Cookies, socks and winter activities oh my

Parsva Urdhva Hastasana - Upward Salute Side Bend Pose
Can you straighten your arms? All the way?

I am back in the kitchen baking up a storm once again. Is it my “new easy bake oven” (air fryer)? Or the fact that my youngest is now three and slightly less underfoot? It’s both I’m sure, and other factors, too. (Chilly weather💨) Whatever it is, I will run with it…and so should you! 🍪

Along with banana bread, oatmeal raisin cookies, yogurt cake, cream cheese frosting and so on.

My daughter knits socks 🧶 🧦 among many other gems.

Doodlers love doodles

🌈Tadasana Hindolasana - Standing Cradle Pose. Just here being my embellished self. 🎀🐯🎄  

How we do one thing is how we do everything. One look in my cabinet and I had to laugh - a collection of drawings on both my shelf stable household items and my perishables…

Everything must have doodly drawings in HappyGoLuckyILoveCreativityWithColor&PatternAstridLand.

Houseworkasana

Houseworkasana

AHA moments are continuously had in savasana, but also habitually unveiled while carrying out the housework. 🧹 

What are you building?

 

Eka Pada Raja Kapotasana - King Pigeon Pose in happy frenchie cool girl stripies

Eka Pada Raja Kapotasana - King Pigeon Pose

Add flourish to your asanas. 🐚 

Everyday around 10am, for eight days straight, our family of six, (with cousins in tow,) headed to the beach. My youngest, age 3, would promptly ask me to “build a road”. We scooped, dug, piled, grated, patted, and decorated gaping holes, super highways, winding rivers, picturesque villages, connecting tunnels, long islands, creepy faces, and even a giant sea serpent monster. What were we making? We never knew. We just kept constructing. 

🧜‍♀️🧜‍♀️Sea monsters🧜‍♂️🧜‍♂️

Yo-ga

 

Dance your yoga ~ unite with the divine. Inner peace and outer beauty are yours for the taking.

This New Year - UNIFY yourself.

YOLK each aspect of your life through self realization. 🥚 

Jolly shopping and wrapping.

Silly gilly traveling.

Amusing dressing and entertaining.

Victory pack

 

Vrksasana -  Tree Pose while auditioning clothes (yes, sparkle pink is coming with!). 🌸

Vrksasana - Tree Pose

TRY ON ALL clothing and accessories, if possible, when packing for a trip - dressing well is a feeling, literally. 

Special state of mind

Eka Pada Raja Kapotasana - King Pigeon Pose, P.J.s all day. 🌹 

Eka Pada Rajakapotasana - King Pigeon Pose

Much ado leading up to the big day (in this case Christmas). IN THE WAKE of any momentous occasion I find myself in a very unique state of mental clarity; this is a prime opportunity to write reference notes. Keep a notebook for ‘hostessing’, ‘travel’, ‘holidays’ - wherever your interests lie - in order to access that very particular productive you. Borrow her Herculean magic using your own words for increased performance when the successive time comes and you are *stumped or *frustrated - inevitably my vibe before birthdays, travel, holiday etc. !!! LISTS - ‘gifts’, ’paint colors’, ‘buffet table setting’, ‘long car ride’, ‘weather in Telluride’ - are especially supportive.

**A note on resistance — we are most apt to create friction and repel those undertakings and engagements that give us the most satisfaction as the pressure to perform in something we are passionate about, skilled or talented at, is immense. 🔥 🎭 

Observe

 

Malasana - Garland Pose starry ⭐️ bubbly 🫧 lovey 💕 dovey 🕊️ 

Malasana - Garland Pose

Sit back and watch the frenzied, delirious world do its thing whilst you do peaceful, casual yours. 

Buttermilk snow bunnies gone disco crazy 🐰 🪩 

Jingle all the way 🔔 

🌫️ Fog lifts 🪽

 

Utthita Ashta Sanchalasana - Runner’s Lunge Pose in eclectic, collected woolen long johns.

Utthita Ashwa Sanchalasana - Runner’s Lunge Pose

Easylike

Big (holiday, travel) emotions have bubbled to the top, then, mercifully, dissipated into thin  air. 🫧 

Monogram

 

Utthita Parsvakonasana - Extended Side Angle Pose

Play and pose your trademark way.

The ‘To Do’ lists are never done; they are your infinite unending daily life notes, so write your days in your best, signature handwriting. 💘🎀

Hands like work

 

Virasana - Hero Pose

How do we quiet the mind and open the heart? By moving the hands. 

A weighty question has been pulling me down and dragging me back, but I found respite and lightness this morning by: unpacking our suitcases, setting up the advent, calling an artist to collaborate, writing checks, designing and sending an invitation, decorating a small tree, cooking a nourishing dinner… 🎄 

Counsel

 

Parsva Bakasana - Side Crow Pose

Our guttural response to advice requested is it’s most illuminating aspect, don’t you think? Wink 😉. 

Fishing for compliments

 

Matsyasana - Fish Pose

Feeling like a fish out of water is not a negative - embrace your quirky point of view without expecting anyone else to. 

Thoughtlessness

Phalakasana - Plank Pose, hip twist

Feet hips distance apart.

Hurts so good.

Twists are far more potent now than in my twenties. Is the sensation from childbearing and birthing? Amassed responsibilities? Accumulated toxicity? Crystalized convictions?  … 

Vinyasa = no thoughts! Moving through postures breath by breath reduces opportunities for extraneous thoughts. I forgot my water bottle in the studio today. (& Yesterday I forgot my mat!) Not because I wasn’t thinking, but because I was thinking too much!!

🦢 elegant and effective

 

Upavistha Hamsasana - Sitting Swan Pose

Both graceful and effective. 

Weekends are the necessary outbreath to your week’s extended and exaggerated inbreath. Keep your weekends 1. Nourishing 2. Restful 3. Warm. 🧤🧦🪶

Wholesome nature-based activities nourish the soul. 

Warm with Fire and Water (food and clothing).

Movement can be restful; rather than planning a ‘hike’, step right outside your door.

Have an approach that is lighthearted and buoyant.

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’. 

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. 

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. 

🐭

🍂🧡🎃💛🌻

- 💚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.