Last weekend I had the serendipitous fortune to experience a couple of extraordinary balancing acts. My family watched the movie Man on Wire and took in Seattle’s own Moisture Festival, a Comedy and Variety Show with acrobats, jugglers and musicians. These performers practice “balance” in extreme conditions: walking on a wire thousands of feet from solid ground, practicing a handstand on top of a moving, breathing, mountain of people. When we place or find ourselves in challenging situations, we are given an opportunity to cultivate a deep steadiness. Our world is changing rapidly. There are no longer Twin Towers in Manhattan, our economy is no longer tearing skyward like those emblems of commerce, but the ancient practice of yoga is perfectly suited to help us to navigate this rapid change, which many say is leading us to a higher level of consciousness.

If you are looking for a state of balance in your busy life, try a post like vrksasana, tree pose, to help steady your center. Start by lifting your right knee up to your chest. Flex the foot and place your foot as high as you are able into your left inner thigh. Place your hands on your hips until you feel still and grounded, then move your hands into prayer position at your heart. Want to add more challenge to your balanced state? Lift the arms into prayer overhead. Another challenge option: release the foot behind you and your arms like wings into virabhadrasana III, warrior III. Keep your hips square and your legs active. You can put the hands back into one of the earlier tree positions (hands to hips or prayer to heart) to help you find balance, or take this even further with arms forward. Release back to tadasana and do the other side. When you return to tadasana after the second time, take a minute or so to really feel your feet on the ground and the energy in your body.

How have you found balance in the midst of challenge, or even chaos? Do you ever place yourself in an extreme position to go deeper into self-knowledge?

Posted by: Anne Phyfe

Back home in New Orleans, March means that you can go to the St. Patrick’s Day parade and catch all the ingredients you need for a stew, including water (if it rains). I remember scoring my first cabbage as a kid. It was losing leaves in the air and felt like catching a big ball. All of a sudden “cabbage ball” made sense. The aha moment I take from this memory now, 30 years later, is that whatever life throws out, we’ve got to make soup!
Here’s my soup recipe, complete with a great tip I got from Conscious Choice Magazine (a favorite) this month: use bouillon instead of store-bought stock to reduce your environmental impact.

Lentil Soup
Soak 1½ cups of beans in water for few hours or overnight
Chop and saute one onion, 2 stalks of celery and 3 carrots
Add Salt and ProVata Seasoning from R-U-Ved (Cardamom, Ginger, Cloves, Cumin, Coriander Seeds, and Fennel)
Add soaked beans and water to cover beans by 2 inches
Dissolve bouillon cubes or paste to taste
Cook til beans are soft but not falling apart (unless you like it like that)
Optional: add fresh tomatoes and/or yogurt or sour cream when serving

In honor of St. Patrick’s Day, all 8 Limbs Members get 10% off anything in our Boutique that is “green” (eco) or the color green for the month of March!

Posted by: Anne Phyfe

As someone born on Friday the 13th, I have always embraced this “bad luck” day. I choose 13 for my volleyball and soccer uniforms, don’t mind sitting in the 13th row (if there is one!), and find it fascinating that $800 to 900 million of business is “lost” on occurrences of Friday the 13th. I have to admit that I am not free from superstition, and did not step on cracks on my daily walk to school as a child to save both of my parents’ backs/spines. I detest horror films, so I never even watched Friday the 13th.
The reality is, 17 to 21 million people suffer from a phobia of Friday the 13th, called paraskevidekatriaphobia. This fear comes from a double whammy: both the number 13 and Fridays are separately considered bad luck in folklore from many different traditions.
Since mind over matter works both ways, those with a fear of this day tend to get into more accidents and have worse “luck” on this day, perhaps due to their anxiety.
This month (March), if you need something to get over your fear of Friday the 13th, come to a yoga class at any 8 Limbs and we’ll only charge you $13 for a drop-in if you mention the 8 Limbs Blog. And find relief for your anxiety in knowing that the birthday of both myself and the 8 Limbs General Manager Ashley Dahl is Friday, March 13th.
But sorry, you won’t find us at work, we’ll both be staying at home, agoraphobic and working on our fear of growing old.

Curious about Friday the 13th? Check out this informative article:

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2004/02/0212_040212_friday13.html

Posted by: Anne Phyfe

I just returned from a trip to my hometown of New Orleans to teach a workshop, see family, and celebrate my first Mardi Gras there since 1988. The workshop was about the koshas, the dimensions or layers of bring that cover our soul, and the participants were in “Soul School”, the Teacher Training at Sean Johnson’s Wild Lotus Yoga (Sean’s kirtan band will be here in May, stay tuned!). It was lovely to share these ancient concepts with a group so committed to yoga as a journey to the soul.

The last few years have been soul-searching for New Orleans residents. Anyone living there has made a conscious choice to stay, be it for family, music, or the sense of spirit and history that is carried through the architecture, the clanging streetcars running on St. Charles Avenue, and the friendly and spunky people.

If there’s a city that knows how to deal with challenge but continue to put on a great show, it’s New Orleans. During the day we visited the French Quarter to see street musicians and eat beignets, and at night we lined the streets with hundreds of locals and Mardi-Gras fans to watch the night parades. My family was blown away by the pageantry, the music, the strong sense of community, and the sunny weather! Mardi Gras is not what most people think (drunken mobs of college students on spring break?). It is a creative hurricane of papier mache floats, witty costumes, and high school marching bands. Here are a few of the 300 (!) pics of our time in the Big Easy. Y’all head down there soon, hear?!

Posted by: Anne Phyfe

Starting something new can be the HARDEST THING. Your first yoga class, a blind date, a home practice, you fill in the blank! It took me at least five years of taking yoga classes to finally commit to the elusive home practice. The key, for me, was to do it first thing in the morning. Make a cup of tea, light a candle, and get on the mat. I started with asana, then a dare got me to add pranayama, then a few years ago, my teacher Rod Stryker got me hooked on meditation. Now it’s as essential as brushing my teeth, my “mental floss!” To give you hands-on support with your own home practice, Douglas Ridings will offer a Home Practice workshop at 8 Limbs Capitol Hill on March 22nd.

This month the “first time” at 8 Limbs is this new blog! It’s a great format to allow us to more regularly share tips on this journey of yoga and mindful living. Our blog will also let you in the back door of 8 Limbs to show you what we’re excited about at our studios and in our communities.

Plus, we want to hear from you: what are the obstacles to your own practice and how have you overcome them?

Posted by: Anne Phyfe