A Season of Appreciation

I am having a sumptuous (yes, I know!) morning. Fall is in the air. Simon and Margot are spending father-daughter quality time out of the house. I just finished an inspiring yoga class with the insightful Elena Bower (on yogaglo)  I chose the 60 minutes"Welcoming Fall" class.  The pace was slower than I'm used to, ah! but what delight it gave me! A few restorative poses, then lunges, a creative sun flow, beautiful openings and time… Time to listen to one's breath. Time to sit still. Time to absorb Elena's guiding words. Time to plant the seeds for this new season.

I associate fall as a go-go-go season. After a "slacking" summer, it's time to get back on track; time for a routine; time to actively get things done. However, fall is really about starting to slow down; to look more inwards; to notice; to ground; to start tapping into your creativity juices. To pause and to smile :)

Fall is a rich season. I find it difficult to slow down when it's a time of year that is usually quite energetic for me (mostly because I'm back in the swing of things). Also, when the weather is beautiful, I appreciate it twice as more and itch to spend time outside, dreading the forth coming winter (how long will it be this year?).

Enjoying our morning hike

Here's our seasonal Family Manifesto:

We went Apple Picking this weekend.

Great snap of Margot's missing tooth!

No bushels this year. You are given a bag (you choose the size) to fill.

We were a bit late in the apple picking season
(we usually go the 3rd weekend of Sept.) and
we were limited in the choice of apples. Cortland it was!

"This is the best day ever!!!" Margot exclaimed at the apple orchard
(eating an apple-flavoured hot dog made it extra special!)

Bite into fall! Enjoy the sunshine and the crisp air. Get out there and explore! But also take moments to connect to yourself and your loved ones; to take it easy; to appreciate.

A Bit of Yoga...

…in the kitchen
…almost naked
…accompanied by the radio

why not?

I had no set-up with this. Honestly. None.
Margot dragged her yoga mat in the kitchen, took the radio and placed it on the floor and grabbed her yoga book.

p.s. Deep down, I'm so proud of my little yogini for taking initiative.

Jen's Parenting Tip: Don't force your kid to do something. If you do something on a regular basis and your chid sees you, she will simply think that that's the norm and eventually come around to it… or not…

Mondays with Margot: Musical

I created this little song. Margot and I sing it every morning.

Thoughts on a Thursday: On Morning Routine

I think it's important to do something for yourself in the morning. You wake up. You greet the day. You have a little routine. And then you are ready to face the world. It sets the tone for the rest of your day.

I have a good friend who wakes up 30 minutes earlier than the rest of her busy household to take time for herself. That sounds sumptuous!
I have another lovely  friend who wakes up early on weekends to read. What delight!

These last few months, I have adopted a home morning routine. No, I don't wake up earlier than everyone else (I like sleep). I don't meditate for 10 minutes (I get more out of meditation in the evenings; to wind down at the end of a day; to reconnect with my breath and to calm my busy mind). Every week day morning, right after I make my way downstairs, which is usually around 7:30/8am, I drink a glass of water, stand on my yoga mat  and do 5 rounds of Surya Namaskar (usually A, sometimes I add B). It opens my body, gets me energized, grounds me for the day, connects me with my breath. Before I boil the water for my tea or get things ready for breakfast, I get on my mat and begin the day right! It's simple for me to do and I feel great doing it.   

My perfect morning routine would be as such: I wake up earlier than M. and S. I do a bit of yoga. I sip my tea while writing a letter. I read a bit. I knit a bit. I take a shower. Ah! How early do I need to wake up to achieve all that? Pretty early ;)

Meanwhile, I will continue saluting the sun (even on a rainy day, like today). It's nothing too extreme, but it makes me happy.

p.s. For those who are curious:  no, Margot does not join in or watch me with curiosity and eagerness to learn. No. She quietly watches dvds in the big red armchair while I do my practice. She's happy too. A winning combination.

Wednesday's Words: Chid Rasa

Last Sunday morning, I enjoyed a fabulous yoga practice (thank you myyogaonline.com!)  with the inspirational and vibrant Janet Stone.  (One day, I will have to return to San Fran to attend one of her daily classes. Her approach to yoga really speaks to me.)

She was talking about Chid Rasa.
Chid means the great consciousness; the seer. As humans, we have a limited perspective. We often don't recognize that the lens we are looking through is small. When we practice yoga, we practice to open that lens; to get a glimpse of the awareness within us.
Rasa means essence; juice; the great arts; the moods: humour, anger, desire, love, laughter, agony...

You combine those two Sanskrit words and you get: Chid Rasa: Liquid Awakening. One needs to find the ability to possess consciousness that is permeable, movable, liquid.

What does it all mean? It boils down to this: when we bump up against the edges of being human, we have the capacity to pause for a moment and find our own flexibility within the circumstance, the
situation.

So, to all, I wish you moments of Chid Rasa.

Lil' Yogini

p.s. I swear I don't have anything to do with it ;)

Sunday Morning Yoga

I experienced a delicious Sunday morning while Margot and Simon went to church. 90 minutes of yoga. A live-filmed class at San Francisco's Yoga Tree studio (where I went to follow a Jason Crandell class in August 2009), led by Janet Stone. It was amazing! There was mantra chanting, a meditation in motion, a focus on obstacles, creative flow, ending with a seated meditation. I smiled. I sweated. I opened. I moved.  On a rainy October morning, this was the perfect remedy!

My yoga practice has been floppy since September (coincidentally since I started teaching). It's been inconsistent and my practices have been short. I know that the length of a class doesn't really matter: it is better to do 20 minutes daily than 90 minutes weekly. But... there's something so rewarding and more powerful in a longer class! You get so much more out of it. It brings you to another level.

And great news: Margot loves yoga! I didn't have anything to do with it. She begs me to watch "yoga kids" - YouTube videos of children's yoga. Sometimes she joins in, other times she just quietly observes. ;)

Retreating

This weekend I went to a yoga retreat with a dear friend. We always dreamed of going to a yoga retreat in Costa Rica one day. We couldn't do Costa Rica this year, so we went to Wolf Island instead (close to Kingston) to Shanti Yoga Retreat. I didn't bring my camera, but if you look at their website, it gives you an idea of what it looks like (and it really looks like that).  The property is magnificent! There was a lot of R&R time. The weather was gorgeous. I read. I swam. I knitted. I did some yoga. Unfortunately, the type of yoga (Agama Yoga) practiced that weekend wasn't really my thing. However, it was a nice little getaway from the daily grind and I do feel refreshed!


MARGOT NEWS:

Margot learned to make bread at the Agriculture Museum:

Margot doesn't like having a barrette in her hair:

Margot always picks the biggest watermelon piece and gobbles it. She needs to eat watermelon naked because it's more convenient to hose her down:

Margot loves tomatoes. She did take an enormous bite of that big one. We get weekly vegetable deliveries from a farm and Margot always bites in a few veggies between the pick up spot (a block from our house) and our house.

Happy March

It's my March break and I'm suppose to be marking essays right now. I have about 60 compositions to correct. I started at 10 am this morning and I have done three so far (it's 10:30 am)
Needless to say, I'd rather do something else: enjoying this sunny morning, knitting , reading Out of Africa, organizing my yoga dvds.
I did my yoga practice this morning, which was lovely! Yoga Today rocks! If I don't do my yoga practice early in the morning, I lose all interest. Before a shower, a cuppa tea and checking my emails, I need to do yoga. If I don't, the day just unwinds and before I know it it's the afternoon and other things take priority.

A new month. I can't believe we're in March already! It just kindda crept up.

Random things (because I love randomness):

Margot loves looking at videos of herself on the computer. This is how we survive the "witching hour":

"It's an odd thing, but anyone who disappears is said to be seen in San Francisco. It must be a delightful city and possess all the attractions of the next world," - Oscar Wilde

When you need to refresh a room, sometimes just moving the furniture around does the job. This is what we did to our bedroom and now it's so inviting: there's a little reading nook, the bare wall isn't so overbearing and there's a little trinket bookcase that use to be our console table.

But now our entrance looks like this. It's a bit empty, but that's alright as Margot excels in reorganizing the baskets full of tuques, mitts, sweaters.