Breakfast of Champions is now Green. Basil goes with EVERYTHING!

Eat more kale. I love kale. I consume it in some very simple recipes quite frequently. People often ask me how to make a green smoothie. Well, it's really simple. Make a regular smoothie and put some green stuff in it. Jamba Juice really should jump on this one, because any of their smoothies could easily have kale added to glorious effects. I know this to be true because I worked at several Jamba Juices years ago, but I am sworn to secrecy about the recipes.
My own creation based on a smoothie I had at a delicious raw, vegan restaurant in St. Petersburg, Florida (Leafy Greens Cafe) while attending SUP yoga teacher training:

1 1/2 Cups loosely packed fresh Kale (using black kale- about 4 large leaves, I remove the stalks)
1/2 Cup loosely packed fresh Basil (3-6 large leaves) & fresh Parsley (small hand full of leaves)
1 Frozen Banana, use two for a thicker drink ( I buy a bunch of bananas let them ripen to my idea of a perfectly ripe banana, then peel and freeze in a zip lock bag) 
1/2 Cup frozen Pineapple (Trader Joe's sells a 1lb bag of frozen pineapple tidbits for $1.79)
1 Cup of fresh squeezed Orange Juice (I've also discovered organic frozen OJ concentrate at TJs & will be experimenting with adding a touch of that with some water to the mix, realizing fresh squeezed OJ on a daily basis is prohibitive)

Put everything in the blender. Blend. Keep blending. Rock the blender a little. Pulse. Blend. When smooth, pour into a glass and consume. You will be surprised at how delicious it is. I'm not a nutrition expert, but I'm told that fresh, raw greens have tons of live, beneficial enzymes. Orange, pineapple & banana is a delicious combination. You will be surprised at how the basil compliments all the other flavors. My favorite herb, I've enjoyed it in so many things from chocolate truffles, to lemonade, to this glass of green wonder.

Change the flavor by using strawberries, kiwi, or other berries. I think frozen bananas are a key element, as they lend a nice texture and you don't need to add any ice when using them. Icy smoothies just don't do it for me. I'll be working on new recipes as summer's bounty comes into season.

Use fresh organics where possible. Sometimes frozen fruits are more practical. Always buy strawberries & kale organic!

 My green breakfast, or any morning, meal or no meal, for that matter,  is rounded off with green tea.

Taiwanese high mountain green tea presents beautifully.

Feels like the first time.

The older we get, the less we experience truly new things. I really started contemplating this the year I turned 30. I was dating this guy who did all kinds of cool stuff, and I was like, I want to do that too. I started with trying to learn how to roller blade. When the weather is good in Seattle, not being outside enjoying it is anxiety inducing. So great, rollerblading, another good reason to get out and enjoy some elusive sunshine. All I'll say about my foray into rollerblading is that I'm glad REI has such a generous return policy.
Moving on to winter. Because one needs incentive to get out the other 9 months a year in the Pacific Northwest.... enter snowboarding.  The first time I strapped the board to my feet, I pretty much instantly fell over. Falling on snow does hurt the knees and tailbone a bit, but it's much more forgiving than pavement. And frankly, seems way cooler than rollerblading. There's a bit of a learning curve when it comes to learning how to ride, but then there's that moment when it clicks. I'm surfing this mountain, and it feels awesome, we are one. I get it, I can do it. It's brand new, and exciting, and I've never felt this before, and I'm 30 years old. Something genuinely new. It's quite invigorating. Since this little epiphany, I've done more to seek out new experiences. Of course there's traveling and seeing new places, which is always fresh and exciting, but somehow it's not the same. Perhaps it's that a new landscape doesn't always translate into doing something new.

I've long practiced yoga. It has surely been mentioned that I started my yoga journey with Bikram, and this long before the "something new after 30 quest". Eventually I was forced to move on to other practices since I lived on a tropical island and Bikram was not available there. In my quest for more yoga I discovered yoga glo (this is a great website with tons of classes taught by world class teachers). I thought "I'll try this level 2/3 class with Dice Ida Klein." About 3.6 minutes in I was just watching the class video. I had no idea what was going on, and I could not hang- quite literally. Inversions, arm balances, even just jumping back into chaturanga (and say what? that also involves a handstand?!?). It was all new. I could not imagine myself ever doing these things, but I was inspired. Now it almost pains me to hear people say this. "I'll never be able to do that." Well, not if you keep telling yourself that, fool.

I never imagined this was possible. Good thing someone else knew it was (and told me) Eka Pada Raja Kapotasana or One Foot or Leg King Pigeon.

Fast forward one year from my first Dice class- now nearly 4 years into the quest for new experiences.  I find myself participating in an amazing yoga teacher training through Frog Lotus Yoga's international "division". (Please check them out if you've considered a YTT, and use my name for a discount- I have to contact them on your behalf for the discount. Feel free to email me if you have questions regarding the trainings, I'd be happy to share my experiences.) One thing our fearless leader often said was, don't think about it, just envision yourself doing it, and go. And more often than not, I went. I dropped back into wheel. I picked myself up from wheel. I jumped back from bakasana to chauturanga. And that was revolutionary. That's when I really started to tap into this mental power. I got this.

Continuing a teacher training assignment, I always have 3 postures I'm working on. I've been working on handstand (Adho Mukha Vriksasana) and forearm balance (Pincha Mayurasana)  basically since that teacher training, so 6 months now. (I've had the 3rd posture on rotation, because I've reached my goals there- the inversions have been elusive little buggers.) I've finally moved away from the wall for the inversions. Tonight as I practiced my handstand after a class, I said to myself, ok, hop yourself up there, and suck your body up into that imaginary straw and BE IN A HANDSTAND (straw analogy thanks to Tiffany Cruikshank). So I did. For about, oh, 7 seconds. BUT, it was SO EXCITING. I believe that doing something like this must be close to the feeling a baby has when they roll over for the first time. And that is certainly a day one's world view shifts in some major way. That's the shit. (Sorry Vidya, for the language) And there's so much more to come. So, bring it.

To clarify, yes I can sort of twist myself up into a pretzel, but that's not the point. The point is taping into your own power. Imagining the impossible, and making it real. It applies to all we do in life.

The Vanity of Yoga

There are many, many benefits to doing yoga. All frequently reported on. You know, it's relaxing, helps reduce stress, and teaches mindfulness, strengthens and lengthens the muscles, improves balance, sharpens mental focus. Blah blah blah blah. You've probably heard it all before. There's even scientific articles to back up these claims. I don't really need science to tell me these things are true. I have practiced enough yoga to have, at the very least, scratched the surface of these benefits. They are usually evident and apparent to me- but to anyone else, that's another question. Especially to people who have recently entered my life. For all they know, I've always been this way (I'm not even sure myself what "this way" is). While I like to think I'm a good hearted, kind and compassionate person, I'm also a sarcastic and dry person. That being the case, maybe it's hard for others to exactly tell that I truly am an emotionally intelligent and aware person. Thus intellectually, perhaps, it's difficult to see my inner Buddha shining through. Really, would the Buddha drop the "f" word as much as I do? Or claim to hate things, like Uggs? Though I believe in the force, I claim to be a Buddha not.

 Do people really beleive yoga will change their lives? Especially people who know nothing about it, mainly those people that think it's all physical. So what then, if these more esoteric benefits of yoga are not so evident, brings new people to a yoga practice?

Vanity. And I think that's a fine place to start. But I don't really hear most people admitting that this has anything to do with their yoga practice. These articles speaking about the benefits of yoga, rare that they mention people like doing yoga because it sculpts their bodies and that makes them feel good. Beauty is only skin deep- there's more to it than that. By the time you get Madonna arms, you have probably reached a place where you realize there's so much more to yoga than that.

Remember Madonna arms? Sure she had a personal trainer, but she practiced Ashtanga yoga, a practice with about a gazillion Chaturangas, to get herself back into better physical condition after having a baby.  Adam Levine indicated he picked up yoga for the physical benefits.

I am not really sure why I started doing yoga, except that my lovely friend became a yoga teacher and started teaching us, her victims friends, Bikram yoga in her dining room. (Frani if you ever read this, I am totally just kidding about the victims part. It's just my cheeky nature to make such insinuations. Honestly, I have you to credit with my foundation of yoga. Who knows if I would have ever developed a practice without your disciplined and skilled guidance. Or your commanding nature and smoking hot body to challenge my edge and inspire me.) I'm not sure vanity brought me to yoga, I just didn't know any better. I figured if Frani and Madonna and countless other people in the city of Seattle, and world over were doing it, it must be worthwhile.  But at points along the journey, it, vanity, has inspired me to stick with it. I am, for the most part, not one who has ever been caught up in body image. I may have put on an extra few pounds in my 20's and out growing some favorite jeans may have been a bit disheartening ( it was totally the dryer that shrunk them). Even so, to a certain degree, I continue to be motivated by vanity.  But I believe vanity has a place at the crossroads of mind and body. For example, having incredible physical control. Like the kind necessary for piking into a hand stand. Or the pick up jump back. These movements are so much more tangible than say having more mental peace. Or the ultimate, reaching enlightenment. What does enlightenment even look like? And if you don't know what it looks like, how can you visualize that goal and make it happen? But then you realize you're doing things you would never have thought possible, because you visualized them with your MIND, and at some point decided it was possible. And now your physical BODY is carrying out the movement, the action. What was once challenging and difficult, and seemingly out of reach, is effortless. Wow.

The mental strength is seemingly much more slow to develop, because it's difficult to watch. If someone you see every day loses 10 pounds in a year. You won't really notice. But if you see that person at the start of their weight loss then again at the end, the difference will likely be obvious- though subtle. I think the mental strength and peace that evolves with a yoga practice is like that. It's such a slow development, that it's not something you take note of daily. Not at first anyway. I don't remember the moment I had this sort of mind / body connection revelation. It was probably at least two years into my Bikram practice when I realized staying in a 110 degree room filled with the humidity of sweaty people flinging their bodily fluids on you with each change of posture required little more than mental stamina for the average able bodied person. Then I started to realize that if I didn't practice, I did not feel as good. I did not deal with stress as well, I had never experienced another outlet that offered the same catharsis.

So now, 8+ years into my journey down the road of yoga, I understand asana as a step, a limb, one of 7 others that culminate in one final limb. The limb of enlightenment. The physical practice has taught me more about the more subtle mental practice than any book ever has. The books just put it into words I would likely not have found on my own. I mean, I'm just not a great writer, in case you didn't notice, but it's likely you noticed if you're still reading. So thanks, thanks for reading anyway. And thanks to the friend that aspires to have arms like mine. Your compliments make me feel good about the time and effort I put into my practice, but more importantly inspired me to reflect on and articulate (albeit clumsily) the place vanity has in yoga. If nothing else just click on the Adam Levine link to see him naked.

Now I'm going to go meditate on freeing myself from the maya, the illusion of myself, and letting go of my attachment to sculpted arms. Namaste.

Where it all began.

"It" in this case refers to this blog. It was first created in the fall or winter of 2009, I'm guessing- I know it was sometime that year. I had just moved to the most beautiful place on earth, and I didn't know what to do with myself. Thankfully, a kind soul adopted me as her friend, and started bringing me to her yoga classes at a seaside yoga shala located in a beautifully rustic, eco-chic spa resort on the Caribbean. Oprah has stayed there. Not to brag, just sayin', it's a pretty special place created with intention by great people who got the formula right (I think the secret is to include a little bit of magic). Though I feel myself beginning to digress. I'm good at that. It's now November of 2011. A full two years after I intended to start blogging about my Caribbean adventures living in Grenada, West Indies. I no longer live in Grenada, I sadly packed myself up in April of 2011 for the last time, and set sail on a big 'ole cruise ship bound for the mainland.

Steps down to the pool & lounge at LaLuna.

The space between August 2009 and April 2011 is a lot to reflect on. I tend to root myself into a place and stay a while. Prior to Grenada, I lived in Seattle for ten years. I intended to stay for oh, maybe one year. So last spring, when I left the island, my life was really just taking off there. I hit my stride, I had my people. I felt like a real expat. So, needless to say, my perspective has changed dramatically from that day in the fall of '09 when I sent out a mass email to all those I'd left behind, describing my transition thus far, complaining about my lost luggage and how difficult it was to get anything done on the island, also claiming, "maybe I'll start a blog". The former, complaining about how difficult it is to get anything done on the island, was eventually brushed off with a simple explanation "T-I-G". This. Is. Grenada. In other words, island time. We be friendly, but we not be fast, ok? I'm not sure who coined this phrase, either Matean or his friend Mikey- "Nothing happens fast in Grenada except driving." I'm pretty sure I could write a whole post about driving in Grenada. In any case, island time is a real phenomenon which is alive and well in Grenada. 

I'm sure you'll find many reflections about my time on the island here, it had a huge influence on my life, my choices, and  who I am today. We are all, hopefully, constantly evolving beings. Some more than others I suppose. Lizards love yoga is just that, reflections on the daily evolution. Musings on my observations. 

And yes, lizards really do love yoga. I first observed this in Grenada. Practicing at the yoga shala at LaLuna was an amazing, magical experience. A shala, if you are not aware, is a Sandskrit word that means "house". So house of yoga. In this case, the shala was an open air pavilion in a Balineese style, thatched roof, beautiful hardwood floor, right on the beach. Lizards commonly seen in Grenada are anoles, little lizards that change from green to brown in color depending on what they're sitting on, or maybe how they're feeling. I don't know. They are normally a bit jumpy, that is they tend to dart around quite a bit with people moving about them. However, for some reason, they seem captivated by yoga. During a class, they would gather around on their chosen perch, and just watch. Sometimes they'd even venture out on to the floor, seemingly moving in closer for a better look. They were never frightened by the sudden movement that may have come with the changing of postures. Non-reactive observers, a phenomenon I can take a cue from in my own life and practice. Be the lizard- a non-reactive observer. And when the time is right, move in closer, get a better look, participate, and be present.

Yoga Shala at LaLuna.