As well as experiencing dryer skin in this “Vata” time of year, do you find yourself more anxious, flighty and spacey?  It is probably more than “the Holidays.”  Your Vata dosha is more than likely out of balance, which merely means nature is delivering an abundance of vata like qualities in the form of cooler temperatures, and blustery winds.  This can tip us a bit over the edge emotionally and physically.

You don’t need to feel blown away by vata’s high season.  Choose nurturing lifestyle choices which will help keep you grounded. Read more »

Remain true to the earth, my brethren, with the power of your virtue! Let your bestowing love and your knowledge be devoted to be the meaning of the earth! Thus do I pray and conjure you.

Let it not fly away from the earthly and beat against eternal walls with its wings! Ah, there hath always been so much flown-away virtue!

Lead, like me, the flown-away virtue back to the earth- yea, back to body and life: that it may give to the earth its meaning, a human meaning!

~ The character of Zarathustra in Thus Spake Zarathustra

by Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900), German philosopher

For far too many spiritual seekers, their spiritual aspiration is like an iron maiden of virtue whose inner critic spikes ceaselessly stab our all-too-human souls. We envision becoming “spiritual” as transcending our humanity rather than becoming more fully human.

Modeling their behavior according to ideas of spirituality that they have read in books, many seekers I meet are genuinely upset with their humanity. Read more »

For the first time in history we are embarking on a new dimension of aging where answers are as mysterious as the questions. What does aging mean to us now? Is it aging or is it opening? What are the possibilities? These are a few of the questions we are beginning to ask ourselves and each other as we co-create a new paradigm in this great adventure.

Join us in our video presentation of Aging With Grace and Glory this November 16th – 19th at the First Unitarian Universalist Church in San Francisco as we present the first in a series of Aging With Grace and Glory.

Nader Shabahangi, CEO of Agesong Elder Communities and President of AgeSong Institute, interviews 97-year young Marion Rosen, originator of Rosen Method for stress reduction, and 90-year young Magana Baptiste, co-founder of Breath-based Yoga.  Both nonogenarians are still working and will be presenting at the Poetics of Aging Conference, November 16-19, 2011, in San Francisco. For more information, visit: http://www.poeticsofaging.org.

In my work, I get to see the underbelly of our social order: the patterns of unhappiness and hardship which we suffer alone, but which are shared by others in epidemic proportions. These are the disorders of society which breed widespread personal unhappiness.

James Hillman, Jungian analyst, alludes to just such a societal disorder when he comments that one of the hardest things which he has to treat is his clients’ schedules. Hillman notes that their schedules are their defenses against change. Said another way, your personal organizer is your defense. Your to-do list is your personal tyrant. Your busyness is your soul’s captor. We haven’t the time to allow into our lives the changes that would be a salve to our souls.

Another expression of this societal disorder is a profoundly unhappy friend who regularly works 60 to 80 hour weeks. When asked why she doesn’t refuse to work such hours, she replies, “I can’t.” She’s is afraid of losing her job, although she is losing her soul. She notes her company’s informal motto is “excellence through anxiety.” I kid you not. It reminds me of another person who mentioned his company’s informal motto is “excellence through paranoia.” Read more »

“Your home’s Vastu impacts every area of your life. It affects whether you whether you believe in Vastu or not. Good Vastu in the places where you live and work brings good fortune. By following the principles of Vastu you can transform the quality of your life. You can change your experience and altar your destiny. With good Vastu, health, happiness and success come more easily.

 Whether you live in a simple thatched hut or a substantial estate, if it has been built according to the rules of Vastu, you will have a Heaven- a refuge from the chaos and confusion of the outer world. Nature’s bounty will flow in your life and severity will be reduced. By living and working in such an environment, nature will support you and your life will progress in a smooth and beautiful way.”

– Sri Sai Kaleshwara Swami -Victory Through Vastu

Vastu Shastra is one of the most valuable treasures of ancient India. Vastu originated in the Indian subcontinent during the times of the Vedic culture, which flourished more than 10.000 years ago. Vastu means “dwelling” and Shastra means science. Vastu is the architectural science of property and building placement, design and construction according to the eternal laws of nature. Through their exact application, Vastu creates spaces that contain true balance and harmony.

Imagine you’re playing a card game. A very unusual card game. Matter of fact, it’s a game you play every day. It’s called, “Life”. Every day, you’re dealt the cards of your life situation. Every day the same other player wins. Here’s today’s play.

The cards are dealt: today’s life situation.

The first player throws out a judgment. “It shouldn’t be like this!”

The next player tosses in an expectation. “I’m disappointed.”

The third player slams down an argument. Read more »

Standing in the hot gym was routine to me. I have been doing gymnastics for all my life. The only problem was that, being on vacation in Florida, I wasn’t in my gym. I actually enjoyed the experience with the new team, but over all, I have to give it to the coach, Ashley. Ashley had long curly hair, black as night, and brown sparkly eyes that smiled whenever Ashley did.

She was nice and I liked her except in this one situation in which all good thoughts toward her were erased as she stood in the middle of the worn gray-blue floor, beckoning me to my doom. “Its one skill,” she shouted from the middle of the floor. Read more »

I work with many intelligent people. Despite their intelligence, often they are stymied by dilemmas with which they have struggled in thought – often for a very long time. Occasionally I may remark, “With your obvious intelligence and with all your thinking about this, if you haven’t yet arrived at answer, perhaps it might be because you’ve been searching for your answer in the wrong place.”

Such dilemmas remind me of the crazy wisdom teacher, Nasruddin, an Islamic character whose humorous exploits are spiritual teachings with many depths of meaning. Let me paraphrase one of my favorite Nasruddin stories, for it may suggest an answer to such getting stuck. Read more »

Our Mother Earth brings love to us through the food and our sensual experiences. Without this we could not have a human experience. Without the human experience, our soul could not grow and evolve.

Eating is a sacred act. Something living dies, we take it into our bodies, and it becomes part of us as we become part of it. Plant or animal, hunted, gathered, or bought in the supermarket, this exchange and balance creates the interconnectedness in the physical realm and allows the natural world to continue.

To treat the act of cooking and eating as a chore is a denigration of the love from our Mother, plants and animals. Eating is one of the most basic acts of self-nourishment and honoring of one’s life. It is a necessary step toward self-love and wholeness. When we nourish ourselves with gratitude according to deep wisdom of nature, we are returning this love and respect by honoring our life as sacred and interconnected with all there is. By nourishing ourselves nature’s way we are given a map to live by that honors and unites life, death, light, dark equally. It gives us the tools to receive the gifts of both sides to grow and evolve. Read more »

You may have read about Ayurveda and Ayurvedic massage in popular magazines. Perhaps you’ve taken a “Constitutional Quiz” to find out if you are Vata, Pitta, or Kapha. So, what does it mean? How can knowing this help?

Ayurveda is the 5000 year-old, tried and true holistic healing system of India. Each person is evaluated for the conditions of their health and their lifestyle is assessed as an individualized picture concerned with finding the causes for imbalances that causes unease in the body.

Ayurvedic massage plays an important part in this system of health. So much so, that it has captured the imagination of the American massage community. K.P. Khalsa says, “It’s a bounty of outstanding, effective, thoroughly proven techniques that help people get healthy and stay healthy.”
Ayurvedic massage is an integral part (along with diet and lifestyle) of an Ayurvedic treatment plan. Daily oil massage is believed to be indispensible to good health. Newborns and their mothers are given massage. Massage is considered to be essential to keeping the body supple, strong and in good working condition during the productive middle years. For the aging, warm oil massage relieves stiffness and drying and promotes vigor. All people are encouraged to do daily warm oil massage. It produces a healthy body, glowing appearance and a happy mind.
Read more »