remarkable change of pace we went with the leftover blue pot chili and didn’t buy so much as a sprig of anything edible: today was all about handcrafts.

Doesn't really look like a pallet, does it?

I commissioned a pendant from M a while ago, in the way that girlfriends will “commission” favours from their boyfriends i.e. asking over and over again. Initially I wanted a madrone from his family’s property up on Nelson Island, formed into a disc pendant and hung from a silver chain. Unfortunately, madrone, although extraordinarily beautiful in its native state [wine coloured and twisty], makes a pendant the size, shape, consistency and approximate colour of an Alka-Seltzer. An inveterate woodworker and also a hardcore dumpster diver, M decided to go with a recovered cherry-wood pallet that he got out front of our building and made a downward-pointing triangle pendant. I regaled him with tales of the significance of the downward pointing triangle to which he listened patiently [he's a natural tantrika IMHO]. He waited until I was finished and just said, “I thought it would look best as an upside-down triangle in the middle of your collarbone, there.” Aww.

I went with the higher budget option, which I agonized over; have you been shopping for semiprecious stones lately!?!??! they ain’t cheap. But I was focussed on certain types of stones and was inspired by others that I saw at the bead store: I chose one strand each of carnelian, poppy jasper and silver leaf jasper. Carnelian is orangey-clear with milky strands, like a creamsicle. Poppy jasper is opaque and a creamy rust shot through with slate. Silver leaf jasper ranges from dove-feather gray-green to little Saturnesque orbs of dark slate, rust and milk. They all go very well together. I wanted the carnelian because it’s apparently particularly good at warding off bad influences, if you’re into that sort of thing; and the jasper was too good to pass up [turns out it's very grounding and stabilizing, which, don't mind if I do.]

On the Aquabus on the way home I was considering different arrangements of stones: 3 different kinds=108 beads in a mala=12 groups of 9 or vice versa…the possibilities were endless. I, of course, dorked out on different combinations of 3s [I am an accountant's daughter after all]. M, with inherent tantrism, suggested arranging them all in a gradient from dark through to light and back to dark. What a guy. When they were all poured out in a little saucer it turned out I had 5 general colours: orange, dark rust, deep slate, light gray, and translucent white. Because of the mottled quality of all the gems, each of them fed the other. The 5 groups of colours reminded me of the five acts of Shiva, which I recently covered in a workshop at East Side Yoga. I

I love making things. I wish I did it more.

liked how it effortlessly moved through these different spectra without getting hung up or absorbed in each one. In the course of chanting mantra, one would move freely from the most shadowed and opaque bead all the way to clarity. The “head bead” or 109th, right at the end, is the clearest carnelian bead I could find, so it begins and ends with the light.

It takes 5 turns around my wrist so the 5 colours are easily shown†. If you look at each strand on your wrist it looks like 5 separate bracelets that are not attached and have nothing to do with one another, as in life when you are sure you will never heal your heart or feel joy again [or, conversely, like you could never feel pain again].  When you see the whole thing no one colour dominates.  I don’t ever want to forget this lesson.The most amazing thing about all of this is that I DIDN’T PLAN IT. It was a combination of being open to the day, being open to somebody that I love, and seizing the opportunity to create something beautiful. For somebody who tends to plan pretty much everything this felt very meaningful. I learned how to knot them as properly as I could via Martha Stewart. And I LOL’d.

†M would like to make it clear that he does NOT endorse my using the BlackBerry to post these pics. He says the colours are dim and muted. So consider these placeholders while we wait for his high-end analog photos to be developed/scanned/posted.

I was sitting around bemoaning the paucity of recent posts on this blog [cause, you know, it's not like I write it or anything] and M decided to contribute in the interests of general bloggery: his apartment-famous chili recipe. This is a chili non carne, e.g. vegetarian, but meaters can feel free to bite his style where relevant [spice blends &c.]. Total cooking time is minimum 95 minutes [we know this because it took as long as it takes to watch Titan AE]

You will need:

1 serrano chili
1 small cooking onion
4 cloves garlic
1/2 tsp dried whole rosemary
1/2 tsp dried whole thyme leaves
1/2 tsp cumin seed
1/2 tsp white peppercorns
1/2 tsp kosher salt
1 tbsp canola oil ["a good blurble", and I quote]
1 tbsp olive oil [presumably as above]
4 cups white mushrooms, cut into quarters
3 sweet bell peppers [a medley of colours is nice, like one orange, one red, and one yellow...but NOT green], cut into 1″ sided triangles
1 zucchini, cut into quarters and then 1/2″ wedges
1 bag of frozen corn OR 3 cobs’ worth of fresh corn kernels
1 package Yves’ Mexican Ground Round OR you could use TVP in a pinch
1 can each: red kidney beans, black beans, and navy beans, all drained and rinsed thoroughly. You know, I used to think you saved money buying the conventionally grown beans. But then I started to realize that each can contained about 45% beans in the c.g. cans, whereas the organic cans are so packed full of beans that space-time compresses slightly around each can, which makes them heavy to carry but well worth the effort and minimal extra cost.
1 28-ounce can diced tomatoes [M likes Unico]
1 can tomato paste
Pinch dried habanero pepper powder [Please do not literally pinch the habanero powder. This saga is worth a whole blog post in and of itself. You know, if you don't have dried habanero powder, then you're a normal civilian, and you can use a couple shakes of chili powder. And I quote, "Or, you know....to taste...like what your heat tolerance is...(and then a pregnant pause)"]
1/4 bottle Corona [What you do with the rest is up to you.]
1/4 cup water
Kosher salt and black pepper to taste

In the food processor, mince serrano, onion and garlic. Set aside.

In a mortar and pestle, grind all dried herbs and spices [EXCEPT the habanero] and kosher salt. The salt helps abrade and wear down the seed casings and dried cellulose of dried spices, so let it work for you. When ground as finely as you can, sift through a fine sieve or mesh strainer to remove any remaining shells/husks. Discard shells/husks. Set spice mix aside.

In The Blue Pot, an enamelled cast-iron casserole, or heavy large pot of your choice, heat canola oil over high heat. Add mushrooms and a couple of shakes of salt and pepper. Drizzle with olive oil. Saute, stirring well, for about 7-8 minutes or until browned and releasing their juices. Add food-processed aromatics and stir to combine. Saute together until onion is translucent, about 2 minutes. Add Yves’ ground round and stir to combine.

SPOON OR FORK??

Add dried spice/salt mix from mortar and breathe deeply, a.k.a. huff it a little. Stir to combine. Once everything seems heated through and browned, deglaze with Corona and water [you get a sort of mushroom-based gravy here]. It’s at this point that pretty much everything else goes in: corn, peppers, zucchini, canned tomatoes, tomato paste, and drained/rinsed beans. You’ll regret not purchasing that chin-up bar when it comes time to stir this all together, but do so as best as you can. It seems like it’s about to bust out of your pot but it will render down.

Here’s where the habanero powder comes in. If you add it too soon it maces your whole apartment/house. Add that sucker and STIR THOROUGHLY. Lower heat to medium [depending on the heat of your stovetop you may wish to lower to medium-low]. Cook time from this point is close to an hour. Simmer uncovered, stirring often. More stirring creates more “bean gravy”, the ostensible point of this chili. The goal, I’m told, is to have your spoon standing straight up in the pot.

Serve with sour cream and chopped cilantro, and some Kevlar protective gear.

Apparently after his concerts they would have to mop the floor down before the next act, from all his sweat. Sounds like us on Friday.

*SO* many great requests for this week.  It’s like this genre just brought out the music maniac in everyone.  It was super sweaty last week so wear your skivvies and don’t forget to bring a towel.

“Try A Little Tenderness”, Otis Redding

“Superstition”, Stevie Wonder

“ABC”, Jackson 5

“Ain’t Too Proud To Beg”, The Temptations

“This Old Heart Of Mine [Is Weak For You]“, The Isley Brothers

“Share Your Love With Me”, Aretha Franklin

“The Tracks Of My Tears”, Smokey Robinson

“[Sittin' On] The Dock Of The Bay”, Otis Redding

“Hey Love”, Stevie Wonder

“Sweet Thing”, Chaka Khan & Rufus

“When A Man Loves A Woman”, Percy Sledge

“These Arms Of Mine”, Otis Redding

“Do You Feel Me”, Anthony Hamilton

“Take Your Time”, Al Green feat. Corinne Bailey Rae

“How Long Has This Been Going On”, Brad Mehldau

Submitted without too much comment, except to say that I always appreciate a good smack upside the head philosophically speaking, taken from Daniel Odier’s translation and commentary on the Yoga Spandakarika…

“When intensity is excessive, we stop playing. We become a yogi with a mystical career plan. We wonder if this will be the time of transmitting. We are already on hold…By maintaining the feeling of play, we can find the happy medium. We stop doing too much or too little about it. Our manner of practice becomes refined, authentic.”

[italics mine]