A dog

Maybe I could learn to live more simply by paying attention to Felix.

Drunk on sunshine

There is a saying in Finnish: raittiin ilman myrkytys, which means fresh air poisoning. I think the closest in English is drunk on sunshine. I feel that today. It is finally nice enough to open windows (at least for a while) and go sit in the sun and do things outside like throw snow around so it melts faster. I love doing that.

I also feel drunk on yoga. That's when I have been teaching a number of classes in one day and doing, going, up and down, etc., then I hardly notice how much I have been moving until I feel drunk on yoga. It is a bit of tiredness but such a good tiredness. There is some buzzing in the body and sometimes disorientation. I do notice that it isn't good to do it often, say two days in a row. It upsets the flow of prana somehow. Once I get home a posture that would help is viparita karani which is like doing a v-shaped shoulder stand. The hips and buttocks are sticking out. You can also put the legs up the wall with a prop under the pelvis. I prefer the first one. They have the same benefit: to clear any prana derangement.

Hopefully you can get drunk on sunshine tomorrow!

Simple?

I had breakfast with some friends this morning. Joan has just come back from swimming with the dolphins. She was telling about them: how wise and wonderful they are; the talking with their bodies; and that they mostly do three things - eat, play and have sex. I had the thought about the contrast between dolphins and humans. Good grief! How complex our lives are today. I am not sure this evolved brain of ours has brought us much happiness.

Eating. Sex. Play. vs Work. Study. Gathering stuff. Cleaning. Thinking.
Gees!

I've been thinking all afternoon about this.......food grows in the earth, water flows, we know how to play. Yeah, I know it's cold up here in the north, but really! Do we have to live with so much complexity? Do I need so many different things. In fact, multiple things to do something simple. How many pots and cups and plates? How many phones? How many books to read what someone else thinks about? How many shoes for two feet? It seems perverse to be so natural by nature and to live so complex by deliberation.

photo of Don's hobby

Selma

9 days old - sweet Selma
I spent a glorious afternoon with her. It is remarkable to watch a baby breathe and stretch and sigh and smile and hiccup.

It looks like spring

The Window Box

i cleared out my window box yesterday and today. I am not really sure if this little 6 feet by 6 feet room was part of a stairway or if it was porch at one time. It was a decrepit strange room with only single pane tiny windows and no access to outside. It was too cold in the winter to do anything with it and too hot in the summer to do anything with it. Don and I fixed it up a few years ago so it could be my private little room. It now serves as a wee guest room if necessary, a cool place in winter for extra food, a yoga room, a reading room, a moon gazing room. Patio doors lead to a little breakfast deck (just for the two of us). It's high and I feel regal standing on that deck. Too dark tonight to show you. Now, it's empty again for sitting and when I move the chair to the side for yoga. Everyone needs a private place in the home......even if it's called the window box. Don's daughter, Laura, named it that and it has stuck.

April days