write now

Posted on July 20, 2015 by Cynthia G.

It was the most amazing, powerful, insightful, fabulous Yoga and Creative Journaling Workshop for Women, well, ever! We got your Crow, your Eagle, your Down Dog. Plus, we got your expository writing to not only knock off any proverbial socks, but to actually take you to that place you’ve always wanted to go but didn’t quite know the way. Yeah, it was like that. And just to prove it, here is a little creative journaling sample: I

n my tribe I am loved, appreciated, and seen. There is no apology no room for shame, for what-ifs, if-onlys, no be seen not heards. This is a party palace, baby! This is where I am the celebrated and the celebration. I am the fireworks and the parade! But wait — is this the same as hunkering down with syrupy sychophants? Oh, no my dear. My tribe both supports me and calls me on my philosophical slight of hand, my fancy emotional tap-dancy work. My tribe loves music and animals and sustainable living. It appreciates beauty, even the most imperfect beauty. This is a tribe of passion and compassion. This tribe has good taste and isn’t afraid to use it. Oh, Tribe of my dreams, I would climb into your mouth and sleep in the shadow of your teeth. I would brush your hair 100 strokes before tucking you in for the night. I would make you hot chocolate from scratch with baby marshmallows for breakfast and I would cut all the crusts off of every piece of toast in the world for you. My tribe speaks like a Windigo from Love Medicine. My tribe has eyes so deep you could drown in them. Namaste, peeps! — Cynthia G.

evolve or re-volve

Posted on July 16, 2015 by Cynthia G.

We so love this video. Are you ready for a change in your life? Chances are this will resonate. Undo that block. . .and watch out what you wish for! Cheers, love.

suspended in blue

Posted on July 1, 2015 by Cynthia G.

When I meditate, the big things fall into perspective. When I sit and let my body relax, I can feel my bones and muscles, my blood and tissue, letting go of all the big ideas, the big worries, the Big Bad (as Buffy would say). My breath deepens, my shoulders drop. I would like to say that I let my worries go but it is really the other way around. When I fall into the sweet relaxation that mediation opens in me, worries let me go and my consciousness expands and rises up into the sky like a soap bubble. From that high-deep place the “big things” that occupy so much of my waking life seem as small as marbles in the dust and I wonder how they ever seemed important at all.

It took a couple of whole-day meditation retreats to reach this place. I like to think that I have meditated for years, but now I realize, I dabbled. I would do it when the timing was right or the moon was aligned or if I had not hit the snooze button and rose naturally, and meditation was a yummy doorway between dreaming and awake. But I never did it for more than 20 minutes. Tops.

I began attending a weekly Satsang in Napa and got to practice 30 minutes sessions. They were challenging, but I got the hang of it. Then, I did a couple of full day retreats at Spirit Rock Meditation Center in Woodacre. These took a little more concentration, a little more physical discipline. I struggled at first, but when I stopped efforting so much. . .and when I forgot to try, it happened. The world and everything in it (including me) simply expanded and I found my mind floating in a sparkling pool of iridescent blue. I call this feeling Suspended in the Blue and it is completely, utterly, and deeply delicious. I won’t pretend that I get there every time, but now that I know how, it has become an unfolding, and I appreciate the practice as much as the experience.

Big worries? Meh. I breathe in, I breathe out. Everything else is optional.

stop::drop::breathe

Posted on June 14, 2015 by Cynthia G.

Two weeks into my extended vacation, I am meditating. Every. Day. No more excuses, no more hitting the snooze button, blithely squeezing available meditation time down to “maybe” and “not quite enough” before dashing off to the office.

Now, I’ve got time. Lots of it. And yet, meditation can still be an illusive tease, dancing just out of reach. I’ve tried all kinds of tricks to get my mind to stop racing, to slow down enough to actually follow my breathe in, out, in, out. Sometimes a guided meditation helps. Sometimes music helps. What mostly helps. . .is just doing it. You follow the breath in, follow the breath out, and before know it, like Alice, you’re down that rabbit hole. Namaste, baby!

a gift for fiction

Posted on June 10, 2015 by Cynthia G.

“Your story, that story that keeps replaying, the interaction of your expectations and what happens, the narrative, the disappoinments and the way you process it. . .it’s all invented.

“Ambien, the popular sleep aid, doesn’t actually help people sleep much more. No, the reason it works is that it’s an amnesiac. Ambien makes your forget that you didn’t get a good night’s sleep.

“. . .[our story] it’s all invented. It’s still real, the pain is real, the frustration is real, but the story that’s causing it all is something we made up, and something we can change. The pain is real, and so is a path to changing it.”

–Seth Godin

The thing is, what is your story? What is the thing you repeat to everyone who will listen, about that thing that happened to you. The Course in Miracles says that we are all operating under a shared illusion and the fact that it’s shared, doesn’t make it any more real.

So what about it, cookie? What is your story? For goodness sake, make it a good one!

learn::smarter

Posted on April 10, 2015 by Cynthia G.

Not only is his book The Four Hour Workweek one of my personal favorites, this guy is wicked smart! Happy Movie Friday!

poetry obsessed

Posted on February 13, 2015 by Cynthia G.

new year, new you

Posted on January 7, 2015 by Cynthia G.

There are a million ways to start a new year and we are pleased to say that a killer hike is one of our favorites. Especially the imperfect part. You know: the huffing and puffing to the top of the hill part. We even like the way they turn a painful, albeit beautiful, experience into an object lesson. Read all about it here.

hello::2015

Posted on December 28, 2014 by Cynthia G.

You know what time is it, right? Time for the burning bowl. Time to let go of what needs loosening, what’s used up, what’s outlasted its usefullness. Time to embrace the new, be aspirational, make a date with the Divine Wow. If you need some help getting started, maybe you can begin with this vid. So long 2014, it was an amazing year!

bookly giving

Posted on December 9, 2014 by Cynthia G.

There is no time for classics like the holiday season, and that includes books as well as music. We’ve noticed lately that the seasonal music is a little lighter, a little more fun. So herewith is a holiday classic book giving guide with a frothy little ditty to go with it. Happy shopping — and remember: used books need love too!

One Hundred Years of Solitude, by Gabriel Garcia Marquez. Beginning with what is quite possibly one of the best first sentences in the history of literature, Garcia Marquez spins a yarn of love, redemption, war, and magic. “Many years later, as he faced the firing squad, Colonel Aureliano Buendia was to remember that distant afternoon when his father took him to discover ice.”
The Sun Also Rises, by Ernest Hemingway. The poetic lilt of Hemingway’s dialogue is some of the best ever written and makes me fall in love with words every. Single. Time. “Everyone behaves badly – if given a chance.”
The Diary of Adam and Eve, by Mark Twain. One of Twain’s lesser known works is nonetheless an enchanting lesson in love. “How I wish I could make him understand that a loving good heart is riches enough and that without it intellect is poverty.”
Mrs. Dalloway, by Virginia Woolf. Not an easy read but a dazzlingly brilliant classic. Woolf delivers this Valentine of book in stream-of-consciousness prose and begins with another amazing first line: “Mrs. Dalloway said she would buy the flowers herself.”
A Good Man is Hard to Find, by Flannery O’Connor. This is a collection of short stories that will scare the wits out of you as it nabs you by the collar and whips you around with a command of language that is both naked and forgiving. “She wouldn’t stay at home to be queen for a day.”
The Bean Trees, by Barbara Kingsolver. It’s actually difficult to choose just one Kingsolver novel as a stand-alone but if you must choose, this is a good start: a story about love, friendship, abandonment, putting down roots, and a girl named Turtle. “I had decided early on that if I couldn’t dress elegant, I’d dress memorable.”
Housekeeping, by Marilyn Robinson. There is a haunting quality in Robinson’s work as she writes about the small details of ordinary life. Her examination of the glue that holds our worlds together is at once pointed and astonishing. “You never know when you will see someone for the last time.”
Last Report on the Miracles at Little No Horse, by Louise Erdrich. If you have any tender sensibilities at all, this writer will pierce your heart. Erdrich’s sense of irony, poetry, and social justice mingle in a tale that is at once outrageous and plain in about a million ways. “To love another human in all of her splendor and imperfect perfection, it is a magnificent task. . .tremendous and foolish and human.”
Ragtime, by EL Doctrow. A literary classic in its own right, Ragtime reaches into the early 20^th century to capture the hope and the optimism of immigrants and millionaires in America before the great wars changed everything. “And though the newspapers called the shooting the Crime of the Century, Goldman knew it was only 1906 and there were ninety four years to go.”
Illusions, by Richard Bach. You can never go wrong with a book that contains both magic . . .and a barnstormer with a messiah complex. Deceptive in its simplicity, Bach’s story is an open door into a world beyond the ordinary. “Nothing good is a miracle, nothing lovely is a dream.”