snippet of grizzly bear

i didn't take this video, but it looks just as magical as it was last night in dc.   

and here is the full version of the song.  it's my favorite from their new album shields. 

this is the yoga i believe in

My friend Maia from julia warr on Vimeo.

south dakota and softness when it's hard

south dakota is such a land of wonders.  we went in august to visit one of adam's good friends who is a lutheran pastor and lives outside of sioux falls with his family in an old farm house.  then we stayed on for a couple of extra days to drive for hundreds of miles and see the sights out west.  i didn't have a lot of expectations for what our trip would be and so i was extra blown-away but this nothern midwestern paradise.  i hope these photographs do it some kind of justice.

now i've been back for the past two weeks and finding my ground before another month of wedding travel and then PERU in october.  the time at home has been a sweet pause in the midst of movement that has yielded getting our house space together, a visit from my lovely friend gillian, and a few more episodes of friday night lights.

also, i got a new backpack.  this may seem small but my old one was digging into my shoulders and i spent a long time resisting buying a new one.  it's nothing fancy but has nice padded straps and many pockets to fill with things.  as i search for more and more ways to care for myself, i have filled it with: a water bottle, a book, a resuable spork, my npr fold up grocery bag, photographs that i will give to my friend the next time i see her (i've already forgotten three times), lip gloss and lip stick so that i am prepared for whatever the event, an extra hair elastic, essential oil and a spiritual-kinda book for teaching, a ziplock bag for my phone in case it rains,  my headphones, two tampons, a pen, and my badges for my classes at the DOJ and IMF.

again, it's nothing glamorous, but having everything that i may need all bundled together and waiting for me when i walk out of the door to teach each day makes me feel really sane.  i've noticed that my leaving the house is much more zen-like, which leads to a calmer bike ride and more grounded teaching, nicer evenings with adam, etc.  it's a small thing but it's seeming to work in the grand scheme.

however, i continue to remind myself that having a nice, organized backpack is not a shield. it's always my temptation to believe that having everything together--a clean house, an organized inbox, all of my boxes checked off--will somehow protect me from life going awry.  when my house was broken into this last spring, i had actually spent the whole day at spa world.  i was bathed and scrubbed and uber-relaxed and as i drove back into dc, i kept telling myself that everything was taken care of, everything was pretty much perfect.  then i walked into my front door and saw quite the opposite.

i mean, it's life.  we can't ever stop it from coming and challenging us and if we try, we only experience more pain.  as brene brown reminds us in her latest ted talk, we all struggle, even the professionals who help us to get through our struggles.  and if you are like me, you might fool yourself into thinking that if you could be just a little more perfect, then you could avoid the hard parts somehow. but really the only way out of the struggle is to let go, allow it's current to throw us around, and remember that suffering is just part of being human.

so instead, when i look at my new red backpack, i am trying to see it as a balm.  it's something to put upon my wounds caused by the courageous art of everyday living.  it's like a little first aid kit for the spirit--something to remind me that i am always worthy of care, especially by the person who knows how to do it best--the lovely me.

makes me happy

above everything

my beautiful yoga friend rosemary wanted some photographs of her sweet family before the birth of her second son.  we met two weekends ago at rock creek park and by now baby miles is fully in this world.  ah life, you get me every time. 

and i love this poem by david ignatow:

Above Everything

I wished for death often
but now that I am at its door
I have changed my mind about the world.
It should go on; it is beautiful,
even as a dream, filled with water and seed,
plants and animals, others like myself,
ships and buildings and messages
filling the air -- a beauty,
if ever I have seen one.
In the next world, should I remember
this one, I will praise it
above everything.

costa rica sunshine

doubling down on happiness

 i'm back from costa rica.  predictably, it was wonderful.  like it was more wonderful than last year--which was pretty darn great--and filled me with a deep sense of hope about life.  the reasons for that could be that it's such a nice retreat center and the people who came were so open and  the gift of taking a big time-out from life to stare out at the sea from a hammock. or maybe it was the food--all organic, local and prepared con mucho amor--that had me wondering if i was going to adjust to living back in the states again.  i've been joking with adam that he was going to have to cut up fresh fruit for me every morning for a week so i wouldn't be too shocked on the realities of living in the real world.  he seems to think i am kidding about that...

but home is good.  today i mapped out photo albums, planted window boxes with arugula and scallion seeds, met a dear friend for thai food and had the most surprisingly fast experience of getting my car inspected. i love it here and hope that every time i leave it's so that i can come back to my real life with more joy and hope and love to share.  so in that spirit, i choose this photograph of a the view from my plane ride from houston to washington, dc.  i spent the whole week freaking out about the beautiful sunsets that we saw from the yoga deck and thought about how i never see anything like that back in the states.  and then i saw the most ridiculously beautiful one in the home stretch of my massive travel--probably somewhere above oklahoma.  i love it!  it was the perfect reminder to me that we are all living in paradise, we all walking in beauty.  we just have to pay attention and call a thing by it's proper name.


i started my first day back in dc with this ridiculous grin on my face, wanting to share the love with everyone.  then in the afternoon, someone innocently said something that challenged me and my big bad ego. it was small but big enough that i stopped smiling and started worrying. when i realized what i was doing, the phrase that came into my mind was that i had to "double down on my happiness."  i'm not a gambler and don't even know if i am using that in that in any kind of right way.  what i mean though, is that if we are ever lucky enough to find what we are looking for, then we have to work extra hard to keep it up.  this means giving more when we start to feel stinginess invade our sense of generosity and loving deeper when the person we care about is really challenging us.  it's about paying attention, having intention and again and again, choosing who we want to be.

because it's precious--our lives and what we choose to do with them--and if we are lucky enough to know how to pay attention then we have a responsibility to keep trying for what we really want.   deep down i believe that what we all want is to access our own hearts and know that we really belong here in a meaningful way.  i've felt that a few times in my life and it's so big and whole that i know i'll spend the rest of my days headed in that direction.  and you too? maybe it takes you a week away doing yoga in the jungle to get there or maybe your life dictates that your own sense of inspiration must be found in the walk home from work each day.  regardless, know that i am there too, looking up into that sweet night sky, savoring the bigness that's there.