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JUNE 2011VOLUME 10 / NO. 5
SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA’SFREE YOGA MAGAZINE
LAYOGAMAGAZINE.COM
edible flowersantioxidant bouquet
Lindsay Wagner: beyond bionic woman
Lisbeth Scott: giving voice to forgotten dreams
Clean your closet Clear your head
La Nutriente Energía de Shakti
date fudgehemp milksummer cherries
SUPERFOOD
FIX
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the delicious feel of bamboo.now for yoga.exhale the yoga collective kripalu white lotus the haven yoga sanctuary
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GGO Clothing.com / 877.GGOORGNC
fine organic clothiers
ginseng yoga goda yoga santosha space la jolla bamboo boutique smiling dog yoga
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JUNE 2011 LAYOGA 3
JUNE 2011
FEATURES26 Taste the bounty of Spring with edible flowersWhat do dandelions, roses, lavender, nasturtiums, mustard, and violets have in common? They’re beautiful, edible, delicious, and full of antioxidants and other beneficial phytonutrients.
32 Hemp in the kitchenDon’t succumb to believing the hemp stereotype. These potent seedy superfoods are a welcome addition to any kitchen providing high-protein easy-to-make snacks and staples, like date-hemp-cacao fudge and vegan hemp milk.
36 Sitting down with Lindsay WagnerHer entire life has focused on the exploration of human potential— on screen, in a meditation practice, and in group workshop settings.
54 Spotlight on Lisbeth ScottThis talented singer and multifaceted musician is using her voice to help women reclaim their forgotten dreams with a new foundation and grassroots community empowerment effort.
Community10 Get Up and Go12 Open Doors14 Seen and Heard16 Seva in Action
Practice Pages20 Lighten Up to Achieve
Enlightenment
Teacher Profile24 Ananda Giri
Yoga Therapy38 Heart Health
Ayurveda40 Oils: The Good,
The bad and The Ugly
Español42 La Nutriente Energía de Shakti / The Nourishing Energy of Shakti
Food & Home46 Clean Your Closet, Clear Your Mind
48 Farmer's Corner, Summer Cherries
In Every Issue44 Meditation50 Media52 What's on My Nightstand62 Astrology64 Yantra
AY U R V E D A A N D H E A LT H
ON THE COVER:
Photography by: Carla Cummings
Photograph of: Blythe Metz
Location: Bay Cities Kitchens and Appliances (310) 358-8855
54
16 32
36 26
Don't Miss Lady Yoga's Adventures on pg 56
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editor's note
May Our Practice Nourish Us…
Photo of Felicia taken by: Tai Kerbs
“Do your practice in a way that nourishes you,” Stephanie Phelan’s words echoed through Maha Yoga, by candlelight on a Friday night.
I’m paraphrasing, since her instruction came in a moment of paus-ing in downward facing dog, or maybe it was pigeon, or she could have said this during our slide through the vinyasa of chaturanga that segued into our backbend. But the specific pose really didn’t matter, nor were the exact configuration of her words important. What was meaningful was the suggestion that we allow the practice to nourish us, and that the way we choose to move, to breathe, or to adjust the specifics of our sequence, would help to facilitate this quality: The all-important feeling of allowing the practice to literally feed us.
According to the principles of Ayurveda and the philosophy of Yoga, we eat far more than food; we are nourished by more than calories, vitamins, and grams of protein. Everything that we take in actually becomes us, and all of it has the potential to nourish all of the components of our body, mind, heart, and spirit. Everything can nourish us: What we read and watch, the music playing in the back-ground, the postures in our practice, and the food on our plate. The curve of a flower petal may carry a poignant message for our medita-tion (as Jen Ford pointed out to me while we were in the process of working on this month’s feature on edible flowers).
Our relationship with Shakti, the feminine aspect of spirit, fu-els the very core of our being, as Sister Jayanti, who teaches at the Vedanta Temple in Hollywood, eloquently states in Spanish (and English) here. The creative spirit touches our hearts and nourishes our inspiration, which was made clear to me watching Maurice
Lord’s reaction to a preview of the Tim Burton exhibition at LAC-MA, which will be on view in one of LA’s cultural bastions through October 31.
We are nourished through asana, through hemp fudge (thanks Blythe Metz!), through the power of meditative practice (yes, Lo-rin Roche), a good laugh (which Vanda Mikoloski definitely deliv-ers), through a well-spiced Nepali bitter gourd (courtesy of Reena Gauchon from Kathmandu Boutique), or in the process of think-ing beyond our own self (of which we’re reminded in this issue by people including the City Yoga crew in Hollywood, Lisbeth Scott, Ellen Lavinthal, Beth Shaw, and numerous others who are tirelessly integrating action into the asana of everyday life).
When we allow ourselves the time to pause, to take a deep breath, and to taste the savory nectar that alights on our tongue every day, in a myriad of ways and means and forms, we can remember and feel gratitude for everything with nourishes us. With gratitude, we can fully digest that food, in all its forms. With thanks for all the abundance we share,
Felicia M. Tomasko, RN
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EDITOR-IN-CHIEF Felicia M. Tomasko, RN
CREATIVE DIRECTOR Justine Power
Thank you to the entire Yoga community for participating in and supporting this effort to educate,
inspire, and share wisdom.
Special Thanks – Kasey Luber, Dr. Mark Singleton, Helen Tomasko, Laurie Searle/Lady Yoga
LA YOGA Magazine is being published by Chandra Publishing 1234 26th Street Santa Monica, CA 90404
(310) 828-8218
P R I N T E D I N L O S A N G E L E S
PUBLISHER Douglas R. Corbett
Staff Writers Michael Blahut
Melissa ChuaTamiko FischerVanessa Harris
Karen HenryBeth Prandini
Joni Yung/the Accidental Yogist
Editorial Assistance Selah MichelleTim Shulberg
Advertising CoordinatorRachael Cleghorn
Newsletter Production Joseph Parra
Spanish Editorial AssistanceJaime Carlo-Casellas, PhD
Advertising Executives
Los Angeles – Westside Assia Valova [email protected] (310) 435-6490
Los Angeles – Southside Tara Hitzig [email protected] (310) 422-9399
Los Angeles – Mid City Donna Bulford [email protected] (310) 883-8444
Los Angeles - Eastside Brianna Welke [email protected] (360) 303-8968
Contributors
E. Amato
Dylan Barmmer
Dr. John Casey
Carla Cummings
Geoffrey Earendil,
Derek Feniger
Red Jen Ford
Leslie Hendry
Sister Jayanti
A Karno
Tai Kerbs
Ellen Lavinthal
Amir Magal
Blythe Metz
Vanda Mikoloski
Daniel Overberger
Dr. Lorin Roche
Robert Sturman
Robert Talbert
Sarah Tomlinson
Ashley Wynn
AY U R V E D A A N D H E A LT H
B I K R A M Y O G A L O S A N G E L E S :
Bikramyogamb.com
310-802-0225
3618 Highland Avenue
Manhattan Beach, CA 90266
Bikramyogasilverlake.com
323-668-2500
3223 Glendale Blvd
Los Angeles, CA 90039
Bikramvalley.com
818-752-4325
11239 Ventura Blvd.
Studio City, CA 91604
Bikramyogawestlakevillage.com
818-879-1477
31300 Via Colinas #101
Westlake Village, CA 91362
Bikramyogalacanada.com
818-952-5335
711 Foothill Blvd.
La Canada, CA 91011
Bikramyoga.com
International Headquarters
11500 W. Olympic Blvd. Suite 150
Los Angeles, CA 90064
B I K R A M ' S Y O G A C O L L E G E
O F I N D I A
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B I K R A M ' S Y O G A C O L L E G EO F I N D I A
MO
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L E
LN
A H
UB
BE
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our contributors
CARLA CUMMINGS Photographer Carla Cummings has been documenting and celebrating the human spirit since receiving her first camera as a child. A multidisciplinary artist who was raised in Los Angeles and Mexico City, She is a certified Ayurvedic practitioner, Yoga and meditation Teacher, and an advocate of the healing properties of food, nature and devotion. Like her work at:facebook.com/carlacummingsphotography
VANDA MIKOLOSKI WriterVanda Mikoloski does yoga and comedy with a bunch of awesome people around LA. Catch the show she is producing with 6 other comedian/yogis at Studio Surya Yoga in Venice on June 4th at 8pm. She toured with the Dixie Chicks as their power yoga teacher and has been seen doing stand-up comedy at many of the Yoga Journal conferences.
RED JEN FORD Writer Red Jen Ford manages the Westwood Farmers’ Market where she strolls the stands weekly, complimenting the farm-ers on their bounty. She uses all her senses to apply her Yoga practice to eat-ing, connecting to the season and her surroundings, shopping and preparing foods, then toasting friends, family, and farmers with gratitude before savoring every bite: Redjenford.com
MELISSA CHUA Writer Melissa Chua is a journalism graduate from California State University, North-ridge who has written LA Yoga's Open Doors section for over three years. When she's not exploring a new Yoga studio or vegan restaurant, she enjoys practicing her arm balances and inversions. Her fa-vorite pose is bakasana.
WHERE I PICK UP MY LAYOGA
YOUR LETTERS
Congratulations to Robin Sheldon for winning a copy of the DVD Oh My God. She picks up her copy of LAYoga at the office of her Ayurvedic mentor Dr. Parla Jayagopal.Tell us where you pick up LA Yoga and send us a photo for inclusion in an upcoming issue. write: [email protected]
Dear LA Yoga, I wasn’t sure if there is a typo or if it was intentional but on page 38 of the May 2011 issue of LA YOGA in the Q&A By Dr Parla Jayagopal there is a list of "What to avoid" and on the very bottom of the list was Meditation. Is this an ironic typo or what? Ink Ian
From the Editor: The fact that “Meditation” ended up in the “avoid” list was a formatting error. Meditation is recommended, not only for Raynaud’s syndrome and other circulatory imbalances, but in fact, from an Ayurvedic perspective, meditation is recommended (with proper instruction) in a variety of situations. We regret the mistake and appreciate the careful readers! –FMT
Dear LA Yoga, Regarding the May issue, on page 26: Riding a bike is smart; riding without a helmet is not. What will protect Lauren's head if an opening car door knocks her to the concrete? The picture does not send a safe message. Please think about this; I would assume Lauren wears a seat belt when driving.Warren
From the Editor: We’re happy to see Lauren riding a bike and we didn’t ask if she wears a helmet when she’s actually riding (as compared to posing for a photo). We appreciate the reminders about safety. Here at LA YOGA HQ, we’re safety geeks when it comes to riding around town with our helmets. –FMT
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Seven Chakras Thursday, June 2Artist Linda Saccoccio captures the abstract qualities of the chakras with gestural lines using oil on canvas. These images portray Linda's relationship with spontaneity, free-dom, and Eastern spiritual traditions. Open-ing reception features live Indian music. Reception: 5 P.M., Casa Magazine, 23 E. Canon Perdido, Santa Barbara, CA 93101 The show is up for viewing through July; Lindasaccoccio.com
Santa Monica Yoga Celebrates 10 Years! Saturday, June 4Celebrate 10 active community-filled years with the fellow yogis and teachers of Santa Monica Yoga. Kyra Haglund offers an in-vigorating Yoga class followed by music by DJ Drez, food, drink, and a raffle benefit-ting Yoga Gives Back (prizes include a four-day pass to Wanderlust Festival).6 P.M. Yoga; 8 P.M. Party, Santa Monica Yoga, 1640 Ocean Park Blvd, Santa Monica, CA; (310) 396-4040; Santamonicayoga.com
Global Green USA Millennium AwardsSaturday, June 4Join Global Green USA in celebrating envi-ronmental leaders in this benefit event.Globalgreen.org/millennium
Amma Hugs LA June 10-14Amma warmly embraces thousands of people day after day and embodies a life inspired by love and service to humanity. Amma makes her annual visit to LA offer-ing solace to all.Public Program: Fri. June 10, 11 A.M. Sat. June 11, 10 A.M. and 7 P.M. Retreat: June 12 - 14 Devi Bhava: June 14, 7:00 P.M; LAX Hilton; 5711 West Century Blvd, LA, CA; (310) 410-6055; Amma.org
Samadhi and Eternal Joy with Ricky TranJune 10-12Ricky Tran’s practice and teaching never fails to inspire. Friday evening is a free talk with Ricky sharing the path that took him from a path of self-destruction to one of self realization.Friday June 10, 6 P.M. - 9:30 P.M. Saturday June 11, 1 P.M. - 7:30 P.M. Sun. June 12, 9:30 A.M. - 12:30 P.M. Yoga Collective, 1408 3rd St. Promenade, Santa Monica, CA; (310) 395-0600; Theyogacollective.com
One Earth Peace GatheringSunday, June 12Everyone is invited to join hearts, embrace love, and bring blessings to the Earth to help each other navigate these times of power-ful change. Hosted by the Healing Gardens of Ayurveda and Emerging OM. Ayurvedic physician and master herbalist, Dr. Ram Tamang explores the connection of mind, body, and nature. Dr. Kathy Kangarloo leads a meditation in motion and renowned Indian vocalist, Dipali creates positive en-ergy fields though chanting.Free Event. 2:00 – 4:00 P.M.; 625 French St., Santa Ana, CA 92701; (949) 515-4855; Thehealingardens.com
SB-ADaPT FestivalJune 12-25 A Dance and Physical Theater Festival, hosted by SonneBlauma Danscz Theatre, will feature performances, lectures, work-shops, and more by more than 40 dance companies from five countries.For full schedule and ticket information, visit: Sbadaptfest.com
Krishna DasMonday, June 13With one of the most recognizable voices in sacred music, Krishna Das (KD) has adopt-ed kirtan to invite people on a pilgrimage
the inner core of their being. KD’s acces-sible melodies and soulful voice can strike the deepest cord in even the most causallistener, inspiring them to remember to turn within and find their inner path.$35 tickets available online or at the Bodhi Tree Bookstore in West Hollywood. 8 P.M. Wilshire Ebell Theatre, 4401 west 8th. St., Los Angeles, CA 90005; Krishnadas.com
A Day of Green BeautyTuesday, June 14This fundraising event focuses on natu-ral alternatives to the damaging chemicals that the average woman is exposed to from daily beauty product use. Participate in makeovers that include skin care, hair care, exercise consultation, and diet. Two eco-conscious salons simultaneously host with education, entertainment, and green beauty treatments. Proceeds benefit Green Lifestyle TV's educational programming.Range of treatment and donation options available. 4:00 - 9:00 P.M., Shades, 144 South Doheny Dr., Beverly Hills, CA 90211; Natural Mind Beauty and Beyond, 3607 W. Sunset Blvd, Los Angeles, Silver Lake, CA 90026; (310) 928-7689; Greenlifestyles.org
Dance Camera WestJune 16-19This annual festival showcases presenta-tions on screen of the visual language of dance from creative fusions of contem-porary, classic, and modern dance styles. The films shown stretches the imagination and changes the way that people can think about dance. Several different programs alongside the screenings span over 4 days and 3 different locations.Free to Public. Opening Thurs. June 16, 8 P.M. - 10 P.M.; Getty Center; 1200 Getty Center Drive; Sat. June 18, 2 P.M.-9 P.M. UCLA Fowler Museum, 308 Charles E Young, and Sun. June 19 , 1 P.M.-5 P.M.; Hammer Museum, 10899 Wilshire Blvd; Dancecamerawest.org
get up and gocommunity
Amma Hugs LA Ricky TranThe Power of Faith with Alfonso De RoseMount Baldy World Peace Pilgrimage
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Luminaries CD Release PartyWednesday, June 15The conscious hip hop group the Luminar-ies will be playing every song from their highly anticipated new album One at Zan-zibar. Osiris Ishpa Palo and DJ Jedi will also be offering up the beats along with digital art, live painting, and raw foods by Arad-hana Silvermoon.$10. 9:00 P.M. Zanzibar, 1301 5th Street, Santa Monica, CA. Luminariesmusic.com
You are not Your BrainThursday, June 16UCLA psychiatrists Jeffery Schwarts and Rebecca L. Gladding combine their cutting edge scientific research and an adaptable program to help people understand, iden-tify, and free themselves. This workshop is based on their new book, You Are Not your Brain: The 4 Step Solution For Changing Bad Habits. They discuss how their mind-fulness-based method can positively impact your brain and life.$20 (students) -$30; 7:00 - 9:00 P.M. Neuroscience Research Building Audito-rium, UCLA, 635 Charles E. Young Dr. South, Los Angeles, CA; Marc.ucla.edu
Live Oak Music FestivalJune 17-19Nestled under the oak trees of the Santa Ynez Valley, Live Oak features music and activities for the entire family including children's programs and activities, an art walk, arts and crafts booths and artisan merchandise. The main stage line-up offers a range of musical genres. Proceeds benefit KCBX Public Radio.Live Oak Campgrounds outside of Santa Barbara, CA. Liveoakfest.org
Bhakti Bliss RetreatJune 17-19Govinda and Radha offer a rejuvenating three day and two night retreat submerging in relaxing, resting, and uplifting activities
such as hiking, swimming, vegan vegetarian meals, Yoga, satsang/dharma talks, and up-lifting kirtan.$450. Udaya Retreat Sanctuary, Malibu CA. Bhaktiyogashala.com
BodhiFestSunday, June 19This festive day of Yoga, dharma talks, film, book signings, music, food, and more ben-efits a media project about Buddhist move-ments in the US along with Emerge Global, an organization helping to empower Sri Lankan girls who have survived abuse.For the full schedule and to register, visit: Bodhifest.org
The New World F.E.S.TJune 24-46Kick off th e summer on the beach with this eco-friendly three-day event. Programs include live music, innovative demonstra-tions, lectures, panel discussions, natural cooking workshops, product showcases, and family entertainment. The F.E.S.T also features an eco-theater screening environ-mentally-focused documentaries, sustain-able art exhibits, and a spiritual oasis with healing techniques, Yoga, and therapeutic massage. Adults $12; children $8. 12 - 8 P.M. each day; Santa Monica Beach (parking lot 2600), 2600 Barnard, Santa Monica, CA 90405. Thenewworldfest.com
The Power of FaithJune 24-26Do you believe that you have access to the bountiful universal supply of love, health, and hope? FAITH is an informative seminar with Alfonso De Rose teaching how to ap-ply the law of Faith in their lives.Attendees must RSVP. Fri. June 24, 7 P.M. - 10 P.M. Sat and Sun. June 25-26 10 A.M. - 10 P.M. LAX Crowne Plaza Hotel; 5985 West Century Blvd, LA, CA 90045; (877) 271-7695; Alfonsoderose.com
Mount Baldy World Peace PilgrimageSaturday, June 25The 3rd annual interfaith collaboration rallies all for a world peace journey upona local sacred mountain. All ages and hik-ing abilities are called to participate and come together to share interfaith ceremo-nies upon the mountain to send out a wave of love and light to the world. All paths and traditions come together for one pur-pose to walk, sing, and pray together for unconditional love and peace to reside in our worlds.Sat. June 25, 9 A.M.; Mount Baldy, San Gabriel Mountains; Worldpeacepilgrimage.com
Mindfulness, Neuroscience, and CreativitySaturday, June 25This interactive interdisciplinary explo-ration brings together minds from varied backgrounds including artists, musicians, media makers, meditators, and neurosci-entists gathering to examine the effects of mediation on creativity, art, and the brain. Scholarships and work- exchange opportu-nities available.Tickets $25 (students) $45. 10 A.M. -1 P.M. Neuroscience Research Building Auditorium, UCLA, 635 Charles E. Young Dr. South, Los Angeles, CA; Marc.ucla.edu
Sri Karunamayi’s BlessingsJuly 7-10All are invited to receive the blessings and be within the presence of Amma Sri Karunamayi with spiritual discourse, dar-shan, one-day silent mediation retreat, and a sacred fire ceremony (homa). This program is a wonderful introduction to Amma, her divine presence, and profound spiritual wisdom.For schedule and locations in Southern California, visit: Karunamayi.org
Live Oak Music Festival Krishna Das Seven Chakra Paintings by Linda Saccoccio
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open doorscommunity
Golden bridge has settled down into their new location on Highland and De Longpre in Hollywood. Students can enjoy the same classes everyone already loves including Kundalini and meditation, as well as Hatha and Jivamukti Yoga. The schedule offers classes in Spanish, for people in recovery, for those who are pregnant, for pregnant women, people in revoerygives you a bal-ance of a vigorous physical practice accom-panied with intellectual stimulation.
“Golden Bridge is so much more than a yoga center…it is a community, a village,
where you can develop a meaningful yogic practice and a happier and a more healthy life,” says Executive Director Marlene Pas-saro. “There is a spiritual awakening that's happening in the consciousness of the stu-dents. We are definitely ushering in the age of Aquarius,” Passaro says.
Similar to their old space, Golden Bridge’s new studio is a warehouse with bow truss ceilings, exposed brick walls and multiple windows. The three-story structure houses three spacious studio rooms that can open up into one large space for special events
and training. The new location also features a retail store, office space and café withan outdoor dining patio. With over 100 classes offered weekly, you're bound to find the perfect Yoga practice. And don't forget to check out Nite Moon Café at Golden Bridge for some tasty and organic fare.
GOLDEN BRIDGE, 1357 N. Highland Los Angeles, CA 90028; La.goldenbridgeyoga.com
Melissa Chua, a Los Angeles-based writer who enjoys
inversions and playing around with arm balancing poses.
Find her at Rising Lotus Yoga: [email protected]
Tensegrity Center for Yoga Therapy creates a link between physical therapy and Yoga. This new Santa Monica Yoga therapy cen-ter hosts gentle Hatha sessions taught by a Yoga therapist instructor and certified Yoga therapist intern. The center uses stu-dio owner Sherry Brourman’s system, In-terbody Message System Yoga™ to assist in balancing and nurturing the body to health.
“The community heart that surfaces with every class somehow draws people into themselves to a place where they seem to know they are healing their body, as a mouthpiece for healing a much deeper dis-connect,” says Brourman. In intimate class-es of no more than seven, students move
through fundamental Yoga postures, ana-lyze postural difficulties, and explore Yoga's capacity for healing specific injuries accom-panied with the power of physical therapy. “Classes are fun and people change their perceptions of their unique movement pat-terns…becoming more of themselves,” she says. “Our intention is to get injured yogis back to their favorite class, and never-been yogis to their first class,” Brourman adds.
TENSEGRITY CENTER FOR YOGA THERAPY,901 19th St. Santa Monica CA 90403;Tensegrityyogatherapy.com
By Melissa Chua
GOLDEN BRIDGE MOVES TO HIGHLAND
YOGA AS THERAPY
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seen and heardcommunity
In the mystical heart of Santa Monica is a hidden sanctuary known as Kathmandu Boutique, a place where you can linger for an hour or get lost for a day browsing through the many treasures. From summer dresses and skirts to funky tribal pants, cot-ton shirts, pants for men, kurtas (tunic) for children, hand-crafted deities, prayer malas, singing bowls, one of a kind Tibetan/Ne-pali jewelry, and intricately woven scarves, Kathmandu offers something for everyone. Starting from humble roots, owner Re-ena Gauchan began selling items from her homeland Nepal at local festivals, street fairs, and farmers’ markets before opening her boutique in 2005. The shop is a safe haven that reflects the love and passion she has for her native culture and traditions. “I value relationships between people and wanted to create a place that was not only for shopping, but a place to exchange ideas,
explore the things that bring us together, promote healing, and celebrate the arts,” Re-ena says. “I wanted to create a place where people of different traditions, ages, and so-cial backgrounds could relax, find inspira-tion and meditate with books and music.”With this in mind Reena began hosting quar-terly events where she cooks Nepalese food and offers special sales. Her extended family and friends share in the hosting duties while musicians play intimate and sacred live kir-tan, and henna artists and healing massage practitioners offer their services. Throughout the year, the community space in back of the boutique features Yoga, God-dess classes, spiritual teachings, kirtan, healing sessions, and other events. The use of this space is donation-based and 100% of the proceeds benefit the Self-help Group for Cerebral Palsy in Nepal co-founded by Reena in 1987. This nonprofit nongovern-
mental organization supports both children and adults with cerebral palsy and provides emotional and practical support to their parents.“Kathmandu Boutique has become the place I have always dreamt of,” says Reena, “a community gathering place for global minded conscious people.” Every Wednesday, Reena serves traditional Nepali chia tea. The next quarterly open house (with Re-ena’s famous Nepali food) will be held on June 15.For more information, visit Kathmandu Boutique, 1844 Lincoln Boulevard (between the 10 Freeway and Pico). (310) 396-4036; Kathmanduboutique.com
Vanessa Harris is a frequent visitor to Kathmandu Boutique where she loves the chia tea and conversations about all things Yoga. She hand-strings sacred mala beads found at: 108malabeads.com
KATHMANDU BOUTIQUEBY VANESSA HARRIS
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JUNE 2011 LAYOGA 15
Please submit poetry for consideration to: [email protected].
Windhorse BY E AMATO
maybe our breath is just the wind personified scattered kept and discarded
maybe the wind is just our breath blown and diffused rustling leaves or ruffling feathers
maybe there is no difference between the wind and our breath our soul and the universe’s our ether and that intriguing interface between black hole and atmosphere dark matter and universal constant
breath and wind flying together like that horse with wings
wind and breath rising and falling in rhythm breath and wind wind and breath
start here to find that end to separateness
E. Amato is a writer, performance poet, filmmaker and promoter. She is the author of the collection Swimming Through Amber. Eamato.com
poet's corner june giveaway
LAYOGA WEEKLY
Stay connected with the community.Find out where to go each week.Enter to win free prizes.Weekly inspiration in your inbox.
layogamagazine.com/newsletter
EMAIL NEWSLETTER>>
ENTER TO WIN DJ DREZ JAHTA BEATS CD! When DJ Drez accompanies a Yoga class, it's not to be missed. Drez knows how to produce a musical alchemy, a divine synergy with the flow of asana and breath for a transcendent experience. In his three Jahta Beat releases, DJ Drez offers his signature style combining world music beats and the attitude of Hip Hop along with master collaborators including musician Domonic Dean Breaux and vocalists Marti Nikko and Shelia Govindarajan. Enter to win one of five copies of DJ Drez' Jahta Beat Three: A Path to Light and turn your home practice into an event.Email: [email protected] before June 20 subject line: Jahta Beat.
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16 LAYOGA JUNE 2011
seva in actioncommunity
On June 18th, City Yoga will be hosting its fourth Yogathon at its studio in West Hol-lywood. Led by studio owners Rebecca and Anthony Benenati and their excellent staff of instructors, all participants will spend twelve hours immersed in Yoga asana and medita-tion, ending with a late-night kirtan with Daniel Stewart. The collective goal is to raise funds for St. Jude Children's Research Hos-pital to further the treatment and prevention of childhood cancers. Incentive prizes, goodie bags, and food have been generously donated by a number of local businesses, with a Mexi-can resort getaway awarded to the highest fundraiser.
Four reasons why I'm participating:1. We'll be raising funds for St. Jude Children's Research Hospital, whose mission it is to find ways to cure and prevent pediatric cancers.
2. I already survived Yogathons #2 and #3, so the obsessive-compulsiveness in me insists that I do #4 (and that same inner voice keeps berating me for missing out on yogathon #1)
3. While the previous yogathons all lasted 24 hours, this year's event is only 12 hours. Piece of cake... and I don't even have to try to pre-tend to be awake at three in the morning.
4. I'm looking forward to having a fun time with great yoga sessions with Anthony and Rebecca Benenati, Heather Foster, Maud Nadler, Tom Jermain, Linda Eifer, Sharon Skok, and Emily Burton, along with rocking kirtan by Daniel Stewart and friends, and of course, tantalizing lunch treats from Tender Greens. It will be epic!
Joni Yung aka the Accidental Yogist, is a blogger and now a radio talk show host. Blog.accidentalyogsit.com
City Yoga Hosts their 4th
YOGATHONBY JONI YUNG
Help make this year's Yogathon one to remember; please visit my fundraising page and give generously so I can raise as much as I can for this worthy cause. Thanks! Firstgiving.com/fundraiser/joni-yung cityyogasyogathon2011
City Yoga, 1067 N Fairfax Ave West Hollywood, CA 90046 (323) 654-212; Cityyoga.com
With the help of all our donations, they are able to treat all children who come through their doors, regardless of race, religion, or financial background.
Rebecca and Anthony of City YogaPhoto of Joni Yung by Brendon Chiang
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The educational organization YogaFit, the world’s largest training school for Yoga instruc-tors and a national leader in Mind Body Fitness education, is gifting one million dollars worth of Yoga training to non-profit organizations.In 2011, the company is plan-ning to donate 2,500 gift certificates for their Level One training held at YogaFit’s Mind Body Fitness Conferences ($399 value). It is expected that most of the organizations that receive these certificates will be able to use them to raise money in silent auctions. Interested nonprofit groups should submit a certifi-cate request: [email protected].
YogaFit was founded by Beth Shaw as a means to bring Yoga to the fitness industry; their mission is to bring healing yoga to the masses. The company has also made a commitment to com-munity service, supporting animals and humanitarian causes. “We are pleased that YogaFit is able to assist charities in raising funds to continue their essential efforts. The world and the people in it benefit from more people practicing Yoga more frequently,” expressed Shaw. For more information, visit: www.yogafit.com.
YOGA
BY RACHAEL CLEGHORN
GIVE THE GIFT OF
YogaFit is gifting one million dollars worth of Yoga training to nonprofit organizations!
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seva in actioncommunity
Gladiators fighting to the death in arenas like the vast Roman Coliseum with animals oth-erwise imprisoned within bars is the shame-ful history behind the legacy of modern-day zoos and circuses. When we consider ani-mals like the majestic elephant, who roam hundreds of miles in their natural habitat, live for decades in complex social systems, and walk with their feet on soft, giving earth rather than hard, unforgiving concrete, their captivity seems barbaric indeed. We take for granted the presence of ele-phants in zoos and circuses, and in fact, both of these institutions have become incorpo-rated into our human cultures worldwide. In the feature film Water for Elephants, the addition of an elephant to the circus menag-erie raises the status of the traveling band of entertainers. Yet examples like the ongoing controversy over the elephant enclosures at the Los An-geles Zoo, among other zoos worldwide, demonstrate our collective questioning of the need to display these animals in artifi-cial environments purely for our enjoyment. The conundrum is this: How do we, as ani-mals with a conscience, change our society's perception related to this abusive, cruel and
ancient behavior? Our practices of keeping these animals in captivity, where they expe-rience suffering, is something that violates the yogic practice of ahmisa, defined as non-violence and compassion. I have been privileged to witness these re-gal mammals in their natural habitat where they roam vast distances in large familial groups. In sad comparison, when held in the cramped spaces of zoos and circuses, they linger in small numbers or in solitude. When we buy our ticket, we see animals who are broken, both physically and emotionally. Furthermore, in captivity, these amazing creatures are forced to live on hard surfaces which promote painful foot disorders, one of the leading reasons for the euthanasia of elephants in captivity.Public opinion is shifting. Seventeen zoos worldwide have closed their elephant ex-hibits in recent years and Bolivia recently banned elephants in their circuses. In the summer of 2010, 300 demonstrators con-vened for the largest circus protest ever held in front of the Los Angeles Staples Center during the opening night of Ringling Bros Barnum and Bailey Circus. I was encour-aged by the family of four whom, upon
hearing the protesters’ messages, left the line and threw their tickets away– agreeing with the demonstrators that they did not want to show their children sad and abused animals; that was not the point of entertainment.Yet we often justify elephants’ captivity in zoos and circuses as the only way our chil-dren can experience and appreciate these large mammals. As elephant expert Cath-erine Doyle expressed, "Our children do not have to see dinosaurs to appreciate and adore them, so why do they need to see ele-phants? On the Discovery Channel, they can observe elephants in their natural surround-ings as the proud creatures they really are."Children are more perceptive than we may realize. For Christmas last year my nine-year old daughter wrote to Santa asking for roller skates, a pair of skinny jeans, and to please free Billy, the elephant currently in the LA Zoo. If children have become aware that keeping elephants in captivity is a problem that violates the ethical more of ahimsa, nonviolence and compassion, then it is time for adults to continue their advocacy efforts.
Ellen Lavinthal is an animal activist who is the founder of Animal Alliance: Animalalliance.net
Picketing the circus, protesting the zoos Elephants kept in captivity violate yogic values!BY ELLEN LAVINTHAL
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The relationship between people, entertainers, and elephants is a complicated one. In the feature-length documentary, One Lucky Elephant, directed by Lisa Leeman and filmed over a ten year period of time, follows circus producer David Balding and the orphaned African elephant Flora, the former star of his circus. Flora has become tired of performing. Yet we have collectively made few adequate provisions for the retire-ment of majestic beings like Flora, so Balding spends nine years searching for a suitable home for the elephant, who as an orphan turned circus performer, is caught between the worlds of animals and humans.
One Lucky Elephant investigates our complicated relationships with animals, and questions the fact that we take for granted the idea that animals will happily perform in the circus. The film addresses a number of provocative and important questions connected to how we relate to animals.
One Lucky Elephant will be showing in Los Angeles, June 24-30 at the Laemmle Music Hall, 9036 Wilshire Blvd, Beverly Hills. For further information, visit: Oneluckyelephant.com
ELEPHANTONE LUCKY
BY FELICIA M. TOMASKO RN
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m telling my best friend, Kristina, a joke as we walk through an upscale super-
market in Phoenix, Arizona. A man meets the Buddha. He asks him, “Do you drink?”The Buddha says, "No. Drinking is a dis-traction from the eight-fold path."The man asks, "Do you smoke?" The Buddha says, "No. Smoking is also a distraction from the eight-fold path." The man asks, "Do you make love?"The Buddha says, "No. Making love is an-other distraction from the eight-fold path."Incredulous, the man says, "What? You don't drink? You don't smoke? You don't make love? What do you do for fun?"The Buddha, laughing, says, "I tell lies." Kristina snorts audibly through her nose. “Ha! I love how it's inconsequential if he’s lying or not. It’s about interfering with the man’s personal significance enough for him to have an ‘A-Ha’ moment.”Kristina is a brilliant cowgirl of a woman with a heart the size of a zafu cushion. We were stand-up comedians during the com-edy boom of the 1980s. We always made each other laugh. Both of us came to Yoga in our late 30s, me more than her. I got clean and sober and then I became certified to teach Yoga in 1996. And then I got clean and sober again and developed what I called Spiritual comedy: a fusion of night-club comedy and spiritual distinctions. We both took a lot of personal development courses and read books to free us from our human dilemma. Kristina raised her son, Esa, and became one of the most in-demand business and life coaches in the country. We stand mesmerized in front of a hot tub-sized gourmet cheese section. Each neat, plastic-wrapped wedge of gooey triple cream brie with truffles, orange aged ched-dar and blue-veined stinky Roquefort com-petes to be more interesting and delicious than its neighbor.
Kristina leans in toward me. “I dare you to ask really loud so people around can hear ‘Where are the individually wrapped pro-cessed American cheese food slices?’ ” “Oh My God, no!” I laugh. “I actually couldn’t do that! I guess right there you put your finger on an identity issue. I want peo-ple to think I am an enlightened eater.” “Uh hunh…” Kristina says knowingly with a mock-condescending enlightened grin. “Looks like somebody is seeking valida-tion from without.” “You see, sweetheart,” she continues with the mock condescension, “You can’t be free until you know you’re trapped.” Then, with an absolutely straight face, Kristina looks at the cheese guy, purses her lips and asks, “Do you guys carry organic Velveeta?”“Do you know why you’re a cheese snob or even why you do Yoga?” Kristina asks me.“Uh oh. I feel something hard to hear is about to be heard.” Sometimes it takes another person to shine a flashlight on some of the less savory aspects of my humanity. In the produce section, Kristina helps me realize something that’s
hard to admit: part of why I’m a cheese snob and yes, even why I practice Yoga, is to dif-ferentiate myself from the great unwashed masses. Yuck. I said it. “See, what comedy and enlightenment have in common is the fundamental realization that we are all the same.” Kristina says as we check out my few raw food items. Then she adds, "They should have one or two crappy food aisles in here like the main-stream supermarkets have one little health food section." After shopping, we arrive at The Armadillo,
a bar/restaurant near her house, or “The Dil-lo” as she calls it. The waitress comes over to the dark corner farthest from the bar and takes our order. Kristina asks for a Buffalo chicken burger with calamari on the side. I request a Caesar salad.“You know why Yoga will never truly become widespread in a real mainstream way?” Kristina asks after savoring a big gulp of a very brown beer.“No, why?” I take the bait. “Because they don’t really want it to be easy for people to grasp.” “‘They’? Who’s ‘they’? Wait, I know a lot of people who really care about demystifying Yoga,” I counter.“Yeah, but see? That’s the conceit. It’s not mystified in the first place. It’s bending. A bunch of brown guys made it up. It’s made-up bending.” “Oh my,” I say. “So, if I came to you, a Yoga person to a hot shot business coach, wanting to ‘brand’ this thing we do that happens to have its roots in India and is considered by some to be a sacred path to enlightenment, You’d say, ‘Come bend? This is bending’?”“Here’s what people don’t get,” Kristina
continues. “They think anything having to do with enlightenment has to be heavy and sacrosanct and reverent. What if it doesn’t?”See, why do people really come to see you do you comedy?” Kristina takes a big biteout of her burger. "To lighten up! It's not any more significant than that. When you do that bit you do... you know, ‘I’m not very spiritual; for example, I don’t have any food allergies’ people laugh because they recog-nize an inauthenticity, a preciousness that all of us have.” “Yeah, even those people who do have food
BY VANDA MIKOLOSKI
lighten up to achieve enlightenmentMy dinner with Kristina
I
“That’s the value of humor. Whatever you can’t laugh at owns you”
practice pages
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allergies and have to bring their Tupperware with them everywhere they go, even those people laugh at that joke. Being somewhat vigilant about what one eats is equated with a ‘spiritual’ identity, and everyone knows it, or they wouldn’t laugh.”“Exactly. That’s the value of humor. What-ever you can’t laugh at owns you.” “Dammit, I’m still seeking validation from the cheese guy,” I admit.“Well, stop it.”“Wait. I can’t just stop it. Don’t I have to process it first?”“Yes, you do. I have a process for you. It’s my highly effective doggie-talk process.” Kristina begins to talk to me like she talks to her dog: “Yes, Vanda is a good girl, yes she is. She’s an enlightened eater and she’s healthy and mature and she looks great for 50. Good girl, Vanda!” We laugh. Kristina continues, “One spiritual discipline I do is I to notice whenever I am trying to manage someone’s impression of me, when-ever I have an agenda, a tendency to exag-gerate ... to force an outcome.” “Like what?” I ask.“In traffic the other day, a guy got mad and yelled at me. I reacted and noticed that I wanted him to think I was being compe-tent and kind. Well, sometimes I am com-petent and kind, and sometimes I’m not. I noticed I was attached to defending myself as a competent and kind, read: ‘enlightened’ person.” “But... Well, that’s just human,” I say. “Yeah, it is, but the only one who wants to broadcast that they are kind are the unkind. It’s also useful to notice that you never react when someone calls you ... an armadillo. THAT’S just patently absurd.” “Yeah, I get it. The Buddha never had to defend himself. I don’t think he drove on the 405 during rush hour either, though.” I respond. We pay our bill and walk out of the dark Dillo into a gorgeous desert sunset. “That Buddha joke wasn’t that funny, you know.” Kristina says. “I know.”
Vanda Mikoloski does Yoga and comedy with a bunch of awesome people around LA. Catch the show she is producing with six other comedian/yogis at Studio Surya Yoga in Venice on June 4 at 8:00 P.M. She toured with the Dixie Chicks as their power Yoga teacher and has been seen doing stand-up comedy at Yoga Journal conferences.
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Prepare for the Summer Sun Chemicals beware! These eco-friendly products will prepare you for a bright and beautiful LA summer.
our june favorites
Livity High Grade Fedora If you’re looking for a Father’s Day gift to protect against the sun, LiViTY Outernational has these great of straw fedoras sure to shield the sun’s rays. All of their products reflect their core values of sustainability using organic, renewable and recycled materials. www.livitystore.com
COOLA Suncare CollectionFounded in 2002, when the co-founders were facing their parents’ skin cancer diagnoses. This company specializes in organic sun screens whose formulations only use ingredients that actually nourish the skin. The SPF 30 sunscreen is 70% Certified Organic and made of 95% natural inactive ingredientswww.coolasuncare.com
Earth Science Daily Sun Defense This moisturizer with SPF 15 can be used daily on the body, hands and face. This paraben-free lotion is not tested on animals and is filled with vitamin-rich oils and and soya sterols (plant extracted emollients).www.shopearthscience.com
Organic Pharmacy Cellular Protection Sun CreamAlong with sun protection, these natural mineral sun-screens contain ingredients that nourish the skin, including aloe, shea butter, calendula, and sweet almond oil. www.organicpharmacy.com
eco logical Skin Care This skin care company’s mission is to provide sustainably produced, all-natural products. Their SPF 30+ Body Lotion delivers the essence of balanced natural protection from harmful UV rays. www.ecologicalskin.com
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Ananda Giri
teacher profile
Ananda Giri’s calming yet simultaneously joyful presence is an embodied reminder of the importance of practicing meditation. When asked about how he gives instruction to people beginning a meditation practice, he states with conviction that the journey of transformation begins with awareness and self-acceptance, not an obsession about how things should be.
As a teacher, Ananda Giri has a commitment to teaching even in difficult circumstanc-es. With a group of colleagues, he traveled throughout the Gulf Coast of the US, post-oil spill, to offer the suggestion that happiness is not dependent on circumstance. He has tak-en this same message to orphans in Jamacia, as well as the far-flung corners of the world where people suffer from a dearth of hope.
Felicia Marie Tomasko: How do you sug-gest that people deal with the great conflict-ing emotions, anxiety, worry, and despair?
Ananda Giri: At the One World Academy we believe that there are three realizations that are crucial to transformation:
All life is interconnected.
Know that we are dependent, in our lives, on so many other people.
While it may be true that we do not all have the same opportunities, all of us share the ability to be happy and at peace. That does-not depend on our external circumstances.
If we experience discomfort, suffering, or-pain, our immediate reaction is to blame the circumstances for our discomfort.
We must ask: Is the disturbance caused by the situation outside the discomfort and pain or is the rest of the meaning I give to those life circumstances? As long as you believe that the situation is responsible for your discomfort, then all your effort will be in trying to change the situation and focus outward instead of inward.
FMT: That’s easy to say; how do you actu-ally put this into practice?
AG: Last year, we took a 10-day road trip beginning in New Orleans traveling through Mississippi, Alabama, Louisiana, and Florida. The Gulf oil spill happened before these peo-ple were able to fully recover from Hurricane Katrina. The main industries there are fishing and tourism; both were negatively affected.
There is so much desperation. So we thought we could do something to help. Even though many organizations are trying to help, condi-tions were improving for only some people.
People were waiting for their conditions to change so that they can be happy again.
But if we do not know how long it will take for the conditions to change—does that mean we will be unhappy forever?
We wanted to challenge this perception: Is it necessary for your conditions to change so you can be happy? Many live in that hope. But if they can learn to be happy in this crisis, then they can be happy in any crisis.
People advised us to not go when so many people are in pain. How are people going to respond when we tell them that they can be happy no matter what?
We met people in their homes and listened to their stories. We told people we are here to teach you how to be happy. At first they were cynical, or they thought we were kidding, but eventually they opened up and they experi-enced a beautiful shift.
In Baton Rouge, Louisiana, a blind man named Joseph answered the door. He had lost his sight serving in the U.S. military. “We are here to teach you how to be happy,” we said. He laughed in disbelief. “Okay, come on in since you traveled so far.”
He spoke for two hours about how it is impossible for him to be happy because he cannot see and we can’t understand since we can see.
I asked, “What is the difference between a person who is happy and one who is happy?”
After a few moments of reflection, he an-swered, “The difference between the blind person who is happy and a blind person who is unhappy is a thought.”
We think that external substances bring us peace, joy, pain, or sadness, but Joseph with upturned this with great common sense and some self-reflection.
He thought about it again, “I have experi-enced many moments of happiness.” When his home was destroyed during Hurricane Katrina, strangers came from nowhere to help him rebuild “Each time I remember the kindness and generosity of generosity of those who rebuilt my home, I feel happy,” he said.
“Any time I had the thought in my head, ‘Why did I have to go to the military and lose my eyesight and why is God angry with me?” when I have those thoughts I feel sad and miserable."
“I now realize that it is the thoughts that I have that make me joyful or sad, it is not the situation itself.”
Joseph announced that he wanted to teach others that they don’t have to wait for their outer circumstances to change.
Spiritual growth plays a big role to how we respond to life's challenges. For this growth these three realizations are very important: to realize the interconnectedness of all life, to know that you are not a separate indi-vidual, and to realize that happiness is not a result of your external circumstances but from the meanings that you attribute to your life situations.
Beyond these, the most important realiza-tion of all is to recognize that there is a great strength within us, connected to the divine presence at the core of our being.
Ananda Giri will be teaching in Los Angeles and Orange County at the end of June. For more information please visit: Owanorthamerica.com
BY FELICIA M. TOMASKO RN
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TEACHER PROFILE
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TEACHER PROFILE
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Flowers?
edibleTaste the bounty of spring showers!
BY RED JEN FORD
PHOTO LOCATION: 123 FARM, SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA'S LARGEST ORGANIC LAVENDER FARM.
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he scent of lavender blossoms may transport us back to our grandmoth-
er’s living room; the sweet scent of night-blooming jasmine may carry our thoughts back to the sidewalk where we grew up; the romantic hint of a rose petal may evoke prom night, a wedding day, or a Valentine’s bouquet.
Beyond the undeniable power of smell and its neurological connection with emotion and memory, flowers themselves can stimu-late the recollection of memories. Powerful for their emotional symbolism, flowers are also edible. From the beautiful to the medic-inal, flowers nourish us in a myriad of ways.
I recently drove to Steve McQueen’s for-mer ranch in Santa Paula. The thrilling spring sights along the road filled my mind with a whirl of memories. Wild mustard and
black-eyed Susans lined the highways, and the hills were verdant with patches of color-ful wildflowers. Seeing hot yellow mustard flowers always reminds me of spring, when I used to escape my engineering program at the Berkeley campus to the wine country regions of the North. When the vineyards of Napa and Sonoma were lit in sunshine yellow, it reassured me that spring was here and the freedom of summer was near. The black-eyed Susans took me further back to my childhood when my mom always point-ed them out to me. As a Maryland native, she still felt nostalgia for the state flower of her home region.
Along with specific memories, flowers evoke an emotional response: red roses con-vey love or romance, white buds suggest in-nocence and purity, lilies honor memories of
those who have passed, daisies inspire the questioning ritual “someone loves me, or loves me not?” one petal at a time.
Science has begun to document the emo-tional effect of flowers. One study demon-strated that flowers have an immediate im-pact on happiness and long-term positive effects on mood. Another study proved that even though the morning “blahs” do exist, when people were presented with a small bouquet of flowers at some point in their morning routine, they perked up. Seeing flowers early in the morning helped people feel less anxious, more compassionate, and more energized throughout the day.
While we may see flowers as a source of aesthetic beauty, a memory trigger, or even an emotional energy boost, botanists and bi-ologists see them as the plant’s sex organs. >>
T
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Clockwise From Above:Salad decorated with pansies; wild roses; blue pansies; dried marygold petals; salad garnished with edible flowers; mustard flowers; crystalised violets and lavendar
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<< With the help of birds, bees, other insects, and/or the wind, the base of the flower or ovary eventually becomes the fruit or seed pod after it is fertilized by the pollen from the stigma.
In most cases, when we eat flowers we generally need to remove these reproduc-tion bits – the female pistil, style, stigma, and male stamens.
A notable exception to this is saffron. This valued spice comes from harvesting and drying the golden-yellow stigmas of the purple crocus flower which then become the delicate strands we use in cooking. Rich in volatile essential oils, carotenoids, minerals, vitamins A, C, riboflavin and niacin, saffron is valued for its anti-oxidant, disease-pre-venting and health-promoting properties.
Aside from the documented mood-boost-ing benefits, beauty, and connection to na-ture they inspire, edible flowers also have health benefits. As is the case with fruits andvegetables, generally blossoms with deeper colors have greater concentrations of anti-oxidants. While all edible flowers are beau-tiful garnishes for salads, cakes, and des-serts, a number of California blossoms can be enjoyed in a variety of dishes that are delicious, healthy, and beautiful.
DANDELIONS While we may relegate dandelions into the category of weeds or garden eyesore, this member of the daisy family is one of the best liver detoxifiers available. According to the USDA nutritional values, dandelions rank as one of the top four green vegetables. Furthermore, dandelions are nature's dens-est green vegetable source of beta carotene, and the third richest source of Vitamin A of any food (after cod liver oil and beef liver).
Particularly rich in fiber, potassium, iron, calcium, magnesium, phosphorus and the B vitamins, thiamine and riboflavin, dandelion has a long history as blood cleanser, liver tonic, and weight-loss remedy. The blossoms in particular help fight water retention, skin irritation, and PMS symptoms. Young flow-ers with tightly bunched centers picked close to the ground will have a sweet, honey-like flavor. Sprinkle them like confetti over rice dishes or, if you have enough of them, brew your own dandelion-flower wine or mead.
DAYLILIES Packed with vitamins B and C, daylilies ac-tually contain more protein than most of the vegetables that are part of our every day diet. Practically every part of the daylily is
edible. Sold fresh or dried in Asian markets as gum jum or golden needles, daylilies are key ingredients in hot and sour soup, Bud-
dha’s delight and moos shu dishes. Try add-ing fresh buds and blossoms to salads, or bat-tering and frying them like squash blossoms. You can also harvest their shoots early in the spring when they are two or three inches tall and use them as a substitute for asparagus. Note that while daylilies are edible, other lil-ies are toxic, so proceed with caution.
LAVENDER With a flavor that is both sweet and flo-ral combined with lemon and citrus notes, lavender is known for its powerful effects that induce a state of calm and relaxation. A sprig of lavender flowers add beauty and a floral note to a glass of sparkling wine or a slice of chocolate cake, but they also pair well with savory dishes.
As a member of the mint family, Lavender combines well with rosemary, sage, thyme, fennel, oregano, and savory. Try mixing lavender flowers with finely chopped black olives and a sprinkling of white truffle oil to spread over crisp crostini or toasted ba-guettes and serve with red wine. Their sweet, floral blooms would also add a mysterious scent to pommelo or grapefruit granita.
For stress and headaches, brew your own cure – two teaspoons of lavender flowers per cup of boiling water.
MARIGOLD OR CALENDULA (Aka Poor Man’s Saffron)These colorful blossoms are good for both you and the garden. Known for keeping snails away, marigolds are a wonderful ed-ible flower, too. Their golden-orange pet-als are high in lycopene, which has been shown to protect against breast and colon cancers and heart disease. The flowers’ fla-vors range from spicy to bitter, tangy and peppery and even remind some of saffron, hence the nickname.
Marigold petals add a yellow tint to soups, spreads, and scrambled eggs, but could also be great in and on top of cup-cakes. Mix a tablespoon or two of the fresh petals into the batter and sprinkle more on top. The petals maintain their lovely color even after baking, so there is no need to frost or decorate. Another version of a saf-
fron fleurtation involves crushing a couple marigold petals in a champagne flute and floating sparkling wine on top.
MUSTARD Related to radish and turnips, cabbages and cauliflower, mustard is one of the most powerful microbial plants we know. Like dandelion, mustard is a bitter green that supports liver function. The flowers are just as bitter as the rest of the plant, so they’re best used sparingly as a garnish. Better yet, after an early harvest of the young green leaves, wait for the flowers to “go to seed.” Sprout the seeds to top your salads or grind them to make your own mustard. For mus-tard, mix the sprouted seeds with cold wa-ter, vinegar, and salt. Ironically, the colder the liquid, the hotter the mustard.
NASTURTIUMS Think rainbow-colored watercress and you get the picture and flavor of nasturtiums. While certainly beautiful, their name comes from the Latin Nasus tortus, which literally means convulsed nose, referring to the faces people made when tasting the spicy plant. Nasturtiums’ decorative colors range from traditional bright yellow and orange to the exciting hues of today: "Empress of India" (brilliant vermilion red blooms); "Whirly-bird" (shades of tangerine, soft salmon, deep mahogany, and cherry rose); "Peach Melba" (the color of a cut white peach with an ac-cent of raspberry in the throat). Their sweet, peppery flavor grows hotter the more sun-light they absorb. So if you are looking for a milder tang, choose flowers from nastur-tiums grown in shade or semi-shade. In fact, the flavors can be so hot toward the end of their lifecycle that their seeds were ground and used as a substitute for black pepper during World War II.
Enjoy both the leaves and blossoms in sal-ads, substitute the leaves for basil in pesto, or for a tasty and sensational appetizer, stuff the blossoms with a mixture of cream cheese, soft goat cheese, mascarpone blend-ed with a little garlic and fresh herbs like chive blossoms or lemon basil. For a vegan stuffed flower, try humus or baba ganoush inside the blossoms. Or, make a spring soup of pea tendrils, young garlic, onions, celery, and daikon radish and float the flower pet-als and chopped leaves on top. >>
As is the case with fruits and vegetables, generally blossoms with deeper colors have greater concentrations of antioxidants.
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Squash blossoms are probably the most versatile edible flower…
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<< All nasturtiums are high in Vitamin C, iron and other minerals, and have powerful antibiotic, antimicrobial, and antioxidant properties. Traditionally, nasturtium leaves were used in South America to treat coughs, colds, the flu, and other respiratory difficul-ties. A note of caution for those pregnant or trying to become so: nasturtiums have tradi-tionally been used to promote menstruation and may be contraindicated for internal use in the early stages of pregnancy.
PEA BLOSSOMS While pea blossoms from the Pisum spe-cies are edible, ornamental Sweet Pea Blos-soms are not. While you can eat the peas, pods and even the tendrils of Sweet Peas, the super fragrant, sweet-smelling Sweet Pea blossoms are best left for bouquets and vases; their seeds and thus the flowers are considered poisonous.
The edible garden peas bloom mostly in white, but may show other pale or even purple colors. The blossoms are slightly sweet and crunchy and, no surprise, taste like peas. Know your farmer or gardener before you take a bite.
ROSES The sheer varieties of colors and types pro-vide many different flavors from sweet fruit like strawberries and green apples to mint and spice. The darker the color, the deeper their flavor, and different colors have differ-ent bioactive pigments. Rich in antioxidant-like polyphenols that may reduce the risk of cardiovascular disease and cancer, steep fresh petals in simmering water for five min-utes to make rose petal tea and soothe a mild sore throat or open blocked bronchial tubes.
Rose has a cooling effect on the body and so may reduce fevers along with associated rashes. A mild diuretic, rose petal tea is of-ten recommended as a digestive tonic and thought to restore balance in the digestive system.
Pair rose petals with peaches for a floral take on peach melba. Or if you’re really in-dustrious, try the tear-inducing, rose-petal sauce made famous in the film, Like Water for Chocolate.
SQUASH BLOSSOMS Squash and pumpkin blossoms taste mildly of raw squash and, like squash, they contain important carotenoids and precursors to Vi-tamin A. Also high in calcium and iron and especially high in vitamins A and C, squash blossoms are probably the most versatile
edible flower. Typically you’ll find them in restaurants painstakingly stuffed with a goat cheese concoction, battered and then lightly fried. Or, if you’re really lucky, you’ll find them on a pizza with fresh mozzarella and heirloom tomatoes. Often times you find them at farmers markets with mini summer zucchini or summer squashes attached and these are edible too! While versatile, these blossoms are quite delicate; so removing their sex organs is an exercise in patience.
I like to include them in a frittata with flow-ering herbs, or even simpler, as a quick and easy pasta sauce. Sauté a couple of chopped shallots in olive oil and add diced mini zuc-chini or summer squash. Season with salt and pepper and a splash of white wine and simmer over medium-low heat until tender. Meanwhile, remove and discard the sex or-gans from the blossoms and cut cross-wise into thin strips. Add them into the sauce at the last minute to gently wilt and toss with cooked pasta of your choice. If you eat cheese, garnish with a grated hard cheese like grana padano or pecorino romano.
SUNFLOWERS We know how much we enjoy the seeds
of this giant flower and that their oils are good for cooking, but did you know that you can actually eat the flowers too? In the unopened bud stage, sunflowers taste simi-lar to artichokes and can be steamed just like them. Once the flower opens, the pet-als are distinctly bittersweet so are best for garnishes on sweeter dishes like fruit salads or desserts looking for a balancing note. Or, infuse petals in boiling water and drink as a traditional remedy for menstrual pain.
VIOLETS, VIOLAS, PANSIES AND JOHNNY JUMP UPS
Available in colorful purples and yellows to apricot and pastel hues, these flowers have a sweet, perfumed flavor that work well in salads or to beautifully embellish desserts and iced drinks. If you eat only the petals, the flavor of pansies is extremely mild, but if you eat the whole flower, they have a winter, green overtone. While the flowers make pret-ty adornments for frosted cakes, sorbets, or any other desserts, their heart-shaped leaves are edible as well, and tasty when cooked like spinach. A great source of Vitamin C, Vitamin E, as well as magnesium, calcium, and other minerals, wild pansy teas and tinc-tures have traditionally been used for their excellent anti-inflammatory, diuretic, cleans-ing, and expectorant properties to treat gout,
rheumatism, respiratory infections, and skin conditions like eczema, and psoriasis .
However you choose to enjoy your edible flowers, make sure they are grown by a re-spectable farm free from pesticides or any chemical sprays. Notes of caution before getting started:
No flower is safe to eat unless it was grown organically. Grow them yourself or talk with your local farmer to be sure they are safe and free from pesticides and other chemi-cals. Better yet, grow your own and enjoy the bounty of your own blossoms all sum-mer long. Daylilies and nasturtiums are pur-portedly some of the easiest flowers to grow.
Generally, the flowers of most vegetables and herbs are safe to eat, but of course there are exceptions. Avoid the flowers of tomato,
potato, eggplant, peppers, and asparagus. Dangerous blooms to never eat include: ole-ander, daffodil or narcissus, Chinese wiste-ria, autumn crocus, angel’s trumpet, sweet pea blossoms, and monkshood.
Introduce flowers into your diet in small quantities one species at a time. Too much of a good thing may cause problems for your digestive system. And if you have allergies, introduce edible flowers gradually, as they may aggravate your symptoms.
Except in the case of violets, violas, pansies and Johnny jump ups, remove the bitter-tast-ing pistils and stamens before eating.
For optimum storage and to minimize wilt-ing, store flowers loosely in plastic bags in-tact and separate the petals from the rest of the flower just prior to use.
To preserve your gorgeous, fresh flowers, consider freezing them in ice cubes to serve in summer drinks or candy them by brush-ing clean and completely dry blossoms with a wash of beaten egg whites and then sprinkle with super-fine sugar. Let them dry completely and store at room temperature in single layers until ready to use.
Red Jen Ford is a certified holistic health coach, Yoga instructor and manager of the Westwood Farmers’ Market, located in the Vets’ Garden, Thurs 12 - 5 P.M. Jen teaches the simplicity of eating local, sustainably grown food. (917) 971-1941 / Redjenford.com
Generally, the flowers of most vegetables and herbs are safe to eat, but of course there are exceptions.
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Hemp in the KitchenBeyond stereotypes, hemp is a nutritious superfood. BY BLYTHE METZ PHOTOS BY CARLA CUMMINGS
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34 LAYOGA JUNE 2011
eorge Washington said it best, “Oh, the mighty hemp seed; sow it every-
where.” Our forefathers reaped the finan-cial and industrial harvest of this versatile crop used for fuel, food, clothing, building materials, skin care products, biodegrad-able plastics, paper, and more.
It wasn’t until 1937 when the petroleum and lumber lobbying powers prevailed, and hemp was deemed illegal to grow in the USA.
Decades later, people are seeing a variety of economic and environmental solutions in the humble hemp plant.
We can ask: Why on Earth would our culture be using a non-renewable resource like petroleum for single use purposes like bottled ice tea? We buy items packaged in non-biodegradable petroleum-based plastic, to consume in a moment and then throw away. (It’s important for us to re-member that there really is no such place as away.)
This is cause for me to pause and think. For more than eighty years, we’ve pos-sessed the technology to transform in-dustrial hemp (a plant far different from THC-rich marijuana) into a biodegrad-able plastic that is much less toxic than petroleum-based plastic in all parts of its lifespan, from processing to manufacturing and including its afterlife.
Consider the hemp plant: it grows to full-size in merely fourteen weeks; it delivers oxygen to the atmosphere; it is naturally pest-resistant and can be grown without pesticides (making it a far superior choice for textiles than cotton, the cultivation of
which dumps over 300 million gallons of pesticides into the soil annually); it can be used to make paper; and it provides a source for fuel that is based on current sun-light. It takes millions of years for petro-leum to be formed; it lives deep within the earth, needing enormous amounts of effort and strife to extract. Not to mention pe-troleum is horribly messy, and creates pol-lution at every level of production. I can’t help but wonder if all that oil deep within the Earth is meant to stay there.
In addition to its other uses, hemp is a wonderful superfood, and it’s even gained a bit of mainstream notoriety with a re-cent appearance on television in Dr. Oz’s superfood smoothies. Hemp seeds are rich in protein and in the essential fatty acids known as the Omega 3, 6, and 9. Our bod-ies require ample quantities and ratios of these oils for optimum regeneration, skin and cell membrane integrity, hormone and neurotransmitter production, and immune system function.
Here are some quick and delicious reci-pes to help you incorporate hemp seeds into your every day diet.
HEMP SEED CRUSTED RAW CHILI FUDGE Making living fudge is a great pleasure. It’s quick, easy, super delicious, and incredibly good for you! These superfood ingredients have high levels of vitamins, minerals, ami-no acids, and enzymes.
Ingredients1 cup raw organic cacao powder1 cup + 1 tbsp raw coconut oil¾ cup raw honey or maple syrup ¾ raw organic hemp seeds8 dates or 1 ½ cups raisins1 or 2 chili peppers (For different flavors, substitute the chili with 1-inch fresh ginger root, or 4 drops lavender 100% essential oil, or orange zest, or any spice you like.)
Supplies8x8 inch glass dish, Food processor
InstructionsSoak dates for 20 minutes (if you’re using raisins there is no need to soak.
Liquefy coconut oil by placing the glass jar in hot water (the oil liquefies in minutes).
In a food processor, using the chop tool, puree the dates or raisins.
Remove the chop blade and stir in hemp seeds with wooden spoon, leaving about one tablespoon of hemp seeds to sprinkle on top of fudge.
Scoop the entire mixture into 8x8 glass dish and spread evenly on the bottom of the dish. Place this in the refrigerator as you make the fudge.
To make the fudge: Pour the liquefied coconut oil and chili pep-per into the food processor or blender and mix thoroughly.
(Remember that instead of chili, for a dif-ferent flavor, you can use 1-inch fresh ginger root, or 4 drops lavender 100% essential oil, or orange zest, or any spice you like.)
Add the raw honey or maple syrup and blend or mix.
Slowly add the cacao powder and mix until thoroughly blended.
Pour the fudge mixture into glass dish on top of the dates and hemp.
Sprinkle with the hemp seeds that you’ve set aside and chill for at least 30 minutes before serving.
Remove the fudge from the fridge and let it sit out and come to room temperature for 10 minutes before cutting and serving.
Hemp seeds are rich in protein and in the essential fatty acids. Our bodies require ample quantities and ratios of these oils for optimum regeneration.
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LIVING HEMP AND CILANTRO SALAD DRESSING
Ingredients ¼ cup raw hemp seeds4 sprigs of cilantro1 ½ cups cold pressed sesame oil1 tsp sea saltDash of black pepper
Instructions for DressingSoak the hemp seeds overnight so they germinate; this activates the seed, making it a living seed instead of a dormant seed. Strain and rinse. (I like to pour the soak-ing and rising water onto a plant or in the garden.)
Place the rinsed hemp seeds in a blender.
Add the remaining ingredients and blend until smooth.
Toss on any salad greens to make an in-stant fabulous salad. Pour the remaining hemp dressing into a covered glass jar and keep it in the refrigerator.
KALE SALAD WITH DRESSINGFor a delicious kale salad, take bunch of organic kale (kale is one of the dirty dozen of crops that are best to buy organic).
Tear the kale into pieces and de-stem.
Pour ¼ cup dressing (recipe above) on one bunch of kale and massage into the greens for about one minute; this action is similar to kneading bread. The kneading action breaks down the kale (or any other fibrous green such as collards), giving them the texture of lightly steamed greens, making dark leafy greens more enjoyable to eat.
Why Make Your Own Dressing? Bottled store bought dressings contain cooked oils and pasteurized ingredients. Oils that have been heated change, mo-lecularly speaking, causing them to read in your system more like a plastic that can’t be digested and assimilated, rather than a healthy cold pressed oil, which digests and assimilates with ease. Cooked oils are injurious to our liver for this reason. They are a toxin that is hard to process and release, so cooked oils remain in the system becoming rancid, causing an acidic environment within. Making your own salad dressings with cold pressed raw oils is simple and provides fresh living options to enjoy over greens.
HEMP MILK IS EASY
Ingredients1 cup raw hemp seeds1 quart water2 dates or 1 tbsp maple syrup (optional sweetener)
SuppliesNutmilk bag, Glass pitcher
DirectionsSoak the seeds overnight to germinate.
Drain and rinse seeds and combine them in the blender with fresh water. Add dates or maple syrup if you want a sweeter hemp milk.
Blend at least a minute.
Pour the mixture from the blender through a nutmilk bag into a glass pitcher. (The nut-milk bag strains out the seed shells, leaving you with a beautiful hemp milk in your glass pitcher.)
What to do with the leftover hemp shells? You can spread those hemp seed shells on your dehydrator tray (if you have one). Sprinkle them with sea salt, and dehydrate for a crumbly hemp topping for salads.
If you have at least a cup of shells, you can mix them with one cup of dates or raisins in the food processor, then press into pie dish and refrigerate. Fill with my favorite pie fill-ing: blended coconut meat (from 4 – 7 coco-nuts plus 1/4 cup coconut water) and 1 Tbsp vanilla powder or extract. Usually it takes the meat of 4-7 coconuts and about ¼ cup coconut water to make the pie filling.
Or compost the shells in your yard!
CLOTHINGRawganique’s fine hemp linensThe Hempest 100% hemp dress and vintage pantCrocs Santa Cruz hemp shoeThink Substance, Hemp Can Save The Planet T-shirt
BODY CAREThe Merry Hempsters organic lip balm
FOOD Nutiva hemp oilFrench Meadows hemp seed breadLiving Harvest Tempt Ice cream (coco-nut lime is my favorite)
BLYTHE’S FAVORITE HEMP PRODUCTS:
For weekly live food recipes, natural beauty treatments and the best in eco fashion, watch Blythe RAW, Fridays at noon on BlytheRAW.com. To purchase a nutmilk bag, visit the store at: BlytheRAW.com/store
Blythe Metz is an actress, writer, producer and a clean food and environmental advocate. She holds a Masters Degree in Metaphysical Sciences and is currently earning her PH.D in the same field. Visit: Blythemetz.com
Carla Cummings is a certified Ayurvedic practitioner, Yoga and meditation Teacher, and an advocate of the healing properties of food, nature and devotion.
Special Thanks to Bay Cities Kitchens and Appliances, 8826 Burton Way, Beverly Hills for the use of their space. (310) 358-8855LAYOGA
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36 LAYOGA JUNE 2011
indsay Wagner rose to prominence in the hearts and attention of television
audiences in her Emmy Award-winning portrayal of Jaime Sommers in The Bionic Woman. She went on to make more than 40 TV movies, five mini-series, and 12 feature films, and she continues to appear in cam-eos. Along with her onscreen appearances, she has a vivid interest in the advancement of human potential and has always used her voice to champion transformation and holistic healing of mind, body, and soul. In addition to coauthoring a vegetarian cook-book and other lifestyle titles, she is a life-long advocate for helping people heal from domestic violence and child abuse and she has a passion for environmental protection. For the past six years, she has been teaching workshops designed to help people see how to overcome their personal challenges.
Felicia Marie Tomasko: Your commitment to growth has been a lifelong area of study. How did that begin? Lindsay Wagner: By the time I was 19, I had a severe case of ulcers and gallbladder problems and the doctors at UCLA were suggesting surgery. My boyfriend’s mother was the personal secretary of Dr. Horna-day who was the co-founder of the Church of Religious Science with the late Ernest Holmes (now called Centers for Spiri-tual Living). Dr. Hornaday helped me go through a healing process that allowed me to avoid the surgery. I was blown away by the discovery that there was a lot we were not learning in the mainstream. I was driven by how I felt after learning meditation, visu-alization, self-investigation, and combining this with prayer. I was learning to connect much more deeply and consciously on a spiritual level. I was observing my mind and saw how my thinking processes and the flow of the life force coming through me, resulted in physical, mental, and emotional health or ill health depending on my perspective. In 1969, I became an avid student of the inte-gration of body, mind, and spirit for health and healing; it was my passion. Sometimes people in the entertainment industry would
say, “Yeah, she just works here.” Then there was the rest of growing up, starting relationships and my career. All of a sudden I was a global icon and that had its chal-lenges. There was no lack of stimulation for growth. In my life, I’ve been blessed with amazing teachers. Any time I would ask the divine to send me someone or something, a book, person, or workshop would come. I even nearly quit acting for a while to become a
lindsay wagnersitting down with
From the Bionic Woman to the Quiet-Minded and Openhearted
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“In my life, I’ve been blessed with amazing teachers Any time I would ask the divine to send me someone or something,a book, person,or workshop would come”
BY FELICIA M. TOMASKO RN
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holistic practitioner; I studied homeopathy and helped promote the American Holis-tic Medical Association, who got in touch with me because of the film, The Incredible Journey of Doctor Meg Laurel, my first television movie after The Bionic Woman. I had worked with the writers on expand-ing an eight-page treatment into a dramatic metaphor about what was happening in our culture between naturopaths and al-lopaths on opposite ends of the spectrum. There was a feeling as though never the twain shall meet. This was heartbreaking to me because there are wonderful things on both ends and we need them all.
FMT: It sounds like this project was more than just a film for you, that it was a way of delivering a specific message and a means by which you could unite your acting work with your interests in holistic health. LW: What always interested me about film and television is the ability to tell a story that would not only entertain but possibly help someone. For me the passion is com-munication. I am grateful for the good for-tune to have the power to choose my proj-ects and work with the scripts to enhance the potency of the issues being explored in the film. I was involved in so many true sto-ries because I love it when people transcend their circumstances and are growing rather than just surviving.
FMT: Even the role for which you became known (The Bionic Woman) was about a person who transcended her circumstances. LW: In that situation, I was challenging the writers and producers to go deeper with the stories beyond the typical black and white, good and bad cop in a skirt. I was happy because everyone loved the challenges of trying to make complex stories work with-in the formula of the series, even when we were under the gun because we were the cutting edge technology at the time, with a lot of stunts and usually only one cam-era. Our workdays were sometimes 16 or 18 hours.
FMT: Seeing strong women on television showed human potential and how we find our inner strength. It seems as though you were able to find a way to bring your differ-ent interests together. LW: It was karmic. In television, they let me try things; they saw that the public liked them, so we had the opportunity to make movies on all sorts of topics which, up until then, were “too controversial for TV”. It was an interesting time in history.
FMT: That time of history has influenced many people today. LW: It was a cultural revolution; it was the time of the women's movement but it wasn't just about women, it was about bringing up more feminine consciousness in our culture, seeing life situations from a different perspective, looking at other ways of problem solving beyond just winning. I was glad I had the opportunity to be part of that. It was an interesting time.
FMT: What has inspired you to step into this role of teaching workshops?LW: It feels like a natural transition. I’ve always been communicating my ideas through story and now I'm just doing it more overtly, and that was a big challenge for me at first. At one point, I took some time off, gave myself time to go more deep-ly into my spiritual studies and traveled with my kids. Two years later, a friend who was running a program in the LA County Jail called “Bridges to Recovery” (for do-mestic violence offenders) invited me to see what she and her team had developed since she knew I had been involved in public edu-cation related to domestic violence and had done the movie Shattered Dreams about a woman who transcended her circumstances rather than continuing to seeing herself as just a victim. My family had struggled with domestic violence and getting over the ef-fects of that was part of my own healing journey. I thought I would visit for 20 min-utes, but stayed all day and cried my eyes out, seeing 60 men having the passion and courage to look at themselves, learn, and grow in this amazing program. It was compassionate and nonjudgmental, designed to empower people to take full re-sponsibility for their actions, explore their conditioning, attitudes, and habits and learn true forgiveness for self and others. They emphasized the fact that we have the ability to grow out of patterns that don't serve our life, regardless of what they are or what we’ve done in the past. I became deeply involved with the pro-gram for six years and cofounded a sup-port group with one of the teachers for the alumni of BTR. Our goal was to give them and their families a safe place to continue to grow individually and together. One of the techniques we used was Emotional Freedom Technique (EFT), extremely help-ful in releasing emotional charge that won’t let you move forward. I also shared the Oneness Blessing (Deeksha), a flow of en-ergy that balances the energy of the body
and has the capacity to quiet the mind and open the heart. We all fight about the same things; it’s just that some people don't have a safety switch. We unravel what is blocking the safety switch. We all have self-esteem is-sues, so much of the same pain and anger. People who would come to observe the sup-port group would say, “Oh, I need to take that program,” and would ask me when we would do one for the public, so I started do-ing small programs in my house that grew by word of mouth. Then someone invited me to do a workshop in another state and it just became viral. In the past five years I’ve been to at least six other countries. Lately though, I’ve found myself becoming genu-inely interested in going back to the film industry. I have some stories I’ve been car-rying around for a few years now that I’d like to get made. I’ve done a few guest appearances on the sci-fi show Warehouse 13 recently where I play the warehouse doctor and am actually doing some of the EFT tapping as treatment for the characters’ pain. Anybody who knows EFT would have giggled if they had seen the show. There I am planting seeds.
FMT: What is it that you hope to communi-cate with your work in all arenas? LW: That we are all more amazing than we know. My prayer is that in one form or another something sparks that awakening in people along with the awareness that we are all connected at a very profound level. When we see and experience ourselves as so sepa-rate from everything, we limit our ability to bring through the life force or to draw in what we need for our happiness. Once we have a sense that we are a unique expres-sion of the whole then there is an experien-tial knowing that the power that is driving it all is accessible to us. That power implies joy and peace and creativity.
Lindsay has released her first meditation CD, Open to Oneness, which incorporates the Oneness Blessing. She teaches “Quiet the Mind & Open the Heart” workshops around the world, including an upcoming workshop August 12-14 in Palm Springs, CA. For more information, visit: Lindsaywagnerinternational.com or Workshops@lindsaywagner international.com
Felicia M. Tomasko is the Editor-in-Chief of LA Yoga.
From the Bionic Woman to the Quiet-Minded and Openhearted
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HEART HEALTHYoga benefits people with abnormal heart rhythms
yoga therapy
“The practice of yoga is known to improve many risk factors for heart disease including high blood pressure, high cholesterol, hardening of the arteries, and stress and inflammation in the body,”
BY MICHAEL BLAHUT PHOTO BY HECTOR TORRES
new study presented by the American College of Cardiology found Yoga to be an effective therapy in the treatment of
atrial fibrillation. Atrial fibrillation is an abnormal heart rhythm during which people experience irregular frequent heart beats as a result of the quivering, or fibrillation, of the atria, the upper cham-bers of the heart. It is the most common abnormal heart rhythm, and although it is not necessarily symptomatic, but it may result in increased risk of stroke, chest pain, palpitations, fainting, anxiety, and even congestive heart failure. Pharmaceutical medications or electrical cardioversion are current treatments. Yoga may be an-other method of addressing the irregular heartbeat in atrial fibrilla-tion. “The practice of Yoga is known to improve many risk factors for heart disease including high blood pressure, high cholesterol,
hardening of the arteries, and stress and inflammation in the body,” said Dhanunjaya Lakkireddy, M.D., associate professor of medi-cine and director of the Center for Excellence in Atrial Fibrillation, Cardiovascular Research Institute, Kansas City. Previous research has showed Yoga to have many positive impacts on overall heart health, yet this is this study is the first to examine yoga specifically on patients with atrial fibrillation.
According to the research presented at the American College of Cardiology’s 60th Annual Scientific Session in April, 2011, Yoga was found to cut people’s episodes of atrial fibrillation in half and significantly improve their quality of life. The study concluded that a consistent Yoga practice helps reduce the symptoms of irregular heartbeat as well as decrease levels of anxiety and depression in people who were diagnosed with atrial fibrillation. ACC.11 is the premier cardiovascular medical meeting, bringing together cardi-ologists and cardiovascular specialists to further advances in car-diovascular medicine.
“These findings are important because many of the current con-ventional treatment strategies for atrial fibrillation include invasive procedures or medications with undesirable side effects. Success with these therapies varies widely, and they are often only modestly effective in controlling heart rhythm,” Lakkireddy said. “It appears Yoga has a significant impact on helping to regulate patients’ heart beat and improves their overall quality of life. Any intervention that helps in reducing or controlling the arrhythmia burden in atri-al fibrillation can have a huge impact on public health.”
Given the low cost, safety and effectiveness of Yoga, the authors of the study recommend that it be considered in the overall treat-ment strategy for atrial fibrillation and other complex heart rhythm disorders. For yogis and yoginis, this research is another welcomed addition to the growing number of studies supporting the benefits of their practice.Study: “Impact of Yoga on Arrhythmia Burden and Quality of Life in Patients with Symptomatic Paroxysmal Atrial Fibrillation: The Yoga My Heart Study” presented by Dhanunjaya Lakkireddy, M.D.
Michael Blahut is a student at the Shiatsu Massage School of California, a Smart Flow trainee, and a friendly face behind the desk at Exhale Center for Sacred Movement.
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Photo of Dice Iida-Klein
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ats are one of the most misunderstood components of our diet. Most people are concerned with how much fat they are eating. But it’s not the amount of fat which is killing Americans and bankrupting our healthcare system. It’s where the fats come from, how we process them and how we disrespect their properties that are contributing to our nation-al health crisis.
There are three major factors that affect the body’s relationship to fats the processing (karana), the quantity (rasi), and the inherent nature (prakriti) of each type of fat. Start by buying good quality fats and oils. Next, how we use them once we have them at home is significant. In the kitchen, we heat many oils inappropriately which changes their nature and can contribute to the causes of disease. While we should be aware of the quantities of fats and oils eaten, we do need a variety of fats in the diet. Certain fats are better for different types of people or imbalances.
WHAT KINDS OF FATS SHOULD I BUY?All fats and oils, whether of vegetable or ani-mal origin, contain some combination of satu-rated, monounsaturated, and polyunsaturated fats. They are identified by their predominant type of fat. Butter is mostly saturated; olive oil is mostly monounsaturated; and flaxseed oil mostly polyunsaturated.
An important quality of every type of fat is its ability to withstand heat. The more satu-rated the fat, the more sturdy. Unsaturated fats are easily damaged or oxidized by heat. Oxidized fats can contribute to cancer and heart disease. Unsaturated fats also spoil more quickly that saturated fat. Spoiled fats are called rancid. In the kitchen, some fats are appropriate for heating (saturated fats), some can tolerate moderate heat (monounsatu-rated fats), while others are unsuitable to be heated at all (polyunsaturated fats). Oils must be treated properly to maintain their health-giving properties. This means that it is impor-tant to always buy unrefined cold-pressed oils. And if you eat meat or dairy, it should come from pastured or grass fed animals.
What oils can i eat for health?
Buy monounsaturated oils that are unrefined and cold-pressed and only use with moderate heat such as sautéing but not frying.
auyrveda
WITH ROBERT J. TALBERT JR.
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HOW MUCH FAT IS HEALTHY? So-called diet dictocrats funded by corpo-rate America tell us we should reduce our in-take of fats, particularly saturated fats from animal sources. Fats from animal sources also contain cholesterol, which is presented as the twin villain of the civilized diet. This theory – called the lipid hypothesis – in fact has very little evidence to support the con-tention that a diet low in saturated fat and cholesterol reduces death from heart dis-ease or in any way increases one’s life span. Clearly something is wrong with the theo-ries we read in the popular press. Their aim is to bolster sales of low-fat concoctions and cholesterol-free foods.
The notion that saturated fats per se cause heart disease as well as cancer is not only simplistic, it is just plain wrong. One needs to avoid food products with “lite” or the terms “low-fat” and “nonfat” in their names.
But it is true that some fats are bad for us. Without going into to the study of the chem-istry of fats which is beyond the scope of this article, the bottom line is: Don’t count fat grams or the percentage of calories from fat. Eat a variety of traditional fats and oils, and balance rich food with lighter ones. Tradi-tional fats are foods that your grandmother would recognize. Think olive oil here. Eat a combination of saturated, monounsaturat-ed, and polyunsaturated fats. They all have very important functions in the body. Diver-sity in one’s fat selection, as in one’s diet in general, will ensure good health.
WHICH FATS ARE GOOD FOR ME?Ayurveda recognizes that everyone has a unique constitution (prakriti) and possesses a current state of deviation from this origi-nal nature (vikriti). There is nothing that is right for everyone. All people who have the same disease are not prescribed the same treatment. Knowing your constitution and state of imbalance is important in knowing which fats and oils will be most healing for you specifically. You can discover this by visiting your local Ayurvedic practitioner.
For example, a person with a vata vitia-tion, or increase or imbalance of the airy vata dosha, is brought into balance by a lot of grounding oils and fats in the diet—most specifically sesame oil, almond oil, and ghee. Likewise, people with a significant amount of the fiery pitta need oils that are inherently cool such as ghee, olive, or co-conut oil. The earthy kapha dosha needs a very small amount of oil in their diet and is best balanced by ghee, sunflower, or mus-tard seed oil.
THE GOOD – HEALTHY FATS, EAT UP!Saturated fats come from plant-based and animal products. They are highly stable and do not normally go rancid, even when heat-ed for cooking purposes including frying. They form solid or semisolid fat at room temperature. Examples include:- Saturated fats in plant-based products, the so-called “tropical oils,” like wet milled, unrefined coconut oil.- All traditional saturated fats from animals that are pastured or grass fed rather than grain fed. The breed of the animal will also affect the fatty acid composition and nutritional value.- Fat from grass-fed cattle, sheep, bison, and other game.- Butter, ghee and cream from grass-fed cows.- Pork fat (lard) from pastured pigs that are fed a natural diet. Pigs eat anything so their diet varies.- Egg yolks from pastured chickens, ducks, and geese.- Fish oils, especially cod liver oil.
MONOUNSATURATED FAT: A “GOOD” FAT These tend to be liquid at room tempera-ture. They are relatively stable and do go rancid easily and hence can be used in cooking with moderate heat. They reduce overall cholesterol levels, and specifically LDL or “bad” cholesterol, while increasing levels of HDL or “good” cholesterol. They are found in nuts (almond, pecan, cashews) and seeds (sesame), avocados, olive oil, and safflower oil. In extra virgin olive oil, the antioxidants and Vitamin E remain intact when it is cold-pressed.
POLYUNSATURATED FAT: ANOTHER “GOOD” FATThese tend to remain liquid, even when re-frigerated. They go rancid easily, and ide-ally are not to be heated or used in cook-ing. They may be used as salad dressing or poured on food at the table. They reduce overall cholesterol levels, and specifically LDL or “bad” cholesterol. Polyunsaturated oils include corn, flaxseed, sunflower, grape seed, and soybean oils. (Corn and soybean are two of the most common genetically modified crops, so be cautious when choos-ing these oils.) Buy these products unrefined cold-pressed, store them in the refrigerator and use cold. Polyunsaturated fats are also found in fatty fish such as salmon, mackerel, trout, and sardines.Saturated Fat from animals that are grain fed rather than pastured (grass fed). These will increase overall cholesterol levels, spe-
cifically LDL or “bad” cholesterol. These are found in animal-based foods such as meat, poultry, and eggs, and also in butter, cream, and other dairy products.
Canola oil and peanut oil contain behenic acid. This particular fatty acid is poorly ab-sorbed by the body. Dietary behenic acid is particularly potent in raising total and LDL-cholesterol concentrations.
Safflower, corn, sunflower, soybean, pea-nut, canola, and cottonseed oils are allhigh in Omega 6 fatty acids. These present a potential danger, as most Americans ingest relatively too much Omega 6 oils and not enough Omega 3 fats, so these oils should be strictly limited in the average American diet.
THE UGLY – AVOID MODERN INDUSTRIAL FATSTrans Fats are “very bad” fats. They in-crease levels of LDL or “bad” cholesterol and lower levels of HDL or “good” choles-terol. They are found in hydrogenated fat products such as margarine and vegetable shortenings and are used in packaged snack foods such as cookies, crackers and chips, and in fried foods from fast-food and other restaurants. These industrial fats are cheap and ubiquitous. Overeating low-quality food is more often the cause of poor nutrition than starvation. While labeling of trans fats levels in foods is now mandated, federal regulations allow labels to claim there are 0 grams of trans fats if the food has less than half a gram per serving size. Most packaged foods con-tain multiple servings, so the actual trans fat content may not be represented on the label. Refined or heated polyunsaturated oils such as corn, flaxseed, sunflower, grape seed, soy-bean oils. These oils should NOT be heated. Instead add them to food at the table. Re-fined vegetable oils such as corn and soy-bean oil are pressed under high heat which means that Vitamin E is destroyed and deli-cate polyunsaturated fats are oxidized. Oils labeled “vegetable oil” are actually a blend of several oils, such as corn, soybean, palm, and sunflower.
SUMMARY: DO THIS NOW!Cook more at home so you will have control of what fats are in your diet. If you eat dairy, make ghee from pastured organic unsalted butter. Buy a good 100% organic first cold press unrefined extra virgin olive oil. Mix them half and half in your cooking.
Robert J. Talbert Jr., M.S. C.A.S., is a Clinical Ayurvedic Specialist in private practice in Laguna Beach, CA. He is a faculty member at the California College of Ayurveda. Contact him at: [email protected]
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hankaracharya, the great sage of Advaita Vedanta, referred to food as
everything we take in through our senses along with the thoughts that nurture our existence. Given that food, including our thoughts, can be nourishing or destructive, he emphasized the path of renunciation.
How do we understand renunciation? Does it mean to close our eyes to all? Is renunciation the practice of starving the body and drying out the mind in the search for what is beyond the reach of body or mind?
According to Vivekananda, renunciation means “to cover all that exists with the Lord … not by a false sort of optimism, not by blinding our eyes to the evil, but by really seeing God in everything. Thus we
have to give up the world. And when the world is given up, what remains? God. …The whole world is full of the Lord. Open your eyes and see Him.”
How do we apply these concepts in our day-to-day life? How do we renounce the world and yet open our eyes? Hindu-ism can provide clues by showing us the feminine face of the Divine. Hinduism calls Conscious Existence our mother, because it behaves much like our mother: it infuses us with life, nurtures us, helps us to find our own strength, to have faith in ourselves, and it allows us to eventually see her as she is. She, of course, is Shakti; the conscious energy, manifesting Reality in innumer-able forms. To recognize her is to breathe the air, touch the Earth, feel the vibration
of the river, listen to the very beats of our own heart, and to live in the here and now, awake. Seeing Her is renunciation in ac-tion.
Each day, at every moment, at work or home, on the Yoga mat, in the temple, walking in the street, traveling by bus, or anywhere we find ourselves, by remember-ing her existence and our connection, we receive that breath of grace which our fills our body, mind, and life with spirit, which opens our eyes to something bigger than ourselves, and only demands from us that we open our eyes to the Divine.
Sister Jayanti is a Vedanta nun who has been serving to the Spanish community of LA since 2005. She gives free classes of Vedanta Yoga and Meditation at the Vedanta Temple of Hollywood Hills; (323) 902-6022
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hankaracharya, el gran sabio de Avaita Vedanta, llamaba alimento a
todo lo que ingresa por los sentidos, además de los pensamientos que nutren nuestra existencia, y así enfatizó el sendero de la renunciación. ¿Qué debemos entender, en-tonces, por renunciación? ¿Es meramente cerrar lo ojos a todo, desnutriendo el cu-erpo y secando la mente para alcanzar algo más allá de la existencia, donde nuestros cuerpos y mentes no pueden llegar? De acuerdo con Vivekananda es “cubrir todo con el Señor, no con una falsa nota de opti-mismo, no cegando nuestros ojos a la mal-dad, sino porque realmente vemos a Dios en todo. Así es como debemos renunciar al mundo. Y cuando el mundo es renunciado, ¿qué queda? Dios. El mundo está lleno
con el Señor. Abre tus ojos y entérate”. ¡Ah, esto tiene más sentido!, pero ¿cómo es posible traducirlo en la vida cotidiana? ¿Cómo abrir los ojos o es que necesitamos un nuevo par de ojos? Y aquí es donde el hinduismo viene a cooperar, mostrándonos el rostro femenino de la Divinidad. El hin-duismo llama Madre a la Existencia Con-sciente, porque se comporta de un modo muy similar a nuestras madres, nos infunde vida, nos nutre y nos ayuda a encontrar nuestro propio valor, a tener fe en nuestro ser para que, finalmente, podamos ver la realidad tal cual es. Ella, claro, es Shakti, la energía conciente, que manifiesta a la Realidad en innumerables formas. Recon-ocerla es respirarla en el aire, tocarla en la tierra, sentirla en la vibración del río, es-
cucharla en los latidos del propio corazón …significa vivir consciente, aquí y ahora, despierto.
Cada día y en cada momento, en el hogar, en el trabajo, sobre la colchoneta de yoga, en el templo, caminando en la calle, via-jando en el bus, en todas partes, con sólo recordar que existe en nosotros, recibimos ese soplo de gracia que nutre de espíritu a nuestro cuerpo, a nuestra mente, a nues-tra vida, y que abriéndonos los ojos a algo mayor que nosotros mismos, nos ruega que lo veamos.
Sister Jayanti es una monja de Vedanta. Si usted quiere hablar con ella o recibir clases gratuitas de Vedanta Yoga y Meditación, visite el Templo Vedanta de Hollywood Hills. Te: (323) 902-6022
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La Nutriente Energía de Shakti(The Nourishing Energy of Shakti )POR LA HERMANA JAYANTI / BY SISTER JAYANTI
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ood – we can’t live without it. So why not take delight in each bite? The same attitude goes
for our other appetites. We are hungry for many things besides purely physical food: Music and poetry feed the soul; Love feeds the hungry heart.
From a Tantric perspective, we are always eating, always absorbing nutrition from the cosmos, always being fed by the universe on many levels. All sensual perception is food. Each of the senses is feeding on infinity, metabolizing the energies of creation.
Every bit of sunlight that touches our skin and blesses the eyes is nourishment: the body absorbs the wavelengths and transmutes that electromag-netic energy into substances it can use. Every sound we hear is the vibration of life in action; our ears are sustained by laughter, good conversations, and rhythms of all kinds. Breath is a primary food – we breathe in and out twenty thousand times a day, we are filled and emptied as two thousand gallons of air-substance flows across the sensitive sensory tissues of the nose, mouth, and throat. We may as well notice this continual feast and rejoice in it, instead of taking it for granted.
In the Vijnana Bhairava Tantra, Shiva sings:
All around you, in every moment,
The world is offering a feast for your senses.
Songs are playing, tasty food is on the table,
Fragrances are in the air,
Colors fill the eyes with light.
You who long for union,
Attend this banquet with loving focus.
The outer and inner worlds
Open to each other.
Oneness of vision, oneness of heart.
Right here, in the midst of it all,
Merge with the elation.
Become identical
With the ecstatic Essence
Embracing both worlds.
Feast for the Senses
MEDITATION BY DR. LORIN ROCHE
A meditation on sensual delight from The Radiance Sutras, a new translation of the vijnana bhairava tantra
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Verse 73 of the Bhairava Tantra, which correlates to Sutra 50 of The Radiance Sutras.
gitādiviṣayāsvādā samasaukhyaikatātmanaḥyoginas tanmayatvena manorūḍhes tadātmatā
If you want to sound out the words, here they are, approximately:*
geetaa aadi vishaya–aasvaadaa sama–saukhya eka–tat–manah yoginah tat–mayatvena manas–aaroodheh tat–aatmataa
Looking in the Monier-Williams Sanskrit-English Dictionary we see:Gita ~ song, musical performances, music instruments;adi ~ the first, or etcetera;visaya ~ anything perceptible by the senses, object of sense, sensuality;asvada ~ eating with relish, (also metaphorically), tasting, flavor, enjoying;sama ~ equal, equipoise; saukhya - comfort, welfare, felicity, enjoyment;ekataat manah ~ one-pointed focus;yoginas ~ the yogis;tanmayatvena - become one with that;tanmaya ~ absorbed in THAT, identical with THAT;dvaina ~ duality; manah – mind;arudhi ~ ascent, mounting, elevation, riding;tat-atmata ~ become one with that; atma, nature, existence, essence, the life principle, spirit, soul.
Visaya deserves its own paragraph, for its seman-tic range is quite broad: anything perceptible by the senses, object of sense, sensuality, range, detail, material enjoyment, material happiness, abode, do-minion, kingdom, scope, compass, horizon, range, reach of the eyes, ears, mind, within the reach of the five indriyas or senses; shabda - sound, sparsa – tangibility to the skin, rupa - form or color, for the eyes, rasa - savor, for the tongue, gandha - odor, for the nose.
Swami Lakshmanjoo (1907 – 1991) from Sri-nagar, Kashmir, India, was one of the main expo-nents of Kashmir Shaiva (or Kashmiri Shaivism) philosophy in our time. In a teaching he gave to John Hughes, Denise Hughes, and Alexis Sander-son, Swami Lakshmanjoo commented, “Gitadi vi-saya, that is also visaya, that is also our diet, our
diet through ears, aural diet.” (Recorded in Vi-jnana Bhairava, The Manual for Self Realization, available from Universal Shaiva Fellowship: www.universalshaivafellowship.org). Your real diet is the divine feast you are in the midst of, all the sen-sual pleasures within the range of your senses.
Lakshmanjoo suggests that asama saukhya means unparalleled happiness – the unparalleled joy that arises from listening to song. If you listen with your whole being, you can hear the song of life even in ordinary conversation. We are called to listen wholeheartedly.
There are many ways of paying attention, a whole continuum – scrutiny, skepticism, clinical watching, cold observation, appreciation, delight, wonder, adoration, love. Each has its place. We can dial each one in as needed or appropriate. But if we get stuck in cold witnessing, we may miss the joy of outer life and also our own gateways to transcendence.
The quality of attention this sutra is calling for is more than sterile, joyless noticing. Jack Kornfield, the Vipassana meditation teacher, once pointed out that “mindfulness” is an “insipid word,” not suggestive of living fully, with courage and spa-ciousness. Mindfulness is not a good translation of what Buddha taught – “heartfulness” would be a better term.
Every experience is divine if you accept it as such. There are times when we need to give ourselves permission to be in shameless pleasure, and ab-sorb delight with our whole bodies, in every cell, with every sense. This is spiritually and physically healthy, and a way of giving thanks to life.
Use Yoga to extend the reach of your senses – vi-saya – and tune your body’s ability to metabolize prana, the energy of life. The bliss flowing in your nerves and body is also a form of prana. In Yoga, become one with the happiness of this divine feast; mount this happiness, arudhi - ride it, ascend with it, become one with it. This is sublime spiritual bliss, and it is available to us, here in the midst of everyday life. This sutra is inviting us to attend to the feast of the senses that is everyday life, and use the skills we practice in Yoga to ascend and tran-scend with the joy.
Dr. Lorin Roche, a mediation teacher for more than forty years, is the author of The Radiance Sutras and the coauthor, with his wife, Camille Maurine, of Meditation Secrets for Women: lorinroche.com
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*Thanks to Dr. John Casey for consulting on nuances of Sanskrit grammar.
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Do you live inthe present?
simple acts for daily practiceyoga at home
Clean your closet, clear your mind.BY LESLIE HENDRY
I f you’re like me, you have clothes in your closet that have little use. I pride myself on getting rid of things, but there are items, like business suits and several pairs of boots, that have stuck with me through three different moves. The hall closet, I’m not so proud of: I’ve struggled even opening and closing the door.
Before a recent trip to India, I prepped my closets for living, breathing subtenants. I had to make room for their stuff, which meant getting rid of mine. I conducted a major viewing of things and debated keep-ing or chucking certain items. In the end, I shuffled half to a friend’s house and gave 2% to Goodwill.
I went to India to practice Yoga. I wasn’t finding myself or escaping, I swear (read unreliable narrator). Of course I was escap-ing! But now when one goes to India for non-high tech reasons people ask, is that an Eat, Love, Pray thing? (Or they actually say it the correct way, Eat, Pray, Love. I myself seem to organize those three words in a very worldly way.)
I wasn’t on an EPL tour, but I needed a se-rious break that a vacation wouldn’t settle. The previous year was marked by conflict of the West Bank kind. It seemed everywhere I turned I was fighting with either boyfriend or boss. I was worn down and exhausted.
Travel transports us into new experiences and new discoveries but I was going back to the same place I was at the year before. The places were the same but I had no idea the trip would result in the unexpected.
For instance, I was shocked when my housemate from San Francisco arrived with a three pound backpack carrying all his
46 LAYOGA JUNE 2011
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JUNE 2011 LAYOGA 47
belongings for a month. I eyed his sprightly shoulders with envy. I imagined floating through airports without the bags, the com-puter, the blistered feet, (the boyfriend?).
Sitting in the sparsely furnished bedroom I rented from a nice Indian family, my housemate’s lithe backpack tugged at my consciousness. Was liberation closer than I thought?
I realized my attempt at creating space in my house had been temporary and lame. I want to be free, I decided.
In my mind’s eye, I rummaged through closets at home. A majority of things were housed under the in-case/fear-based scenar-io. I rationalized stuff under scenarios such as: future belly dancing classes, intended rollerblading trips, or attire for retirement when Social Security is broke and I wil be so poor I won’t have money to buy an-other shirt so I should keep the one in my hand as it seems retirement stylish (I’m far from retirement).
But rationalizing didn’t stop there. I’d rationalized my entire life, the boyfriend, the job, things I didn’t want but had made
critical decisions from an in-case/fear-based mindset. How was life to be transformed when I wasn’t honest with myself about what I wanted? Bogged down with things, I had created a false comfort zone. By hang-ing onto possessions, people, and possibili-ties, I was living in the past and the future but not the present. India showed me what my closet at home was trying to tell me.
With a new perspective, I set standards for my closets:
No fighting when opening or closing clos-et doors (or with boyfriends and bosses).
Visible closet floors. (Transparency. I must speak my truth and be transparent about my hopes and dreams.)
Clean and organized closets. (Every day I must practice fulfilling these standards.)
Purge what you don’t use. (Letting go of things is hard but frees one up for sprightly shoulders.)
When I returned home, it got ugly. I spent jet-lagged days in a daze and nights rip-ping out the closets’ insides. I jumped over and swerved around an obstacle course of bags in my living room. Bags joined boxes.
I zigzagged through the maze, carving out branches: items for Goodwill, things for sale, and a quick route from the bathroom to the kitchen.
Circling the piles, somewhere in the core of my being, I could hear a voice from the present, asking me to consider the exit plan the next time I was about to swipe my card to take on another item. Things we own and acquire define our past and hopes for the future. Our accumulations not only succeed in shielding us from the present, they also accumulate hours of time to manage, eating up life.
The physical process of purging my closet and my life was a trip in itself. While I may not be a three pound backpack person yet, I did make a decent dent and feel lighter for it. I looked around the lithe closet, noting the clean, shiny floors, baseboards, and corners, and then finally admitted, the bags were ready for donation.
Written by Leslie Hendry is an attorney, writer, and autho-rized Ashtanga Yoga teacher from the Sri K. Pattabhi Jois lineage. She is the founder of Azawhistle.com, a company dedicated to clean living.
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farmer's cornerfood and home
BY RED JEN FORD
Cherriessummer
Cherry season peaks in June so seize the moment - grab a
handful and enjoy
,
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JUNE 2011 LAYOGA 49
an you bake a cherry pie? Given enough time, patience, and practice to make a
flaky dough crust (or the spare moments to search for a near-impossible-to-find, trans-fat free crust), I bet you could. But why bother when you can make something just as tasty, a little healthier, and a lot simpler? Like a cherry crisp.
Cherries mark the beginning of our stone fruit season. So if you master this technique now, you can enjoy a variety of peach, nectarine, apricot, and even pluot crisps throughout the summer.
From Brooks to Bings everything in be-tween, cherries are incredible when eaten by themselves, but you could slice them open, remove the pits, and toss them into a salad of couscous or quinoa with a bit of feta cheese and fresh basil and/or mint to balance their sweet tang. Or, my personal favorite, sim-ply serve them for dessert with super dark chocolate and aged gouda cheese.
Cherries are rich in melatonin, Vitamin C, fiber, and the dark red pigment anthocyanin, a powerful anti-inflammatory, that can help fight gout and ease arthritis pain. In fact, one study reports that 20 cherries are 10 times more potent than aspirin in reducing inflammation-related pain. With a high con-centration of the flavonoid quercetin, eating cherries may help fight cancer and heart dis-ease. An added bone-building bonus, sweet cherries are high in boron, which when cou-pled with calcium and magnesium, supports bone health. Plus, their high concentration of potassium may help decrease high blood pressure and hypertension. With these nutri-tional benefits and only 82 calories per one-cup serving, they make a delicious, healthy snack or dessert.
Red Jen Ford Red Jen Ford is a certified holistic health coach, Yoga instructor and manager of the Westwood Farmers’ Market, located in the Vets’ Garden Thursdays from Noon to 5:00 P.M. Jen teaches her customers and busy clients the benefits and simplicity of eating local, sustainably grown food. Redjenford.com or Westwoodfarmersmarket.com
SUMMER CRISP WITH CHERRIESTopping½ cup whole-wheat flour
½ cup almond meal/flour
½ cup turbinado or raw cane sugar (more or less depending on the fruit’s tartness)
¼ teaspoon fine sea salt
Grated zest of 1 lemon
6 tablespoons unsalted organic or pastured butter, room temp (or a vegan variation, use a vegan spread)
Filling
2 pounds cherries
1 ½ tablespoons arrowroot powder
Juice of 1 lemon
Directions
Preheat the oven to 375 degrees and butter or oil a two-quart baking dish.
Stem, pit, and halve the cherries and place them in the dish.
Squeeze the juice of a lemon over the cher-ries and sprinkle with the arrowroot. (At this point, you could also add additional sugar to sweeten to your liking.) Toss well.
For the topping, combine a cup of flour (whole wheat, regular, almond or a combi-nation thereof), half cup of sugar (regular, brown, or raw turbinado), zest of a lemon, and a good pinch of salt in a bowl.
Use your fingers or a fork and mix room-temperature butter into the flour mixture until it feels like coarse sand.
Sprinkle the topping over the berries and bake until cherries are bubbly, about 40 minutes.
Then, increase the heat to 400 degrees and bake for another five minutes until the top-ping is brown and crispy.
Serve warm or room temp with yogurt (dairy or vegan), ice cream, or Coconut Bliss on top.
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With a high concentration of the flavonoid quercetin, eating cherries may help fight cancer and heart disease.
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22 DEGREES OF BEAUTIFUL (CD)
BY TARUN NAYAR
Chaiwalla's Boombox Records
In the 90s, as we caught the first glimps-es of the world wide web and digital culture, we fantasized a Global Village: a world made small by the acceleration of communication; a world in which na-tional boundaries and cultural distinc-tions are made soft and fuzzy by the in-creasingly rapid exchange of media. We imagined a global dance dloor on which the differences between folk music and electronica blurred. 22 Degrees of Beatitude by Tarun Nayar recollects that vision: global dance music for human beings. Born of East Indian parents in Montreal, Canada, this tabla player and digital programmer is one of the founding members of the world beats collective, Delhi2Dublin, that has been rocking music festivals with their electro-acoustic fusion of bhangra and Celtic folk music.Nayar describes this album as a chron-icle of his own development as an art-ist and musician over the past 10 years. It is personal and private, and tangibly subtler than the driving beats of D2D. Chill trance beats and mystic voices, from unfinished tracks that collected on his hard drive for years, have been polished and complimented with guest performances on sarangi, bansuri, and other “folk” instruments. The music on this album is difficult to pinpoint by ge-ography. It is truly international, trans-cultural, and like music itself belongs to all of humanity.
Reviewed by Geoffrey Earendil, a certified Hatha Yoga teacher, a musician and a student of The Mystic Path. Follow him at Godzhealermonster.blogspot.com
YOGA FOR STRESS RELIEF (DVD)VARIOUS ARTISTS
Somatic experiencing, introduced by Dr. Peter Levine, involves healing the residual effect of traumatic experience to regain the ability to self-regulate in the face of stress. Here, Hala Khouri, a somatic psy-chotherapist and Yoga teacher, guides the viewer into a practice that challenges perceptions within postures; to shift the ability to deal with stress through somatic experiencing. With clear instruction and focus on essen-tial alignment points, Khouri moves deep-er into energetic layers of asana, question-ing the inner workings of the mind and emotional effects of poses. To highlight the relaxation response, Khouri utilizes breath and present-moment observation. Her commentary suggests tools, such as acceptance, to manage stressful events in place of familiar flight or fight reactions. She suggests that the viewer: “Work with emotions the same way you work with sensation. Just be present, don't be afraid to feel; it is running away from feeling that causes us suffering, often it is not the feeling itself.” Included is a well-rounded physical prac-tice in six segments: Warm Up, Standing Poses, Free Movement, Cool Down and a choice of two meditations. They can be viewed independently or practiced in full. The closing meditations direct the student to practice responsive thought patterning rather than reactivy to traumatic and stressful experiences.Yoga for Stress Relief is a valuable prac-tice for anyone seeking freedom.
Reviewed by Beth Dian Prandini M.A., an LA-based
Yoga teacher.Bethdian.com
reviewsmedia
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book reviewsmedia
Save The Farm (CD)
DIRECTED BY MICHAEL KUEHNERT
“This is an example of what we should be duplicating, not eradicating,” says Daryl Hannah in this short film docu-menting the activist effort to save what was the largest organic urban farm in the nation—14 acres in South Central LA. For 14 years, this plot was a com-munity gathering place and the soil fed families. When the city sold to a devel-oper in closed door sessions, celebrities and families rallied. They gained na-tional attention but lost the land. Still, director Michael Kuehnert’s film (re-leased for download on June 4) shows the positive impact of urban farming and presents this as a viable solution for today’s urban environments.Purchase a copy to share:Savethefarmmovie.com
Ravenous (BOOK)BY DAYNA MACY
When I picked up Dayna Macy’s thoughtful memoir exploring her re-lationship with food and weight and habits, I couldn’t put it down. She applies the self-inquiry of Yoga prac-tice to examining her patterns around
eating. The clarity of her voice speaks to the struggles we all face in any of our choices, whether we’re consider-ing food or other substances or be-haviors: are we operating on autopilot or are we making conscious choices? After all, we’re always hungry for something, which is why Ravenous is the title of this exploration. Macy vis-its farms and slaughterhouses, feeds people at a shelter, and exorcises old ghosts by visiting the house where she grew up. Along the way she learns to appreciate food with a new level of gratitude. And the most important les-son has nothing to do with a number on a scale. As Macy says, “I’m trying to become more myself.”
The Natural Kitchen (BOOK)BY DEBORAH EDEN TULL
With helpful hints for everything from a growing an organic backyard garden, shopping responsibly, using the whole vegetable, setting up a plastic bag dry-ing rack, and incorporating energy sav-ing methods for cooking, Tull’s medita-tion on becoming a sustainable kitchen revolutionary is both inspiring and full of valuable resources
I’m an avid reader, and in any moment, there’s a pile of books, DVDs and other media on my nightstand awaiting any spare moment when I can pause and immerse myself in the message and connect to a source of inspiration.
FELICIA MARIE TOMASKO. RN is the Editor-in-Chief of LA Yoga
what's on my NIGHTSTAND
BY FELICIA M. TOMASKO RN
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vatar; The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe;
Shrek; Transformers; Munich; The Passion of the Christ; True Blood; and The Sopra-nos; these represent merely a partial list of Lisbeth Scott’s film credits. Considering the wide range of theater, film, and television soundtracks as well as the variety of other projects that talented musician, haunting vocalist, evocative composer, and dedicated yogi Lisbeth Scott has been a part of—well, the catalog is the stuff of dreams. After all, wouldn’t many dreams be fulfilled by con-tributing to some of today’s most iconic films and participating in meaningful col-laborations such as the recent recording of A Symphony of Hope: the Haiti Project, in which 25 composers collaborated with a full symphony to record music in order to raise money to support the ongoing effort to re-build Haiti.
Yet Lisbeth Scott has another dream, one with a different sort of reach as it involves helping women remember the dreams they have set aside. Lisbeth has named this initia-tive The Forgotten Dream Project. She’s al-ready been encouraging people to make con-crete their secret longing, in Hope is a Thing, also the name of her eighth studio album, one that reminds people, no matter what is challenges are around us, our hopes and the spiritual longings of our heart, the moments beyond the material that bring us joy, are im-portant. Linked to the messages she’s been soliciting from people to share that Hope is a Thing, she’s now launching The Forgotten Dream Project. Currently, she’s collaborat-ing with the nonprofit organization A Place Called Home, based in South Central LA and run by executive director Jonathan Zeichner. The Forgotten Dream Project is celebrating its birth in a public event in Santa Monica on June 18, where Lisbeth Scott and other guest musicians and performers will be hosting a fundraising concert.
Felicia Marie Tomasko: What is The For-gotten Dream Project?
Lisbeth Scott: It is a mini-grant foundation focused on helping low income women who can use a gift or a boost that would allow them to realize a dream.
I had been waiting for years to start some-thing like this--waiting until I was a billion-aire. I was used to feeling that I couldn’t make a difference until I was one of “those people.” On January first, I woke up to this thought, “That’s it; I’m not waiting any lon-ger.” Although I can’t give millions away right now, I can give away amounts like $500 – 2,000 and make a positive impact on people’s lives.
As soon as I told one person, others came on board and I was introduced to A Place Called Home in South Central LA. There I met the woman who is receiving the founda-tion’s first grant. At nineteen, she is the sole supporter of her family of five. Her older sis-ter is mentally ill, and requires her mother’s 24-hour care and her father is in Mexico with her ill grandfather. All the sudden they were in a situation without any income for months and have almost been evicted twice. This girl is wise beyond her years and you can see that she is the rock in the family. She has an opportunity to intern with a law firm and she really wants to study law but she can't participate in this internship with-out has a car. This initial $500 grant will be matched so that she can get a car.
When I was talking to the people involved with A Place Called Home, they were excited about The Forgotten Dream Project, because even though they are involved with other col-laborative programs (such as The Cinderella Project, in which hundreds of gently used or even new prom and graduation gowns are gifted to young women) there is nothing else like this. They told me about a nineteen-year-old girl they had with two children. Her boyfriend had left her. She was crying in the
office saying, “It’s too late for me now; just help my kids.”
That’s just not right. So The Forgotten Dream Project is specifically for these women who are struggling and have the ability but just haven’t had a chance yet. The inspiration for this was my own mother.
FMT: In what way? LS: I grew up with a mentally ill mother, which was challenging for both me and my sister. Now she is a home where she is well taken care of, and sometimes she knows who I am and sometimes she doesn’t. She was the first in her family to go to college, she graduated with honors and she was an actress. She met a producer and was invit-ed to Hollywood for a screen test. Growing up we always heard, “Instead, I married your father.”
When people aren't allowed to experiment with and follow their dreams and ideas, they fester inside their heart and brain. Now that I have a global perspective on my own mom, I see that she was miserable because she felt she had done nothing. She used that line, “You don’t want to end up like me.” There are people who are shoveling their ideas and dreams underneath a mat. That got me thinking about my own life and the opportu-nities I’ve had.
FMT: The presence of these dreams affects their lives and their families. With this initia-tive, you can support dreams of women who may not even feel that they have a right to those dreams and it then has a ripple effect shifting their families’ experiences. LS: I learned long ago that you affect change one person at a time. Historically, any per-son who ever has an impact began with one person and it grew.
FMT: How was music your dream and how did your mother’s life affect your pursuit of it? LS: That is both interesting and complicat-ing because my mom would have been a
lisbeth scottspotlight on
Giving voice to forgotten dreams BY FELICIA M. TOMASKO RN / PHOTO BY JO COBBETT
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great musician. When she was listening to the radio while painting the kitchen, she won a piano on a call-in show. She said, “This is for you,” transferring many of her wishes and desires onto me. Every once in a while, she’d be singing and playing in the dark, but would stop when I came in.
Both my sister and I credit my mother with connecting us to the arts; she was very supportive. My sister was a dancer and had a beautiful career in Boston and on Broadway.
I always knew that I was a musician. For me, music was initially a means of expres-sion as well as my salvation, because life was complicated and challenging at home. I would sit and play and make things up; there was always music in my head and I soon realized that I couldn’t live without it. And I’ve been blessed with so many people who have stopped and said, “You have a gift…and can I help you?”
FMT: We have all had significant moments in our lives, whether they came in the form of something like money or a key introduc-tion to someone who could participate in our growth or creative process. When we
have been given so many gifts, I think we have the responsibility to then give gifts ourselves. That is what keeps the energy of abundance moving and it is what you are doing with The Forgotten Dream Project. LS: Giving back does keep it all moving; and there are so many stories at A Place Called Home of people who were helped off the street by this organization who are now teaching and giving back.
FMT: What is your long-term vision? LS: I want it to grow into something that lasts forever, something where the women who receive these grants will, years later, be gifting money back into the funds—whatev-er they can. I will continue to fundraise an-nually, and based on funds available, award grants three time a year until there is so much money that we give grants every day.
FMT: It is heartwarming to see mutual sup-port emphasized, since it is almost feels culturally accepted for people to build their own self-esteem by tearing someone else down. But doing so is more destructive than constructive. Something like this offers a positive way for all of us to build self-es-teem, in whatever way we participate in the realization of a dream. LS: I want to be part of creating a new paradigm where people start supporting each other.
The benefit concert, launch event, and silent auction for The Forgotten Dream Project will be held June 18 at Kula Space in Santa Monica (kulasantamonica.com). Tickets are $20. For more information, please visit: Hopeisathing.com or Lisbethscott.com
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Written & Created by: Laurie Searle www.ladyyogasuperhero.com
Art by: Patrick O'Connor www.oconnorcartoons.comMommy-tasking Yoga to the Rescue!
SUPERHERO
Lady YogaTM © 2010 Laurie Searle
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classifiedsdirectory
REIKI, YOGA, MEDITATION RETREAT MAUI, SEPT 5-10, 2011Join us for a fun and revitalizing week in Hawaii. A Journey designed to noursish your mind, body and soul, enriching you and empowering you in these transformational times. Combining the ancient art and practice of Reiki, Yoga, Meditation and the exploration of Hawaii's culture, art and rich landscape. Also experience the art of Lomi Lomi massage by resident Massage Therapists, a beautiful way to complete your retreat (massages are at your own cost). Retreat includes exquisite lodging, all meals, yoga, Reiki I and II training and excursions to local sites.For details and to register go to: Sacredventures.com or call (310) 462-4114. Register by July 1st for Early Bird Special.
THE YURT IN BRENTWOODYoga Therapy and Teacher Training.131 S. Cliffwood Ave, Los Angeles; (310) 200-4569; Michellemazuryoga.com
AWAKENING OF KUNDALINI PROGRAM, JUNE 25-26Dr. Hasmukh Taylor, Doctor of Metaphysical Science offers a dynamic presentation and guides with fun the science of awakening the Kundal-iniwith various types of Yoga. He will show the techniques and models to be used for each type of Yoga to give clear insight into awakening the Kundalini. He, also, offers how the world must be perceived in the ho-lographic sense, through synchronicity proven to powerfully affect the divine matrix, to restore perfect health and well being.For further details call (407) 695-6000; Pranavayoga.net or Sedonacreativelife.com calendar sections
SANTOSHA SPACE GRAND OPENING CELEBRATION, JUNE 11Santosha Space is a yoga lifestyle community located in the heart of Atwater Village. Offering yoga classes, health and wellness ses-sions, musical events, workshops, and a retail store focusing on yoga and ecological wellness products, healing modalities, and spa treat-ments. There is even a lounge where you can share a cup of tea withfriends, new and old! Santosha is a space that offers you a sanctu-ary from the busy urban world, amongst friends and healing energy. Everyone welcome!3405 Glendale Blvd. Los Angeles CA 90039; (323) 522-3095 Santoshaspace.com
WRITE FOR RECOVERYFor those recovering from grief, trauma and addiction. A workshop cultivate your creative spirit, promote mindfulness, and explore your past, present and future. For both writers and non-writers. Online, Privates, Workshops in Santa Monica. Taught by award-winning author Diane Sherry Case; (310) 977-3318; WriteForRecovery.com
GEETA AYURVEDA HEALING CENTERDr. Aditya Sharma, Ayurvedic consultations, detoxification, weight management, nutrition, blood pressure, cholesterol, pms, male/female problems, eczema, cleansing, thyroid, stomach problems and more.Simi Valley office (805) 584-9025 Beverly Hills office (310) 623 4415
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CHAKRA 5 YOGA is located in the exciting and diverse neighborhood of Mel-rose and Heliotrope in East Hollywood, on the second floor of a historical 1923 building above the Against the Stream Buddhist Meditation Society. We offer a fresh take on the yoga experience with our regular live musicians and DJs, monthly full-moon sound baths and diverse faculty of experienced, creative and inspiring teachers. Students of all levels are welcome.
4302 ½ Melrose Ave. 2nd Floor Los Angeles, CA 90029 / (323) 230-8291 / Chakra5.la
KUNDALINI LIFE STYLE Peace and Comfort unite in one single place. This place is the Kundalini Yoga Studio and it is now open! Anyone is welcome to join our Yoga Sessions and can feel free to gather with us as we chant the night away! There will always be someone here eager to help you relax and to feel wonderful every time. So don't hesitate and call now for more informa-tion or register on the website.7115 Reseda blvd. Reseda CA 91335 / (818) 515 3948 / Kundalinilifestyle.com
SILVER LAKE YOGA Open since 1995, Silverlake Yoga is the oldest Yoga stu-dio in Silverlake and among the oldest studios in Los Angeles. Our goal is to provide excellent yoga instruction in a relaxed, friendly environment. Call it Yoga without the attitude. Whether you’re coming to class to stay in shape, relieve stress, address chronic aches andpains, or to connect to a deeper part of yourself, everyone is welcome at Silverlake Yoga!2810 ½ Glendale Blvd, Los Angeles, CA 90039 / (323) 953-0496 / Silverlakeyoga.com
BIKRAM YOGA Bikram yoga is an intelligently designed routine of 26 tradi-tional yoga postures which comprehensively works the whole body in 90 minutes. Bikram yoga is practiced in a room intentionally heated to just above body temperature to increase flexibility, provide a cardiovascular workout, & melt away stress. The 26 postures work synergistically and cumulatively to provide a total body workout to every system of the body promoting op-timum health and well-being.3618 N Highland Ave Manhattan Beach, CA 90266 / (310) 802-0225 / Bikramyogamb.com
YOGA HOP YogaHop is the home of high energy, FUN yoga. The YogaHop philosophy encompasses flowing yoga, exhilarating workouts, and rockin' music to give you a life-altering experience. Men and women who practice regularly experience profound changes in their body including dramatic weight loss, improved strength, endurance and flexibility. The result is an East meets West yoga style that’s athletically fulfilling and spiritually soothing26 E Colorado Blvd. Pasadena, Ca 91105 / 626-844-7222 / Yogahop.Com
LOS ANGELES
Studio Spotlight
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Atwater Village 90039 Santosha Space 3405 Glendale Blvd 323 522 3095 santoshaspace.com
El Segundo 90245 YogaWorks South Bay 740 Allied Way 310 322 6500 yogaworks.com
Glendale 91201 Yoga at the Village 1306 Sonora Ave 818 265 9833 yogaatthevillage.com
Hermosa Beach 90254 Lyfe Yoga Center 1310 Pacific Coast Highway 310 374 5933 lyfeyogacenter.com
Los Angeles 90026 Ashtanga Yoga Los Angeles 2815 Sunset Blvd 2nd floor 213 483 0400 ashtangayogala.org90064 Bikram Yoga College of India 11500 West Olympic Blvd Suite 150 310 854 5800 usayoga.com90029 Chakra 5 Yoga & Wellness 4302 1/2 Melrose Ave, 2nd Floor 323 230 8291 chakra5.la90036 Dancing Shiva Yoga and Ayurveda 7466 Beverly Blvd 323 934 8332 dancingshiva.com90046 Earth's Power Yoga 7901 Melrose Ave #208 323 655 9642 earthspoweryoga.com 90028 Golden Bridge 1357 North Highland 323 936 4172 goldenbridgeyoga.com 90036 Liberation Yoga 124 South La Brea Ave 323 964 5222 liberationyoga.com90049 Maha Yoga 13050 San Vicente Blvd #202 310 899 0047 mahayoga.com90232 Omkar108 Yoga 11154 Washington Blvd 310 991 9642 omkar108.com 90079 The Yoga Place 110 E. 9th St. #B971 213 290 1897 theyogaplacela.com90013 Yoga Circle Downtown 400 S Main St # S05 213 620 1040 yogacircledowntown.com90017 YAS Downtown 831 S. Hope Street 213 430 9053 go2yas.com 90035 Yoga West 1535 S. Robertson Boulevard 310 552 4647 yogawestla.com 90004 Yoga Works Larchmont 230 N Larchmont Blvd 323 464 1276 yogaworks.com
Manhattan Beach 90266 The Green Yogi 3504 Highland Avenue 310 546 9644 thegreenyogi.com
Marina Del Rey 90292 Sivananda Center Los Angeles 13325 Beach Avenue 310 822 9642 sivananda.org
Pasadena 91105 Yoga House Pasadena 11 West State Street 626 622 2901 yogahouse.com
Santa Monica 90405 Bhakti Yoga Shala 207 Arizona Ave 310 804 9290 bhaktiyogashala.com90401 Yogaco 1408 3rd St. Promenade - 3rd Floor 310 699 0708 yogichelsea.com90401 Exhale 101 Wilshire Boulevard 310 319 3193 exhalespa.com90401 Fred Segal Yoga 420 Broadway 310 907 4022 fredsegalyoga.com90405 Santa Monica Yoga 1640 Santa Monica Blvd. 310 396 4040 santamonicayoga.com90405 The Yoga Collective 1408 3rd Street Promenade 310 395 0600 theyogacollective.com90403 Yoga Caress 814 12th Street 310 849 6334 yogacaress.com90403 Yoga Hop Santa Monica 1612 Montana Ave, 2nd floor 310 829 5000 yogahop.com90405 Yoga Works Main Street 2215 Main Street 310 664 6470 yogaworks.com90403 Yoga Works Montana Avenue 1426 Montana Avenue 310 393 5150 yogaworks.com90404 Yogaglo 1800 Berkeley St 310 800 4601 yogaglo.com90405 YogaWorks - Main Street 2215 Main Street 310 664 6470 yogaworks.com90403 YogaWorks - Montana Avenue 1426 Montana Avenue 310 393 5150 yogaworks.com90401 Yogis Anonymous 1221 2nd Street 310 451 9644 yogisanonymous.com
Sherman Oaks 91403 Black Dog Yoga 4454 Van Nuys Blvd suite 206 818 380 0331 blackdogyoga.com91607 Prana Yoga Center 4521A Van Nuys Blvd. 818 345 9642 prana-yoga.com91423 Rising Lotus Yoga 13557 Ventura Blvd 818 990 0282 risinglotusyoga.com91403 Two Hearts Yoga 4454 Van Nuys Blvd Suite 215 818 501 9642 twoheartsyoga.com
Silver Lake 90039 Raven Spa and Yoga Center 2910 Rowena Avenue 323 644 0240 yogaattheraven.com90039 Silverlake Yoga 2810 1/2 Glendale Blvd 323 953 0496 silverlakeyoga.com90039 Still Yoga 2395 Glendale Blvd. 323 906 8960 allstill.com90026 Urth Yoga 2809 W Sunset Blvd 213 483 9642 urthyoga.com
Studio City 91604 Mark Blanchard's Power Yoga 4344 Tujunga Ave 818 769 6427 markblanchardsyoga.com
Tarzana 91356 Align Studios 19458 Ventura Blvd 818 448 3317 alignstudio.com91356 YogaWorks Tarzana 18700 Ventura Blvd 2nd floor 818 457 6900 yogaworks.com
Thousand Oaks 91362 True Yoga 2873 East. Thousand Oaks Blvd. 805 449 4225 trueyoga.com91360 YogaShanthi 1414 East Thousand Oaks Blvd. 805 657 8861 yogashanthi.net
Venice 90291 Aanand Saagar 606 Venice Blvd #H 213 550 8447 aanandsaagar.com90291 Exhale Center for Sacred Movement 245 South Main Street 310 450 7676 exhalespa.com90291 La Vida Yoga 1005 Indiana Ct. 310 699 3018 vidayoga.net90291 Studio Surya Yoga 1501 Main Street #106 310 910 4740 studiosuryayoga.com90291 YAS Venice 1101 Abbot Kinney Blvd 310 396 6993 go2yas.com
West Covina 91792 Yoganette 2360 S. Azusa Road Suite C 626 965 4000 yoganette.com
West Hollywood 90046 City Yoga 1067 N Fairfax 323 654 2125 cityyoga.com90069 ThirdEye Yoga 1235 N. Sweetzer Avenue #D1 617 957 0785 thirdeyeyogastudio.com90069 Up Dog Yoga and Fitness 8599 Santa Monica Blvd 310 360 7200 updogfitness.com
Westlake Village 91361 YogaWorks Westlake Village 2475 Townsgate Road 805 371 3030 yogaworks.com
Whittier 90602 Greenleaf Yoga Studio 7654 Greenleaf Avenue 562 696 0502 greenleafyoga.com90602 Oasis Healing Arts 7028 Greenleaf Ave. Suite E 562 789 1588 restoretheflow.com
Woodland Hills 91364 Garden of Yoga 22284 Buenaventura St. 818 932 9849 [email protected] Yoga Loft 21228 Ventura Blvd. 818 710 9057 yogaloftla.com
Santa Barbara 93105 Bikram Yoga 3891 State St 805 687-6900 bikramyogasb.com 93101 Golden Tree Yoga 608 Anacapa St. 805 568-5309 goldentreeyoga.com93109 RussaYog 1905 Cliff Drive 805 448 1320 RussaYog.com93101 Santa Barbara Yoga Center 32 East Micheltorena Street 805 965 6045 santabarbarayogacenter.com93105 White Lotus Foundation 2500 San Marcos Pass 805 964 1944 whitelotus.org93101 Yoga Roads 27 W. Anapamu Street #106 805 453 9706 yogaroads.com93101 Yoga Soup 28 Parker Way 805 965 8811 yogasoup.com
Montecito 93108 Montecito Yoga 1187 Coast Village Road 805 845 1301 montecitoyoga.com
studio listingsdirectory
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WITH TAMIKO FISCHER
ASTROLOGY
LUNATION AND ECLIPSE DAYS: The New Moon Day (Amavasya) begins the lunar month, and the Full Moon Day (Poornima) shows the month’s unique qualities.
Amavasya (New Moon):Tuesday, May 31 at 1:08 PM until Wednesday, June 1 at 2:02 PM in sidereal Taurus in fixed-natured star Rohini Nakshatra.
Poornima (Full Moon):Tuesday, June 14 at 3:07 PM until Wednesday, June 15 at 1:13PM in sidereal Sagittarius in sharp star Moola Nakshatra.
Amavasya (New Moon):Thursday, June 30 at 2:22 AM until Friday, July 1 at 1:53 AM in sidereal Gemini in sharp Ardra Nakshatra.
Partial Solar Eclipse:Wednesday, June 1 at 14:19 PDT in sidereal Taurus, visible in Northern China, Northern Canada, Alaska and, parts of Scandinavia.
Total Lunar Eclipse:Wednesday, June 15 at 1:12 PDT in sidereal Sagittarius, visible in Eastern Africa, the Middle East, Central Asia, and Western Australia
WEDNESDAY, JUNE 1Today’s partial solar eclipse marks the first of three consecutive eclipses. While not visible in the U.S., these influences still signify heightened and unsettling windows of time, best for postponing practical beginnings such as moving into a home, beginning a job or making major purchases. The time nearing and during an eclipse naturally favors introspective retreat and focused spiritual practice.
SUNDAY, JUNE 5After 1:30 PM PDT excellent influences makes the second half of today one of June’s most favorable windows. The Moon in nurtur-ing and bountiful star Pushya Nakshatra (symbolized as a cow’s udder) encourages nearly all uplifting activities. Today’s fifth wax-ing day is a lucky lunar phase. These two factors occurring on a Sunday form the combination Suta (‘Brought Forth’) Yoga which encourages clarity of purpose and the ability to manifest goals.
MONDAY, JUNE 13Five planets gather in sidereal Taurus, a conjunction likely to color life through Taurus’s fixed and earthy nature that encourages be-friending the material realm and creating greater stability.
TUESDAY, JUNE 14-WEDNESDAY, JUNE 15Edgy and chaotic influences make this a time to slow down and be selective about one’s commitments and surroundings. A total lunar eclipse in uprooting and harsh star Moola Nakshatra is timely for activities that encourage prayerful simplicity and at-tentive stillness. On Wednesday, the Sun enters sidereal Gemini: Important practical ventures are traditionally avoided during solar ingress (especially during this one!)
SUNDAY, JUNE 19Following several harsh days, very good influences grace this morning. Before 1PM, receptive and moveable star Shravana Nakshatra encourages travel and actions characterized by swift-ness, love of learning, attentive listening and reverence for ancient traditions. The lucky fifth lunar day and an unblemished Moon are among today’s gentle and uplifting factors.
WEDNESDAY, JUNE 22Today’s edgy yet mind-expanding star Poorva Bhadrapada (sym-bolized as a two-faced man gazing in opposite directions) forms a combination that encourages a severe yet ultimately desirable situation. There may be an uncomfortable discussion or scandal-ous action that ends up being strangely beneficial.
SATURDAY, JUNE 25The revitalizing star Ashwini Nakshatra (symbolized as a horse) on the excellent tenth lunar day makes this one of June’s best days for improving vitality and health. Today may bring uniquely helpful healing work or remedies.
TUESDAY, JUNE 28The captivating star Rohini Nakshatra graciously fosters com-panionship, enthusiastic socializing and a love of community. Ve-nus in exact degree as sharp Ketu (South Node) suggests laser-like tunnel vision or a curious obsession.
THURSDAY, JUNE 30The swift approach of yet another eclipse (mild partial solar on July 1) combined with other agitating influences makes it time to remember kindness towards one’s self and the essential need for mental and physical rest.
Tamiko Fischer is available for Vedic astrological chart readings and
welcomes your comments: [email protected] / Tamikofischer.com
The astrological forecast for May is based upon the Panchanga (Vedic calendar) whose five limbs include: 1. Day of the week (Vara) 2. Day in the lunar cycle (Tithi) 3. half-day in the lunar cycle (Karana) 4. zodiacal position of the Moon in lunar mansion (Nakshatra) 5. Relationship between the positions of the Sun and Moon (Yoga).
Also considered are various sidereal transits and unique Panchanga combinations also called Yogas. Specific personal influences such as one’s date, place and time of birth are not taken into consideration, thus the following information should be regarded as a general forecast based on traditional meanings. Times given are Pacific Daylight Time.
LAYOGA
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venus:blissPAINTING AND TEXT BY SARAH TOMLINSON DEVANAGARI AND TRANSLITERATION BY DR. JOHN CASEY
Sarah Tomlinson is the author of Nine Designs for Inner Peace (Destiny Books, 2008) and a student of the late, great Harish Johari. She teaches Yantra Painting and Yoga worldwide. For more information: yantratecture.com
Dr. John Casey teaches classes in Sanskrit and Yoga philosophy at Loyola Marymount University, at the University of California at Irvine and at Yoga studios and other venues around the country. For LMU classes, visit: lmu.edu
Venus—the planet of love, is associated with this sen-sual Yantra that represents the bliss connecting us to our creative, sensuous self. Observing beauty through the senses of sight, sound, touch, and taste creates a bliss-filled meditative experience and allows us to ac-cess the subtle realms.The healing arts of aromatherapy, color therapy and sound therapy facilitate this sensual connection. Sur-rounding yourself with beauty and comfort brings in-ner harmony: wearing smooth fabrics, eating delicious food and creating delight in your environment, all feed
and nourish the senses and guide their perception in-ward to a refuge of silence. Romance, love, devotion and the sensuous side of re-lating are all highlighted through this design. If you are seeking these qualities, this design enhances the energy of attraction. The Bliss Yantra generates opti-mism and idealism, the ability to connect to positive outcomes and the best possible scenario in all situa-tions. Seeing the inherent beauty within and around you generates positive qualities and a sense of calm and joy in the mind.
I honor the positivity and beauty that surrounds me.
(OM SHOOM SHOO-CRY-YAH NAHM-AH-HA)
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