playlist lovin'

I've been getting a lot of requests in my yoga classes at the Rec Center to post my playlists. So, my friends, after finding a cool new trick on Mac (Command + Shift + 3), I am giving you my latest playlist, entitled "dankbeats". It's kind of small here, but if you click on it it will get bigger. Even after playing it through many of my classes, I still practice to it and enjoy listening to it, so I hope you do too!

"You have a very powerful influence on the world in which you live, and on the life you experience. Live as though everything matters, because it does, and bring your own 

magnificent consequences to life." 

- Ralph Marston

puddle jumping

I've been listening a lot to the artist Sia, and I thought I'd share a colorful video of hers that was free on iTunes a while ago...Gotta love Free Music Tuesdays. I think she's great, so I'm including a song of hers called Breathe Me which I love from a couple years ago also. I hope you are a having a sunny rainy day! (Well, it's a rainy day here in Amherst anyways...)

surreal life

Off to a brand spankin' new semester! For the first time in a long time (I know it might sound a little strange), but I am so excited to start my studies! I am in the BDIC department at UMass, which is a program where you can design your own major, and mine is called Holistic Health and Agriculture. My schedule this semester? UMass Student Farming Enterprise, Yoga Traditions at Amherst College, Sustainable Marketing, and Herbal Approaches to Women's Health....What?! So, I can proudly say that I am sufficiently pumped to start diving into my studies and exercise my brain and abilities. It's time to start paying attention (hi eric!).

So, as I said in my last post, over the break, I was lucky enough to participate in a wonderful course called Shaman's Pharmacy that was led by ethnobotanist and explorer Chris Kilham in the Peruvian rainforest. We learned about medicinal plants, animals, trees, and bugs in the rainforest, as well as modern-day environmental and ecological issues in the rainforest, and about Peruvian culture on the river. Check out the pictures below if you are interested in seeing some of what we got to do and see!

Fluffy clouds over the Amazon River

Hungry hungry caterpillars

Treetop walkin'

Sir Anaconda. Behind is Guillermo, talented shaman

Twisty trees

Monkeying around on a jungle vine swing

I would like to have a home this colorful

Giant water lillies! These things were 4-5 feet in diameter

Tiny monkey!

Posing for the camera

Tree pose in front of the giant Ceiba tree

It an amazing trip that was worth the dozens of mosquito bites. No sign of bot flies as of yet.

"If a little dreaming is dangerous, the cure for it is not to dream less, but to dream more, 

to dream all the time" 

 - Marcel Proust

Hey ya'll!! Sorry I haven't been to present on my blog here so far this year...I just returned from a wonderful, awe-inspiring trip to the Peruvian Amazon with ethnobotanist and world traveler Chris Kilham in a class called Shaman's Pharmacy. I'll leave the pictures and details for my next blog post, but for now enjoy this video on a 95-year old woman named Maia who practices yoga and lives simply. Yoga is a buzzword and a buzz activity in today's society (which is great!), but sometimes the message can get muddled. Maia shows us what it really is all about: keeping your body fit and healthy all through your life, honoring and loving yourself, and finding joy in the little things everyday. And, I'll add, community.

It won't let me post the video here but I can give you the link:
My Friend Maia

Enjoy, beautiful you :-)

taking the plunge

Happy New Year everybody! I hope you all (whoever you are, out there in cyber space) had a safe and fun new years! This year, I decided to bring in the New Year with an activity-filled day that I hope will start everything out on the right foot. I took a wonderful, cleansing and challenging yoga class this morning at the sun-lit Centerville Yoga and Wellness Center with Sheri. I enjoy taking her classes because they kick my butt and align my chakras :-) Anywho, mid-class she mentioned something about the Polar Plunge Challenge, which is a fundraising event all along the Cape where crazy people take their first swim of the year in the freezing cold ocean.

Do you ever become so overwhelmed with an idea that you can't get it out of your mind? That happened. I had to take the plunge, it was settled. So I went home feeling energized and dragged the family out of the house to come with me for moral support. And surprisingly, my dad and little 11-year-old brother Dan wanted to join in on the chilly escapade! We trekked to Long Beach (we didn't participate in the fundraising challenge, just our own little personal challenge) and sprinted to warm up and then....

Luckily, the weather was warm

But the water was not

Just a quick dip

The plungers (haha)

 In this next year, I hope you take the challenges and opportunities presented to you. Get so excited about them that they won't leave you alone. Whatever your hopes, dreams, and goals are for the next year, go for them and stick to them. Take the plunge. Because...well...why not?


photos: Mike Black