Consistency

 

Awkward Airplane Balance Pose

Simple. Strong. Everyday. 

Not crabby

Eka Pada Ardha Purvottanasana - One Legged Reverse Table Top Pose

Eka Pada Ardha Catuspadapitham - One legged crab pose 

🦀 

Just hanging out, letting your light shine. 

Certainly we do not neeeeeed skin tight, synthetic leggings (or polyvinyl thermoplastic mats, tritan water bottles, laminate floors, foam blocks…) to train. 

Mystical magical

 

Ardha Purvottanasana - Reverse Tabletop Pose

RECLAMATION: Not a destination. An ongoing, thrilling, pleasurable, amusing, surprising, magical, life-long process.

Destroyer of all diseases

 

Matsyasana - Fish Pose

Reduce stiffness in shoulders and neck. Improve posture. Balance the thyroid.

Self-compassionate healing après over-giving. 

🥠Fortunate🪙

 

Supta Utthita Tadasana - Supine Extended Mountain Pose

 Streeeeeeeeetch from the tips of your fingers to the ends of your toes. 

How lucky are we to be born again each morning?

What fresh hell is this?

Supta Baddha Konasana - Reclining Bound Angle 

With a bolster, two blocks and blankets.

OH the sheer agony of caring for the family and tending to the home while feeling unwell. We know it from periods, pregnancy, childbirth and postpartum, traumatic or sad events, the common cold, chronic illness, heartache, heartbreak and beyond. There is no relief to be found. My personal solution? Complain (and blame) loudly and incessantly until someone (my husband) tells me they feel sorry for me and then all is a little bit more right in my world - merci beaucoup, dankeschön. 

Flechette 🎯

Prasarita Prapadasana - Wide Toe Balance

Namaskar Mudra

Embody that little arrow pointing where you aim to go! 🏹

 

Head cold

 

Parsva Savasana - Side Lying Corpse Pose - Fetal Position

What is your illness telling you? STOP most of what you’re doing, get quiet & listen intent-ly.

My head is now submerged in what feels like a giant cotton ball and I’m hearing from my dis-ease that I’ve been consuming too much. Intaking kids’ equipment, junk food, other’s opinions, gossip, media, activity, meetings… throat, nose, ears and eyes are ailing. As I have been actively releasing much of this worldly influx as of late, I can also concur this is another important, physical step in the cleansing. ☁️ 

Gaseous 🌬️

 

Ardha Pavan Muktasana - Half Wind Removing Pose

Release blocked energy channels. 

 Handpick preferences and priorities. Your own, not others’. 

Returns and exchanges

Supta Padangusthasana - Reclined Big Toe Pose, with strap

Realize genuine aspirations by crossing off of your list any and all errands / shopping. XX even those returns and exchanges that seemingly save you money, but in reality perpetuate a vicious cycle (of believing that next thingie might finally make all the difference). Eat the ‘cost’ to reclaim the hours up front and bask in the meaningful goals accomplished before long.

Shrewd

 

Supta Padangusthasana - Reclined Big Toe Pose

Preserving energy is not underperforming, it is clever planning. 

Q

Malasana - Garland toe stand 

 Learning to ask questions by practicing asking questions. 

I always thought it too prying, probing, meddling and forward to ask questions (both personal and impersonal), and so rarely did. But I am endlessly curious and interested in others by nature (people watcher) and am at long last gleaning that people are keen on sharing and opening up. So here come the Q’s.

Label maker

 

Adho Mukha Sukhasana - Easy Pose Forward Fold

LABELS may temporarily console us (“I am not alone!”) but, ultimately, epithets are limiting and best discarded (every snowflake is, in fact, unique.) ❄️ 

Also - put down the podcast, book, lecture, course etc. Cease the googling. And reject outside opinion (even from your mother, brother and besties). Reacquaint yourself with yourself. (The answer is you.)

20 toes

Prapadasana - Toe Stand, practice

The exponential power 💥 of collaborating with your friends and the unlimited learning opportunities 🤓 of working with those unfamiliar. 

Cheery

 

Prapadasana - Toe Balance 

Clear (even just a byte of) your DIGITAL CLUTTER  and experience such exceptional lightness and striking clarity it’s revolutionary. 

Pointer

 

Bharmanasana - Table Top, Bird Dog Pose

All I know in this moment is that I do not know… 

Homework

 

Bharmanasana - Tabletop, Wrist Stretch

Finished is better than perfect. 

Start here

 

Phalakasana - Plank Pose

Small victories: 1. Make the bed. 2. Brush your teeth. 3. Walk the dog. 4. Brush your teeth. 5. Unmake the bed. 

Fruit

 

Bharmanasana - Table Top Pose

There are times to actively manifest* and times to passively enjoy the fruits of your labor. 🍡

* manifest = imagine and create your own true, beautiful, Free reality, not that which the ‘world’ dictates. 

Thingies 💓💖💝💕

 

Vyaghrasana Dandayamana Bharmanasana Vinyasa- Tiger Tabletop Pose Knee to Nose Flow

If you’re not fond of that THING (the fit of your sweats, the tightness of your sports bra, the cut or color of your thong, the stroke of your hairbrush, the ingredients in your lip gloss, the squeeze of the scrunchie on your wrist…) today, it will inconvenience you even more tomorrow, but you will forget your aversion over time - so OUT NOW with that thingie! And all of its unsatisfactory thingie friends, too. 

Zero talent 🥶

Vyaghrasana - Tiger Pose 💖🐯⛸️

About to skate, swim AND climb with kids 🥶😶‍🌫️😱, these are precisely the words of wisdom this mom needed today: 

“Everyday you wake up, you can control your attitude and your effort… it takes zero talent to be a good person and a good teammate.” - Aspen Recreation Center, Ice rink

Long weekends = lots of spontaneous outings. 

Tiger mom 🐅

Viaghrasana - Tiger Curl Pose

In order of importance:

1. State of mind.

2. Breath.

3. Asana, physical pose.

🐯 

Question: “Mom, what’s the most unhealthy thing for you?”

Response: “Hmmmm … unhealthy thoughts?”

Eras

 

Era of refinement.

Be true to yourself in this present-day era: balance inner knowing with open curiosity. There is always room for improvement. 

Years

 

Uttitha Tadasana - Mountain Pose, with Backbend

Years - decades - of practicing yoga allow for a vast catalogue of poses to call upon and with less ego attached to them; including the acceptance that certain poses may never look a specific way.

Sirsa

 

Pincha Mayurasana - Feathered Peacock - Forearm Stand - from Sirsasana - Headstand

Begin with head - Sirsa - in forearms and then press up.

Mahamayuri mudra: Middle three fingers clasped, pinkies and thumbs straight, to begin. 

Then your palms toward the floor for lift?

Find your own way into poses with personalized little swindles! Tricks! Hoaxes! Hoodwinks! Exploit your physical advantages. The yoga police will come - let them! 😈🎃

Stay and play 🦚

 

Pincha Mayurasana - Feathered Peacock Pose

With or without the wall. 

🦚 Strike while the iron is hot and play all-warmed-up directly after class (if the room is available) or immediately upon returning home. 🪶 

Splendor

Mahayamuri Mudra - for the wise peacock queen.

From hands in prayer at heart center, clasp together the three middle fingers of both hands leaving the thumbs and pinkies extended. 

Mahayamuri mudra - Activate your crown chakra, accelerate towards your destiny. 

Modest days are splendid wise peacock rising days. 

Major

 

Pincha Mayurasana - Forearm Stand funky style

Practice, practice, practice. OR maybe it’s just not that major for you. 

Favorites

 

Ardha Chandrasana - Half Moon Pose

It’s OK to like a pose once in a while 😉 

Date Night 🍾

 

Parsva Bakasana - Side Crow Pose

Tension as an opportunity for connection; turn your least favorite day into one you look forward to.🍾

Privacy

 

Pincha Mayurasana - Forearm Stand with stag legs 

Some poses are better practiced at home. 

The hospitality rubber band has been stretched to its maximum and must now snap back; after a many-weeks-long, very social streak for our household, mom and dad are enforcing nuclear family time, just the six of us (plus the pup). 

Avert burnout 💥

 

Parsva Bakasana - Side Crow Pose

Some days (weeks?) are No Guest Days (no play dates, neighbors, workmen, dinner crashers, carpools…)  Determine the duration and spread the word. 

Proper preparation prevents poor performance

 

Parivrtta Utkatasana - Twisting Chair Pose

Momentous, significant (appointment, meeting, trip, event, party, holiday) day tomorrow? In order to sleep, do so with a notepad and pen on your bedside table. 🗒️💤 

🐭

🍂🧡🎃💛🌻

- 💚BAKE zucchini bread. 

- 💛Light a CANDLE at dinner.

- 🧡Autumnify the NATURE TABLE. 

- ❤️UNEARTH the winter socks. (And pants, and hats, and mittens…)

- 💜CRAFT in the common family area.

Cobwebs in the attic

 

Parsvottanasana - Pyramid Pose 

🕷️ IDENTIFY and sweep aside your COBWEBS. 🕸️ 🧹 

Altitude

Urdhva Mukha Pasasana - Thread the needle pose 🧵 🪡 

 Relax your eyes, relax your jaw, relax your teeth, relax your toes, relax your ATTITUDE. 

Squeak

 

Waterfall Pose, Squat Pose

Afishka yoga mice packed and dressed

Pack, fold, place sweetly out of sight only those clothes you’ll be elated to unbox next summer. The SURPLUS leaves your home ASAP. 🍃 🍂 

OMing ocean

 

OM - Primordial vibration of the universe.

Sonic representation of the divine. 

Why yoga at the studio and not at home? The energy of the group carries you. 

Sprinkle

 

Ashta Chandrasana Backbend - High Lunge Pose Backbend

Reaffirm and reassure through repetition of the time-tested, tried and true. Then garnish with your characteristic flair. 

Yang

 

Viparita Virabhadrasana- Reverse Warrior Pose

Give us your deepest, strongest versions of your poses. No excuses. If not NOW, at Summer’s end, then when?

Yoga nidra

 

Waterfall with bolster

I practice yoga. Just kidding I take naps. 

“Summer’s lease hath all too short a date.”

 

Halasana - Plow Pose

“But thy eternal summer shall not fade.” - William Shakespeare 

In the wake

 

Viparita Trikonasana- Reverse Triangle Pose

What comes after the precipice? The Hinge point from expansion to contraction. Anticipation to aftermath. 

Velocity

Dhanurasana - Bow Pose

It is an effortful task to reverse the momentum from intake to outtake when a decision has been made to disencumber yourself (of both your beliefs and your belongings). But once that tide has been turned - you are unstoppable. 🌊 🏹

Math

 

Eka Pada Raja Kapotasana II - One Legged King Pigeon Pose II

In the equation of life, adding is so much more entertaining (and prevailing) than subtracting. But to live free and true we must ask “what more can I DEDUCT? Discount? Live without?”

Mirror rorriM

Bhujangasana - Cobra Pose arms wide 🐍 

When we lessen our own material requirements, (persistently removing those pesky impulses and cravings one-at-a-time,) the incessant worldly demands of our children (and other household members) no longer vex us, as the mirror aspect is removed. 🪞 

XS enough to schlep XXL loads.

Make do 🍋🐑🥥

Weekends are for using it up or chucking it out! Clean out the fridge + actually clean the fridge = resourceful foods for the famille and a fit kitchen for the week ahead. 🛒

Lemon Mousse from lemon curd left-overs and on-hand whipping cream.

Remaining cup of sheep’s yogurt into Brownies 🐑

Coconut milk revives last week’s rice 🙀

💋It’s always the sweets that seem to get photographed. 🤷‍♀️