"IF" you can...

I haven't posted in a little while. I was trying to figure out how to link a blog to my site so I wouldn't have to go into the site and manually organize all of my postings by month and year, and all of that. And finally, I've figured it all out. And here it is: My Experiments with the Truth!

I borrowed that title from Gandhi's autobiography---such a great and inspiring read if you haven't picked it up before. Here is a snapshot of all that's happened since my last posting:

- Divine Motion yoga closed, so I no longer teach my yoga class there on Friday evenings.

- Which is perfect because I've started going to Julian Walker's Funky Friday yoga class at Santa Monica Yoga, which is great because we do yoga for the 1st hour or so, then we dance for the last half hour. Very liberating.

- I fell off the wagon with my raw food diet (nothing severe, just ate some cooked veggies is all). Then I got back on and now it feels more right than ever.

-I went to Yosemite National Park a few weeks ago. It was so beautiful and majestic. I look forward to going back.

-My morning runs up Runyon Canyon have been a very powerful exercise in willpower and focus. Every time I do it, I think of that poem "If" by Rudyard Kipling (below)

- I'm going on my second retreat with Hala Khouri on Labor Day weekend, and I'm so looking forward to it.

I could write more, but I'll save it for later. All in all, it's good to be back (in more ways than one). I look forward to posting regularly now that I can do so hassle free, thanks to blogger.com.

Here's that poem I was talking about:

IF
by Rudyard Kipling

If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you
But make allowance for their doubting too,
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don't deal in lies,
Or being hated, don't give way to hating,
And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise:

If you can dream--and not make dreams your master,
If you can think--and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build 'em up with worn-out tools:

If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it all on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breath a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: "Hold on!"

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with kings--nor lose the common touch,
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you;
If all men count with you, but none too much,
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds' worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
And--which is more--you'll be a Man, my son!