eeyore

Atty and Lakshmi, AYSF

2010-04-22T08:51:00.000-07:00

"What you are looking for is what is looking."

St. Francis

full of eucalyptus leaves

2009-02-21T23:07:00.000-08:00

lulu in ganga ma

2008-08-29T21:00:00.000-07:00

lulu is taken from alight's flickr page, and the following william stafford poem as well, "climbing along the river".

willows never forget how it feels to be young

do you remember where you came from? gravel remembers
even the upper end of the river believes in the ocean

exactly at midnight yesterday sighs away

what i believe is, all animals have one soul
over the land they love they crisscross forever

bassets of india

2008-08-28T23:00:00.000-07:00

bassets in goa?! surfing. this is lulu, taken from alight's flickr page.

also, i found preeti narayanan, she's a basset breeder in bangalore.

"i was seven when i decided that i was going to have a home filled with dogs. everyone thought it was very amusing. my parents even bought me a dog figuring it would take care of it. hmmm...don't think it did. we are a family of 27! raj, my daughter - tapasya, our 24 dogs and myself. our crowded little home is in suburban bangalore and we are fortunate to have understanding neighbors who don't have a fit evey time the dogs decide to do a rendition of 'who let the dog's out'! there are no kennels in our house and all our dogs live together. i also board dogs and guess what they too live with my dogs while they are here!" omg.

www.wintershillbassets.com

coconut lions in mysore

2008-08-25T21:50:00.000-07:00

the subcontinent coconut lion has a fat nose to help it smell distant coconuts. i was not going to mention it as they are treasured and not really to be talked about, like yoga:) they are pretty grouchy and dangerous by all accounts. powerful jaws that can open coconuts and feisty dispositions keep people away even though the lions are only about the size of a koala bear. they're still around southern india.

if you do read dylan on the plane

2008-08-16T12:18:00.000-07:00

why does he have this effect? much better off listening to flo-rida, "lo lo lo lo lo"

din tai fong, king of dumplings, taipei

2008-08-16T12:01:00.000-07:00

bestest dumplings ever.

taipei 101

2008-08-16T10:05:00.000-07:00

101 storeys of FUR! tallest in the worlds.

2008-08-06T21:53:00.000-07:00

in the ER
dumpling hospital

night market corn

2008-08-04T21:22:00.000-07:00

ahh roasteded formosan corn, water spinach, papaya milk, and eggs with oysters?

most famous tofu pudding, yum!

i used to think hk air was hong kong airways

2008-08-03T14:04:00.000-07:00

wtf, hello kitty airlines, gate c3, departing hong kong..!

birthday wishes

2008-08-02T14:48:00.000-07:00

snoopy says happy birthday annabella and susananda!

formosa

2008-07-09T15:24:00.000-07:00

i'm going to taipei saturday, i am going to eat lots at the night market and see the damper baby in that tallest of tall buildings. i hope to get to practice with russell case and sally evans(?) when there, too. at space yoga! i love that name.

2008-07-03T09:39:00.000-07:00

i like the story of the zen student, sitting through an amazing experience of being transported not figuratively, but literally, he felt, to the very edge of space/time, as breathtaking an experience as any of us could have. he told his sensei who said it was nothing, just his imagination! the student was crushed. later that day he was eating a tangerine, so tasty and vibrant, so very delicious and orangey bright. he mentioned it to sensei who said, "that's enlightenment".

cadbury crunchie, susananda

2008-06-28T22:48:00.000-07:00

we have a houseguest from london whose mummy rang a few days ago and asked such an innocent question, "what do you want from here, anything, really tell me?" i had just been reading susananda's post about her workplace handing out chocolate bars, and so i said, "alright then, some cadbury" no sooner did our visitor arrive than i got a bag with seven(7) cadbury crunchie bars. "milk chocolate with golden honeycombed centre!" best thing i've ever eaten, and i just ate the seventh! i felt they were also preparing me for, and protecting me from the seven headstands, should i ever progress that far. i wonder how practice tomorrow morning will feel?

2008-06-26T11:05:00.000-07:00

tiredness after groomingdales spa day.

2008-06-26T10:59:00.000-07:00

poor snoopy, he finally got enough energy to go outside and the evil sprinklers attacked him!
maybe i could take him to afternoon mysore with me? he does love to howl in quiet spaces.

waiting for smudgewoozle drawing

2008-06-20T17:10:00.000-07:00

Heaven and hell are within us, and all the gods are within us. This is the great realization of the Upanishads in the ninth century B.C. All the gods, all the heavens, all the worlds, are within us. They are magnified dreams, and dreams are manifestations in image form of the energies of the body in conflict with each other. That is what myth is. Myth is a manifestation in symbolic images, in metaphorical images, of the energies of the body in conflict with each other. This organ wants this, that organ wants that. The brain is one of the organs.

joseph campbell
from an npr(!) interview with bill moyers

Goodbye JB, best basset, best friend, i miss you so

2008-06-16T14:19:00.000-07:00

warning, this poem is extremely sad.

MAY
Bruce Weigl

I wanted to stay with my dog
when they did her in
I told the young veterinarian
who wasn't surprised.
Shivering on the chrome table,
she did not raise her eyes to me when I came in.
Something was resolved in her.
Some darkness exchanged for the pain.
There were a few more words
about the size of her tumor and her age,
and how we wanted to stop her suffering,
or our own, or stop all suffering
from happening before us
and then the nurse shaved May's skinny leg
with those black clippers;
she passed the needle to the doctor
and for once I knew what to do
and held her head against mine.
I cleaved to that smell
and lied into her ear
that it would be all right.
The veterinarian, whom I'd fought
about when to do this thing
said through tears
that it would take only a few minutes
as if that were not a long time
but there was no cry or growl,
only the weight of her in my arms,
and then on the world.

our basset, jb, had a stroke and was put to sleep this morning. he was 12. i remember something bindifry wrote about how we have these amazing love-filled creatures for only a short time, and then they're gone. how true that feels, and how very sad. jb, i loved you.

Barbour, continued

2008-06-13T09:30:00.000-07:00

Sasha Pattinson, here, lost her sixteen year old jacket to the incoming tide having left it lying on one of her oyster farm trestles. She found it many tides later over a mile along the coast. Whilst it was stripped of oil by the sea the only other wear was that caused by sixteen years of good use. Experienced hands back at Barbour reproofed and refurbished it and Sasha happily wears it still (together with her grandfather's thirty year old Barbour overtrousers, not pictured).

anna, this is the jacket.

barbour, the best in british yoga clothing

2008-06-12T10:02:00.000-07:00

"MR. KING, A WILDLIFE WARDEN IN ZIMBABWE, WAS INNOCENTLY FEEDING SOME ORPHANED ELEPHANTS, WHEN FOR NO APPARENT REASON, A ZEBRA MARE ATTACKED HIM. SHE BIT, KICKED AND TRAMPLED HIM, UNTIL SHE WAS DRIVEN OFF BY ONE OF HIS COLLEAGUES. HIS DOCTORS WERE CONVINCED THAT HIS BARBOUR JACKET SAVED HIM SERIOUS INJURY."

The Curve of Your Eyes, Paul Eluard

2008-06-10T20:56:00.000-07:00

Joy Suzanne had this poem from Eluard in it's original French, this translation by A.S. Kline.

The curve of your eyes embraces my heart
A ring of sweetness and dance
halo of time, sure nocturnal cradle.
And if I no longer know all I have lived through
It's that your eyes have not always been mine.

Leaves of day and moss of of dew,
Reeds of breeze, smiles perfumed,
Wings covering the world of light,
Boats charged with sky and sea,
Hunters of sound and sources of colour

Perfume enclosed by a covey of dawns
that beds forever on the straw of stars,
As the day depends on innocence
The whole world depends on your pure eyes
And all my blood flows under their sight.

Rilke, "The Dragon-Princess", (excerpt), trans. and comment. below by j.l. mood

2008-06-09T21:06:00.000-07:00

While still only in his twenties, Rilke penned what is for me the most affirmative passage of nonfiction prose I have ever come across. Characteristically, it is in a letter..

We, however are not prisoners. No traps or snares are set about us, and there is nothing which should intimidate or worry us. We are set down in life as in the element to which we best correspond, and over and above this we have through thousands of years of accomodation become so like this life, that when we hold still we are, through a happy mimicry, scarcely to be distinguished from all that surrounds us. We have no reason to mistrust our world, for it is not against us. Has it terrors, they are our terrors; has it abysses, those abysses belong to us; are dangers at hand, we must try to love them. And if we could only arrange our life according to that principle which counsels us that we must always hold to the difficult, then that which now seems to us the most alien will become what we most trust and find most faithful. How should we be able to forget those ancient myths that are at the beginning of all peoples, the myths about dragons that at the last moment turn into princesses; perhaps all the dragons in our lives are princesses who are only waiting to see us once beautiful and brave. Perhaps everything terrible is in its deepest being something helpless that wants help from us.

kurmasana, supta kurmasana

2008-06-08T20:45:00.000-07:00

In Praise of Turtle

Of all things I ever swallow
Good, well-made turtle beats them hollow
It almost makes me wish, I vow,
To have two stomachs, like a cow.
Thomas Hood

why am i having SO much trouble with kurmasana and supta k? is it a problem for everyone when starting out?

meme, from chitta vritti

2008-06-06T12:05:00.000-07:00

1) what doing 5 years ago?

going to A LOT of soccer matches/tournaments with our kids.

2) five things on to-do list today?

*find where snoopy put cell phone.
*try to be good person at work, actually do something and not be hating mr. macgoo next to me for droning on and on like an idiot.
*turn page in basset calendar from may to june.
*have lunch like susananda's (soon in fact)
*do 108 suryas this eve, or at least 5+3, since missing mysore this morning.

3) five snacks you enjoy?

*havea corn chips(haven't changed since the '70's)
*bailey's(it's a snack!)
*hostess sno-balls(like two perky breasts?)
*goji berries, milk chocolate covered(like inappropriate yoga guy)
*smokehouse almonds!(my fav snack)

4) five things you'd do if you were a billionaire?

*build a shala in islamorada(ooops, another billionaire already did that)
*start a ranch commune for all of us.
*build giant ranch for bassets and shibas.
*buy a ranch in mysore.
*buy kino macgregor.

5) five bad habits?

*procrastination.
*not returning calls, emails.
*long showers.
*taking other people's food, not off their plate, though.
*hiding from people.

6) five places you've lived?

*hillsborough, ca
*atherton, ca
*san francisco(16 pleasant st.)
*pebble beach, ca
*paris(22, avenue foch)
*big sur(esalen)
*palo alto

7) five jobs you've had?

*store clerk(i dry-mopped up a cigarette and started a major fire)
*roofer(a roll of material got away from me, rolled off the roof and crushed a new cadillac)
*wine buyer
*property manager
*snail keeper(bordeaux)
*in charge of the beet section(vegetable garden, esalen)

i have to think a minute about who to tag.

for ld, since she asked, my poems, karandava revisited

2008-06-04T08:02:00.000-07:00

mixed feelings

i saw the goose
in the water
he was really far.
the rock felt just right in my hand
i knew i couldn't hit him
but i did
i hope he's ok.

if i were a gopher

if i were a gopher
i'd dig tunnels under that pig,
so many that he'd soon
sink into the ground.
it's for is own good,
low-flying fighter pilots
won't see him.

from Pop Yoga, by Russell Case, livingmysore magazine

2008-06-03T10:26:00.000-07:00

"...Menuhin was an israeli and an urbane European who financed Iyengar's teaching trips to London (a yoga now different from Krishnamacharya's as he had deleted the vinyasa form of jumping). Iyengar has been quoted in Elisabeth Kadetsky's book, First There is a Mountain, as saying that the jumping 'makes your mind like a monkey'. Richard Freeman refutes this and says that Iyengar wasn't jumping smoothly enough. Hanuman, Rama's monkey general, had the strength to jump with lightness across the ocean even holding the island of Sri Lanka on his fingertips."

2008-06-02T21:57:00.000-07:00

no wonder nobody's behind me, i thought it was naked yoga day in islamorada.

Govinda Kai

2008-06-02T10:06:00.000-07:00

We Are Light

As we purify our minds and senses more deeply through this life, this practice, we naturally become more sensitive to the subtle beauty and power of this world, this Reality.
The truth is, is that we are being[s] of immeasurable light. It is important that we keep remembering this. Take the time to spend time gazing at the different kinds of light all around us and within us too.

from http://blog.lunaticmonk.com

sounds nice, but when?

2008-06-01T13:43:00.000-07:00

Dig into your self for a deep answer. And if this answer rings out in assent, if you meet this solemn question with a strong simple "I must", then build your life in accordance with this necessity; your whole life, even down to its humblest and most indifferent hour, must become a sign and witness to this impulse.

Rilke

Robinson Jeffers

2008-05-29T21:30:00.000-07:00

Life from the Lifeless

Spirits and illusions have died,
The naked mind lives
In the beauty of inanimate things.

Flowers wither, grass fades, trees wilt,
The forest is burnt;
The rock is not burnt.

The deer starve, the winter birds
Die on their twigs and lie
In the blue dawns in the snow.

Men suffer want and become
Curiously ignoble; as prosperity
made them curiously vile.

But look how noble the world is,
The lonely-flowing waters, the secret-
Keeping stones, the flowing sky.

Kenneth Fields

2008-05-28T23:32:00.000-07:00

Loop

It is an old design.
Entering into itself
The self is lost:
The same each time,
Emptiness turning in a single line.

Imperative

Quiet and darkness. Let it all rush in!
There is a hush beyond the edge of things
That you may catch by letting go. Leave off
Following the old sun for a little while.
Within, there is another; to the source
A quiet brother, humming as you hum.
It was for this that you found what you found,
Sun of the belly, perfect, webbed, and round.

a metaphor crosses the road

2008-05-19T20:33:00.000-07:00

martha mcferren

Sometimes super cool
is nothing more than
pure preparedness.
Like my friend Janet
who was terrified
someday she'd swerve
to miss a dog
and demolish her car
and kill herself
and maybe her children.
For years, whenever
she got behind a wheel
she was thinking,
Hit the dog, hit the dog,
and finally one night
the dog got there
and she slammed
flat across him.

I cried real tears
when Lassie came home,
but i'm worth something, too.
Let's both watch out, dog.

c. p. cavafy

2008-05-12T20:32:00.000-07:00

longings

Like the beautiful bodies of those who died before growing old,
sadly shut away in a sumptuous mausoleum,
roses by the head, jasmine at the feet -
so appear the longings that have passed
without being satisfied, not one of them granted
a single night of pleasure, or one of its radiant mornings.

for christopher robin

2008-05-10T21:42:00.000-07:00

kevin young

song of smoke

To watch you walk
cross the room in your black

corduroys is to see
civilization start -

the wish -
whish-whisk

of your strut is flint
striking rock - the spark

of a length of cord
rubbed till

smoke starts - you stir
me like coal

and for days smolder.
I am no more

a Boy Scout and, besides,
could never

put you out - you
keep me on

all day like an iron, out
of habit -

you threaten, brick
house, to burn

all this down. You leave me
only a chimney.

practice

2008-05-09T12:43:00.000-07:00

c.p. cavafy

chandelier

In a room-empty, small, four walls only,
covered with green cloth-
a beautiful chandelier burns, all fire;
and each of its flames kindles
a sensual fever, a lascivious urge.

In the small room, radiantly lit
by the chandelier's hot fire,
no ordinary light breaks out.
Not for timid bodies
the lust of this heat

i'm sore from this morning and wants a cheeseburger

2008-05-08T14:30:00.000-07:00

richard brautigan

The Flowerburgers
Part 4

Baudelaire opened
up a hamburger stand
in San francisco,
but he put flowers
between the buns.
People would come in
and say, "Give me a
hamburger with plenty
of onions on it."
Baudelaire would give
them a flowerburger
instead and the people
would say, "What kind
of a hamburger stand
is this?"

practice

2008-05-06T09:29:00.000-07:00

It will take quite a long time before you find your calm, serene mind in your practice. Many sensations come, many thoughts or images arise, but they are just waves of your own mind. Nothing comes from outside your mind. Usually we think of our mind as receiving impressions and experiences from outside, but that is not true understanding of the mind. The true understanding is that mind includes everything; when you think something comes from outside it means only that something appears in your mind. Nothing outside yourself can cause any trouble. You yourself make the waves in your mind. If you leave your mind as it is, it will become calm. This mind is called big mind.

Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind Suzuki Roshi

moon day pieces

2008-05-05T09:21:00.000-07:00

i imagine that Yes is the only living thing.
e.e. cummings

She wrenched from her brow a diamond and eyed it with contempt, took from her pocket a sausage and contemplated it with respect and affection.
Peg Woffington, Charles Reade

Everything is a spark of that eternal radiance. Why flee from the world in order to find it when you yourself are already on fire?
Adyashanti

Here's a pigeon so finely roasted, it cries, Come, eat me!
Polite Conversation, Jonathan Swift

When the stains from old habits are exhausted, the original light appears, blazing through your skull, not admitting any other matters. Vast and spacious, like the sky and water merging during autumn, like snow and moon having the same color, this field is without boundary, beyond direction, magnificently one entity without edge or seam. Further, when you turn within and drop off everything completely, realization occurs.
Zen Master Hongzhi

this could be about my practice

2008-05-04T18:11:00.000-07:00

Jane Kenyon

Otherwise

I got out of bed
on two strong legs.
It might have been
otherwise. I ate
cereal, sweet
milk, ripe, flawless
peach. It might have been otherwise.
I took the dog uphill
to the birch wood.
All morning i did the work i love.

At noon I lay down
with my mate. It might
have been otherwise.
We ate dinner together
at a table with silver
candlesticks. It might
have been otherwise.
I slept in a bed
in a room with paintings
on the walls, and
planned another day
just like this day.
But one day, I know,
it will be otherwise.

gloom

2008-05-04T17:59:00.000-07:00

every day, or so, i will post a favorite poem. or something about my gloomy mysore practice.