…about the awesome, smart, fun and inspiring Neil Theise coming to OM yoga tomorrow night to give a talk on STEM CELLS AND THE SCIENCE OF BEING.

It’s Wednesday, Feb. 17 from 7-8:30.  Click this link for more info:

http://www.omyoga.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=181:feb-17-stem-cells-a-the-science-of-being&catid=96&Itemid=93

http://www.omyoga.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=181:feb-17-stem-cells-a-the-science-of-being&catid=96&Itemid=93

Monkey body, monkey mind.

Watching the monkeys outside our window.  The howler monkeys.  Yesterday we saw a family.  The baby was so tiny that I was afraid it would fall out of the tree.  The mom climbs ahead and up, up, up.  Then she sits and waits.  The little baby slowly, bravely found her way up and when she was almost to the mom, the mom would take off again.  I finally figured out that how the mom teaches the baby to climb.  ”Follow me!”  At one point the mom was up really high, the very top of the branches, and the baby got stuck.  The baby just could only go so far and then couldn’t figure it out or was afraid.  So the mom came back down almost to the baby and sat there and waited.  That seemed to encourage the baby and she got going again.  I could’ve watched for hours.  The monkeys move and fly from branch to branch and then they stay still for long periods.  Is that like your mind?

This was how the sunrise looked outside my window the other day.

An urban morning but the rising sunlight is still beautiful reflecting off the branches of the barren winter tree.

That was last week.  This was this morning.

That's our city at work, folks.

Yes, when Nudgie and I came home on Tuesday night there was a big sign on our front door informing the residents of our building that NYC was turning off our water at 8:30am the next morning.  sigh.  I don’t know why but I think it might have something to do with a big, schmancy new hotel that is opening on the new block.  So I got up early to relate to this non-water situation.  The thing is that I normally do get up early.  But I don’t do anything interactive with others, except Leroy.  As you know, I am around many people all day long, and I love it, but I need my quiet alone time, too, and that is the morning.  I like to stay in my jammies and read and be quiet.  But I got up and jumped in the shower, brushed my teeth, made the coffee, made the oatmeal, freshened Leroy’s bowl — did all things water that needed to happen before 8:30am.  During the process I became grumpy.  I was definitely out of my normal rhythm and I dropped the top of my moisturizer bottle in the toilet (icky) and I spilled my coffee and stubbed my toe.  But I also was developing a nice resentment about the whole situation.  It was out of my control and that made me resentful.  I guess.  But then, guess what?  The water never did get turned off and so there I was in a bad mood with nothing to blame it on.  But by then it was so big and solid that I didn’t want to let it go.  So I ended up so crabby that I actually gave myself a headache.  Finally, at a certain point, I relaxed and figured out what I was doing and it made me laugh.  Whew!  I guess in the end that could be called analytical meditation but it sure took me a while to get there.  I guess I need to practice more.  Does anybody resonate with this kind of scenario?

One of my students and a graduate of The Road to OM, Kendra, is also a 10th grade teacher.  She teaches yoga to her kids in Queens and so I invited her to bring them to OM yoga for a field trip and a yoga class in a real yoga studio.  They were so great!  When I walked into the studio, they started chanting, Cyndi Cyndi Cyndi.  They were super excited and their passion for yoga was amazing!

We talked about what it takes to hold a balance. They came up with breathing and focus. Yes! We called these our Tools for Concentration.

Kendra did a great job teaching these guys and she helped me by assisting and doing skillful adjustments.

Of course, they love doing arm balances. Some of the boys can even go from crow pose right up into handstand. I demonstrated crow into chadarunga and they loved that!

They were willing to try everything.

They dropped right into pranayama and meditation. No problem. No resistance. Amazing.

Even though I had a really bad cold all last week and had a hard time getting out of bed this morning, it was a real pleasure and inspiration to work with these kids.  I was so impressed with their good hearts and open faces.  So much sweet nature right out there.  I was surprised by that, actually.  I can’t wait to see them again and have invited Kendra to bring her kids to OM yoga again.  Thanks, kids!

Last week was a week from hell situation.  Not only did my mom fall and cut her eyebrow, requiring stitches and a long visit to the emergency room, but little Leroy Brown has a complete body rash.  His little eyes and nose and ears and tummy and everything is red.  So I’ve been to the vet and the hospital and the nurse and somehow that wasn’t all but its enough to discuss in these pages.  And now that that week is over I can remember that there were some good parts, too.  Here they are:

OM yoga Knit Along!! Becca, Sarah, Barbara and Sybil and me -- what fun we had. We just love, love, love knitting. Next one is Tuesday, Dec. 15.

The next day I had to get up early and catch a train up to Garrison Institute.  I dragged Christie Clark along with me because we were invited to be part of a panel of experts who are creating a Wellness Program for Garrison.  The program will provide yoga and meditation nationally for Social Workers in the area of Domestic Violence who get Vicarious Trauma from their work.  Internationally we are building a similar program that will be for humanitarian and human rights workers who are both front line traumatized and have vicarious trauma.  So it was an amazing group of people, including Deborah Rozelle and Sharon Salzburg and others and an intense day.  Christie and I were honored to be part of this important work.

This was our morning train conductor and I just thought she was so cute, especially for a train conductor, that I had to take her picture.

Friday, Saturday and Sunday David and I taught Yoga Body Buddha Mind at OM yoga.  

Exsqueeze me for saying so, but I think David is an amazing dharma teacher. He has a huge set of skillful means for working with individuals and he never phones it in.

The workshop was part of the OM yoga Teacher Training Weekend Warrior Program and we had teacher trainees from all around the world here.

This is Maya, from OM yoga tt in Japan and me and Nicole, from OM yoga tt in Cleveland, OH. We all took a great yoga class from Edward. He took this blurry picture -- I guess he was naturally high from teaching.

These were some of the happy highlights of an otherwise tough week.  One  of those weeks where the obstacles just kept coming and I thought to myself, “I am in over my head.  I do not have the skills to deal with this.”  But, in the midst of it all, I kept doing my yoga and meditation practice.  And that makes a HUGE difference.  It shifts things.  It reminds me of impermanence.  As Margi would say, Sandcastles.  My whole hearted resolve to remain committed to my practice has kept me in good stead.

We are so honored.  An excerpt of a piece Dave and I wrote for The Shambhala Sun has been included in the current issue.  The section is called For 30 Years the Best of Buddhism in America: Meditation and our bit is called “Not Too Tight, Not Too Loose.”  Check it out, page 67.  Some of others included are Chogyam Trungpa Rimpoche, Tulku Tondup, Sharon Salburg, and Thich Nhat Hanh.  As I said, we are so honored.

Flat back, flat back, flat back….There is confusion floating around regarding this asana.  We stopped calling it flat back for a while and called it the pose formerly known as flat back but, for obvious reasons in the category of cumbersome, we reverted back to FB.  It is great that so many people have learned to use props and to place their hands on blocks for this pose, but these days I’m feeling like people are using props too much, often as a crutch or a comfort zone, rather than a needed support.  It’s a fine line, for sure.  But it is okay to feel in yoga, to feel an opening, lengthening, movement of energy.  And FB does not mean spine parallel to the floor. THIS IS A KEY POINT!  It means spine lengthened in two diretions — out through the crown of the head and back through the tailbone — so that there is space between the ribs and hips.  That is one of the reasons it is a set up for Chadarunga but that’s another lesson.  

Other than being a butt shot (sorry about that, this is pretty good example of Ardha Uttanasana. My fingers are on the ground, like a spider. Fingers in line with toe tips. Yes, you can move them forward while you are learning but this is where you are going.

Or like this. If you don't have blocks, you can do it like this. I had them do this if they couldn't straighten their legs because we were working on jumping directly into chadarunga.

Any questions?  Let me know.

Last weekend at Blue Point Yoga in Durham, NC — what fun!  It is third annual OM yoga teacher training program and each year the students get better and better.  I have to think it has something to do with the fact that many of the Blue Point teachers are now OM yoga trained and are teaching OM yoga classes right there at Blue Point.  Anyway, the southerners really know how to host people and we had a lovely time.

Moving through spine through curling and arching, as if it was a walking meditation up and down each vertebrae.

Mindfulness of toe, of alignment, of how the foot sets up the rest of the body. I always start adjustments from the ground up.

As of yesterday I am signed with Amy Hertz at Dutton for my next book.  My great agent, Stephanie Tade, worked hard to get me a good deal with the right person and I was very fortunate to have several excellent offers.  I am happy to be back with Amy, who was also the editor for Yoga Body Buddha Mind.  The new book is not about yoga, stay tuned for more details. 

In the meantime, I was invited to be on a panel discussion at a very well attended book signing at Barnes and Noble on Monday.  It was a new book called Be the Change by Ed and Deb Shapiro.  I was a contributor to the book and sat on the panel between Robert Thurman and Andrew Cohen, along with Ellen Burstyn, Linus from Law & Order and Mark Matousek.  And Ed and Deb, of course.  It was quite a lively evening!

In addition to the Cyndisphere, which journals my travels and offers some yoga teaching, I have started another new blog called Yoga Body Buddha Mind. It is sponsored by the excellent Beliefnet.com. It will offer tips for how to find yoga (integration) and Buddha (wakefulness) in every day life. Today was my first entry. Check it out at
http://blog.beliefnet.com/yogabodybuddhamind/