Wrapped in Blankets of Bliss

True contentment is not the elusive hiding thing it is made out to be.

On the contrary, it awaits, open armed and patient

For your awareness of its company.

To experience this companion, comfort embodied in ease,

Simply enter the present moment fully.

Saturate your senses with the Now;

Enrich this living life with your focus and acceptance of what Is.

Be swept up in the act of

Being.

Here you will find that the breath itself is made of waves of peace

Woven with the light of joy and loving songs of truth.

Give yourself over to it.

Surrender all struggles to the wisdom and Grace of that which breathes you.

Realize, here in the fathomless Ocean of Beauty and Being

That, beneath layers of other feelings and holding on,

You were content all along.

Om Shri Ram Jai Ram
Om Namah Shakti Ma

• Feel free to comment if you’re so inspired.

Burpees are one of my favorite exercises because they work so much of the body. It’s a combination of a jump squat and push-up. You get core, legs, shoulders, back, chest and arms all in one go.

It definitely gets your heart rate up and blood pumping!

We got the whole thing on video, and I just got around to editing it, so I thought I’d post it here for your amusement and (hopefully) motivation.

We did 10 at a time, then switched off giving the other person a break in between each set. After 50 I felt my wrists and elbows talk to me, so to lessen the impact I did other exercises, mostly variations of push-ups.

I’ve never done so many push-ups in one workout! I’m pretty sure I did something like 140. Casey did at least 101 burpees, and editing the video I noticed we lost count a couple times and ended up doing 2 sets more than we needed to, so it was probably 121 burpees for Casey.

It’s fun to challenge yourself. You realize you’re capable of much more than you thought.

You might want to give this a try at home – even if you only do 50 or 30. Maybe you feel inspired to just pump out 10 or 20 right now.

If you want serious motivation and lots of different exercises (not just burpees, I promise) plus the balancing influence of yoga, check out my Yoga Fitness Boot Camp for Women.

Guys (and Ladies), stay tuned for a co-ed Fun Fitness Boot Camp that I’m helping my buddy Raven put together. It will be 7-8am at the TCC in the Gymnastics Centre.

These words came to me late last night, inviting me – almost insisting – that they be written and shared. It felt like a call to Truth; a feeling deep with meaning and potency…

Set Your Intention

Stand deliberately upon this Earth

For you are a bridge between Earth and Sky.

Open to the current of your breath,

Expand your awareness beyond the boundaries of your skin.

You are a child of the infinite.

Limitless possibilities await your choice.

Awaken to a new version of yourself;

Cultivate both strength and softness,

For you will find Freedom in the balance.

Become ever more skilled, taking care in refinement,

But remember always to honour that which is Primary:

Let Joy be your guide, founded in Integrity.

Dance upon the Edge and Laugh there;

Your bravery revealing the child within.

Honour your True Self by giving yourself permission to grow and play;

Play and discover who you choose to be.

And then re-discover the world through new eyes.

The new version of you that you are becoming;

The one you want to be

Already lives within you.

Step up and live this ideal;

Be a deeper, clearer You in this Now.

You are a child of the infinite.

Limitless possibilities await your choice.

• Feel free to leave a comment below if this poem inspires you to do so.

Even though Summer doesn’t technically turn into fall ‘till September 21^st, it always seems like the end of August marks the finale of Summer. For this reason, it often feels like August is a bit of a free-for-all.

With all the camping, parties, traveling, and hot summer nights, yoga classes are often pretty empty. It makes me smile, really.

But September is coming.

And with it there is a fresh sweeping feeling that marks the beginning of another school year, and the start of many things.

September invites you to re-assess your priorities and re-commit to the things that are important to you. These might include eating healthy, getting in shape, and doing yoga.

The great thing about September is it brings an excitement that lingers from the anticipation of the start of school, even long after we’ve graduated. You actually WANT to get organized and take care of things. It’s just in the air.

Here are some ideas to help you get your health, yoga, and fitness back on track:

1.) Do something to take care of yourself first thing in the morning. This might be a meditation, a walk or run, a personal yoga practice, or attending a yoga class or Fitness Boot Camp.

Making your health and happiness a first-thing priority sets you up to make better choices throughout the day, and you’ll also get more done because you’ll feel more energetic and capable.

2.) Commit to a Yoga Class at least once a week (check out my schedule below). Choose the time and teacher that work best for you, and show up religiously every week. Maybe sometimes you come more than once a week. But don’t fall off track – stay in the groove so your practice becomes a healthy habit.

3.) Simplify your food. This doesn’t mean cut back on taste. On the contrary, to me simple food is that which hasn’t been processed.

How? Stock up at the farmer’s market, toss loads of antioxidant rich herbs into your dishes (thyme, rosemary, oregano, etc. – most herbs are packed with healing goodness). If you eat lots of meat, try a vegetarian dish or two each week. Drink Green Smoothies every morning.

By feeding your body mostly fresh leafy greens, fruits, veggies, and whole grains, you make it a lot easier on your digestive and elimination systems.

Katrina’s September Schedule:

Personally, I’m excited to return to a full teaching schedule in September. Check out this line up of opportunity for you to get back on track:

Yoga Fitness Boot Camp for Women: Monday thru Friday 5:45-6:45am

Yoga, exercise, a wonderful community, and all kinds of fun!

“I loved my first bootcamp, it changed my life and strengthened me from the inside out. Afterwords I found I was WAY more active and fit, I could do things I haven’t been able to for a long time and even my yoga practice changed. I tried (probably like many others) to “do it my self” but I just don’t have the motivation that I get from Katrina and the community of women to do it! Bootcamp isn’t just a one-time thing, I think it needs to become part of regular life: exercise for an hour every morning with a supportive group and instructor.” – E.B.

Deep Healing Restorative Yoga: Mondays 9:00-10:15am

This class works on many levels to bring your entire being into a state of harmony. Pulsing between very short periods of active poses and long restorative ones, and accompanied by guided visualizations and meditations, this is an excellent way to release stress, anxiety, and heal from many conditions.

Anusara-Inspired™ Yoga: Tuesdays 6:15-7:30pm, and Wednesdays 9:00-10:15am

Learn how to blend the optimal alignment and free-spirit approach of this practice. It’s playful, challenging, energizing, and open to all levels. Feel good, stay healthy, go deep and have fun!

Semi-Private Yoga Therapy classes: Tuesdays 7:15-8:30am

Due to their effective nature I have had more bookings for Private Yoga Therapy than I can fit into my schedule. To make this important experience more available to people I will be leading one Semi-Private Yoga Therapy class per week. Each week it will focus on either Upper Body (shoulders, neck, wrists, etc.) or Lower Body (low back, hips, knees, feet, etc.) These classes will be limited to 4 people, and each person will receive individual attention.

The great thing about the semi-private classes is that you learn from observing each other and watching how I work with others as well as yourself. Each time I teach a group private, the participants comment on how much they learned and deepened their understanding by watching the others.

If you are interested in participating, please email me and let me know the condition you want to address (for instance, you may be ready to be free from knee pain). The investment is $60 per person (rather than $100), and you will go home with exercises to support what you learn in the Semi-Private class and continue your healing. Click to find out more about Yoga Therapy.

She is internationally celebrated as one of the most skilled and authentic instructors; a woman who can not only enter some of the most advanced postures herself, but who can safely guide others to do the same.

The last time she was in town was very special for me, partially because Des helped me to expand my own practice, and also because I was honoured to assist her for one of the sessions.

If you’re in BC, I highly recommend attending her workshop. Really I can’t say enough good things about her teaching.

For more info on the workshop, check out the YogaPod website: Desirée Rumbaugh Vancouver Workshop

It welled up within me, whispering and then singing with awareness of the complete interconnection we all have.

I have climbed to the knees of a giant Douglas Fir Tree and sang this into the moss.

I have stood in the clearest stream of water, illuminated in sunshine. This mantra singing to me from within.

~

Om Shri Gaia Ma

Purnatva Gaia Ma

~

Beautiful, Abundant, Benevolent Earth Mother

You Are The FULLEST Perfection

Divine Mother Earth

~

Which means, in it’s most expansive grace, YOU are beautiful, abundant, and of the highest kindness. YOU are perfect in your human way, exploring through finding out what works and what doesn’t – a Divine child playing.

You are part of this beautiful Earth. Gaia, Mother Earth, is a part of you.

And so, if you recognize and resonate with this intention, this affirmation of the health and harmony that is the true essence of all that is, I invite you to take this mantra into your own heart.

And see how it feels.

• Feel free to comment below with your experience or insight.

Connecting with Plants

Eating flowers is one of my favorite things to do in the Summertime. They share their healing vibrations with us when we eat them. The flowers of these plants are edible: alliums, bee balm, borage, calendula, cornflower, dandelion, johnny jump ups, lavender, lilac, nastursium, pansy, rosemary, wild roses, violets, squash blossoms and sooo sooo many more.

Remember to identify the flower exactly and eat only edible flowers and edible parts of those flowers. Never harvest flowers growing by roadsides or flowers sprayed with pesticides or other chemicals.

Flower salads and calendula pancakes are yummy, healing and certainly beautiful, yet there are also ways to experience the healing effects of the whole plant: heart, body, soul and spirit.

I have been getting to know certain plants on these deep levels, apprenticing with Pam Montgomery and the vastly intelligent natural world itself, my first teacher. These plants I build relationships with, look upon with wonder and adorn with appreciation via all of my senses become plant allies who live inside of me, like an internal energetic tool kit. I can call upon my allies in times of need, for my own personal healing and during in-person or distance healing sessions for others.

“A Plant Spirit Healing Practitioner works with the energy anatomy to reach core issues of disease: going beyond symptomatic treatment to effect lasting change. In this whole person approach, Plant Spirit Allies are called upon to re pattern discordant energy bringing healing to heart, body, soul and spirit.” ~Pam Montgomery~

Rose is a heart plant, one of my allies, her vibratory essence is often transmitted during Plant Spirit Healing sessions. Like a loving Grandmother, Rose will always unconditionally receive us, wrapping us in her loving arms, nurturing our disappointments and mending our broken hearts. Wild Rose is a remedy for apathy. She helps us when we feel like giving up. Wild Rose is good medicine for these times of planetary upheaval when we feel we haven’t the power to affect change, when we fear our actions may not be enough. If at times, all we can do is be kind to ourselves and recognize ourselves as a mini environment, a microcosm and a reflection of our larger Planet Earth, these healing vibrations of care will find their way, they will ripple out.

Sage is another ally whose healing gifts are invaluable. Smudging with Sage is a Native American practice for cleansing and purification of space, be it a physical space like a home or the energy field surrounding oneself. The smoke of the burning sage attaches to and helps us to give negative energy away, releasing it to another space where it can be transformed into it’s positive form. One of my mentors says that “we do not smudge to purify ourselves but to remind ourselves that we are already PURE”. Buy sage smudge sticks at herb shops and natural food stores or better yet harvest your own sage and make your own.

Learn more about Denise Holden here.

This is a story of finding bliss in an ordinary place. May it inspire you to follow your own bliss, and connect with the truth and oneness within.

This weekend I turned my front porch into a temple.

I brought out most of my crystals and many luxurious fabrics; I created a sanctuary and proceeded to spend the better part of two days there.

I played my guitar, drummed and sang with my djembe. I painted sacred words on stones (more on that later).

I spent a lot of time in meditation and mantra. Sometimes I’d pick up a crystal and just sit, tuning into its vibrations and listening to the message of the moment. Sometimes I would work with energy and intention.

Sometimes I just sat and watched my breath.

One of my companions was the ever present book of poetry by Rumi which lives on the table on my porch. I love to pick it up and open to a random page to see what gift awaits me there.

In one of the poems he spoke of staying up all night to make a deep connection. Though I didn’t stay up the whole night through, I rested on the couch in between mediation and working with crystals.

I was awoken, just before 4am, by a few inebriated boys talking very loudly in the next yard over. Their words were examples of not being conscious or living deliberately, but I was able to stay centered in myself and not judge them for their choices.

Since I was awake anyway, I took the advice of Rumi:

“The breeze at dawn has secrets to tell you.

Don’t go back to sleep.

You must ask for what you really want.

Don’t go back to sleep.

People are going back and forth across the doorsill

where the two worlds touch.

The door is round and open.

Don’t go back to sleep.“

Heeding these words I did a beautiful yoga practice, then watched the sun rise over the mountain.

The whole time I allowed myself to simply do what my heart was drawn to. I still ‘got things done’, in that I created art and cultivated my musical expression, did lots of yoga and meditation – these are things I have put off in the past…

But it was the practice of simply BEing that shifted me profoundly. And here I am, Monday, still in this remembered pattern of practicing being happy in the moment, doing other things that you might call work…

What did I learn? Nothing I haven’t known before.

Be Here Now. Just do what is being done in the moment. Don’t worry about what comes next or what has come before.

This is one of the oldest teachings, but somehow we struggle with it in the structure of our busy lives.

Anxiety and worry come from reaching into the future and grasping for something that isn’t there – trying to control what is not right here and now.

Just be. Do whatever you are doing fully. Set your intention and TRUST that the efforts you make are enough.

Live your life to the fullest, in the moment, and it will always be enough. It always has been.

So many of us are hard on ourselves. There is no need, no purpose for this.

Let that pattern be replaced with a new one that honors who you are in each moment, making conscious choices.

Make your home a temple. Make your life a meditation. Make your every action an offering.

And feel the fullness of your heart!

Shiitake mushrooms are considered one of the most important mushrooms in the East, and are used to boost the immune system and support healing for many conditions.

I get mine from Michael’s Mushrooms at the Kamloops Farmer’s Market, and they are so fresh and delicious!

For many people, the idea of a bunch of lettuce isn’t the most exciting thing in the world, but there are ways to make salad absolutely scrumptious!

In fact, many (possibly most) of my meals at home are different variations of salad. Salad wrap, veggie sandwich, rice or quinoa salad, etc. It’s easy, it’s quick, and SO nutritious.

So here’s my latest creation:

Farmer’s Market Salad with Shiitake Mushrooms

Feeds 2-4 people. Approximately 15 minutes to prepare.

Salad Ingredients:

• 1 head fresh lettuce
• 1/2 fresh cucumber
• feel free to add tomato or other veggies if you’re inspired, but keep it simple
• Adzuki bean sprouts (or any other sprouts)
• Top with dulse flakes, nutritional yeast, fresh ground pepper, and a squeeze of lemon, and/or any fresh spices you have in your garden (thyme, basil, chives, etc.)

Shiitake Goodness Ingredients:

• 1 Yellow Onion
• 4 Cloves garlic (or use a handful of fresh garlic scapes if in season – these are the tops of the garlic)
• 1/4 lb Shiitake mushrooms
• 2 tbsp each of the following for marinating:
  • Extra Virgin Olive Oil
  • Balsamic Vinegar
  • Tamari
  • Maple Syrup or the juice of 1/2 a fresh orange
• 1 tsp Coconut oil

Preparation:

Wash and chop up your mushrooms, then marinate in a small bowl with the olive oil, balsamic, tamari and Maple Syrup. Then, preheat a wok or pan to low-medium while you chop up the onion. Use the coconut oil to sauté the onion – coconut oil doesn’t go bad at high heat, so I do nearly all my cooking with this healthy oil. When you have put the onion in the pan, chop up your garlic or garlic scapes and then add those to the pan.

While your onion and garlic mixture is caramelizing, wash your lettuce and salad ingredients, and chop those up while stirring the mixture occasionally. When the onions have started to turn transparent and are getting a bit of the yellow caramelized goodness showing, add your shiitakes and their juicy marinade to the onions.

The mushrooms won’t need long to cook, maybe 5 minutes or so. Use this time to get the salad divied up into bowls, top with spices (if you have fresh spices in your garden like thyme or basil, add those too!)

When the mushroom mix is ready, pile it on top of the salad and serve immediately.

Remember to bless your food before you eat it, and take a moment to be grateful for all that allowed the food to come to your plate.

NOTE: If you live in Kamloops, go to the Farmer’s Market to get the freshest, most nutritious ingredients. Get your lettuce from Mendel and Paula – Mendel talks to his lettuce, and they grow happily with all the attention. AND, definitely get your mushrooms from Michael. He cultivates his own mushrooms, so they are FAR fresher than the store, plus he’s an excellent guy with lots of great information. If he doesn’t have shiitake, get portabello and substitute those for this recipe.

The Kamloops downtown Farmer’s Market runs Sat. from 8-12, and Weds from 8-2.

• If you have comments or suggestions for this recipe, please leave a comment below!

This was the sage advice given to me by one of my Anusara yoga instructors during a time where I felt like I was falling apart, but just kept pushing instead of allowing the process to unfold and then pass.

Yet once I’d been given permission, or more accurately, once I’d given myself permission to lay on my back and swing my legs up the wall while the rest of the class was playing on their hands, I realized that is where I needed to be.

And I begun to listen to myself. And the intensity passed, for I was no longer fighting it.

This is an example of something I think so many of us do. We keep pushing and forcing ourselves to do more, not rest – to try to keep up with the break-neck pace of ambition or need in life.

But it doesn’t work. It isn’t sustainable if it’s not sourced from the limitless energy that breathes us and dances in our blood; that energy that dances in everything that is.

When we push ourselves too hard and have unrealistic expectations, often it leads to anxiety, to living in a state of feeling like it’s all too much, or that we’re not good enough. And then all sorts of things can come from that, if left unchecked, including adrenal fatigue, chronic fatigue syndrome, and all manner of stress related physical manifestations.

So what’s the out? How do you shift that feeling of “There is never enough time”?

Listen.

Pause and listen to yourself. To nature. To your own truth and wisdom.

For that you must tune in to the Now. For this, as I keep reminding myself, is where the magic happens.

Meditative practices and yoga are important to maintain this practice of listening. A link, if you will, that keeps us consciously plugged in to the energy that is always there.

But sometimes, to really recover, or to switch gears entirely if you’re having a hard time and feel like you’re stuck on a track of stress and worry, it’s helpful and immensely healing to go on retreat.

Create Your Own Yoga Retreat

This can be as simple as an outing in nature; a hike, a day by the lake, a weekend camping… Or as luxurious as going to a retreat center or flying to an exotic location.

For the past week, I’ve done something in between. And, wow, has it been just what I needed!

My partner and I packed all our camping gear, our brand new hand crank blender for green smoothies, a cooler full of fruits, veggies and leafy greens, some hearty soups and sprouted bread… and some other things….

And with all we needed to sustain ourselves, nourish and enjoy, we made our way to beautiful hot springs in pristine mountains.

We had planned to do a hot spring tour, and go to several places, but that just seemed like far too much work. So, once we realized how perfect our location was, we just stayed put.

And, I must say, floating weightless in warm mineral water is incredibly healing.

As is spending so much time breathing fresh air.

But I think, for me anyway, the highlight of this particular retreat was my solo hike up to a secluded mountain lake. I was the only one there, and quite likely the only human to have visited it in days or even weeks.

It was 10k round trip, and I probably made it up in an hour and a half, and down in maybe 30 or 40 minutes – I ran, gliding along with the spirit of the mountain in full speed focus – moving meditation. Exhillerating!

It gave me time to simply listen. To myself, to the forest, to the story the tracks in the trail told.

And to the raven that sang to me as it flew over me and glided above the lake set high in the mountain.

I even saw an otter! It made very cute noises at me, and I got the message. “Play!” says
the sprit of the otter. Play and enjoy. That is what you are here to do.

Equally as healing as the hike was a cleansing, highly refreshing dip in the lake, and later, the river. Nothing like cold, clean water to make you feel alive!

And changed.

For these experiences do change us. They help us shift back to ourselves, yet we are ever coming closer, ever co-creating who we are in the truest sense.

So, if you feel stuck, or contracted, or fearful, or stressed out, do yourself and everyone around you a favor:

Pause, in whatever way you need. And listen.

• Do you have ideas for a self made retreat? Please leave a comment below and share!