Yoga Teacher Training reflection assignment...
6. Opening to Grace
Every day Grace is happening in big and small ways in our lives, through blessings, guidance, coincidence, synchronicity, moments of inspiration, etc. Write about two events that occur in the time span of Module 2 where you are aware of Grace in your life.

September 21, 2008
Since I’ve moved back to Waterloo at the beginning of September, it’s been really great reconnecting with old friends here. However, I’m connecting with new people in university classes, in yoga classes, even on the bus in ways I hadn’t for years.
I remember when I was a child I made friends so easily- I would meet someone on the playground or on a camping trip with my family and instantly have a new playmate.
But somewhere between then and now, I became hesitant and scared of meeting new people, I was closing inwards.
However, something shifted during the my YTT. I feel much more open-hearted and less afraid of people and of making friends. In the YTT I discovered how we're not all so separate as I used to think. Connecting with others just starts with an open-heart and a smile. It something that takes practice for me, but its become more effortless again, like it was when I was a child.

big batch of ginger-peace-almond muffins

mix and let it sit to get gelatinous
1/4 C ground flax and 2/3 C water

in a large bowl mix:
4 C flour
2 t baking powder
2 t baking soda
1 t sea salt
1-2 T cinnamon
4 T fresh grated ginger
1 C ground almond
1/2 veg or olive oil

to the flax mix in:
1/3 c pure apple butter
1/3 + C pure maple syrup

mix the wet and dry ingredients. then add 4 C chopped peaces.
spoon into muffin tins, and then sprinkle with cinnamon

Eve Ensler, the American playwright, performer, feminist and activist
best known for "The Vagina Monologues", wrote the following about Sarah
Palin.

Drill, Drill, Drill

I am having Sarah Palin nightmares. I dreamt last night that she was
a member of a club where they rode snowmobiles and wore the claws of
drowned and starved polar bears around their necks. I have a particular
thing for Polar Bears. Maybe it's their snowy whiteness or their bigness
or the fact that they live in the arctic or that I have never seen one
in person or touched one. Maybe it is the fact that they live so
comfortably on ice. Whatever it is, I need the polar bears.

I don't like raging at women. I am a Feminist and have spent my life
trying to build community, help empower women and stop violence against
them. It is hard to write about Sarah Palin. This is why the Sarah Palin
choice was all the more insidious and cynical. The people who made this
choice count on the goodness and solidarity of Feminists.

But everything Sarah Palin believes in and practices is antithetical
to Feminism which for me is part of one story -- connected to saving the
earth, ending racism, empowering women, giving young girls options,
opening our minds, deepening tolerance, and ending violence and war.

I believe that the McCain/Palin ticket is one of the most dangerous
choices of my lifetime, and should this country chose those candidates
the fall-out may be so great, the destruction so vast in so many areas
that America may never recover. But what is equally disturbing is the
impact that duo would have on the rest of the world. Unfortunately,
this is not a joke. In my lifetime I have seen the clownish, the inept,
the bizarre be elected to the presidency with regularity.

Sarah Palin does not believe in evolution. I take this as a metaphor.
In her world and the world of Fundamentalists nothing changes or gets
better or evolves. She does not believe in global warming. The melting
of the arctic, the storms that are destroying our cities, the pollution
and rise of cancers, are all part of God's plan. She is fighting to
take the polar bears off the endangered species list. The earth, in
Palin's view, is here to be taken and plundered. The wolves and the
bears are here to be shot and plundered. The oil is here to be taken and plundered. Iraq is here to be taken and plundered. As she said herself of the Iraqi war, "It was a task from God."



Sarah Palin does not believe in abortion. She does not believe women
who are raped and incested and ripped open against their will should
have a right to determine whether they have their rapist's baby or not.

She obviously does not believe in sex education or birth control. I
imagine her daughter was practicing abstinence and we know how many
babies that makes.

Sarah Palin does not much believe in thinking. From what I gather she
has tried to ban books from the library, has a tendency to dispense with
people who think independently. She cannot tolerate an environment of
ambiguity and difference. This is a woman who could and might very well
be the next president of the United States . She would govern one of the
most diverse populations on the earth.

Sarah believes in guns. She has her own custom Austrian hunting
rifle. She has been known to kill 40 caribou at a clip. She has shot
hundreds of wolves from the air.

Sarah believes in God. That is of course her right, her private
right. But when God and Guns come together in the public sector, when
war is declared in God's name, when the rights of women are denied in
his name, that is the end of separation of church and state and the
undoing of everything America has ever tried to be.

I write to my sisters. I write because I believe we hold this
election in our hands. This vote is a vote that will determine the
future not just of the U.S. , but of the planet. It will determine
whether we create policies to save the earth or make it forever
uninhabitable for humans. It will determine whether we move towards
dialogue and diplomacy in the world or whether we escalate violence
through invasion, undermining and attack. It will determine whether we
go for oil, strip mining, coal burning or invest our money in
alternatives that will free us from dependency and destruction. It will
determine if money gets spent on education and healthcare or whether we
build more and more methods of killing. It will determine whether
America is a free open tolerant society or a closed place of fear,
fundamentalism and aggression.

If the Polar Bears don't move you to go and do everything in your
power to get Obama elected then consider the chant that filled the hall
after Palin spoke at the RNC, "Drill Drill Drill." I think of teeth when
I think of drills. I think of rape. I think of destruction. I think of
domination. I think of military exercises that force mindless
repetition, emptying the brain of analysis, doubt, ambiguity or dissent.
I think of pain.

Do we want a future of drilling? More holes in the ozone, in the
floor of the sea, more holes in our thinking, in the trust between
nations and peoples, more holes in the fabric of this precious thing we
call life?


Eve Ensler
September 5, 2008

Sad stat of the day:

In North America, humans now spend approximately 90 percent of their time indoors and a further 5 percent in cars, leaving only 5 percent of the time when they are outdoors (Leech et al, 1996)

I'm not sure if this is waking time or based on 24-hour day. But still, we need to be outside more, trees and earth and sky is so much more inspiring than four walls and furniture!!! enjoy it while you can before it gets too cold! (if you're reading from somewhere in N. America that is). This stat is pretty accurate for me in the winter, but this summer I often spent 4-5 hours outside everyday.




I got this stat from an interesting report on Urban Ecosystems and Human Health that i'm reading for my Environment and Resource Studies course called "Building Sustainable Communities"

This evening I made up two recipes all by myself!
(the soup is an attempt to replicated something i had a veg resto in montreal- my variation is a bit more complex, might i say, more delicious?)

Sweet and Savory Beet Soup
6-8 beets (less if they're really big ones, more if they're tiny)
1 small head of garlic
1 large leek, thinly sliced up to the start of the dark green park
1 small onion, chopped
5 C water + 1.5 vegetable bullion OR 5 C vegetable stock
1 C brown (french) lentils, rinsed
2 T pure maple syrup
1/2 t. fresh ground black pepper
1 T fresh parsley (or 1 t dried)
1 T 1 T fresh rosemary (or 1 t dried)
1 T fresh thyme (or 1 t dried)
1-2 cups green or yellow beans, cut into bit sized pieces (optional)

1. Rap the beets (washed but not peeled) and the head of garlic in tin foil and roast in the oven for 1 hour at 375 degrees. (toaster ovens are great for this!)
2. Meanwhile, prepare other ingredients
3. Sauté the leek and onion in a bit of olive oil for several minutes until tender
4. Peel and chop the beets into bit-sized pieces and squeeze the cloves of garlic out of their skins.
4. Add the beets, garlic, stock, maple syrup, lentils, pepper, and herbs to the leek and onion.
5. Bring to a boil and then reduce to simmer for 40 minutes or until the lentils are tender.
6. 5-10 Minutes before serving add the green beans and continue to simmer.


Brown rice and lentil pilaf
1 small onion, chopped
1 pepper, any color will do, chopped
a handful of mushrooms, chopped
1 carrot, chopped
1 C brown rice (rinsed)
1 C brown/french lentils (rinsed, check for pebbles!)
4 C water
1/2 t sea salt or vegetable salts
1/2 t thyme
a dash of pepper

1. Sauté the vegetables until tender in vegetable or olive oil
2. add spices, rice, lentils and salt.
3. bring to a boil uncovered
4. once boiling, reduce to low temperature and simmer for 45 minutes, or until the rice and lentils are tender.

and serve with love...

tell me what you think if you have a chance to give them a try!

(image from http://pinchmysalt.files.wordpress.com)

Savory Sun-dried Tomato bread or muffins

3 C flour ( i used a combo of slept, kamut and chickpea flours)
1 T baking powder
1/2 t salt
1 T cumin seeds
2 T+ ground cumin
1/2 T cayenne (optional)
1/2-3/4 C finely chopped sun-dried tomato
1 T olive oil
1 1/2 C water

Mix the dry ingredients together in a medium boil. Then slowly add the wet ingredients until a thick sticky dough forms. Place into oiled muffin tins or a bread pan and bake at 350 (20-30 mins for muffins- until knife comes out clean), or 40-50 mins for bread.

(for a variation you could try adding kalamata olives, maybe 1/2 C olives and less sun-dried tomatoes.)

I taught my 2nd class today in Waterloo Park. I was really nervous for some reason that few people would show up- which turned out to be futile, because 14 people came. (Including Joan Schaner- who after my class let me know that she wants me to teach at her studio- hoorah!!). I think I was able to offer a meaningful experience for students, and got good feedback after class that people felt different/better after the class and had fun. I kept my theme simple, talking about staying centred in the midst of transition. I think this was good, and it connected to where most of my students, who are area also university students, feel this week because it’s the start of a new semester. I shared the theme from my heart by talking about how my personal practice had helped me feel grounded and centred through the week. At the end of the class I invited everyone to take a moment to set an intention to take yoga into their week; for example, by being more mindful about their posture, by posing to take a deep breath in a difficult situation.
My sequencing was ok, but I think if it weren’t for the strong theme and my enthusiasm it wouldn’t have held together on its own so well. I taught some difficult poses like navasana and bakasana. It was my edge to teach these in the park to intermediate/beginners with no props. I think I could have done a better job if I could have given assists and variations using props. I did a demo for bakasana and thought I was clear about the main points, but when people came into the pose they weren’t applying them. So, I need to find more ways to say the same things and repeat it a few times. Or for more visual learners I could have demoed one correct pose and another incorrect pose to accentuate the key points. Over all though, it was a good class and I felt a really positive vibe and response from the group. One thing I really appreciated was that people lingered to chat with each other and ask me questions- it feels really good to be facilitating the building of community- KULA!

tonight i'm watching....

Squash, over the last few years, has become one of my favorite things about fall. You can do so many things with it and meld it with a great range of flavors.

So far, butternut is my favorite, mostly because I've got lots of good recipes for it. This fall I'm going to experiment with buttercup and acorn and whatever else i get my hands on.

Here's a recipe I've adapted from La Dolce Vegan, I'm calling it...

Butternut Dhal
1 small onion, chopped
1 T olive oil
2 inches fresh ginger, grated
2 C butternut squashed, cubed
2 C vegetable stock
2 medium tomatoes, chopped (or a 14 oz can of diced toms)
1/2 C red lentils
1/2 t salt +
1/2 t ground pepper
1/4 C chopped cilantro

in a medium soup pot, sauté onion in oil until translucent. Add the ginger and squash and sauté for 5 minutes. Add all other ingredients, except the cilantro. Bring to a boil and then reduce temp and simmer for 15-20 until squash is cooked. Add cilantro. Blend with a hand blender or food processor. Makes 2-3 large servings and 4-5 small.

I've also been discovered the deliciousness of steamed greens lately. On my plate tonight was a mix of beet greens and kale with sea salt.

tell me what you think of the recipe if you try it!

things i loved about today:

-wandering around kitchener
-using my austrian Klimpt bag
-cooking butternut squash that was larger than many newborn babies
-my roommates being awesome and making me laugh


we had family dinner tonight. I made ginger-pear-peach rice pudding.

purée together until smooth...
-2-2.5 cups cooked brown rice
-2+ cups peaches and pears, or other seasonal soft fruits
-1/2 cup maple syrup
-1/2 cup milk (soy, rice, almond or cow)
-1+ T grated fresh ginger
sprinkle with cinnamon before serving (optional)