Normal Day

Normal day, let me be aware of the treasure you are. 
Let me learn from you, love you, bless you before you depart. 
Let me not pass you by in quest of some rare and perfect tomorrow. 
Let me hold you while I may, for it may not always be so. 
One day I shall dig my nails into the earth, or bury my face in the pillow, or stretch myself taut, or raise my hands to the sky and want, more than all the world, your return.” 

-- Mary Jean Irion

Walk

Summerspace

More leotard love...
Summerspace, 1958

dance by Merce Cunningham
design by Robert Rauschenberg

Found via thesphinxandthemilkyway

Sunday Tune

"...We're living proof we gotta let go..."

Holiday

I'm all set for a long weekend of travel...normal posting service will resume on my return!

Sailing ship earrings by Gabriella Kiss, discovered at evencleveland via dreams of gold and silver and A.N. Devers' Pinterest.

Also: golden noses, silver mushrooms, foot charms, tiny walnuts and sleeping birds.

Esther Williams

That thing on her head, I don't know what this is.
but i love it!

See the whole by Erte alphabet here.

Friday!

Image of Yasmin Le Bon from Vogue Germany, June 1985. Photographer: André RauModel

Loneliness does not come from being alone, but from being unable to communicate the things that seem important.
--Carl Jung

image: rudolf bonvie, dialog, 1977

Tiny Beautiful Things

Tiny Beautiful Things: Advice on Love and Life from Dear Sugar  Cheryl Strayed
This is a group of letters from Strayed's advice column. She writes with compassion, honesty, wisdom, humor and guts! It is such a great read, i recommend it!

 
It was an act of devotion. A little like writing or loving someone—it doesn’t always feel worthwhile, but not giving up somehow creates unexpected meaning over time.

-- Miranda July from here


Acrobats, 1932, Ernst Ludwig Kirchner

in awe of living.

do you ever just have a lighting bolt of love hit you out of nowhere?

one that opens your heart and just fills your every cell with gratitude?

i just did

I'm happy to be here on this earth, at this moment, in this body
even though these days i am getting some big lessons, i am swimming...or maybe paddling...my way through it

it should all be embraced, the light and the dark, creation and loss, heartache and love.

Found here.

Image found here

Imperfectly perfect.

A sweet disorder in the dress
Kindles in clothes a wantonness:
A lawn about the shoulders thrown
Into a fine distraction
An erring lace, which here and there
Enthrals the crimson stomacher
A cuff neglectful, and thereby
Ribbands to flow confusedly
A winning wave, deserving note,
In the tempestuous petticoat
A careless shoe-string, in whose tie
I see a wild civility
Do more bewitch me than when art
Is too precise in every part.

Robert  Herrick (1591 - 1674)

Shishi Yamazaki

YANOYA from shishi yamazaki

YAMASUKI YAMAZAKI やますき、やまざき from shishi yamazaki

YA-NE-SEN a Go Go from shishi yamazaki

Completely bewitched by Shishi Yamazaki's splendid dancing animations. J'aime beaucoup!
I couldn't pick just one...watch all three, and then click here and watch some more!

There is no coming to consciousness without pain. People will do anything, no matter how absurd, in order to avoid facing their own soul. One does not become enlightened by imagining figures of light, but by making the darkness conscious. 

--Carl Jung

Just because the body rests quietly doesn't mean the mind will settle into stillness too.
Be patient, and be prepared for the days when every inch of you rebels.

Nothing valuable can be lost by taking time!

My FAVORITE way to block out light in savasana...much prefer it to head wraps, belts and eye bags.

Pose of the week

Savasana (Corpse Pose)

Savasana is a pose of total relaxation, which can make it one of the most challenging poses to be in.

  

After a balanced practice, the entire body will have been stretched, contracted, twisted and inverted. Savasana allows the body a chance to regroup and reset itself.  This means that even the deepest muscles will have the opportunity to let go and shed their regular habits, if only for a few minutes. Most importantly the physiological benefits of deep relaxation are numerous.

In the classic pose you lie out flat on the ground, like the image above, with no support, but this isn't a truly comfortable position for us all. Comfort is essential in the pose! The fairy tale of The Princess and the Pea always comes to mind when preparing for this pose. The slightest point of discomfort can be endlessly distracting. There are a few things you can do to support the body in this posture, for example placing a bolster or rolled blankets under the knees to help relax the low back, or placing a blanket under the head to help lengthen the neck and release tension at the base of the skull. You might also like to have something over the eyes, if that helps you soften the face,  and make sure you are warm enough.

Savasana can come at the beginning and/or at the end of a practice. I often start and always finish my practice with a version of corpse pose, and there are loads of visualisations for relaxation out there, but i like the simplicity of melting, with a focus on the breath.

When you come into the pose it's nice to start by internally patrolling the body, you cannot release tension until you know where it is! See if you can let go of that tension bit by bit, from the crown of the head to the tips of the toes. Have the idea of simply allowing your body to melt as a whole, like butter, into the floor.

As you continue to let go you'll feel like your body is spreading into the ground, the whole of the back of your body literally taking more and more space.

Just enjoy watching all your muscle tension melt with gravity and an easy breath into the ground. It's bliss!

One of the most challenging aspects of this pose is keeping your attention on what you are doing as you are doing it...a challenge in all yoga asana!

Your attention often seems to want to run ahead of you, so that you feel like you are constantly trying to keep up with it. It may help to think of your attention as a young and eager puppy. Every time you catch yourself wandering off call your attention to heel so that it follows what is happening rather then trying to lead. Over time you'll find that you've trained it into to staying with you for longer and longer.

Last of all, and most importantly (i think) is to be careful not to judge what you you come across when relaxing. See if you can be with yourself without judgement and accept what ever you come across in each moment. Let yourself be, allowing your attention to linger in the places that you feel it might benifit from most. 

image from here

Relax

Relax magazine #75.5
New Waves by Takashi Homma

 Found at reference library.

“There is no stability in this world. Who is to say what meaning there is in anything? Who is to foretell the flight of a word? It is a balloon that sails over tree-tops. To speak of knowledge is futile. All is experiment and adventure. We are forever mixing ourselves with unknown quantities. What is to come? I know not. But, as I put down my glass I remember; I am engaged to be married. I am to dine with my friends tonight. I am Bernard.”

 -- Virginia Woolf, The Waves

wave after wave

Everything flows and nothing abides, everything gives way and nothing stays fixed. 

-- Heraclitus.

Kōji Enokura

Symptom—Sea-Body (P.W. - No. 40), 1972

Sunday Tune

Stuff of Dreams

A loose sheet in English, circa 1962 Louise Bourgeois.
Found via The Guardian

Matilda's story: a matter of life and death

Matilda Tristram has written a beautiful account of what it's like to find out you have colon cancer when you're 18 weeks pregnant. Her comic about the experience is raw, funny and still unfolding.

I read an extract in The Guardian, and then on her website, and it made me laugh and cry in equal measure. I recommend taking a look!
www.mmaattiillddaa.com
Matilda is also tweeting about it from this account.

I spy with my little eye...an outfit i should be wearing to teach yoga!!

(image found here )

Choros

Choros from Michael Langan and Terah Maher on Vimeo.

Born from the movements of one woman, a chorus of thousands of dancers arise. By combining image multiplication with dance, the minute details of human movement are displayed within this video.

Find out more on the website.