Kale Medicine Salad

This salad is great! From the Raw Food cookbook: Julie Rodwell, editor (the recipe is by Maya Adjani)

Ingredients

For the salad:

1 bunch kale
1-2 ripe avocados
1 zucchini
1/2 1 large beet
1 bunch basil
2" ginger root
2" turmeric root (I haven't found this)

For the dressing:

1 clove garlic, pressed
1/4 cup olive oil
celtic sea salt to taste
green powder to taste (like spirulina)
lemon juice
agave nectar (to taste)

Mix dressing ingredients in a small bowl with a fork until smooth. Place finely chopped kale in a large bowl, pour on dressing and massage with love and gratitude. The massaging softens the kale. De-pit avocados and slice into cubes, grate the beet, zucchini, turmeric and ginger root and add to bowl. Add the basil leaves, whole or chopped.

This salad is highly potent and deeply nourishing. Your body will ask for more.

Improve your attention span

20 - the percentage by which attention span and memory performance improved when people spent an hour walking in a park!

Truth pursued

Everything I have done today has been preceded by the question: Is this the truth of me? I notice I do lots of things that are not the truth of me. I do them because I have been taught that these are things I should do. I will keep on with this homework and get back to you.......there is more. I opened the most recent copy of Yoga International today and the page was to do with Satya, truthfulness. So there!

The truth of me

I am happy to be home after magically exploring Lake Superior shoreline and hanging out with friends in Marathon.

Summer vacation is over now. Vacation of the kind where there is no routine. Routine helps to ground me, to keep me earth bound, eating well, sleeping well, moving well and allowing spaciousness to unfold naturally.

I feel that September is the true new year. I always reflect at this time of year. What do I want to do this fall? What do I want to clean up? What do I want to get rid of? What do I want to do with this one precious life? Tonight , my question is - what is the truth of me?

What is the truth of me? This seems to me a wonderful question. Maybe answering it will illuminate why I am so frequently disappointed with how I am. How I fail at what I want to do. How I don't know what to do. There seems to be a gap between how I want to live and how I actually live. Why can't I do what I intend? What is the truth of me? And I think that I should know this by now.

There seems to be no answer - but an abiding silence.......as if I know the truth of me but can't voice it. The withdrawal inward is so still and peaceful that all voices subside.

Pukaskwa

A day in the only wilderness national park in Ontario. We explored three sandy, driftwood filled beaches in this massive park. So loud and so quiet. So real and so elegant.

Harvest Moon - Brown Bear August 23-September22

Those folks who are born between August 23 and September 22 during the Harvest Moon have the amethyst as their mineral totem, the violet as their plant totem and the brown bear as their animal totem. Their colour is purple.

Brown bear people like their stone, usually show good judgement, justice and courage in their dealings with the world. They are valuable friends and coworkers, and popular with all who know them. Like the amethyst, these people have the power to protect themselves from extremes, whether of alcohol, or negativity.

Brown bear people usually make powerful speakers who can help large numbers of people to the need for a harmony in their own lives. They also make good supervisors and teachers of others, since they tend to be coolly rational, precise in thought and presentation, and accurate in statements.

The colour purple is the colour of inspiration and of spiritual insight. It can also indicate a love of humanity.

Like the violet, Brown bear people have a cool quality about them, but this often hides depths of sentiment as tender as those the violet is often used to express. Folks of this totem can feel things strongly, but they often prefer to show their feelings through working to improve the lives of those they love, rather than just talking about their emotions.

Like their totem, people of this moon are not terribly home oriented. They can be comfortable in whatever den they can locate. They do require that home is neat and organized. 

Brown bear people are usually enthusiastic eaters and enjoy a wide variety of foods.

They are curious about the world. They like to know what makes everything run, both human and otherwise, especially since this can help them to fix things when they go wrong. These folks are slow and deliberate, taking quite some time before becoming involved in something new. They like to enjoy life and will make life comfortable. They usually slow down in the winter. And are good natured, cheerful, gentle and confident. They are clever and can do anything they set their mind to do.

When people traveling around the wheel find themselves in this position, they will learn about their own judiciousness, discrimination, analytical and reasoning abilities. They will learn how to balance their own physical and spiritual energies while keeping themselves well grounded on the earth.

The Medicine Wheel: Earth Astrology
by Sun Bear and Wabun

Winnipeg airport

The new Winnipeg airport is amazing! Free Wifi (Toronto are you listening?)
Stella's has fabulous food. Home made ice tea and lemonade in a bottomless glass! And check out the chocolate torte. I sat and ate and drank until I could take my luggage through security......four hours before flight.

Traveling is noisy. If I close my eyes and listen - there is music, announcements, children shouting, little trucks driving around, languages of all kinds, espresso machines and milk foaming machines steaming, and laughter, but no moments of silence.

The only silence possible is deep inside me. Deep, deep......how far in can I go? I think inward is infinite and so is outward. Outward infinite is easier to see and visualize. Inward infinite requires an alertness - like an eagle sitting at the top of a large old pine tree, who watches everything, every movement of leaf and animal.

It is worth the effort to be alert and it truly doesn't require effort (only apparent effort).......... Well, it is mighty relaxing and I feel still and the mind wants to rest. Be well!

Books are friends

Banyen Books and Sound is always the highlight of my trip to Vancouver. If a bookstore could be a friend this one would be my best friend! I was so eager to go in I couldn't look at the camera. I could spend all day there. My daughter usually drags me out with talk of food at Aphrodites which is on the next block and fabulous food! And that works. I had my books shipped home (spend a $100.00 and it's free).
www.banyen.com
Check them out :)

Last day

Last day for family.....grandma and granddaughter together.

We've had little adventures......Le Bretagne on Jervis street for breakfast. It is a gem of a restaurant.

Gelato by an award winning Gelato master. I had salted caramel flavour. It was terrific! And we had to stay inside the gelato bar while they were filming a car chase for a movie. It was really real looking and fun to watch because it wasn't.

Hmmmm, if we lived life like that - like a movie - everything apparently real so that it was fun but not taking anything seriously. And why can't we? Because we think life is serious, something to improve upon, something to make better. My teacher said that if we took a year - and didn't take anything seriously, then our life would be totally changed.

Hey Vancouver!

Gotta love ya!

Youngest daughter

Supper at Tiina's in Vancouver.

We took the Vancouver Trolley tour, the red one around Stanley Park and the blue one around downtown. It was a great deal in more ways than one. We saw a lot without having to expend any energy. We had gotten up at 3 am so needed the sitting around. What an amazingly beautiful city!

The last dance

Tomorrow 5:20 am I am leaving for Vancouver, escorting my mom and stepdad to visit my daughter and then putting them on a plane for Sydney in a few days. I have a suitcase full of food and goodies, Finnish food that Tiina misses from Thunder Bay.
We ate with friends yesterday and one of them played music and my parents waltzed in the living room. The last dance for now. My mom is having a harder time leaving because she is getting older and that long 16 hour flight over the ocean just seems too much to do again. Goodbyes give the opportunity to say hello again.

The man in the bird suit

This eagle photo was taken by Don's father. It is now in our bedroom. Don loves to have these eyes looking at him first thing in the morning. I think he likes to be reminded to be alert or someone sees him for who he is...... I don't know really. Me, I see a man in a bird suit. He's too gruff for me. I am making plans to get rid of him, gracefully. He can go in any other room in the house but not across from my bed. I do love the alertness of the eyes. Like this moment is absolutely here right now, non-moving and alive.

A day with my friend

We spent the day with Kaija at her camp on Lake Superior. Oh so peaceful! Lots of memories and love there in her space.
I picked up an upside down dragonfly from the water thinking that it had drowned and it clung onto my finger while I walked along the beach and back. It's rear legs were powerfully hanging on to me as it fluttered and dried it's wings. Very reluctantly I finally put it on a tree branch and I felt so happy that it trusted me and didn't want to leave. Yeah, I know, that probably wasn't it at all. It was magical for me. It absolutely made my day!

Aahhh yoga!

I've had the most busy of days. It seems that my own yoga practice has suffered the most during this busy summer. It is amazing what excuses I can come up with in order to not do it.
Okay, so tonight I went to the yoga studio because there were so many distractions here at home. Now really! I have a private yoga room a 10 minute walk away and I still procrastinated. It was heavenly to take time to stretch leisurely and breathe richly. Sometimes I just have to pick myself up by the scruff of the neck and tell myself to go! Just do it! And I feel super good.
I had a teacher who said our natural state is towards lethargy and I didn't like to hear that. He made it sound so difficult. I think initially it might feel difficult but momentum happens and then the choice to go and just do it becomes easier. And I have begun again. We all have a re-set button. Just use it!

I've had a long day. Nothing is better than a nap before supper.
Buk

John Lennon on Love and Happiness

"When I was 5 years, my mother always told me that happiness was the key to life. When I went to school, they asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up. I wrote down 'happy'. They told me I didn't understand the assignment and I told them they didn't understand life."

John Lennon

Simplicity

I don't know what to say today. I have such a craving for simplicity. I ran around all yesterday and today trying to get things done so I could finally just sit. It is supposed to be summer vacation time and it doesn't feel like it at all. I love quiet alone time. At least I have made a few lists...... And that always helps me to have a focus. Things to do are now in do-able piles. And I have done a lot of work organizing my life in the last few days. The retreat was like a fast from thinking and all this creativity and enthusiasm is popping up. Super cool!

Home at last

This is tonight's supper. Organic, fresh veggies from our CSA......community sustainable agriculture......something like that. Anyway, Sleepy G farms delivers food into town every week for us and lots of other families. The taste is fresh and alive!

Friends

I am having so much fun with friends tonight in Toronto! and I am too tired now to write anything. :)

This beautiful retreat is almost over. The group photo has been taken. Meetings have been held. We have laughed our way to joy all week.

Topics that we have played with here and which I will fill out in later posts:

Take nothing seriously.
There is no voice inside your head that is you.
If you are not enjoying life it's your fault.
Suffering is a choice.
No resistance = freedom

Monkhood

I have been so reluctant to step up and say I am an Ishaya monk. I have played small. It hasn't served anyone except the little "me" who still thinks I am just a body walking around doing my thing of being a yoga teacher and a meditation teacher. My whole life has been about healing. Healing myself primarily. This is the best and most valuable thing I can do for humanity. Heal myself and that healing expands into love and joy that expands out into the world. First my family. Students. Friends. The people I meet at the grocery store and so on. As a monk I have taken vows to surrender every thought, feeling and action back to source and thereby allowing joy to flow to myself and to everyone I meet. Healing is wholeness. Joy flows naturally. It's not contrived. And my experience is that it is here for everyone. Everyone. This includes you!

My teacher, Maharishi Krishnananda Ishaya, reminded me at this retreat. So, I plan to step up and allow myself to be who I showed put to be.

Here I am Mayama Ishaya.

www.thebrightpath.com

Please visit the wonderful website that has recently been spruced up.

Friends

This is Aksara. She was one of my first meditation teachers. And we had a wonderful chat today. I love it that I can tell her anything and she still loves me.

Journey

I am on a journey inward. A simple, easy, and joyful way to live. Just notice your next breath. Notice the screen. Notice and be alert to everything around you. That's what I call a "breather".