Road rage still exists.
It’s more like, “Oh, bro, COME ON”
and a lazy wave.

Avocado is
so ripe, it’s guac before it
even hits the bowl.

May technique and the
thinky brainstuff be always
subsumed in the heart.

Finally, a nude beach.
I was starting to wonder
what was wrong with them.

At the end of every cycle [e.g. New Years', income tax return filing, SuperBowl Sunday] it is considered yogically appropriate to ponder what you are grateful for in the preceding time period. Well, my blog overfloweth. I’m super grateful that you can live very easily on what

Skeeter, Jayanti and Geordie at the coconut truck

Geordie would call Road Guava and coconuts sold out of the back of trucks. I’m grateful for the peculiarly Hawai’ian affectation of taking every pop song ever written and “hulaizing” it. I’m grateful that the Colts slaughtered Arizona this afternoon/evening. I’m grateful for my first Chakorasana and my first Eka Hasta Urdhva Dhanurasana dropbacks under Leanne’s expert tutelage. And I’m terribly, terribly pleased that this may be the greatest yoga experience, and one of the greatest experiences period of my life thus far.

In the spirit of the Costa Rica Haikus, feel free to skip to the section that best describes you. (more…)

On the phone with Dad:
“We never thought we’d get there
Until we arrived there”

Impossible dreams
Come to life in rented Cobalts.
Staring out windows.

How many of the
best things in your life can you
absorb in one day?

Aloha, Metta-heads! Coming atcha at dawn on a Thursday, after listening to the roosters and the cows get up, I realize I still don’t like

Leanne on the lanai, and yes, that is the ocean

sunrise very much [even here on Maui] but it sounds very dramatic and romantic.

Why am I up, then? Well, we’re engaged in a part of John’s re-creation of Ram Dass’ Bhagavad Gita course at Naropa University in 1974. [RD's book Paths to God is based on same]. And every good yogi knows that tapasya is part of practice, so we’ve temporarily given up coffee, prepared foods, and sugar [insanely easy to do on Maui BTW, we'd pretty much done it already] and are sleeping from 9 to 5 [what a way to make a living]. John encouraged us to do a little mini-tapasya for the duration of the intensive, which is only 3 days, so it all seems very reasonable and natural.

Except. It makes yrs truly wonder, since Krishna is abundantly clear in the Gita that He is present in ALL things: is he not present in a cup of coffee? Does he step out for a breath of fresh air when I sleep in? Is he, say, present in a Wal-Mart? Does his divine blue presence pervade the House of Representin’? I have never understood why we make God this all-pervasive complete manifestation and then pretend like He cares about what’s in our fridges.

As you can see, dear readers, I still have my critical thinking cap on, even in the midst of a reverential and deep practice. And frankly, I’m so groovin’ on the manifest here in one of the most beautiful places on Earth that it seems counterintuitive NOT to enjoy every single one of Krishna’s offerings, including this decadent oceanside sleep, punctuated with gecko-calls and palm-rustling. (more…)

I’m pretty sure this is my new favourite movie. I watched it a couple of months ago but its genius only just descended to meet me when we rewatched the other night.

As an aside, I am an obsessive rewatcher. I’m not content until I memorize all the dialogue of a movie so I can then irritatingly repeat it at only vaguely contextually related times to my friends, who are already sick of said movie having been forced to rewatch it WITH me for the duration.

So we rewatch Kung Fu Panda and my God, it’s beautiful. Apart from the pure aesthetic satisfaction at some excellent animated mise en

An unlikely hero

scène and some kickass sound editing, I’m blown away by the fact that it’s basically a yoga class. The best kind of yoga class: a hilarious, passionate, physically challenging, heartwarming one. The kind that lets you walk away thinking, Wow, something really happened there. Only it’s a movie. An animated movie. What’s the connection, you, my edumacated blogreadership ask?

I was chatting with some of the YYCCTT immersion students when Chris was last in town and we were discussing my ambivalence towards the Bhagavad Gita. Yes, it’s true, I can really take the BG or leave it. I read it years ago and it left me actively cold, especially the bits about women. I’m on my way to a Gita intensive with John and Ram Dass and I’m hoping that in spite of their uterally-challenged status they can lay some more insights on me; after all, that’s what I paid for; I promise to be as open-minded as I can be. In the meantime, it remains opaque. It actually remains opaque in the same way that a lot of these Dramatic Princely Hero Saves The Day stories leave me cold. So much overblown language, so irrelevant to my circumstances, which are neither princely nor heroic. I have rarely been inspired by such stories. It just occurred to me that this might be why Tolkien is so inspiring to a certain segment of the population, but perhaps that’s a post for another day. (more…)