plant life city.

this salad held me captive for half an hour.

it took a little bit of scavenging, but i found these two dandelions in my neighborhood jenn!

baby basil plant. a present from sweet diana before her departure.

i ate cherries at my desk while listening to michael franti and the breeze was coming through the window and it was a good moment.

i've been so inspired by this blog lately and it makes me want to celebrate more of the little things around me and how they bring me joy.

i just finished my thai massage certification (want me to practice on you? email me!) and i keep thinking about the advice another thai masseuse mike relayed at the acroyoga retreat from one of his teachers. he said that when working with someone's muscles, you can never go too deep but you can always go too fast. i keep repeating that to myself and i think this is a powerful lesson. i can never listen to a song too deeply. i can never look at something for too long. i can never listen to someone too much. i can always go too fast and wonder where my day went.

taking these pictures of what is beautiful and makes me happy helps me to slow down enough to see the good stuff that is going on the cracks in between the issues and events of my everyday life. and in that slowing down i can go really really deep, right down to the core of the present moment and all its wonders. at lunch today, i was so into my salad (spinach, local snow peas, tomatoes, sauteed baby bella mushrooms, blueberries, gorgonzola, and toasted sesame seeds eaten with half a tamale). i ate it completely hungry, totally engrossed, sitting on my back porch on my favorite pink plate that has stayed with me since college. when it was gone and i looked up, everything seemed oddly alive. i watched the sunlight on the dirty plastic chair covered in pollen and the plants i forget to take care of but grow anyways and two bees circling each other up into the sky and i knew there are worlds within our worlds that are happy to show us so much when we decide to drop-in for a visit. yes, the world waits for us until we are ready to really show up.

***

also, i saw the broken bells last night and the music was so great and it only confirmed every positive feeling i've ever had about danger mouse. he's incredible to watch on stage--tall and shy and slightly autistic seeming in how he is processing the music--but as a yogi i worry about his slumpy shoulders and all that drumming. i've decided a new life dream is to give him a thai massage session. if i can ever get that close to him, you can be sure that this massage will be given with the pure metta, friendship love that thai is intended as and also the creepy mel from flight of the conchords, too much of a fan kind of love. while i am waiting for that to happen, enjoy this cover that they also played at the show last night.

and best wishes to my friend steven who is recovering from some heart troubles but still knows perfectly well how to care for his ticker.