Penelope Illustration • Penelope Dullaghan

I wanted to share my good news with you!

Last week I had an interview at the YMCA here in my tiny town. The week previous I had put in my application to be a yoga teacher, thinking: what the heck! Why not just try and see what happens. So when they called, I put together a little leave behind paper about myself and waltzed into the Y pretending I knew what I was talking about. (Well, in truth, I know a lot about what I’m talking about… my yoga training thus far has been superb.)

A few days later they called and said I got the job. They have no weekly classes open for me to teach, but they wanted me to be available as a substitute teacher when needed. Which is totally great! A perfect baby step into teaching for a newbie!

So the next steps are to get a drug test and take 15 classes at the Y to see how their program runs. I’m excited. It’s a tiny step in a direction I can’t wait to explore!

Yippee!

I think the reason for my quiet blog is because we’ve been doing so much this summer. And when we’re not doing, I’m busy just being. Enjoying the down time. My work has been slow, so we’re packing a lot of fun activities into our days while we can. It’s also been a summer of contemplation… buds of uncertainty which I’m positive will bloom into new adventures as soon as I settle on a direction and put my back into it… just wait and see.

In the mean time we’ve been:

playing on the sculptures at 100 acre park…

exploring the midwest’s largest flea market on the hottest day of the year…

collecting pretty rounded rocks at the warren dunes…

floating in lake michigan…

waking up, going out to the beach with coffee in hand and smelling bonfires still smoking from the wee hours…

making homemade pizza with all the fixins’…

listening to concerts in the park and dancing with daddy…

Also: running through sprinklers, blueberry picking, grilling skinny eggplants, working on my home inspiration books, visiting antique malls, petting the animals at the fair, jumping in fountains, drinking root beer floats, watching movies late at night, yoga on the beach, being honked at by a goose, double dating, building a new website for my rep, reading and writing book reports, applying to be a substitute teacher at the Y, coloring, picking tomatoes and looking up at clouds.

I love summer.

Hi there!

I know it’s been a while since I posted… I seem to be going through a quiet time. Not sure what to talk about. BUT. I always have art to share. There are two new pieces to see on the News page. Hope you dig ‘em.

p.s. And in case you’re only looking at the feed, I put up a new summery blog banner too. Check it. Don’t wreck it. :)

Veda is my little yoga buddy. Her malasana is pretty darn impressive, as you can see in the photo above. :) She can also do a highly skilled down dog where her head touches the ground. I tried it and fell flat on my noggin! Mostly we laugh and contort and roll up into the mats. It’s also fun to make the animal noises that the poses are named after. Baby yoga is the best. I love how freely she moves her body. It’s such a great reminder to me that yoga is best when mixed with silliness and fun. (I need this reminder a lot!)

There are so many great reasons to get kids involved with yoga too. I was recently emailed an article about all the ways yoga can benefit kids. Check it out. Cool, right? I wonder how different schools would be if they included a short yoga class as part of the curriculum. (Speaking of which… I found this podcast that talks about how kids/people learn better when more of their body is involved… not just the mind. I found it fascinating. Maybe you’ll like it too.)

Went out and played with the wind and water yesterday. There’s nothing like gliding across an open lake with just the power of the sky behind you and the buoyancy of the water beneath. There’s something so pure about it. It’s empowering to feel the speed that’s there if you just grab onto it. Leaning your whole weight into it to hang on just a little longer. Then letting your sail all the way out to stand still and feel the solitude that’s also already out there waiting.

she reminds me to be happy. that i can choose to be so. that I can wear funky skirts and stupid teeshirts and crappity shoes if i feel like it. that i can fake-laugh really loud if i want to. that i can cry when i’m overtired. that i can ask for lovin’s if i have a boo-boo — seen or unseen. that i can relish in how it feels to run. to pet a kitty. to walk the dog. to pick the first tomato. to pull a weed. that every moment is so precious and filled with everything there ever was and ever needs to be. and i can be bigger than a shrimp. :)

The last few nights we’ve been playing the “What do you love” game at bedtime at our house. It’s a wonderful way to end the day. It gets your mind off work or your to-dos or little grievances left over from a not-so-stellar day. On an already good day it makes your heart swell up with joy till you find yourself smiling involuntarily. (It does. Try it.)

Here’s how it works: You ask your partner (or yourself for that matter) what are 5 things that you love. Anything goes. Could be little red-head girls called Veda. Could be a giraffe’s long eye-lashes. Could be an icy cold beer at the end of a humid day. If 5 didn’t lift you up, do 5 more.

This is my favorite game. :)

Here are my loves at the moment:

- giant flower fountains at the zoo that cool off my girl and make her lose her mind with happiness.

- going to a yoga class IN MY OWN LITTLE TOWN (in other words… not having to drive over an hour to a city!) tonight that was a style that I liked! I nearly floated off my yoga mat and hugged the teacher.

- a husband with a summer buzz cut and a beard.

- homemade guacamole. It’s good enough to cheer for.

- making veggie sushi at home for dinner, and even though it all fell apart repeatedly, it still tasted good if you closed your eyes.

- wearing dresses.

- putting my art table back up… I took it down for the home-sale, but the home is not sailing… so it’s back up, waiting for me to come play.

- speaking of sailing: sailing! Little sunfish boats are so fun to race around on the lake.

- fiction in the summer time.

- hearing the dalai lama speak in person. (yeah baby!)

- going through my wardrobe and finding ill-fitting clothes to cut up and alter to be cooler clothes that do fit. hee… I’m no seamstress, We’ll see if it works. :)

What do you love?

* * *

happy summer solstice!

Lately I’ve been thinking a lot about prayer… What it is. What it means. How to do it. etc.

I listened to an SOF podcast where Seane Corn talks about yoga being a “body prayer”, and I liked that idea because oftentimes that’s what it feels like to me when I do yoga. Like the movement and breath creates a stillness that’s akin to prayer.

I’m not sure where, but I also heard a phrase that went something like this: “prayer is talking to god. meditation is listening.” And I liked that, too.

And I’ve even run across articles and podcasts that talk about scientists who are trying to measure prayer as a form of alternative healing (much like acupuncture, massage, etc).

So all this has me thinking about prayer…

Questions have been popping up:

- Do you pray?

- Is prayer communing and listening to the divine/god/love?

- Or is prayer usually just asking for something?

- What does prayer mean to you?

- Do you think people pray more in times of need/pain than in others? Why?

For me personally, prayer has changed. I used to ask for things in prayer. Specifically outcomes that I wanted to see happen. For example: “Please send sun for the cookout on Sunday.” But I’ve started to realize that these personal prayer requests might actually be kind of selfish. What if rain was desperately needed for a farmer’s crops? Or if a storm was required to get pollen counts down to a reasonable level? I don’t know. Maybe by praying for sun I was asking for a global disaster? (I’m being silly.)

So then I started to consider that old prayer “thy will be done”. You know the one. But when reasoning through that I thought: well, “thy will” will be done regardless. It’s like praying for whatever will be, to be… which is kind of unnecessary, don’t you think? “Hey god/divine/love… do whatever you want. I’m cool with it.” That seems ridiculous and egotistical to me.

So how does it make the most sense to pray? I’ve been thinking that maybe prayer should be more about asking for understanding or clarity on why thy will needs to be done. Or maybe just a prayer for acceptance. In a more serious scenario: asking for acceptance about a family member’s recent alzheimer’s diagnosis.

And when prayer doesn’t include requests or needs… maybe prayer is more about stating gratitude. Holding up your joy to look at. And about getting still and quiet, just like meditation. Centering on that. Maybe prayer is just being aware of and in contact with the divine in thought throughout the day. Sharing the personal and the micro with the impersonal and the macro.