8 Limbs is a big fan of The Samarya Center and their dedication to providing yoga and yoga therapy to people of all ages, abilities and backgrounds. Located in Seattle’s central district, the Samarya Center is a 501 (c) non-profit organization that offers a variety of low cost yoga classes to their immediate community as well as to the greater community through our workshops, trainings and on-going yoga classes.

The Samarya Center is community-supported yoga, much like Seattle’s beloved community-supported radio. Since they started almost 10 years ago, Samarya Center has been 100% supported by donations and support from the community and through fund-raising events. This enables them to offer many free programs to marginalized and under served populations. In addition to their many on-going community programs, including the ground-breaking Bedside Yoga program for people who are seriously ill and dying, they have recently pioneered two new, innovative programs – one at Pike Medical Clinic, offering yoga for free to people with chronic pain (many of whom are homeless and/or drug addicted), and another at The Samarya Center, a free yoga class (with childcare) taught in Spanish for low income moms from the Latino community.

This Saturday, July 24, please come out to learn more about The Samarya Center, celebrate the radiance of all beings, the sun and community, and help them to reach their $10,000 goal to continue to provide and to grow their unique and desperately needed community programs. All the information you could possibly need can be found at: www.saluthon.org. Register today, or send in your tax-deductible donation of any amount!

Posted by: 8 Limbs

Happy belated summer solstice to you all! I hope you all have some amazing adventures, retreats, or garden projects to look forward to over the next few months! So far, this Seattle version of summer has been full of creativity, career insights, and change.

As far as career insights go, it’s time for me to take a break from my weekly routine teaching classes at 8 Limbs Yoga Centers and follow my inner muse and bliss to Austin, Texas, where I will live part-time for the fall and winter. I intend to take some time to connect with my practice, dreams, and open new possibilities for the next stage on my journey. This career break, also known as a “adult gap year” or “sabbatical,” is part of my commitment towards developing skills and gaining experiences outside of my work, or to “un-become” as Dr. Claudia Welch recently said in her lecture at 8 Limbs!

From October 2010 -April 2011, I will be reverse commuting from Austin to Seattle to co-direct the 8 Limbs Teachers’ Training, lead a Business of Yoga series, and host Seasonal Vinyasa workshops. When I’m not in Texas or Seattle, I will be looking forward to reconnecting with you all on retreat at Breitenbush Hot Springs, Esalen, Mexico, or Hawaii! I will continue to offer incredible retreats year round, to hold space for those of you also looking for ways to reconnect with your dreams, muse, and sense of well-being.

To enhance the final note of this chapter at 8 Limbs Yoga Centers, I hope to see you in class before I leave. July will be my last full month of teaching in Seattle. However, I will be teaching August 2-4 and August 16-20. I want to thank you all for being part of my journey; your support is invaluable to my growth. Newsletters and blogs will continue while I am away from my regular schedule, so please keep in touch via my website or other social media outlets.

Posted by: Melina Meza
Photo: Jeremy Allyn

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

When I came out 10 years ago, one of my mother’s biggest fears was that I would be living in a world of injustice and like any mother, she was afraid of how people would treat me. While it hasn’t always been easy, I found that part of what drew me to yoga was the level of acceptance I found in teachers and in the community. No matter where you were in your life or in your practice, yoga met you there.

Every time I step onto my mat, I feel as though I have the opportunity to shed the shell of my identity. As we begin class, we all simply become practitioners of yoga, here to explore the dance of yoga together. It’s not about who we are outside of class: our job, our culture, our identity—we are all here to explore our internal energetic world to see what unfolds and to ultimately realize that in reality we are all the same. As Desikachar once said: “Yoga exists in the world because everything is linked.” The more I practice the more I see myself connected to all those around me. Their struggles are my struggles and we become beautiful mirrors for one another. With this awareness of interconnectedness, it becomes impossible for me to judge anyone for who they are.

In very different ways, both my yoga community and my queer community have helped me to embrace who I am and love the differences I see reflected back in others. My hope is that each time I teach, my students have that same experience I have had so many times “its okay to be wherever you are and we are all there together.”

In celebration of Pride, 8 Limbs will be hosting a benefit class the Friday June 25th. The benefit will support our Capitol Hill neighbor, Gay City Health Project (www.gaycity.org), and all donations made during that class will directly support the organization. In addition, Kaladi Brother’s Coffee and Macrina Bakery have been kind enough to donate coffee and pastries for a post class brunch! The class is an All Levels Flow from 9:30am- to 10:45am. Suggested donation is the 8 Limbs drop-in rate of $16, but I encourage you to give whatever you can.

Come celebrate Pride with me and both of my families!

Posted by: Megan Costello

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.

This week’s meditation comes from my teacher Rod Stryker and can be found (along with the Unconditional Healing Meditation posted on May 14) on his CD “Meditations for Inner and Outer Peace” in its entirety.
Sit tall, top of your head directly over the base of your spine. Begin to watch the flow of breath through your nostrils. Balance the flow by focusing on the weaker side for until they feel even.
Bring your attention to the brain. See it as the surface of a still lake. Watch the stillness of the lake. If a thought arises, watch the ripples diminish and return to a state of deep tranquility (several minutes).
Now bring your awareness to the back of your head. Meditate on the image of a full moon at the back of your head, which is the Chandra Bindu (moon-dot). Feel its presence imbuing you with the qualities of the moon, see its profound nurturing expansion in your consciousness.
Now see a bright ray of moonlight ray out from the back of your head towards the space between your eyebrows. See the lake of the mind shimmering with moonlight and meditate on that beam, magnetizing the 3rd eye and moving out into the infinite (several minutes).
Slowly bring your attention back to the breath. Feel that the depth of practice is sealed within you. Practice mental alternate breathing to ground yourself, and then ease back into life.

Posted by: Anne Phyfe Palmer

I blogged a few weeks ago about M(ay) is for Meditation, the idea for which came from a commitment our Managing Director, Ashley Dahl, made to do 30 days of yoga. We challenged everyone to commit to daily meditation for the month for the month of May, as Ashley had experienced such wonderful benefits (see the glowing smile in this photo!) from sticking with her commitment. Well, tomorrow she hits 60 days of practice and will join me in my Thursday 10am class at 8 Limbs Capitol Hill to complete what ended up being a double commitment. She said that she went to 60 as that is how long it is recommended to create a habit. Ashley enjoyed taking plenty of classes but sprinkled in home practice, yoga nidra (guided relaxation) and meditation to balance her practice.

The interesting thing I noticed is that my blog post actually inspired a few 8 Limbs yoga instructors to recommit to a daily practice, so I am guessing a few of you took the challenge too! We’re not much of the cheerleading type of yoga studio, but we know how great it feels to make that commitment and follow through. So, hey, if you like, want to, you know, sort of, TRY IT!

Posted by: Anne Phyfe Palmer

By now all of you know about the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. And most of you also know that I grew up in New Orleans, just across the bayou from the Gulf. This disaster has been really hard for me to stomach. It frankly breaks my heart. The Gulf of Mexico may not be pristine, but it is a vital body of water that is home to hundreds of species (including a hardy breed of humans called Cajuns) who have already experienced great distress from the gradual erosion of the coastline and the pummeling of Katrina. Read a great book about this area to learn more.

I spent many weekends and vacations with family in the islands and beaches of the Gulf, including a recent trip to Florida (see photo of myself and Coco). It has been devastating enough to see how much of the coast was destroyed by Katrina; this oil spill is a sucker punch to areas that are already struggling.

It has helped me to focus my energy in a positive direction. Want to join me? Here’s what you can do:
1. Send your thoughts to the Gulf and the people affected AND the people trying to help staunch the leak and clean up the spill. They need our mental support. Try the Unconditional Meditation I learned from my teacher Rod Stryker. Brief instructions follow, full guided meditation can be found on “Meditations for Inner and Outer Peace”
2. Join us on Monday, May 17 for a Benefit Class. All cash or check drop-in payments (and any additional donations) for the 7:15 and 7:30 classes at all four 8 Limbs Yoga Centers will go directly to the Gulf Response Involvement Team (GRIT). Checks may be made out to GRIT. Class will still be available to members or class pass holders at no extra charge. Please spread the word and bring a friend.
3. Can’t make it? Send your positive thoughts whenever and whenever, but try and join us in spirit on Monday night, especially between 8:15 and 8:30, during meditation. You can make a donation at the GRIT website: http://lagulfresponse.org/aboutus.html

Unconditional Healing Meditation
Preparation: spend a few minutes with attention to your breath. Feel a wave of relaxation through your entire body. Bring your attention to your mouth. Withouth changing your expression, feel the feeling of a smile. Then go through the organs and limbs of your body and feel the feeling of a smile at each location. Feel an open radiant smile in your whole body; every cell is smiling. Now feel rose colored light throughout your being, purifying and cleansing.
Step 1: Bring awareness to the space behind your navel at the spine. Feel life giving energy and awareness move on the inhale up your spine, on the exhale let it spread and expand into the space above the brain, in the skull. Repeat for several minutes with the internal sound AU (ah ooo) on inhale, M on exhale. Then hold your attention a the top of the head, meditate on the infinite and the sound OM.
Step 2: Now move from the space behind your navel up the spine and exhale that awareness into the throat. Repeat with the sound shan (“shun”) on inhale, ti on exhale. After a few minutes, hold attention at the throat, and meditate on peace.
Step 3: You will now share your connection to peace by projecting it to someone else or a situation (ie the oil spill). Whether you wish to help another person or positively affect a situation, you will project unconditaional awarenesss from your third eye.
When you inhale feel consciousness rise up your spine from the navel to the 3rd eye or brain center. Exhale and project unconditional consciousness from the third eye to the heart of another or situation. Add the mantra OM on the inhale and Shanti on the exhale. Continue to repeat, flooding the person or situation with your awareness. Sense that the person or circumstance is absorbing your attention and is filled with unconditional peace. You are empowering this person or situation with the healing power of nature. What they choose to do with it is up to their free will.
Now relax the technique and meditate on the object of your offering. See them/it fully enlivened and connected to the eternal stream of peace. Silently share the spirit of OM Shanti, Universal Peace. Feel that you both bask in the presence of spirit.
Bring your attention back to the space between your eyebrows. Be aware of your own foundation of happiness in your life. Seal it within yourself.
Bring your attention back to your brain, feel it descend all the way down to the navel. Place both palms over the navel. Feel that a presence is moves out of your hands and is absorbed into the navel center and abdomen.
Feel steeped and anchored in a clear sense of centeredness. Open your eyes.
From “Meditations for Inner and Outer Peace” by Rod Stryker

Posted by: Anne Phyfe Palmer

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