I just returned from a longish time away from Seattle to help welcome my niece Lulu to the world. My younger sister asked me to be birth and postpartum doula (attendant) for her first child and I jumped at the opportunity to go home to help.
While away I was given an excellent opportunity to practice the art of balance, the balance of work and play, of productivity and rest.

As a self-employed businesswoman, I have the great fortune to be able to travel when I wish. I have amazing managers and teachers at 8 Limbs who keep everything rolling smoothly along while I am gone. However, I still have plenty of work to do.

When I arrived in New Orleans on June 25, we had all been so relieved that I made it before Lulu arrived that I hadn’t really considered that she might not arrive til the end of my two week trip, making the purpose of my visit less “productive” (at least that’s how my mind saw it).

In my mind I felt regret for a few days: “why did I come so early? will I even be here when she goes into labor?” Then I realized that I am someone who is very good at working hard and being productive, and also very good at totally unplugging from work/phone/computer. What I found difficult, and what was making me anxious in the days leading up to my sister’s labor, was a challenge in balancing the two. I couldn’t be fully productive: I had my 4-year-old with me who missed her father and sister and was not going to let her mother out of her sight for long, I had internet issues, and I was needed as a birth doula and postpartum helper. But I also didn’t have the option to ignore my work responsibilities.

So I shifted my perspective. With the help of one of my mentors, Heidi, I saw the longer trip as an opportunity rather than a regret. And it made all the difference. Instead of feeling a dread of what I wasn’t getting to work on, I simply made time to work a little bit each day and prioritized. Then I enjoyed my time with family and helped my sister with her big transition to being a mommy.

Sweet Lulu arrived on July 2nd, smack in the middle of my visit. We think she’s the bees knees.

Posted by: Anne Phyfe Palmer

In the world of Ayurveda, we are now in the summer season (June – August), which means whenever summer arrives in your geographical location, you will have a stronger relationship with the elements fire and water for three months. Ayurveda views the physical body, along with everything in the Universe, as being composed of the five primary elements; earth, water, fire, air, and ether or empty space. These elements are expressed in the physical body as qualities of stability/support (earth), feeling/fluidity (water), heat and metabolism (fire), respiration and circulation (air), and space and lightness (ether).

When the fire and water element are out of balance, it creates a dosha called Pitta. In Sanskrit, dosha means, “that which spoils or causes decay” as they are not only the forces which produce and sustain the body in their normal condition but those which, when out of balance, serve to destroy it. Knowing the strengths and weaknesses of each element can help you make daily choices that reinforce health and wellness for the season. As my teacher Scott Blossom said, “It is important to work in a way that “feels right” but also consciously cultivates complementary traits, such as grounding and stillness for the air type, or coolness and relaxation for the fire type in order to strike a balance.”

To help create balance, consider one of the classic Ayurvedic sutras that says, “like increases like and opposites balance.” This ancient wisdom can be extremely helpful when creating your daily rituals around the seasons.

Asana Advice for the Pitta Season
• Let each asana practice be soft, intuitive, forgiving, creative, and emphasize surrendering in order to prevent overheating.
• Perform all asana or sports in a way that is non-competitive, nurturing, and playful! Practice vigorous sports or asana in the early morning.
• Incorporate counter-balancing postures for poses that create heat such as Sun Salutations, balance poses, strong backbends, etc.
• Practice with your eyes closed.
• Emphasize a cooling breathing pattering during practice where the exhalation is longer than inhalation. Holding the breath out after exhaling has a powerful effect to concentrate the mind, which stabilizes your agni, purified essence of fire.
• Practice shitali or left-nostril breathing after asana.
• Try the Metta, Loving Kindness meditation to release anger.

Summer Foods
• Never miss a meal, especially if you are have a Pitta constitution!
• Eat cooling, sweet, bitter and astringent foods (coconut, cucumber, watermelon, all the fresh fruit in season, steamed greens, multicolored salads, watercress, endives, mung beans, basmati rice) and avoid spicy and fried foods.
• Drink cumin, coriander, fennel and rose hot tea. Cilantro, cucumber, and mint are great additions to water for a refreshing beverage that will cool you down.
• Eat few dairy products and meats (unless you are doing intense physical activity)…they are too yang!
• If your digestive fire is weak, try this for a week or two until your digestive fire improves: Cook together equal parts of: brown rice, lentils, and sun flower seeds. Eat 1-2 cups daily for 2 weeks. This will also improve body heat.

Daily Routine
• Give yourself a full body massage before showering. Coconut oil is best.
• Enjoy the rose, sandalwood, jasmine or lavender essential oils to relax the senses.
• Wear light colored clothing, loose cotton, linen and silk (ex. White, blue, green) so air can circulate between your clothes and your skin.
• Do inside cooking early morning in the morning before it gets hot.
• Spend time in Nature, swim, retreat, and enjoy the moonlight.

Posted by: Melina Meza, BS Nutrition, 500-RYT
Melina has been exploring the art and science of yoga and nutrition for over 16 years. She combines her knowledge of Hatha Yoga, Ayurveda, whole foods nutrition, and healthy lifestyle promotion into a unique style called Seasonal Vinyasa.

What is Seasonal Vinyasa – Yoga for the Seasons?
Seasonal Vinyasa describes an artistic style of sequencing asana and seasonal daily rituals. The main inspiration for Seasonal Vinyasa comes from the Hatha Yoga and Ayurveda traditions, two complementary sciences that promote health in body, mind, and spirit. While inspiring the self-knowledge to adjust your day-to-day choices and align with what is occurring outside in nature, Seasonal Vinyasa emphasizes the teachings of the yogis—that there is no separation between humans and nature.

Join Melina for a Summer Seasonal Vinyasa Retreat, July 30 – August 2 at Breitenbush Hot Springs in Detroit, OR.

Last night I was able to attend “The Thin Place” at The Intiman Theatre. It pulled me to the theater with its theme of spirituality from the perspective of Seattlites, who are known as a population with less religious affiliation, but as many of us know, plenty of spirituality.

The title refers to the idea that there are times when the veil between the “real world” and what lies beyond (or within) thins. In the thin place, one can feel a direct experience of the expansive quality of spirit (my words), even if for a brief moment. Stories of faith from several voices were shared by one actor, taking on their personas (and many difficult accents) to paint a spectrum of diversity.

What most captured my attention was the physiology of spirituality. The main character Isaac struggles with seizures and hears the voices of the other characters in his head. His atheist uncle realizes that he can’t see patterns and connects this to his lack of belief in a God. He gets that he is not wired for faith, others in the play attest to being born for it.

As we wind come to the close of M(ay) is for Meditation, I wonder if any of you have been drawn into this practice of using concentration or reflection, and how it has affected you, your physiology, your personality. For me, meditation has been an amazing journey that It has prepared me to drop more and more of my patterns of thought and action and has provided me a road map to my thin place. What is your thin place?
Please send me your stories to annephyfe@8limbsyoga.com and let me know if I can post them here in June (they can be anonymous).

See below for my last M(ay) if for Meditation blog post, a practice from my teacher Rod Stryker called Stilling the Lake of the Mind. Try it for the month of June. And meet me at our own lake as we head into summer swimming time!

Posted by: Anne Phyfe Palmer
P.S. Several members of the 8 Limbs community contributed to the production. Kudos to Etta Lilienthal for her stunning set design and Sonya Schneider, playwright.

My wife and I recently had our first kid, a baby boy named Octavian. While I am brand new to being a parent, one thing that struck me immediately was how similar in some ways being a parent is to meditation. Both require you to stay with the moment, to simply be present with what is happening, and both require a certain balance of effort and surrender.

While I’ve had a meditation practice for a while now, I will admit that at times, it’s been hard for me to see concrete examples of how I’ve grown through that practice. I might be able to stay with my breath a little longer now than when I started, but I wasn’t sure that my life had changed much as a direct result of the practice. It‘s sometimes easy to think of yoga as something that you do only in a controlled environment – either at the studio or in a meditation corner at home, while the rest of life continues on pretty much as normal.

As a new parent however, I’ve had to call upon my mindfulness practice repeatedly in order to be fully present for my child. A meditation practice has given me a valuable tool in beginning this new journey, and conversely, bringing mindfulness to my every day life allows me to practice yoga wherever I am.

Being a parent has reminded me of why we practice – so that when life calls on us to be present, to deal with a crying child without crying ourselves, to experience the rush of rush hour traffic without losing our sense of calm, or to be there for a friend in need, we are able to call upon our experiences and remind ourselves that “I know how to do this. I know how to stay with this moment and be centered even when other thoughts might be trying to draw me away from that center”

Posted by: Andreas Fetz

Spring has sprung! The flowers are blooming and there are cherry blossoms everywhere on the streets of Seattle. With spring, however, comes allergy season.
I have had students coming to class and asking if there are any poses they can do for allergies. My first answer is always Jala Neti. Jala Neti is an ancient yogic cleansing technique, which involves the use of a neti pot filled with warm saltwater.

I have used a neti pot for the past few years on almost a daily basis. Not only has it been hugely effective in treating my seasonal allergies, but also in helping to prevent illness. The neti gently washes the sinus and nasal cavities, rinsing out germs and pollens that have built up in the nasal passages. The salt in the water also helps to reduce the inflammation and swelling in the tissues, helping to reduce the symptoms associated with allergies. It is a great preventative technique that can be done regularly and it can also be done in conjunction with the use of herbs or Western medicine and allergy medication.

The biggest challenge to the neti pot is finding the exact angle to use it comfortably. Here is a great video which will run neti pot rookies through the process. Click here to watch the video.

Personally I recommend a ceramic or steel neti pot as opposed to plastic and encourage students to use non-iodized sea salt (or purchase the neti washes they have available). If you’re interested in exploring a neti pot we have them available for purchase at our Capitol Hill studio boutique.

For those looking for asana that will help support them through the allergy season. I recommend any kind of inversion: head stand or shoulder stand or even forward folds like uttanasa or prasarita padottanasana. These poses will help move congestion in the body by opening nasal passages and encouraging drainage. Bridge pose can also be very beneficial for opening up the lungs and increasing breath capacity. I also recommend calming poses like child’s pose to help relieve the stress on the nervous system that allergies can create.

Hopefully these suggestions will help make the spring a more enjoyable time for allergy sufferers.

Posted by: Megan Costello

Megan is a firm believer in working with the cycles of the seasons. Join her for a Chandra Yoga & Meditation Workshop on Mother’s Day, May 9th, at 8 Limbs Phinney Ridge. The class will help students learn to align their yoga practice with the cycle of the moon and the cycles within their own bodies.