Congratulations and Namaste to Victoria Zankina, Certified YogaKids Teacher/Trainer in Russia, and her amazing students who so beautifully, soulfully and precisely practiced Surya Namaskar for Sri BKS Iyengar.

Victoria’s class of young women aged 8-14 demonstrated their beautiful poses as a gift of love to the Master. He seemed delighted and the girls were beaming their love, light and loyalty.

I am so proud of Victoria and her students for their beautiful offering. Check out their whole sun salutation (Surya Namaskar) on YouTube.

The light in me certainly sees the light in them. Namaste.

So many people have asked me with a tilt of their head and their eyes upward, “where exactly is Nepal”?

Allow me to briefly acclimate you….. The largest city in this tiny country is Katmandu, which is also the capital. The official language is Nepali, their currency is the Rupee and their modest motto says “Mother and Motherland are Greater than Heaven”
.
Nepal is an Asian country landlocked between India and China with a population of approximately 29 million people. This wondrous, friendly, topographically diverse nation is filled with beautiful scenery, happy children and varied religions.

Their flag is unique in the world, since it is neither square nor rectangular like most. In fact…it is a polygon. If you don’t remember that word from your vocabulary quizzes or geometry class, the Nepalese flag is the only one on earth that is not quadrilateral in shape. Their flying symbol is different and diverse, just like them.

The color red on the Nepali flag is significant of a history of aggression against their tiny country and dissent within its borders from corruption and politics. The highest hope is that the blue border calmly contains the hope of calmness and peace as well as depicts the celestial symbols of the sun and moon.

In Sanskrit ‘Ha’ means sun and “tha” means moon.

So for the Nepalis and the yogis alike… May the curvature of the moon in the night sky continue to shine the power of the feminine and be a prevailing icon for a life of peace and joy.

The people pray ” as long as there is a sun and a moon in the sky, Nepal will be there”.

I was spaced out and tired, and in need of a bath when the man known as the legendary ‘A.D.’ reached out with one hand to take our luggage and with his other ‘paw’ to welcome us heartily to Nepal. A.D. is a Sherpa and the owner of Friends in High Places. This big, profound man, with a warm smile, an enormous heart and love of his country swiftly and efficiently alleviated us from our rolling REI duffle bags and placed 2 hot mugs of tea in our hands. Tea in this country is symbolic a gesture of sharing, camaraderie and warmth inside and out. In schools, business, homes and shops this offering is extended with gratitude an respect.

So we dutifully followed A.D. to the bus that would take us through jutted, rocky roads, dust flying, and into fierce negotiations of drivers and traffic on rickshaws, trucks, donkeys, motorcycles, cows, buses, taxis and bicycles navigating aggressively, yet smoothly, in a loud, dusty bustle of uniformity and order.

I was shocked and amazed to watch wide-eyed, and sometimes closed eyes, as all the vehicles and animals found a balance, and youth of 3-12 years old perched on the gas tanks of motor bikes moving slowly through foul air and dust.

The Nepali women generally sit side saddle on the back of the motorcycles, feet resting nonchalantly on the exhaust pipes with their posture perfect and their purses guarded tenderly, snuggled in their laps. No helmets on their head, just brilliantly colored shawls draped perfectly in all patterns and colors of the rainbow.

Regardless if the traffic is stopped, or in motion, the intense air of Katmandu is ever present. People are crammed into buses like sardines or just a limb or or clenched fingers hanging onto windows, bumpers or mirrors to catch a ride. Regardless though, their regalness and poise seems to be in their genes. They remain as stoic as statues even when they are untethered, hanging on to bumpers or doorways, just grateful to be transported.

The main purpose of our trip was to support the Madhav Ghimire Scholarship Foundation which was founded by Don’s cousin, Dr. Jeffrey Kottler, a professor at the University of California in Fullerton, author of over 70 books, and a psychologist and humanitarian.

We were a merry, mixed conglomerate of child focused professionals from Guam, New Zealand, Australia and America traveling together to various schools. Don and I were there to introduce yoga and YogaKids to the children and their teachers.

Our first stop was Bhaktapur, Nepal where we begun by consulting with local agencies, visiting with the school principal and staff and of course sharing YogaKids!

Did you know that bees are integrative and essential component for our food and environment?
Did you know that 1/3rd of the honeybee colonies in America died last winter?

What can we do?
1. Reduce the use of pesticides.
2. Control air pollution– Pollutants in the air can destroy the fragrance of flowers as well as curtail the bee’s ability to follow trails of scent.
3. Fruits, nuts, berries, almonds and watermelons depend on the pollination of honey bees. Researchers estimate that “one of every three bites of food rely upon the pollination of bees.”

Bees perform an important function of our food chain. Beekeeper VanEngelsdorp of Pennsylvania explains that a hive in his backyard that once held 12,000 bees dwindled to less that 100 in 3 weeks. “Bees are a vital and necessary part of the food chain and our environment. An ugly phenomonen called “Colony Collapse Disorder” has become a major concern of researchers nationwide.

Let the Bees Be. Please. Namaste.

Have you ever heard of aerial wolf hunting? It’s a brutal practice. Wolves are shot from low-flying aircraft or chased to exhaustion, then shot and killed at point-blank range.
Governor Sarah Palin, the Republican nominee for Vice President, promotes this barbaric practice, exploiting a loophole in the Federal Airborne Hunting Act to allow private wolf killers to shoot down wolves using aircraft. We have to get the word out about this!
Please watch this powerful video by Defenders of Wildlife Action Fund, and then share it with every wildlife lover and conservationist you know:
http://actionfund.defenders.org/palinvideo

Obama and The Palin Effect
 From: Deepak Chopra | Posted: Friday, September 5th, 2008
 
 Sometimes politics has the uncanny effect of mirroring the national psyche even when nobody intended to do that. This is perfectly illustrated by the rousing effect that Gov. Sarah Palin had on the Republican convention in Minneapolis this week. On the surface, she outdoes former Vice President Dan Quayle as an unlikely choice, given her negligent parochial expertise in the complex affairs of governing. Her state of Alaska has less than 700,000 residents, which reduces the job of governor to the scale of running one-tenth of New York City. By comparison, Rudy Giuliani is a towering international figure. Palin’s pluck has been admired, and her forthrightness, but her real appeal goes deeper.
 
 She is the reverse of Barack Obama, in essence his shadow, deriding his idealism and exhorting people to obey their worst impulses. In psychological terms the shadow is that part of the psyche that hides out of sight, countering our aspirations, virtue, and vision with qualities we are ashamed to face: anger, fear, revenge, violence, selfishness, and suspicion of “the other.” For millions of Americans, Obama triggers those feelings, but they don’t want to express them. He is calling fo r us to reach for our higher selves, and frankly, that stirs up hidden reactions of an unsavory kind. (Just to be perfectly clear, I am not making a verbal play out of the fact that Sen. Obama is black. The shadow is a metaphor widely in use before his arrival on the scene.)
 
 I recognize that psychological analysis of politics is usually not welcome by the public, but I believe such a perspective can be helpful here to understand Palin’s message. In her acceptance speech Gov. Palin sent a rousing call to those who want to celebrate their resistance to change and a higher vision. 
 
 Look at what she stands for:
 
 –Small town values — a denial of America’s global role, a return to petty, small-minded parochialism.
 
 –Ignorance of world affairs — a repudiation of the need to repair America’s image abroad.
 
 –Family values — a code for walling out anybody who makes a claim for social justice. Such strangers, being outside the family, don’t need to be heeded.
 
 –Rigid stands on guns and abortion — a scornful repudiation that these issues can be negotiated with those who di sagree.
 
 –Patriotism — the usual fallback in a failed war.
 
 –”Reform” — an italicized term, since in addition to cleaning out corruption and excessive spending, one also throws out anyone who doesn’t fit your ideology.
 
 Palin reinforces the overall message of the reactionary right, which has been in play since 1980, that social justice is liberal-radical, that minorities and immigrants, being different from “us” pure American types, can be ignored, that progressivism takes too much effort and globalism is a foreign threat. The radical right marches under the banners of “I’m all right, Jack,” and “Why change? Everything’s OK as it is.” The irony, of course, is that Gov. Palin is a woman and a reactionary at the same time. She can add mom to apple pie on her resume, while blithely reversing forty years of feminist progress. The irony is superficial; there are millions of women who stand on the side of conservatism, however obviously they are voting against their own good. The Republicans have won multiple national elections by raising shadow issues based on fear, rejection, hostility to change, and narrow-mindedness.
 
 Obama’s call for higher ideals in politics can’t be seen in a vacuum. The shadow is real; it was bound to respond. Not just conservatives possess a shadow — we all do. So what comes next is a contest between the two forces of progress and inertia. Will the shadow win again, or has its furtive appeal become exh austed? No one can predict. The best thing about Gov. Palin is that she brought this conflict to light, which makes the upcoming debate honest. It would be a shame to elect another Reagan, whose smiling persona was a stalking horse for the reactionary forces that have brought us to the demoralized state we are in. We deserve to see what we are getting, without disguise.
 

————————————————————————

From Stephanie Meyer’s bestselling serial novels for teens about a love triangle between 17 year old Bella, vampire Edward and Jacob the werewolf, to HBO’s latest foray from Six Feet Under’s darkly creative mastermind Alan Ball, True Blood, the sexy and macabre find homes in the hearts of our youth.

I was quite shocked to see this new series open with strong intimations of oral sex. Then go on to see the brilliant Anna Paquin of The Piano and other fame– a bold, brilliant , brilliant character whose psychic powers are a titillating contrast to the vampire who enters her restaurant on the first nite of this brilliant, yet disturbing debut.
Stay tuned to both.

Transfer to Transylvania and beyond.

Yoda, a four eared cat, has a rare congenital defect that made his earlobes split, which produced two normal ears and middles ones that look like horns. He is anything but a Satan, in fact quite a sweetie and adorable too. Check out the Yogic Yoda on You Tube.

I thought his was a wonderful YogaKids pose to teach children with, especially those with special needs. How can we recognize their specialness without trying to change the unchangeable, and accept what is. Love abounds everywhere….

So….how do you do the Devil Cat Pose and why? Here’s my take….

Instead of doing Cat and Cow like we normally do, back and forth with moos and meows….try this:

1.Show the children the picture of the kitty/gato named Yoda.
2. Let them express their opinions and discuss all their takes and viewpoints on the situation.
3. Then do the cat pose. Meow, purr, rub up against each other. Scratch each other behind the ears and under the neck. Make nice. Very nice. 30 seconds-1 minute.

THEN……

4. Give them the freedom to turn into the devil cat. Play it out…. howl, raw, scratch, snarl, etc. for just 30 seconds.
5. Go back to the Angel Cat. I see this technique as allowing them to express aggression, anger, let out yucky emotions and then come back to love.

Please share with me the responses you get and additional ideas you might have.

How can we do the Talking Turtle with 2 heads pose?

Purrfection in imperfection. Namaste.

We finally have new DVDs for the YogaKids who have grown up with Silly to Calm and the ABCs. They are fantastic. Fun, imaginative, easy to follow and definitely enhance the fitness, fun and feeling great that all youth need.

Check em out on this reel player link: HEREl

You can buy them at the YogaKids Store or on Amazon.

I’d love to hear from you, your children and students. Please let me know the favorite parts of your kids. Thanks. Namaste.

Is your brain happy? If so, what makes it so….. If not, what can you do? Meditate.

This simple solution begins with a desire to calm yourself down and find just a little bit of peace. Who couldn’t use that? In a study of meditating monks published in Time magazine several years ago, the area of the left prefrontal cortex showed that our brains are changeable, malleable. Even if you think you were born with or living in a state of gloom or anxiety, your brain’s samskaras (grooves) can allow a happier state of existence. The neurological circuitry can be rewired to bring about optimism and serenity. Compassion is be a learned skill and has uncovered ways to clear the emotional spiral downward and create new pathways to positivity. Most of us believe and know that regular physical exercise is a good idea for life. So how about accepting the idea that mental exercise can do the same for a mind that is jumpy, scattered or depressed. Says Richard J Davidson, “happiness is a skill, like tennis. If you want to be a good tennis player, you can’t just pick up a racket–you have to practice”.

So….just begin with just 5 minutes a day. Change a fretful and frightened mind into a happier, healthier, more holistic and unharried outlook on life. Try a mindfulness practice of non-judgement. Sit still and become an impartial witness to whatever thoughts come up. Break out of the habitual ways of categorizing and judging expereinces and just watch the meanderings of the mind. As the Dalai Lama says “that is the nature of mind”. Ask questions. Are you thinking the same negative thoughts and outcomes continuously as automatic resposnses and reactions? Be patient with yourself. Everything unfolds for each of us at our own pace. Be a beginner. Come to each experience as if is is the first time. Free yourself from preconceptions, prejudices and biases so that you may have the opportunity to witness things in a new light.

Try this song or mantra From Thich Nhat Hanh’s “I Have Arrived”

I have arrived, I am home
In the here and in the now

I am solid I am free
In the ultimate, I dwell.

Repeat as many times as you need too. Smile. Be blissful. Enjoy