occupy everywhere

lots of people in a little space!


at the park with justin and sarita. its always happy happiness with them.

amanda!


sarita gets down on the subway.


Everyone must have two pockets, with a note in each pocket, so that he or she can reach into the one or the other, depending on the need. When feeling lowly and depressed, discouraged or disconsolate, one should reach into the right pocket, and, there, find the words: "For my sake was the world created." But when feeling high and mighty one should reach into the left pocket, and find the words: "I am but dust and ashes." - Rabbi Simcha Bunim

one lesson i've learned about myself is that i tend to care most about the people i know and the places i have seen firsthand. for example, i am always interested in what is going on in peru and more interested in their political shenanigans than i am my own country's sometimes. i think one of the main reasons that i went to isreal in 2008 was that i wanted to understand more what i kept hearing about on the news. after two weeks there i had much more how clarity about how small that country is and how deeply those conflicts run between the people that inhabit it.

so i was excited to realize that i could check out the occupy wall street protests when i was in nyc a few weekends ago. i ventured out with amanda (one of my best peace corps friends who always puts me up on her comfy brooklyn couch when i am in town) to a demonstration in washington square park on a lovely saturday afternoon. it was well-organized, full of people who seemed happy to repeat the short snippets that the speakers were doling out in the human microphone style. after the official park they encouraged us to talk to the people around us about our feelings and opened up the stage for soapboxing. we hung around for an hour listening to people talk about everything from high rent prices in nyc and to how we should just stop paying back our personal debt to make the banks forgive it all.

on sunday we went down to liberty plaza and saw what i had been hearing about on the news. i had been expecting something big and dramatic but in that moment the vibe was really chill. people were laying everyone on the ground, playing guitar, holding signs, drumming, meditating, serving themselves from the ample food line (the revolution will be catered!). tourists milled around taking pictures (me included) of the mass of the mostly younger generation who was occupying the space.

i did not get to spend enough time there to have a real solid view of it, but i will say that it didn't, and still hasn't, caught me as my movement. i really do agree with a lot of what they are saying. there is a definite inequality of power and resources that exists in this world and effects everything about how most of the world lives. i agree that many people on wall street got greedy when they could not forsee their good fortune ever changing and how there has never been real retribution for their actions. it seems really clear that a lot of our country is struggling to stay afloat these days and that it's really hard work.

yet the more i learn about life, the more that i see that our thriving is an individual choice that each of us needs to make. i recognize that most times when i am being the victim, it's because i am not taking responsibility for something that i can actually change. the occupy wall street movement is saying that the higher ups have screwed up and that it's affecting our lives. it's an understandable argument--we are watching the sinking ship of our economy while watching our government childishly muck around--yet i'm not sure how helpful it is to shifting our country to a better place. to me, it feels like being in the energy of the problem instead of the energy of the solution. i kept wanting to hear something that sounded like hope or clarity or leadership or any of the things that would inspire some kind of real change.

while i was there, i was also thinking about last year's march for sanity. i think it was similarly aimless in its goals yet once i arrived on the mall, i immediately felt at home in the midst of the other the hundreds of thousands of people who wanted to make fun of our political and media systems. we came out in masses to stand up and show the world that a lot of our country is well-adjusted and ready to compromise and happy to be americans. it was revolutionary to me in that we weren't fighting against anything--just coming together in the spirit of having a good time and showing the world america's best face.

who knows, maybe i am wrong on this. maybe occupy wall street will grow even bigger and it will spark of positive change for generations to come and i will come to feel a part of the movement. i see a lot of potential for our country so i truly hope so and if so, i will be happy to have seen it from it's beginnings.

***

also, a few exciting things that i want to share:

--i am leading an intro to thai massage workshop at quiet mind yoga this sunday from 2-4pm. it's going to be an awesome session where you will learn how to give (and receive!) a basic thai massage. you can sign up here and let me know if you have any questions.

--if you have more time this weekend then you should stop by the gooDBuddy gallery in my neighborhood. our bloomingdale artist exhibit is being left up one more week and it's worth a view. it exceeded all of my expectations of what a neighborhood art show could be and came together in a really diverse yet cohesive showing.

--and i just found out that "the lovers manifesto" is going to be part of the first volume of the poetry of yoga, which was organized and edited by the awesome teacher and activist, hawah with a forward by shiva rea. it'll be released on 11.11.11 and contains work by sharron gannon, chuck miller, krishna das, tias little and i feel so honored to be able to share some page space with all them.

--as part of my 300 hour training, my lovely mentor shawn parrell asked everyone in our group to take on a new practice. mine has been abhyanga, ayurvedic oil massage. i am amazing by how much i have been enjoying and how it's helped me to feel so much more grounded as we transition to drier, colder weather in dc.

--in the past two weeks, i saw two movies at e street that i loved. happy happy is noweigan and quirky and oddly heart-warming. thundersoul is a great big documentary that honors what music can do to lift us up. i saw this preview too and can't wait.

a few beautiful faces from "double the oneness"

i don't think words can do mark and rebecca's wedding justice so i am happy that had the ability to capture a few images. they called it "double the oneness" and it was a lovefest, a masquerade ball, a live music mecca, a salsa throwdown, a performance art piece, a tribute to the ancestors (i loved the ancestral fire they lit during their ceremony), a feast the mouths and eyes and the hearts of the lovers of the universe. i have known mark and rebecca for a long time and we have navigated and celebrated many incredible experiences together but nothing felt quite so complete as their wedding. it was my true honor to be there and i felt my heart grow to a new size in witness of their love and union.

speaking of weddings, i love this piece on the perfect thing to say to the bride and groom that my friend jen sent me.

also, i just heard about this book project to end malaria. one of my favorite authors and speakers, brene brown, is one of the contributors. basically it's a collection of essays from 62 prolific thinkers and teachers talking about how to make your work great. the book cost $25, $20 of which goes to the cause of buying a mosquito net for a family in africa. i just bought my book because it's easy and well-organized and for a great cause, which is how i believe giving should work.

my bonnie

i saw him on sunday night at the birchmere and it was the perfect show. i bought a ticket for myself months ago because since college i've been fascinating by his strange persona and needed to see it live. but then the actual night came--it was the first cold one of fall--and i was exhausted from teacher training and eager to see adam had just gotten back from hawaii. after a sweet reunion dinner with him, i was ready to stay in my sweats all night. luckily his roommate megan had also bought a ticket so we roused each other and left dc a half hour after the show started. we got there just as bonnie went on and managed to find nice seats (i love sit down venues). i ordered a flying dog and settled into listening to bonnie and his band and their amazing melodies and laughed again and again his spastic dancing movements. after the show we made a beeline for the door, drove home through the darkness and i was excited for fall.

shana tova!

this painting and two photographs are going to be in an art show in bloomingdale in october! more details to follow...

happy rosh hashanah! i am not jewish yet love their holidays because they always seem so practical and contemplative and involve yummy baked goods. i was highly inspired this morning by a message in gwyneth paltrow's newsletter on the practices of rosh hashanah by michael berg:

"There are many tools that we can use during the two days of Rosh Hashanah but there are two important connections that we can all make. The first is to take time during these two days and think about our past year, the good, the better, and the not so good. Then ask yourself, “What do I want to change from last year?”, “what do I want to make better?” Also, “what blessings do we want to draw for ourselves and our family in the next year?” The supernal gates open up during these two days and by opening ourselves up to the flow of light and energy from above we can receive endless blessings.

The second important connection is how we think and behave during Rosh Hashanah. If we desire to connect to the supernal energy that is revealed we should behave like the supernal light. We should act in only ways of sharing, forgiveness and care. No anger, no doubt, no jealousy, no sadness, at least for these two days. How we are during these two days will influence the next 363."

that is such an awesome practice and i am willing to give it a try. it's so easy to get stuck in our habits of feeling upset that we forget what it feels like to feel really good. i have been living on stress for a while and when a day opened up for me yesterday (thank you rain!), i knew that i needed the release that only spaworld can give me. after five hours, a foot massage, a nap, and getting almost all my yoga training reading done, i left feeling like a new person and actually had the best time being stuck in traffic on the way home--for real. as many times as i forget, i can remember how dang important self-care is to feeling good and being the person i want to be. so it's an order--do something nice and decadent for yourself today. think about it as sewing the seed of what you want to see in this next year.

oh and i keep forgetting to post this, but i wanted to share the (belated) launch of the dcHOME Project. i met alex through lovely lizzy a few months ago. he's a lawyer by day but a photographer by heart. over this past year he's been organizing other dc photographers together to share and document their ideas of home through a grant from the dc commission on the arts and humanities. we work in groups of three with alex in all kinds of locations and the results are great. we photographed in georgetown and at my home in bloomingdale and during these two days i really got to know alex and an inspiring lady named mia who teaches art in virginia prisons. it helped me to focus on the small to tell the bigger stories of who we are and to learn that those stories are always there, all we have to do is starting asking and listening.

meeeee!

julie and lucy assisting



all this traveling around has left a lot of photographs in need of editing and posting. i get to it all eventually, but i'm not sure if i totally believe my own explanation that photographs get better with time and anticipation. still, these yoga and houndstooth photography promo shots definitely need to be posted because stacey veath did such a great job taking them. i mean, i really don't like getting my picture taken, so much so that i was really nervous before the shoot. luckily i had my best friend julie, julie's adorable dog lucy and stacey to be my entourage at the arboretum. the shoot ended up being really fun and i love the photos. it's really helpful for me to see what happens on the other side of the camera. i come across a lot of people who are like me about not wanting to be photograph and nothing makes me happier than taking a picture of them that they like. i don't know exactly what happens energetically during a photo shoot, but it does feel kinda big to me in that we have to be pretty vulnerable to let ourselves be seen and the conditions have to be right to do that well.

it's great to look at these pictures now as i am just finishing up healing from a bike accident two weeks ago. i have ridden my bike all over this city without fear for two years now, and then the accident happened so suddenly. the details were that i was late to teach a class so i was riding extra fast and was going straight through an intersection. the driver didn't see me, made a left turn and i didn't have enough time to stop. i crashed in her passenger side door and bounced back, landing on my lower back. it was a dramatic ordeal with lots of people standing around me and firemen and an ambulance. i had a good amount of time to lay on the street and wait for everyone to get organized and in those moments i had a pretty intense yoga practice of just trying to stay in the moment. my back was hurting pretty bad so my mind starting telling me that i would never be able to have a real yoga practice again, i wouldn't teach again, etc. every time i went there i would start crying which was my indicator to pull myself back to what i knew to be true in the moment--i was just having pain in my back.

two hours and an xray later, the doctors told me that i was going to be fine with just pain and bruises. now two weeks later, i am barely feeling it, thanks to advil, arnica gel and lots of rest. it's been a good evaluation time for me to see how busy i am and how crazy this can make me. it was a big reminded for me to slow down and pay attention. techinically, it wasn't my fault, but this yogic path i walk demands me to take responsibility for everything that is going on in my life. i know that if i had been more aware and rushing less, i probably could have avoided it. i'm lucky to have learned this lesson in such a, relatively, gentle way.

ah, so much good stuff has been happening of late. i could write many but i have to teach soon and in the spirit of slowing down in my travels, here are the three i've been thinking about the most of late:

--i saw fela on tuesday at the shakespeare theater. it was an amazing political, interactive, musical experience. i highly recommend it.

--i wrote this piece on the peace corps for the 50th anniversary this weekend and my friend ann published it in her magazine, GOOD

--my friends mark and rebecca were married last weekend in st. louis. it was a magical night--the wedding had a masquerade ball theme and involved an ancestral fire and aerial silks performance. pictures are coming soon!

needed: orangutan companion to ride on my handle bars

sneak peak at allison and david's wedding

here are a few pictures from allison and david's amazing, beautiful wedding in jamestown, rhode island over labor day weekend. i've known allison and david since moving back to dc, but i feel like i really got to know them this weekend. the couple--who has been together for 15 years--wanted their wedding to be natural, surrounded by the people they love the most. so they packed a beautiful old estate home with their nearest and dearest and proceeded to have the most fun, loving wedding i've seen in a while. as always, i felt so honored to share in the festivities and so happy with the moments i was able to capture. honestly, it wasn't too hard with this lovely crew.