Setting Up Your First Website for Yoga Teachers, Massage The

Setting Up Your First Website for Yoga Teachers, Massage The: As a yoga teacher or massage therapist- it can be hard choosing a domain name for your new holistic website. Choosing a domain name would seem easy. But unless you are a famous yoga teacher like Shiva Rea (lucky enough to have an uncommon name) and people are looking for you by name, it’s harder. At this point it’s 2011-2012 almost and a lot

Go Hear Unique Western Vocal & Musics of Tibet, Mongolia, and India

HI YOGI'S Been absent for awhile-but just got this email I wanted to share from Florence Yoga: 

“It is our intention to create something so beautiful that it will change people’s lives. Falling short of that, we hope to provide people with a moment of peaceful contemplation and transformation."  - Baird Hersey

Baird Hersey and PRANA, Saturday March 5, 7:30 pm. $25 in advance/$30 at the door. Presented by Florence Yoga.
Tickets available at the door or online!

Prana’s unique music is a mixture of western vocal music and the musics of Tibet, Mongolia, and India. Each singer has the ability to produce two pitches at once, creating beautiful rising harmonies, shimmering vocal textures, and high arcing melodies, that are at once inspiring, mysterious, transporting and sublime.

PRANA was formed by musician, composer and National Endowment Fellow Baird Hersey in 2000. For Information or to hear their latest CD with Krishna Das, Gathering in the Light, go to: www.PranaSound.com
See and hear Prana on You Tube!

Amy Ippoliti on Why Do/Teach Yoga

Short video from respected Anusara yoga teacher Amy Ippoliti, on being Yoga Journal cover girl and more importantly what she gets from her yoga practice as pratitioner and teacher!  She says it really well, for me too as to why teaching yoga is fulfilling...
 

Surviving And Thriving Despite Unemployment/Housing Loss and other Bad Bad Things!

Latest 1/21: YOGI/INI'S Check out my How to Quit Your Life: Without Becoming Homeless published at Elephant Journal. It's pretty inspiring/bittersweet reading especially for all of us the, ex-un-employed, reinventing or dreaming of reinventing your lives contingent! It covers being unemployed, temporarily homeless, depressed, anxious hmmm relocation etc. It's my story-the first part anyway.  I'd love to be published more on EJ, so please leave a comment show me some luv over there!  

Thanks, Kala

A Healthy Pre-Yoga Energy Drink

Hi, all hope the new year is going great for you, here's a quick recipe that I created.  You know how you feel light headed or weary if you have nothing on your stomach before a vigorous yoga.  But you can't eat a meal-yoghurt works, but here's a nice hot drink that tides me over till I can have a meal post-yoga. It's winter in New England where I am and lots of snow on the ground so it's nice to have a hot healthy energy drink based on Ayurvedic principals.
Some of you know my occasional recipes are fairly open, use your own judgment and adjust to your palate!

By Abhisek Sarda @Flickr

Almond Date Brew

1 thin sliver Fresh Ginger (remove skin)

5 Almonds-Presoaked in hot water, till skins loosen remove skin
1 cup water
2T Hemp Seeds/could use 1T Flax instead (it will tend to thicken drink fast though)
1 or 2 Dates (not diglet) medjool are much better, softer
1/4 tsp. Spices such as 5 spices/pumpkin pie spice/or just cinammon or cardomon
pinch of salt
(1 serving)

Options:

• bit of vanilla or almond extract would be nice
• If you tend have lot of  mucus in morn, add more fresh ginger, bit of blk pepper, cin. (they are warming/drying spices) more Kapha type
• If very Vata condition-(see below or Banyan Botanicals* link) then perhaps replace 1/2 cup water with milk

Soak the dates in the hot water with the almonds to soften them.  Discard almond skins, they release in about 5 min of soaking.  Basically add all ingredients to blender with 1/2 cup water.  Grind into a meal, puree.  Then add rest of liquid, blend till smooth add more water to thin if desired.  I then heat it gently.  If you are a "raw foodie" then just don't use hot water or reheat.  And have it cool.  To remove the almond skins I do think you need warm water.  But for vata types, skinny/easily chilled/dry skin/etc. serve hot is best!

Try Meditation Post-Yoga
While drinking your brew and after yoga of course-check out my post "5 Reasons Meditation Is Better Than Sex" over at my other blog.  After yoga is the best time to try meditation, which is one of the higher aspects of yoga beyond asanas.  It's starts tongue in cheek, but is really an intro to meditation for beginners.  That blog,  Embark-Love the Life you Live, is about the Yoga of Manifestation: Practical spiritual tools to create change and live your dreams!

Ayurvedic Info & Herbs
Do check out the  Banyan Botanicals link above, their products are high quality herbs and oils (for massage or body care.) Taking the test alone is very helpful, and check out these books, I have Yoga & Ayurveda and A Life of 
 Balance, the latter is more introductory by Maya Tiwari, who healed herself of cancer. The Yoga & Ayurveda one requires more background in both topics.  Both highly
 recommended.

Your comments and questions are so appreciated.  Be in touch,
Namaste, Kala

Planetary Changes A Spiritual Perspective Part 3

I got chills reading this and it's truth just rang out for me and I thought I'd share it with you my readers.  Ahimsa means to cause no harm, peacefulness, in an active sense.
Mother Maya (Maya Tiwari) is a world renowned spiritual teacher and a cancer survivor who has helped thousands to heal from devastating disorders. She is an acclaimed author of several best-selling books and the founder of Wise Earth School of Ayurveda, Mother Om Mission, and Living Ahimsa Foundation. Her quarter-century long humanitarian work and service transform disease, despair and violence into health, harmony and prosperity. www.mothermaya.com http://www.mypeacevow.com/



Living Ahimsa~
Reclaiming Love & Harmony in the Golden Age
By Mother Maya
On the Living Ahimsa (non-harming) World Tour Mother Maya presents the imperative work for each one of us to take back the world of love, inner harmony and happiness. She teaches us to cement the indelible bonds that bind us together as a human family- love, humor, enlightenment, kindness and compassion. The perfection of the present time makes it possible for each one of us to harvest our serenity.

This is a momentous period when each and every human being will have the unprecedented opportunity to invoke their rite of consciousness. We have arrived at the Golden Age. 5011 years into Kali Yuga, as predicted by the Rishis whom, eons ago, identified this period of universal time as the phenomenal Yuga for the rapid progression of individual awareness. Whether or not we chose to participate in awareness, the universal space and time in which we live is fashioning a new order rooted in the cosmic wisdom of her age. At this moment, our minds and hearts are being retooled with sentiency necessary to meet the cosmic requirements of a new emerging reality. That is, if we can receive the gift to stay open in spirit whist we shift habituated patterns of mind into a place of serenity. We have a golden chance to rise to the demand of our own personal power, but "power" here is being redefined as harvesting our human sentiency, and not as material gains, fame, notoriety and so on. To accomplish this way of living, we pare down excesses, simplify our daily lives, and reclaim innocence. We have got to be prepared to do the inner work in cultivating awareness in our thoughts, speech and action.

Contrary to popular belief, this is not a Yuga of cosmic punishment as in the perception of "Doomsday" or "End of World" scenarios. We are in a cycle of natural progression in the universe's evolution. This is a time for individual and collective awareness. The universe is processing a massive rebirth for which we must expect a prescient degree of death, disease, despair and destruction. To cross this critical juncture, we must reclaim our human sentiency and be mindful and conscious of the operation of our mind thought, speech and action. In so doing, we can make a quantum leap onto the next phase of our consciousness evolution. We are living in an unusual time of golden opportunity, and phenomenal chances when we can easily shift negative patterns of the mind into a more sentient place for harvesting serenity, happiness and prosperity. If we can get past the fears and fragility that come from human attachment and material loss we will be able to transcend today into tomorrow.


Living Ahimsa is a perfect work for our time. As we take the necessary time to pause, to step back from our overdriven and challenged lives, we create the space to grow. Let your loving Living Ahimsa intent invoke a time for awakening the heart. In creating the inner space to let go of expired karmas we sum up the courage it requires to assimilate into the open light of love. In this way, we move in harmony with the cosmic sway of our new era.

Ultimately, the work of Living Ahimsa restores the spiritual voice. We must take back the world of harmony from the political and religious authority in order to bring an end to the propagation of war, battle, competition, seizure, acquisition, and the general degradation of nature. At this very moment, everything is being changed forever. The worn-out approaches have lost their power for us. The paradigm of leadership is rapidly changing across the global landscape. The traditional model of hierarchal control and patriarchal command is swiftly falling apart. Living Ahimsa brings about a renewal of spirit; an infusion of purpose and meaning that is already taking shape in the formation of love, honor, harmony, and prosperity for all. In this new epoch where harmony rules, we are apt to be inspired by the collaboration, authenticity, and empowerment of all cultures.

Let us, together, clean out the affairs of all past years, shred the baggage of burdens, let go of the regrets, empty the mind and keep alive the heart whilst we sum up the courage to go forward in Oneness and allow innocence to live for the length of our years in eternity. Join me in renewing the Ahimsa Vrata to cultivate inner harmony and world peace for nature and all of her species. "I take the Vow of Ahimsa. I make inner harmony my first priority. I take the Vow of Ahimsa in my thoughts, speech and action".

Blessings for the New Year!
Mother Maya

Why We Shouldn't Destroy the Planet-Planetary Changes Pt. 2

Hey Yogi's/Yogini's,
Just watched this TED Talks by Wade Davis, he is an anthropologist, I think Harvard trained. It is an uplifting, fascinating talk on cultural diversity in the world and the need to preserve it. Of course you probably agree, but his images and his rationale for the incredible importance of not destroying other cultures is really moving. He makes even the very conscious amongst us aware of our own sense of superiority and belief that we are the most advanced culture. Watch it. And I'd love to hear your comments.  There is a story toward the end about an Inuit (?) that will blow you mind! like a MaGiver of the tundra, who was simply an old man who had the deep knowledge of how to live in that frozen environment. 

Nutty Amaranth Snack

Om my goodness, some of my wonderful food innovations go unnoticed by the outside world and that needs to be remedied. Well.  Here it is: nothing to do with yoga, everything to do with tasty healthy food.  Notice the use of the word innovations-I'm brilliant at using what I have in unconventional or at least new to me ways. So I had nuts in my pantry;  and wanted a warming snack after a long cold nature walk (and lunch!) and unusual for me I wasn't craving the sweet taste.

Improv Nutty Amarnath Snack
10 min cook time

3/4 c. Nuts-walnuts and raw cashews (sub. almonds/peanuts)
Tsp Braggs amino acids thingy (sub. soy sauce)
1/2-1 Tsp. brown sugar
Tsp Olive oil
2 Tbsp. amaranth
1-2 Tbsp. sesame or hemp seeds 
dash of chipolte pepper (gives a nice smoky flavor) powder or (black or cayenne lesser substitutes)


OK put nuts into frying pan on low, sprinkle bit of olive oil, stir fairly constantly, for 3-5 min.  Then squirt in Braggs and sprinkle brown sugar, stir.  After 2 min or so nice brown coating has formed, add sprinkle of chipolte pepper powder.  Add amaranth & seeds, 1-2 more minutes it will stick to nuts.  I added a bit of water like 1-2 tsp.  to loosen the spice coating from the pan but not necessary-use your judgment.  Taste, adjust spices.  It's  great blend of hot, sweet, salty and spicy, and nice texture too.  Sort of Asian feel.
This would be good after a home yoga practice if you had a jar of it ready.

Namaste, Kala