We love each other and we love to hang out together.  Sometimes we let our significant others join us but mostly we like to just be together with us.  So, we were happy but also a little bit sad because this dinner party was a send off to our dear Sarah and Margi.  They are both going West.   Sarah is moving and Margi is semi-moving.  Margi might come back (we hope).  So for now, what can we do but eat and drink and laugh?  We went to Gemma on Bowery and Great Jones.

I think Frank's face means "I want more olives in my pasta."

Did you notice that Edward is with us but Joe is not?  Yes, that does mean something.  It means that Joe was not feeling well.  We tried to call him but the restaurant was too noisy.  The food is great, by the way, but somehow this street has become the hottest place in town and it is just packed with lots of people, many of them are very loud.  We might have been some of the loud people.

Did you know that all the OM yoga TT faculty women are originally from the West coast?  Christie is from Eugene, Oregon; Sarah is from Seattle; Margi is from San Francisco and I am from Seattle.  Now that Edward has joined us we have another West Coaster — he is originally from San Francisco.  Yes, it’s true — Edward has joined our ranks.  He will be apprenticing as an OM yoga Teacher Trainer this summer and I have also appointed  him our new Director of OM yoga Teacher Training.  I think he will do an awesome job.  He’s already brought in some new ideas and fresh insight!

Edward, Frank, Margi, Christie, me, Sarah.

I am tremendously proud of the team I have gathered together and of all the work we have done together.  Every single person puts all of themselves into the process and we are constantly revising and evolving the living practice of OM yoga to make it be the best, most useful, elegant and practical yoga method.  The training is thorough and our graduates tell us they have no problem getting teaching jobs anywhere in the world.  

But, now it is time to turn the wheel.  You know, Big wheel keeps on turning. Proud Mary keeps on burning.  Rolling, rolling, rolling on the river.  We wish you all the very best of everything, dear Margi and Sarah.

Back in April I did an interview with Dr. Christiane Northrup as part of the research for the new book I am currently writing.  Chris invited me to attend the graduation ceremony for Mama Gena’s School of Womanly Arts and so I did — yesterday!  It was fun, uplifting, kooky, and very brilliant on many levels.  Here are some pictures:

Here is Mama Gena!

 There were about 25o women graduates who paraded down the aisle to the wild cheering of another probably 250 guests — all women.  Lots of boas and tiaras and feathery fans.  The school color is pink (which I love because pink is my favorite color.)

So, what’s it all about?  It’s about women fulfilling their desires, identifying their desires and learning to be proud of themselves and their accomplishments.  It’s about sex and pleasure and living a life of joy.  It’s about sisterhood.  It’s about embodying your life!  I tell you, it was pretty darn inspiring and uplifting.  

Then, I ran into Christiane Northrup and her daughter as I was leaving.  She remembered me from our interview (she said she really liked my yoga DVDs which I had sent her) and she asked me what I thought of the event.  I was momentarily speechless.  I know, that is shocking.  But then I said, “Well, I am thinking so many things right now, and first of all, I’m struck with what a need this is filling for us women”.  You women know that basically we have been taught that it is illegal for us to feel proud of ourselves (they learn to Brag in this course and everyone cheers each other’s brag), we’ve grown up learning that it is selfish to take care of ourselves and our own needs and desires; and that to feel and act really sexy is not for nice girls.  All that gets flipped on its ass in this training and it was quite remarkable and genuine.  I liked it!

Leroy and I went to the park yesterday but when I started turning right to leave, he pulled hard to go left.  He is a stubborn poodle so I said, “Okay, we can walk around the fountain that way today,” and to the left we went.  Where there was a huge crowd gathered around and lot of buzzing conversations.  Then I saw what was going on — there were literally hundreds of boxes sitting on the ground under the big famous arch at the end of Fifth Avenue.  Every box was wrapped in a coral colored cloth with a bow on top — a Japanese kind of wrapping thing.  It looked amazing and beautiful.  People were all excited and taking the boxes.  I looked around to see if it was a giveaway from some big company like Revlon or something but, no.  No big promotional thing happening.  So I thought, I’ll take a box, too.  I picked one up and then I thought, “No.  I don’t want this.  I don’t want more stuff.”  So I put it down and started to walk away and then I saw a tiny sign that said:

EMPTY IS NOT EMPTY. FULL IS NOT FULL.

Well, that hooked me right then and there because it was obviously a rephrasing of the most important Buddhist sutra, the Prajna Paramita Sutra, which begins, “Form is emptiness.  Emptiness is form.”  So I picked up a box.  It was very light.  It was obviously empty.  I hesitated.  I wondered if I should try another box that was heavier so I could get one with someone in it and not one with nothing in it.  It was not because of my nonattachment-like nature but because I felt embarrassed to be seen in public ( even though there was no one there that I knew…) picking and choosing which box to get, that I did stick with that very light, obviously empty box.  I sat down on a park bench and opened it up.  It was fun to unwrap the coral colored cloth.  It was a cardboard box that would be the right size for a baseball cap.  Inside was a piece of paper which said:

“YOU CAN DO ONE SMALL AND GRACEFUL THING TO SAVE THE PLANET BY REUSING THIS BOX AND CLOTH.  THE CLOTH IS WASHABLE AND IRONABLE.

SUGGESTIONS: USE THE CLOTH TO WRAP A PRESENT, TOTE YOUR GROCERY, FASHION INTO A PIECE OF CLOTHING, OR USE YOUR IMAGINATION.”

IF YOU’D LIKE TO LEARN ABOUT BOJAGI USES, GOOGLE BOJAGI OR BOJAGI WRAPPING.

THANK YOU,

UJIN LEE, ARTIST

WWW.UJINLEEART.COM

I left the box on the park bench.  Leroy and I walked home with the cloth.  We saw people blocks away from the park carrying the boxes, still wrapped.  I guess they were waiting until they got home to open their surprise package.

Judith is one of the best yoga teachers in the world.  Period.  She has been a huge inspiration to me and I am so happy to be her friend.  She is going to be at OM yoga next week teaching Relax and Renew which is totally sold out.  But — no worries — she will be back in June to teach Experiential Anatomy.  It is based on her vast knowledge and her newest, book, Yogabody.  If you want to learn more about yoru practice or how to teach yoga better — take this course.  It is not boring.  You will be moving and feeling and connecting a lot of dots.  The deadline to sign up is May 15 which is Yes! tomorrow.  go to www.omyoga.com immediately and register for this class.  YOU DO NOT NEED TO BE A YOGA TEACHER TO TAKE THIS COURSE.  

Come meet me and Sarah Trelease and get all your questions answered about the OM yoga Teacher Training program.  6:30 at OM — see you there!  xo

Day 1:  first stop food.  We had chicken shish kepab and salad with beans.  The classic.  Yum.

Aya Sofia -- a huge cathedral which is now a secular museum. Very beatiful and awe-inspiring.

This cathedral was both Christian and Islamic over the centuries. This is the first example of an Islamic stained glass window that I have ever seen before. Exquisite detail.

The large discs in the cathedral are under repair. Here is a worker in a head scarf repairing them. Makes sense that the painters should be Muslim.

This whole doorway frame is made of marble.

On the ceiling....

Here I am on the balcony in front of one of the restorated Muslim discs, an abstract representation of Divinity.

Gotta go — more soon.

The Harvard Psychedelic Club: How Timothy Leary, Ram Dass, Huston Smith and Andrew Weil Killed the Fifties and Ushered in a New Age for America by Don Lattin

It reminds me of the good old days when I was in college in Southern California (Trabuco and Madjeska Canyons) and UCI, and my dad, who was an amazingly liberal minded Protestant minister and went to SF every year and marched with MLK.  Great book for yogis to read.  Check it out asap.

OM yoga was the studio of the month at NYC’s Union Square Lululemon and it was fun!  

Here is Sarah, me and Margi.  They were so nice to come to the class I taught to support me and OM.  I had just returned to NYC from Costa Rica and I was in a daze of coldness but somehow there I was.  They asked me if I would teach a class for them on the Presidents Day holiday at 8am!  Of course, I said yes — if it could be at 11.  We settled on 10am and they even opened the store late to accommodate the class.   So that was super nice and I tried my best to do a good job.

Here were the wonderful yogis and yoginis at the class!

This was one of the yoginis in attendance and I asked her if I could take her picture because I thought her curled bangs were so cute.

This is the glamorous Sarah Trelease, OM yoga ambassador to Lululemon. Wearing sunglasses as all ambassadresses should!

If you want to ring out the old and ring in the new in the deepest and widest way, come to the annual OM yoga New Year’s Eve class!  It is already over half full and will definitely sell out, as it does every year.   Make a reservation by calling OM yoga 212-254-9642 or go to the website, www.omyoga.com.

This year it will be taught by Joe and Edward.  They will gather everyone together for pranayama and meditation, then split up into separate studios for asana practice — this might turn into a 2,3, or 4 room affair depending on how many people come.  The more the merrier, but we don’t want to feel too squished on our mats so we do it like this.  Then after that, everyone gathers back together in the Earth studio for meditation.  This is great time to bring your non-yoga family and friends, too.  It is so great to be with your sangha on New Year’s Eve and you have plenty of time afterwards for…..whatever is your pleasure on this big night!

Here’s my top tip for how to do that:  Make Applesauce!  It really works.  Applesauce is so good and so satisfying that you will start to like it even better than chocolate.  Impossible, you say?  Well, I challenge you to give it a try.  And to encourage you, here is a step-by-step lesson in How To Make Applesauce.

Buy some apples. Whatever kind you want. If you can get to a farmer's market you can ask them which ones are the best for applesauce. I've used concord and they are good, good, good.

Cut them up in chunks. I like big chunks. Get about 5-6 pounds of apples which is way more than in these pictures. You will be shocked at how fast you and your peeps can eat that much applesauce.

Get a system going. Put a big pot on the stove and as you cut up apples toss them in. Then, wash a few more apples, cut and toss.

When all the apples are in the pot, pour in enough water to just cover the apples. I turn the heat on to high and when it starts boiling, I turn it down to simmer. Stir it whenever you feel like it. Throw in some cinnamon - as much as you want. You can also add raisins or pears or ginger. As the apples start to get soft, smush them against the side of the pot so the sauce is smooth-ish but a bit chunky.

Voila! I add it to my morning oatmeal and have for a treat. It is really nice heated up. YUM!

This is one of my tips for getting through the holidays in reasonably healthy shape.  For more, check out  my blog in the Huffington Post:  http://www.huffingtonpost.com/cyndi-lee/how-not-to-get-fat-this-c_b_403168.html