My comfort foods are spaghetti and chocolate milk. They have been for years. Not necessarily together, at the same meal. Especially not together since it would be a prajnaparada, a crime against Ayurvedic wisdom, since milk (the dairy variety) does not mix well with other things. They’re comfort foods because of the carbs and the subsequent serotonin effect, because they were both comfort foods for me growing up and have those pleasant childhood associations. And, in some ways, I suspect there’s a bit of the addictive allergy that may not be the best thing for me at play in my relationships with those two foods.

People often ask me about cravings: do we crave what will bring us into balance or do our cravings throw us further out of balance. The answer: It depends. It depends because it depends on our relationship with our ability to listen to ourselves, to our state of being in balance, to the nature of our body and mind’s innate intelligence.

So, when we’re truly craving something that is good for us, that we’re calling for from the depths of our being, and when we consume it, each cell in our body sings in a joyous symphony, well then, we’re craving something good for us, that is going to bring us back into balance, or keep us in balance in the first place. We can feel it, if we’re listening and being truly honest with ourselves.

On the other hand, if we’re craving something that merely makes us more out of balance as we already are, that exacerbates the condition of too much air, or too much fire or too much heaviness of earth, well, then that’s something to question, to stop and pause. To ask ourselves if we’re craving it out of mental habit, emotional desire or some convoluted need to ease some pain. Habit is a strong force, from an Ayurvedic perspective, and one which can pull us in directions we maybe shouldn’t go.

But then if we are craving something, we can look at what it is, and perhaps, what are some alternatives that could even be balancing. I’ve substituted chocolate almond milk today; it’s not as congesting or kaphagenic. I added freshly ground black pepper, fresh ginger root and some pine nuts to the pasta to heat up the wet and damp qualities of the wheat. And it’s been at least a couple months since I indulged in pasta, so for an experiment, I can check on how I feel. Tomorrow, it will be time to eschew the pasta for greens and not get caught up in the habit.

Today is a writing and editing day (after teaching morning Intention Yoga at lululemon) for me. Which means that part of the day involves work avoidance (my favorite pumpkin cookies at the Sojourner, turning down a movie but wandering into the Apple store and Borders with Shelia), and part of the day involves daydreaming and staring into space and part of the day involves searching for things on the internet like stainless steel rice cookers and vegetable steamers (since I’ve reconnected with my love of steamed rice but realized with dismay that my rice cooker is aluminum!). And, some of my day actually involves writing fueled by hot water and lemon accompanied by chocolate.

But chocolate and hot water are not enough to feed the muse and keep the fingers going on the keyboard. Searching for steamers became a perusal of recommendations on websites, the news of the day, changing the twitter background to green to support Iran and then the nodding of the eyelids. Writing, after all, is not really a mental gymnastic exercise. Like anything that we do, writing takes place in the body (even if we think otherwise). I began to get more done when I flung open the window, wider, to taste the breeze on my check. I walked out onto the balcony and shook the residual ash off of my Manduka mat to stretch out into a downward facing dog. I don’t write with my thoughts or even my fingers, I realized. I write with the extension of my left pinky toe.

When yoga teachers go of on what seem like tangential excursions into the placement of the right ring fingernail or the left tip of the shoulderblade or the protuberance of the right hip, it’s not because those obscure body parts have meaning, but because we need to do the pose with our whole body. Each piece is emblematic, symbolic and representative of the whole. And if we can bring our attention into what may seem like the dark cobwebbed corners of our body, then we are really doing yoga.

And when I am really doing yoga, I am writing. I’m in computer asana. But at the same time, I have a cup of steaming hot water sitting next to me, the fragrance of lemon peel stimulating my senses. I’ve oiled my feet and left them sans socks, wrapped in a cotton flannel sheet to feel both the grounded energy of the Earth element (kapha in Sanskrit Ayurvedic terminology). When I can become embodied then the words are there, existing in the alchemical play of the elemental forces I drink in through the open window.

basketball stadium. Everywhere you looked, there were scarves tied loosely, draped over shoulders, wrapped and looped and folded. Pink, purple, black, white, brown, blue, green, patterned and plain. I was doing my part to represent by wearing three scarves: different shades of purple and pink, layered.

From the perspective of Ayurveda, scarves are a great way to calm vata, the elements of air and ether or empty space. When we are exposed to the cold, the wind, the air, the air within us blows even more. One of the ways to keep the winds that stir up too much calmed down and in a pattern is to warm, contain, soothe and nurture. Wrapping a scarf around ourselves contains what could be a potential hurricane when the winds pick up.

Packing a scarf is one of the most important things I do as I get ready to go on a trip. On an airplane, in a car, riding a boat or pedaling a bicycle, a scarf is one of the most important items of clothing I can wear. It keeps me from feeling cold in shifting temperatures and climates, breathing the canned air of a plane or cutting through the windy air on a bike. It keeps my core temperature warmer; it even makes me feel more grounded. For a group of people coming from the high windy steppes of Tibet, what better gift is there than a scarf?

I find myself craving silence. Not just a moment of silence or the thought of silence or some time when I’m not talking, but the kind of silence that I can wrap myself in like a blanket. It’s the kind of silence that doesn’t involve going to a yoga class in a studio where a teacher provides instruction or there’s music or there’s people wanting to say hello before or after class. I’m looking for the kind of silence uninterrupted by music, even instrumental, or the television. Silence. I do, though, welcome the sounds of the birds outside my open window. And the birds remind me a bit of the whispers of my breath, the wind through the trees, the far off sounds of cars that are inescapable in my current habitat but blend in. The far-off foghorn, that’s okay too.

It’s not that I’m antisocial. Far from it, in fact. My morning started today with cutting and pasting and editing class descriptions and teacher profiles for the New Living Expo, this month in San Francisco and then moved on to my regular class at the Montecito YMCA complete with goofiness, made-up words (think unstiffify yourself) and admonitions to get juicy in the joints. Next up, board of directors’ conference call, the California Association of Ayurvedic Medicine (CAAM). It reminds me a bit of episodes of Pinky and the Brain my ex-boyfriend loved to watch, and I got hooked on by proxy: “Brain, what are we going to do today?” “Take over the world.” So CAAM’s purpose in life is to take over the world and spread the message of the healing power of Ayurveda. Nearly an hour and a half of concoctions before I’m off to see Sri Karunamayi chant and sing to remove our obstacles and honor our divine nature and then talk about the need for laughter (and we laughed), turning the tide of negativity, finding that part of ourselves that is divine and then blessings and lunch with friends old and new. Hours and hours of social time.

Now, all I want is silence. It’s rejuvenating, regenerating, restorative. Our words have power, so when we take a moment to hold them in, the charge builds. Silence allows us to digest. And digestion, according to Ayurveda, is the essence, the root of our health and well-being. All day long we absorb and take in sensory impressions, through our mouth, our eyes, our ears, our skin. It nearly never ends. Everything we take in, in every moment, becomes part of us, part and parcel of our cellular makeup, our mind and our body and our very being. Without taking the time to pause, we get indigestion. It’s just like if we ate constantly, never stopping the motion of tasting, chewing and swallowing. When would we process?

So those moments, minutes, hours of silence when awake are precious, to be treasured, enjoyed, savored. It’s part of what makes us healthy. It’s the yin to the yang of activity and socializing.

Now, back to the birds and the breath.

We often perpetuate patterns that we repeat without intent or consent. We tend to mimic behavior that has been modeled for us, thinking that it is normal. Whether or not our behaviors or patterns or choices, conscious or unconscious, actually make our lives better, is another consideration entirely.

And it’s one I’ve been thinking about lately as I examine my work patterns. I’ve fallen into a bit of a trap of complain, suffer, get exhausted, repeat. Before I something allowed me to stop and consider, I don’t think I realized that I had gotten on this particular express train. I didn’t wake up thinking, “Oh, I’m going to complain as much as possible, make myself as miserable as possible and then wear myself out to the point of exhaustion.”

So, now I’m trying to rethink this pattern, to notice when I get caught up in it, to make sure I take the time to stop and practice and check my reactivity and my assumptions. And to ask, am I doing enough to nurture myself, take care of myself and slow down. And am I doing things that I find fun? Am I spending enough time alone to recharge? Am I doing things to actually make my life easier instead of make it more difficult? All good questions to ask. Always good to question. Without questioning, we only repeat patterns. When we stop, when we pause, when we question, we can actually change patterns.

Speaking of which, I’m committing to getting back in the pattern of regular blog entries!

Biking through Santa Monica
It wasn’t a dark and stormy night but it was a foggy and cloudy evening. So foggy that the mist enveloped my skin, blanketed me, felt at home on my skin, soft, like lotion, soothing, like standing out in the rain. I loved the smell of it, biking through it, my pedals rotating in circular movement. The perpetual motions creating a counteracting force to the thick heavy kapha energy of the marine layer settling in over the streets. I love the fast breath that comes with the rhythmic circulation of the pedals; it’s the perfect counterpart. Cutting through the air with the a car would only dampen my spirits, make me feel ever more sleepy, tired, lethargic, heavy.
No matter the season, whether the dry windy fall of the airy vata months or the sunny overwhelming heat of the pitta summer, a kapha day can fall like a quilt. Sometimes comforting, it can also be heavy, dulling. The experience can instigate needed rest or slow everything down too much. In Ayurveda, kapha is the earth and water elements, carried on rain clouds, deposited in mud. Yet kapha also gives structure to rocks and stone, earth and balustrade. Kapha gives an energy like the energizer bunny, going and going and going. Stamina, steadiness. But when we are unprepared or already slow, the stagnation can be overwhelming.
The remedy: sweat, move, sing, call out, sprinkle hot peppers over food, favor warm drinks and eschew ice. Bake potatoes instead of serving cooling potato salad. Ladle bowls of warm soup. After I biked home, I warmed tea, I heated water to place inside a hot water bottle (one of my favorite indulgences for seasons tinged by either vata or kapha cold), served myself a bowl of hot soup. Warmed myself inside and out. Enjoyed the smell of fog.

Lately, I’ve been going nonstop, full speed ahead, spinning like the Tasmanian Devil. It’s been a whirlwind of deadlines, articles that seem much more agonizing than they need to be, demands and obligations, appearances, teaching, doing laundry, eating. I’m tired just thinking about it. But then I found Sunday morning that everything stopped. My brain stopped. I couldn’t go anywhere; I didn’t want to see anybody. I canceled everything I was meant to do… And I just rested.
It’s easy to forget sometimes that rest is an activity. It’s an activity different from sleep, although it shares many of the same characteristics of slowing down (hopefully!), closing the eyes (sometimes, but not always), frequently lying down, reducing stimulation….I could go on. It’s easy to forget that it’s necessary, obligatory, to rest, although I remind people all the time. If we don’t, then the consequences can be disastrous.
Whenever I get sick, or start to feel as though something is coming in and I’m that worn down, there’s really only one solution. Sleep. Well, I guess two solutions. Sleep and Rest. I think that I can take all the herbs in the world, and I often do try to take a few known remedies, but if I’m not sleeping extra, more than I normally do, it’s doesn’t do enough to actually help me feel better.
I’m also needing to come to the realization that there is only so much any of us can do in one day, only so many hours that the on button can be turned on, only so much socializing, talking, doing. There has to be some time of quiet, of being, of regeneration, of renewal. That’s the other important part of rest. I’m practicing.

Chocolate for Breakfast

Chocolate, only chocolate, for breakfast is just not a good idea, no matter how I try to justify it. Vegan, raw, agave-sweetened, no refined sugars. Going hours with only eating chocolate has repercussions. In the moment, though, there’s nothing better.

I really do think chocolate is a food group. A good one, too. I can’t really imagine going many days without eating some chocolate. But now I’ve been up for six hours and I’ve only eaten chocolate. It’s a weakness of mine.

I can give you all the reasons why chocolate is the Ayurvedically perfect food. It’s bitter and sweet. There’s antioxidants, minerals,magnesium.

And I know all the Ayurvedic reasons to have something else, something more. I have food at home. And I’m about to make salad with broccoli and pine nuts and leeks, lightly cooked. Until then, maybe one more piece of chocolate. But I will eat it consciously. Doing everything consciously, with intention, is part of my practice for today, as I try to open the boxes in my room that need opening, organize the receipts and financial paperwork. And that really needs chocolate.

Mindfully being exhausted.
I push myself, often, even aside from my job, which in and of itself is demanding. (I’m always on deadline, always take work home, am always thinking about ideas, about what I could be doing, what’s hip, what’s hot, what’s new, what’s balanced.) And then sometimes I just hit the wall, like today. Where there were places I wanted to be, said I’d be, but between the loose ends and the massive migraine and the exhaustion, all of which were telling me to stay in bed.
This is where I get hard on myself. I shouldn’t be in bed. I should be at yoga class, I should be well, I should be at six events. No. Sometimes I can’t do it. I’ve noticed this, anytime I get sick, I can take all the herbs in the world, every remedy known to Ayurveda, and sometimes the only cure is sleep. And water. And quiet. So that’s what I did today, feeling I was on the verge of my body giving out and the only remedy was sleep. And water. And quiet. And to be compassionate with myself about it. It is after all, a human body.

Wednesday: Taking a Break for Yoga

I had scheduled my morning meeting around getting to take a yoga class. It had been a week, and I was feeling the need do to something other than sit in front of a computer trying hard not to hunch over, or riding my bike to and from the office. This comes up for me particularly since I edit a yoga magazine, since I teach, since early that morning I had delivered a stack of magazines to the Exxon Mobil refinery where they were going to have a health fair and someone wrote me telling me that they had classes and could they have some LA YOGA magazines for their health fair. Could they? Of course.

So that I would walk my talk, or flow my message, on my way back to the office I drove right by Yoga Works South Bay, just before the next Yoga Works Flow class, taught by Casey Coda. I have to admit that I spent the first part of class feeling a bit impatient as we focused on our breath, strapped and blanketed, and then moved with the breath initiating all movement. Repeatedly. Then the rhythm made me pause, and moving, breathing, I found myself breaking a sweat, not that breaking a sweat is what it’s all about.

From an Ayurvedic perspective, it is better to work below your capacity, half your capacity is the recommendation. This doesn’t mean that you just laze around and do nothing, and never progress. In fact, if you work at half your capacity, or maybe two-thirds, consistently, you will get in better shape, have better conditioning and be able to do more with that half or two-thirds. And even better, your bodymind doesn’t think that you are in stressed-out emergency mode, firing up the adrenaline afterburners. When we fire up the adrenaline afterburners, it actually diminishes our capacity in the long run, even though we get this short-term buzz. It’s deceptive.
Casey’s manner was encouraging, soft, yet attentive. I could easily picture her teaching seniors for a research study, as her bio announced.

After I ducked out, it was meetings, work, meetings, cover choosing, proofreading, checking pages, finishing all the final loose ends for preparing the magazine for print which seem to take forever. But that time to breathe, to clear my head, was worth the time away.

Friday night


Biking away from the lights on the Santa Monica Pier on a Friday night after listening to Andrew Harvey talk at Exhale, I think about what it means to be radical. Radical. In one sense, what it means to me is that the world is a better place because I am in it. Better in a more conscious sense.

Dinner before the talk. Hot water with lemon and a salad, bread and butter. The butter and the salad dressing may be the most important parts of the meal, what with the fact that my life is in constant motion: more than constant motion. So through that, I have to do something to stay grounded, more than grounded. Oil and heat are two of the best ways to stay grounded no matter the day, so hot water for the heat, salad dressing for the oil. And after that, biking is easy; freeing myself from the tyranny of being behind the wheel of the car. So in negotiating a bike day in L.A., which in and of itself is enough to make a person feel ungrounded, and after driving to LA from Santa Barbara. After a day of meetings, and teaching and trying to get my class covered for tomorrow morning and writing a newspaper column, as if that weren’t enough to make a person feel scattered, its necessary to stay grounded. Through Ayurveda, its about oil and heat.

Why are we here? Andrew Harvey asked the Dalai Lama. To embody the transcendent. Embody, not have a conversation with; embody. What does that mean, to embody? It is a call to be radically, radically honest with oneself, because only that radical honestly is worthy of the divine.

Ayurveda is the holisitic system of medicine native to India. Many say that it is a revealed tradition, passed down by the gods. Although this revelation is important, even more germane is the ability to tap into one's own intuition, to find one's inner revelation. I believe, at its heart, that Ayurveda is a wisdom tradition, and it is through tapping into our own inner wisdom, intuition, ability to look within and find our inner power of self-healing, that we can find true inner balance and health.This blog is going to cover my attempts, journey with integrating the ancient tradition of Ayurveda into a modern lifestyle, complete with beer, pizza, too many late nights, the challenges of adding meditation practice to already full days, and yoga to continuously unwind tight hips. I have found over the past 15 years that Ayurveda has been a part of my life, that it has allowed me more expanded health and well-being.