Posts
Read more about the Blue Turns 2 weekend events and fundraiser, here!
Monday, February 9, 2009
Sunday, February 8, 2009
Sunday Sadhana Playlist
Namaste,
A few of the YTTers asked for the music from today's Sadhana. Note that it was created for a 2.5 hour class. Whew!
Enjoy,
Carrington
Tuesday, February 3, 2009
Anniversary Weekend
The blue is turning 2! And we have so much to be grateful for, starting with our wonderful blue community. As has become tradition, we are celebrating with yoga classes by donation to benefit a local or not-so-local non-profit agency that is doing tremendous work to make a positive difference in our world. So, from February 13 through 15, we’re offering 10 yoga classes by donation to benefit The Nepal House in Pokhara, Nepal.
Nepal House Kaski is a therapy center for Nepali children who have been severely abused, neglected, abandoned or traumatized by violence or natural disaster. In a country where there is no word for "therapy" in the native tongue, the work happening there is amazing. Traditional counseling is supplemented with play and art therapies. The primary therapists -- Shiva, Bhima and Basantha -- are making a huge difference in the lives of the children they serve.
Nepal House Kaski is supported financially through the Nepal House Society, a non-profit based in Vancouver, BC. Those who work for Nepal House Society do so on a volunteer basis, so all funds gathered go directly to pay for rent and upkeep of the Kaski center in Pokhara and to pay Nepali staff salaries. Having seen the facility, met the people, and heard the stories about the situation in Nepal, I feel the call to help. And I'm inviting you to be part of the change. (Check out the earlier blog postings from my visit there in December.)
The response to our initial announcement in the newsletter has been amazing, with people offering to donate prizes for the drawings, and one blue student, who is a school teacher, designating our fundraiser as the benefactor for her students’ classroom project. We couldn’t be more pleased and proud. These are the ways in which every single one of you makes the blue community the beautiful place that it is.
blue lotus hopes to raise $2,500, which will pay for one year’s salary (yes, one year) for an administrator or therapist at Nepal House Kaski. We can do it.
Everyone who makes a donation will be entered into prize drawings throughout the weekend. Check our online schedule for details on the 10 classes by donation and the free Veggie Potluck Friday night, Feb 13, that will feature a slide show and stories of my trip to Nepal.
I hope you can make it!
Wednesday, January 28, 2009
ART at the blue
There's been a lot of interest in the art that is currently gracing the studio. Here's more information on the artist and her work!
Emily Huffman holds a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree from Tulane University in New Orleans. Recently relocated to San Francisco, for the past three years she lived in Raleigh, working out of Bonded Llama Artist Studios and exhibiting work in several spaces in North Carolina. Her paintings are primarily oil on canvas and paper, and her sculptures and installations include materials such as cast metal, resin, fabric, found object, and organic natural materials. Her painting process is intuitive, marks responding to marks, content revealing itself over time. Abstracted images and forms are embedded into fluid, dynamic, gestural fields. Her sculpture and installation work, in contrast, begins with a specific question, curiosity, or material, and then enters a very intentional, repetitive making process that is often tied to specific time tables, rhythms in nature, or people in the community. Emily also explores creative and transformational energy in the healing work she does as a holistic massage therapist.
Currently on display at the blue are two paintings, Boat Magic (2008) and Bear (2007). To view more of her work visit www.emilyhuffman.com.
Boat Magic
2008
60" x 60"
Oil, pencil, clear gesso on canvas
$2500
Emily Huffman holds a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree from Tulane University in New Orleans. Recently relocated to San Francisco, for the past three years she lived in Raleigh, working out of Bonded Llama Artist Studios and exhibiting work in several spaces in North Carolina. Her paintings are primarily oil on canvas and paper, and her sculptures and installations include materials such as cast metal, resin, fabric, found object, and organic natural materials. Her painting process is intuitive, marks responding to marks, content revealing itself over time. Abstracted images and forms are embedded into fluid, dynamic, gestural fields. Her sculpture and installation work, in contrast, begins with a specific question, curiosity, or material, and then enters a very intentional, repetitive making process that is often tied to specific time tables, rhythms in nature, or people in the community. Emily also explores creative and transformational energy in the healing work she does as a holistic massage therapist.
Currently on display at the blue are two paintings, Boat Magic (2008) and Bear (2007). To view more of her work visit www.emilyhuffman.com.
Boat Magic
2008
60" x 60"
Oil, pencil, clear gesso on canvas
$2500
Bear
2007
40" x 60"
Oil, oil stick, pencil on canvas
$2000
2007
40" x 60"
Oil, oil stick, pencil on canvas
$2000
Sunday, January 11, 2009
Nepal Photos
So much to see, and so much that is impossible to catch on film. Take a look at photos from Nepal.
Thanks again for coming along for the ride!
Thursday, January 8, 2009
Heading Home
Namaste!
It's been just two weeks, but I feel as though I've been away from home for months. Perhaps most of all, I will miss this ubiquitous daily greeting- a warm namaste, with a slight bowing of the head, hands touching at the heart- the reminder of our divine nature and our shared humanity.
It was good to come back to Nepal after so many years. My first visit left me with an incomplete, rose-tinted view of this country. Ten years on, the picture has been filled in with more beauty, but also many unpleasant truths. And I am glad to see more honestly, more clearly, this place on the other side of the world. The practice of not turning away was both a huge challenge and a great blessing during this journey.
Even as I planned, I was uncertain of the deeper "why" of this trip. I thought perhaps it would become apparent while I was here, but it has not. I'm glad to have met so many good people, and to find a worthy place to contribute funds collected before I left as well as a place to offer future support where it is desperately needed. I've also made the contacts necessary to plan a return trip with a group from the studio (let me know if you are interested!) so perhaps that will unfold as well. For more insight, perhaps I will need more time to process all that I have seen.
But I am ready to go home. I will be so incredibly grateful for heat, electricity, fresh water from the tap and fresh air to breathe outside. I look forward to a long, hot bath, lying in front of the fire with Padma, and plentiful fresh food in the fridge. Sitting here waiting for the taxi, I recognize how much I have missed my friends, my Blue family, and the comforts of a very priviledged life in the Western world.
So after this journey of exploring the outside world, I have been asking myself what is on the inside. Sitting here in the reality of the freezing cold, coughing and sneezing, with an aching head, I want to collect the emotional sum of this trip.
Most obviously, I realize that I have, finally, slowed down. Spaciousness with my time is one of my greatest challenges, and I want very much to take this space home with me. The more subtle answer is that I feel clear and open. Not clear in an enlightened or inspired way, but clear, all the way through. Although I have missed my regular practice, I realize that my practice here was just to be, and let it all flow through.
Most of all I am left with an idea about what I want to leave here with. Whether a resolve, or a promise; a prayer or a dream, it is to love without fear. I wish it for myself, I wish it for you, and I wish it for our world.
I'll see you soon.
Peace,
Jill
Tuesday, January 6, 2009
Giving is Selfish
Or so says Declan Murphy, an Irish teacher in his mid-thirties who has been living in Kathmandu for over five years.
Declan first came to Nepal for a foreign teaching stint while working on a degree back in Ireland. The last two weeks of that trip were in Kathmandu, where he met and began to talk to all the street kids. As so many Westerners here do, he was awake nights thinking "what can I do to help?" And so he acted, and paid for schooling for three of the kids he had met.
That was just the beginning, and it wasn't long before he moved here and started an organization that works with the street kids of Kathmandu. Some are tossed out and others escape violent homes, but often, the kids choose to leave and find their way on the streets. Aside from the obvious concerns of food and shelter, drugs, child trafficking and child prostitution are significant problems here. But perhaps as great as those, says Declan, are the tourists.
In all the guidebooks, you'll read again and again not to give to beggars. The over-simplified reason is that by giving to beggars, you are breeding a begging culture. But talking with Declan (long after the power was cut for the night and well past the time our waiter would have liked) was enlightening, as he explained how the damage runs much deeper.
Speaking in relative terms, just the fact that a Westerner is in Nepal indicates a level of wealth incomprehensible to most Nepali people. And so we come, and travel and trek and shop, and to ease the guilty conscience, we give pens, or rupees, or biscuits to the adorable kids, or the begging mother with a sleeping child in her lap. Kids are given what they ask for-- whether it is money, food or just time and attention, and so they return to the streets. What 10-year-old kid would choose school over $5, a pack of cookies and loving attention from a foreigner? And after leaving school so early, what hope does he have for a future?
Declan had so many, many, many stories of the kids, the work he is doing, and the life of a child on the streets. And slowwwwly, slowwwly, one kid and family at a time, they are helping.
Once per year, Declan goes home to Ireland for fundraising in the schools. What he is teaching Irish kids, is a good reminder to anyone living a conscious life. You don't have to be famous or rich to make a difference in this world. But you have to do *something*. Unlike many of the struggling non-profits here, Declan's organization is flourishing as they support street kid's transitions into homes, financially support the families and get the kids to go to, and stay in school.
It's a rollercoaster. Declan said that just yesterday was one of those "what am I DOING here?" days. But today, he's making a difference.
Our wonderful evening together left me with a lot of the questions that I offer up in class: Are you living a life that is in line with your beliefs? Are you just taking in this world, or are you giving back? What do you believe in, and are you spending your time, your energy, your money, and your words in ways that support that belief?
Thanks for reading, and coming along on this amazing journey with me.
Peace,
Jill
Declan first came to Nepal for a foreign teaching stint while working on a degree back in Ireland. The last two weeks of that trip were in Kathmandu, where he met and began to talk to all the street kids. As so many Westerners here do, he was awake nights thinking "what can I do to help?" And so he acted, and paid for schooling for three of the kids he had met.
That was just the beginning, and it wasn't long before he moved here and started an organization that works with the street kids of Kathmandu. Some are tossed out and others escape violent homes, but often, the kids choose to leave and find their way on the streets. Aside from the obvious concerns of food and shelter, drugs, child trafficking and child prostitution are significant problems here. But perhaps as great as those, says Declan, are the tourists.
In all the guidebooks, you'll read again and again not to give to beggars. The over-simplified reason is that by giving to beggars, you are breeding a begging culture. But talking with Declan (long after the power was cut for the night and well past the time our waiter would have liked) was enlightening, as he explained how the damage runs much deeper.
Speaking in relative terms, just the fact that a Westerner is in Nepal indicates a level of wealth incomprehensible to most Nepali people. And so we come, and travel and trek and shop, and to ease the guilty conscience, we give pens, or rupees, or biscuits to the adorable kids, or the begging mother with a sleeping child in her lap. Kids are given what they ask for-- whether it is money, food or just time and attention, and so they return to the streets. What 10-year-old kid would choose school over $5, a pack of cookies and loving attention from a foreigner? And after leaving school so early, what hope does he have for a future?
Declan had so many, many, many stories of the kids, the work he is doing, and the life of a child on the streets. And slowwwwly, slowwwly, one kid and family at a time, they are helping.
Once per year, Declan goes home to Ireland for fundraising in the schools. What he is teaching Irish kids, is a good reminder to anyone living a conscious life. You don't have to be famous or rich to make a difference in this world. But you have to do *something*. Unlike many of the struggling non-profits here, Declan's organization is flourishing as they support street kid's transitions into homes, financially support the families and get the kids to go to, and stay in school.
It's a rollercoaster. Declan said that just yesterday was one of those "what am I DOING here?" days. But today, he's making a difference.
Our wonderful evening together left me with a lot of the questions that I offer up in class: Are you living a life that is in line with your beliefs? Are you just taking in this world, or are you giving back? What do you believe in, and are you spending your time, your energy, your money, and your words in ways that support that belief?
Thanks for reading, and coming along on this amazing journey with me.
Peace,
Jill
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