The Stonewall Inn
YOU ARE THE REASON
oozey mess
macklin celebrini has autism
KIROKAZE
if i look back, i am lost
taylor price
Origami Around
Noah Kahan
Monterey Bay Aquarium
#extradirty
occasionally subtle
Game Changer & Make Some Noise
Aqua Utopia｜海の底で記憶を紡ぐ
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Product Placement
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almost home
Fai_Ryy
TMBGareOK. The Official They Might Be Giants tumblr
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@yogarebels-blog
"You have, which is a rare thing, that ability and the responsibility to listen to the dissent in yourself, to at least give it the floor, because it is the key—not only to consciousness-but to real growth. To accept duality is to earn identity. And identity is something that you are constantly earning. It is not just who you are. It is a process that you must be active in." -- joss whedon
"If I had my say, the award for Best Comeback of 2012 would not be bestowed upon the new gender-neutral Easy Bake Oven or even the nightmarish Furby redux. And despite being in mad, masochistic lesbian love with every track on The Idler Wheel, the title wouldn't even go to Fiona Apple. Nope. It would go to sass."
“I don’t believe in the terrible, toxic myth of the ‘aha’ moment. Progress is incremental for us, both as individual creative beings and together as a society and civilization. The flower doesn’t go from bud to blossom in one spritely burst. It’s just that culturally, we are not interested in the tedium of the blossoming. And yet that’s where all the real magic is in the making of one’s character and destiny.”
―Maria Popova
“I don’t believe in the terrible, toxic myth of the ‘aha’ moment. Progress is incremental for us, both as individual creative beings and together as a society and civilization. The flower doesn’t go from bud to blossom in one spritely burst. It’s just that culturally, we are not interested in the tedium of the blossoming. And yet that’s where all the real magic is in the making of one’s character and destiny.”
―Maria Popova
"The positivity of pride. I have never met someone who is living a bold and successful life--and by successful I mean prosperous, kind, and in touch with the meaningfulness of what they?re doing -- who has apologized for being perfectionistic, mercurial, unrelenting, or whatever their slightly controversial hallmark characteristics are. You will always be too much of something for someone: too big, too loud, too soft, too edgy. If you round out your edges, you lose your edge. Apologize for mistakes. Apologize for unintentionally hurting someone -- profusely. But don't apologize for being who you are." -- Danielle Laporte
Check out my article on elephantjournal! blurbed below: "So let me take the first step, and offer some unpopular opinions right here and right now. How have so many of us gotten so far from our sweet spot, but without using that exploration as a vehicle for truth? Riding around, doing our thing, ignoring the the minor “stuff” that bothers us or those nagging thoughts that we don’t want to deal with; going our way, and without contributing anything useful to the world? How have we lost focus on creating change, on speaking truth, on being radical, just for the sake of being well-liked and popular? Lately, I see yoga becoming a lot more a more like being back in high school. Instead of creating change, instead of making ourselves and our students more aware so that we can shift the greater consciousness of the world, we’ve become a homogenized group of flexible cheerleaders for detoxing, creating good vibes and doing perfect handstands."
When I was a boy and I would see scary things in the news, my mother would say to me, ‘Look for the helpers. You will always find people who are helping.’ To this day, especially in times of ‘disaster,’ I remember my mother’s words, and I am always comforted by realizing that there are still so many helpers - so many caring people in this world.
Fred Rogers (via dearworld)
In the face of scary dangerous things happening in the world I always come back to these words from Mr. Rogers.
(via apsies)
Said it once and I’ll say it a thousand more times - the man was a living saint. Thank you for this.
(via tsunamis)
“lazy”:
Part of Speech: adjective
Definition: inactive, sluggish
Synonyms: apathetic, asleep on the job, careless, comatose, dallying, dilatory, drowsy, dull, flagging, idle, inattentive, indifferent, indolent, inert, lackadaisical, laggard, lagging, languid, languorous, lethargic, lifeless, loafing, neglectful, out of it, passive, procrastinating, remiss, shiftless, slack, sleepy, slothful, slow, slow-moving, snoozy, somnolent, supine, tardy, tired, torpid, trifling, unconcerned, unenergetic, unindustrious, unpersevering, unready, weary
Antonyms: active, diligent, energetic, hard-working, industrious, lively
some days i lay around reading magazines and berate myself for not being a more productive member of society. i spend the day feeling guilty and indulgent, and usually make hourly goals that i will redesign my website, or go for a 6 mile run, or do my laundry. at the bottom of each of these hours i find myself still laying around, leaning on one elbow while traveling down some rabbit hole on tumblr about dyke fashion or elizabethan grammar.
on most days i am motivated beyond belief. i work from 8 am to 9pm, taking care of a million people, tasks, emails, loose ends… i tweet, run the facebooks for other businesses and people, design workshops, write curriculum, schedule appointments, coach friends, give advice. i prep for my day by finding out what is going on with anyone and everyone important to my circle of coworkers or friends, like a political pundit reading the morning Reuters feed. i am constantly planning.
occasionally, i wake up in the morning with absolutely zero motivation to participate in anything even vaguely reminiscent of productive. i barely want to get out of bed. noon seems like an appropriate time for a glass of white wine. on a regular Type-A day, zorro couldn’t tie me down to keep still, on these occasional “Lazy” days, i could spend the day napping. (i haven’t even bothered to use capital letters in this post.) yet the guilt overwhelms me.
il dolce far niente is the italian (of course the italians have a phrase for it) translation of “the sweetness of doing nothing”; a lost art to most of us in our age of complete reachability on a infinite 24/7 loop. as a kid, i remember coming home from school, hearing the house phone ring as we walked in the door: “Don’t answer it, we’re not here.” my mom would wearily say. and that was it: we are not currently available. try again later. recently, in one of my classes, a student picked up her cell after it rang in class: “I can’t talk! I’m in yoga!”
i’ve noticed i’ve been getting more and more of those “lazy days” recently; the drive to hustle leaves me like an un-holy ghost and i’m left with a all-pervasive desire to disappear into some slower, more simple hours. it occurs to me often when i lock myself in the bathroom to take a bath: when does anyone not know where i am? (when i’m asleep.) when was the last time i experienced something with posting a picture of it to instagram? (i’ll have to check my instagram feed to tell you.) have i actually ever TURNED OFF my phone? (no.)
and yet when i take more than one full day off i’m racked with paralyzing guilt. our age of i-communication and i-can-do-it-myself (i’m a photographer! a blogger! a comedian on twitter! i’ll google that!) has also created a even deeper, weirder mentality of production: we are always in a process of producing. we produce ourselves in our facebook profiles, crafting images of ourselves as we’d like others to perceive us, bartering our thoughts for “likes” to enhance our own personal brand. we produce images, a continual stream of our whereabouts so that others can look at our lives and marvel at all the things we’re doing, at our mini-genius within our viewpoints and so we have evidence that we’re not wasting our lives being boring. we produce ourselves through our constant availability: reminding everyone that we’re always there, always ready to be involved, always ready to know the answer, always ready to create another event or party to be captured and pickled in hipstamatic history.
that constant guilt i feel while i’m looking out the window instead of updating my resume is the same guilt and cultural shock when someone can’t be found through google. we are suspicious, incredulous, even a little put off (who doesn’t have facebook?). its radical to be non-participatory. and worse, its goes against our new-age millennial american dream: if you can do it, than i can do it. its as if steve jobs and ayn rand had the worst kind of screaming, pitchy baby; pull yourself up by your damn digital bootstraps and contribute.
to be honest, the guilt from my fear of non-productiveness stops me from doing anything remotely pleasure seeking. a sense of obligation to money and time and shame if anyone catches me hanging out on my underwear means i often hide from doing anything at all: even if that’s baking a pie, taking a yoga workshop, or cooking some time-consuming and delicious, or painting (naked even. who’s to say?), or having slow, steamy sex for 3 hours straight. all things, which if i describe my dream day to you, would be included. to do anything simply for hedonistic pleasure (for which i’m sure the french have a dictionary of words) feels too good for it to BE good. or at least that’s what i’ve been made to believe.
i’m not sure whether allowing myself to slip ungracefully but graciously into il dolce far niente is a mistake or a luxury. i’m aware i don’t have this time very often: i’m usually barely making ends meet, so having a day off is a privilege i’m lucky to afford. i’m sure that contributes to my guilt. but i also know that if i feel so strongly about something, i have to follow the urge to see where it goes. to reclaim laziness and rename it is more of an experiment in decadence and self-care than anything i think will aid me in becoming a more productive person tomorrow. but i guess that’s the point.
“Compassion is not a relationship between the healer and the wounded. It’s a relationship between equals. Only when we know our own darkness well can we be present with the darkness of others. Compassion becomes real when we recognize our shared humanity.”
Pema Chödrön (via emotional-algebra)
Integrity / firespittin'.
Let me just take a minute to get something off my chest. I am am much more impressed by what you DO, than by what you say you do. Let me see you work. Let me see you show up. Let me see you sweat. Words? Are nothing when brought up against the light of action. And they sure as heck pale in comparison to the integrity of Saying it, and then actually Doing it. I'm calling you out. I'm talking to you, Yoga Community. Activist Community. Bhaktis, those who talk about Changing The World, Spiritual Leaders. I've gotten weary hearing about your pious and well meaning thoughts, and then waitin' around for you to do somethin' about it. It's made me tired, like a poison draining my energy and my patience and my own ability to practice love and self-care. I'm talking about: - Being late. - Not being where you said you would be, when you said you would be there. - Not doing what you said you would do. - Not being conscious of your friends', your loved ones', or your community's needs - Using that lack of consciousness as an excuse to inconvenience people at best, to really screw them over at worse. And all of the spectrum in between. - Changing the plan/goal/rules when it suits you. - Saying you would do something, and then not doing it. - Saying you would do something, and then doing the opposite. - Bending ethics and morality when its convenient/serves you. I'm going to call all of the above: Integrity. I define integrity as having your actions in line with your words. And by "I define", I mean that I'm pretty sure the Oxford English dictionary goes a little something like that too. My exhaustion is exacerbated by the excuses for your bad behavior: "I'm flakey." "I'm Vatta." "The moon cycle." "It's my Saturn Return." "Oh I didn't realize." "I'm struggling." Let me tell you, I have compassion for your stories, I truly do. I know what it is like to have your period, spill coffee on your white shirt, run out of milk, trip down the stairs, not have enough gas, get stuck in traffic and then get pulled over by the police. I have lived that scenario and when I got where I was going there were not enough tears in the world or apologies galore that could salve the bitter wound of Lateness. And I also honor your intentions to do good work, to come from a place of love, to dedicate your life to something better, to live the lives you live even just in attempt to be a different kind of human being. I congratulate you. But until you start actually showing up, I'm over it. "I'm so sorry, but I just..." STOP. Stop. I don't want to hear it. Peter, Wolf, etc. Don't be sorry. Save your heart center, your Veshuda Chakra, your compassion and your Shanti Shanti Om. Instead, start actually practicing. Practice showing up when its hard. Practice being an adult. Practice your best Jiminy Cricket Moral Compass Voice, and steer your self towards doing the hard stuff, which is doing what you said you would do even when it is NOT convenient. Even when it does NOT serve you. Even when you would actually benefit from doing the OPPOSITE. And if that sucks? There's a great lesson there: be more honest. Start speaking from a place of truth, and don't say who you are when that's not who you are walking around this good green earth being. Don't promise what you don't want to do, and don't say you are unselfish when you need to be selfish. We'll all forgive you for the occasional flub, fuck-up and ineptitude. There's nothing I love more than someone who says: "You know what? I actually can't do that. Here's why." I respect that. That's some Satya -- some "Truth", right there. That's the core of Integrity. Until then, I only have so much more energy to keep on keeping on this way. I'm full of love and compassion but when your excuses for your lack of integrity affect my loved ones, my livelihood, and taking care of my family, I will be In. Your. Face. I will become a ferocious mama lion. I will protect those things my heart loves with my last living breath. So keep holding onto your story about why you couldn't get it done, couldn't show up, couldn't finish, couldn't honor an agreement, couldn't do it on time, forgot, etc. I'll be watching you from over here. And until you're ready to let it go and Stand Up, Work Hard, and Be Honest and Do the Tough Thing, I am done wasting my time listening.
yoga anatomy!
Yoga Thoughts!
NSFW. So that means you should watch it.
Thinking of something else is a time-honored method for coping with pain. Indeed, psychologists have demonstrated repeatedly that what you think about can modulate the pain you experience. But what’s less clear is how exactly that effect plays out in the body. In a study published today in Current Biology, neuroscientists have found that distraction does more than merely divert your mind; it actually sends signals that bar pain from reaching the central nervous system. The finding suggests the concentrating brain doesn’t just divert attention from the agony, it also triggers a release of opioid-based compounds. Sprenger and his colleagues—whose previous work examined the placebo effect—another brain–body mystery—believes distraction is just one of many cognitive cases in which the brain modulates pain. He adds that their research is a first step. The study, however, does provide a candidate mechanism for the brain’s inhibition of the pain response, a mechanism that can be measured and further studied, eventually leading to clinical applications such as therapies. Meanwhile, the next time you have a toothache, rather than pop some acetaminophen, consider a brainteaser.
Unhurtful Thoughts: A Preoccupied Brain Produces Pain-Killing Compounds: Scientific American (via myserendipities)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ajmI1P3r1w4
how come you never go there?
the list of important things for today:
a .
listen to phantogram. on repeat.
two.
go to the beach and have long, intense-o, meaningful dharma talks with likeminded yogi housemates/friends/fellow-old-soul.
tres.
i went to the New York Yoga Journal Conference. i've been in... not a funk, per-se, but a... plateau. i've felt a little uninspired. a lack of sparkle a verve and passion and fire. which is not like me at all. i'm a constant schemer; i always have plans, ideas, banditry... i pretty much can't slow down because i'm so full of excitement to be in ACTION.
that's normal me. lately not so much. i've really been digging deep down to figure out what's all tied up, what's getting stuck somewhere. cause somethin' was feeling all sluggish and gross and slow... like i had molasses in the engine instead of gas.
i took a seane corne workshop... and she said something that really struck me. at first it didn't really clang the bell, but i've felt it over the past 12 hours creeping around in the back of my subconscious and that's a surefire sign that i need to look that thought dead in the eye, and either shoot it dead, or get real up close and personal.
seane was asking what trauma, hurt, pain, or unhealed parts of ourselves we needed to care for so that we can show up fully for the people in our lives and for ourselves. i've spent the majority of the past 5 years doing that work with myself.
it was not easy.
actually it really sucked. it was frustrating, and upsetting, and difficult, and draining, and i wanted to quit every single damn day. taking a good, long, slow, deep look at yourself is terrifying at worst, demoralizing at best when there's so much accumulated hurt. to look at yourself, when you're wounded, is to have to remember, deconstruct, and understand all the seemingly terrible things that have ever happened to you your whole life. have you ever cried so hard you cry yourself to exhaustion and pass out cold? yeah: its like that, pretty much all the time.
but i also recognize my privilege in even having the opportunity to sit down and think about these things, let alone having the time to heal, to deal with all the knots of pain tied up within myself. so every time i wanted to quit and take the easy route (easy route: quitting, being unhappy, settling into misery, being comfortable with what i knew even if what i knew sucked the big one, etc.) i remembered how lucky and privileged i am and to not take that for granted.
if you have the power, the opportunity, and the knowledge to do something that improves yourself or the world, you better not waste it. you better fucking take it and run with it.
so i kept doing that work. here is where i started: an addicted, ruthlessly masochistic, skinny, mascara stained mess of a person. bigger walls than berlin circa the 80s before the fall.
here is where i ended up: with a lot of scars.
with a lot of hope.
with a lot of faith.
with a deep, electrifying, bottomless well of love.
that hard work, the un-knotting of what the world has thrown at you, to look at yourself, to constantly address and deconstruct and say "sorry" and forgive yourself and to take ownership and do things even when they're so difficult it feels like an emotional ironman... when you finally feel finished? not even close.
because all that the world does throw at us, it leaves us scarred. those scars are reminders that it does not get easier. you don't do the work and then magically life sops being hard! bad things stop happening! everyone loves you! you love yourself all the time and there is nary a spot of rain or a cloudy day! nope. it is a life-long challenge. because after the wounds start to heal, those scars last for life. and you have to realize how deep they run. for me, i'm in a place in my life where i'm just recognizing how deep my scars run, and how my fear of getting hurt again still limits me.
seane corne asked us to look at what wounds we have... but i don't have any fresh gashes right now. what i do have are leftover fears all over the place. sometimes i'll be walking around my own mind, not watching where i'm going and i'll trip right over one. and tehre it is, the ghost of some wound of lives past that i'm still trying to negotiate around.
this weekend i finally realize that what's making me feel so sluggish and stuck -- are my own limiting beliefs. it's hard for me to see them, sometimes, but they're still there, none-the-less. it takes special hard-won black-eyed-life-prize-fighter vision to identify when one of those limiting beliefs are at work, but i'm getting better and better at spotting them.
my top two at work?:
being A Failure.
i'm not qualified to do that = i haven't earned the right = i don't want people to think i have a "big ego" or to think i don't know what i'm doing = i'm afraid of what people will think of me.
still! after all that work! i'm afraid, deep down, in two big ways, of what the outside world will think of me if i try, and then fuck it up. that was my biggest story, back in the day: i'm a fuck up. i fuck evvvvverrrryyything up. that's really what i thought. and you know what? part of it was completely true. i didn't show up for what i said i would show up for. i lied, to everyone, including myself, all the time. i lied about why i was doing things, i lied about who i was, i lied about what i wanted, i lied about what i thought. i was a big effing liar. i was irresponsible, i didn't get anywhere on time, i didn't Take Care of My Shit. part of dealing with the big mess of being a fuck up was taking ownership for my words, my truth, and the mistakes i had made. part of it was not making excuses for myself. and part of it was being more authentic and not saying "yes" to all the things i didn't really want to do. the biggest part of it was realizing my behavior made me feel like a royal fuck-up... but i was not a fuck-up. so i changed my behavior. inchingly, slowly i changed. slowly the people around me saw it. slower still, i started to see it in myself.
and even though i know i'm not a fuck-up (and i never really was), those scars are still realllll fresh. they have JUST healed over. and in the back of my mind is my limiting belief that if i go after something i want, people will judge me. they'll think i'm still that fuck-up girl. most of all, i'm afraid that i'll forget all the hard work i've done and think that i AM still a fuck-up.
and that limiting belief, buried down in there, has been holding me back from taking this world by storm. my fear is Holding. Me. Back. i could make this world SHAKE if i stepped fully into my own power and the opportunities the world is shooting my way. but when i let me fear hold me back, i don't step up to the plate. and guess what? you'll never hit the damn ball if you don't step up to the plate. whatever is holding you back is keeping you from ever finding out.
bit by bit, i'm ripping up those limiting beliefs and burying them, one by one.
