Hurray for the Rain!

It's been drizzly and rainy here in LA for the past couple of weeks and I LOVE it! Such a welcome change of pace. A few nights ago I was hot-tubing it with friends in the cool, drizzly, fog. That was great! This weekend, the rain will serve as perfectly spooky weather for the costume party I'm attending. And not to mention, in weather like this, I don't feel bad staying in, reading or doing art work. I've been doing both. A lot. Now, if I could only get off my butt and work on my writing projects, that would be ideal. Anyways, hurray for the rain.

'M' for Mmmmmmmmm

I can't seem to get enough of M Cafe on Melrose (a block in from La Brea). It's a new macrobiotic eatery that just opened this past summer. It's vegan. But I'm supposed to be raw. They have fish and I supposedly don't eat fish. They serve the absolutely best french toast and pancakes for breakfast and I'm not supposed to be eating bread. I've fallen off the wagon and out of integrity. Oh, it's just been all wrong, BUT it's so so incredibly delicious. Mmmmmmmmm.

Luckily, I recognized an addiction brewing in the midst. About thirty minutes after officially cutting myself off yesterday, I unconsciously booked a lunch there for tomorrow. My self control is weaning. You must try it if you haven't already. M Cafe.

I know. I know... What happened to the raw meat thing, you're probably wondering? No worries. It's all still in my freezer. I've decided that I must work my way into that world slowly.

My Voice SHOULD be back, BUT...

The good news is my voice is back. I don't quite know what happened to it. I can only speculate that it was diet related. However, from a mind/body perspective, it could have been caused by me not expressing myself in some situation or another. In the past, I have had issues with speaking my truth, believe it or not. And every now and again, I get myself into these interestingly sticky situations where I find myself holding back for whatever reason---probably because I've convinced myself that whatever I would say has the power to inflict pain on someone else. Meanwhile, back at the ranch, not saying anything is affecting ME just as greatly.

Speaking of speaking, I was at the Tilford Art Group for an art show last night, and while I was speaking with my friends Vic and Shawn about my personal yoga practice, I said that I should do more yoga on my own.

And Vic responded with, "What do you mean by should?" I tried to come up with this elaborate way of defining what should means without making myself appear lazy. Then she explained, when we say the word should, what we really mean is that we want to want something. And the obvious question is why? Why do we feel that we should want some things. I believe it's for validation or qualification purposes for the ego. For instance, I'm a yoga teacher, among other things. I feel like a good yoga teacher must practice at home every day. I don't. Therefore, do I not consider myself to be a good yoga teacher???

Okay, that doesn't make any sense because I know I am a good yoga teacher despite the fact that I don't do a physical practice at my house every day. So this means that I need to go back and look at how I am qualifying what makes a good yoga teacher. That's the process of using that tricky word should. How about the fact that most yoga is NOT physical? I'm not suggesting that I am a perfect yoga teacher. BUT I don't necessarily need to practice at home regularly. Although it would be nice.

And this leads me to the next questionable word: but. I've been contemplating for sometime now why we use that word in our communication. In my opinion, all it does is negates the statement that preceeds it.

For example, "I think I'm talented enough to participate, but I don't have time," seems like a innocent, normal sentence one might find oneself saying to someone else. BUT, the word but, pits two statements that are mutually exclusive against one another. One has nothing to do with the other. Yes, the person is talented. No, the person has no time to participate. Do we feel that we have to qualify ourselves in statements like these. Instead, why not just say, "I don't have time to participate." Or, "I know I'm talented enough. I don't think I have time to participate though." Both statements become strong affirmations. Neither statement negates the other.

I imagine that because anything is possible, there are some exceptions. If you know of any please comment on this posting. In the meantime, I'm going to continue researching how to write and speak more affirmatively.

Oh No, My Voice

Right now I am without voice. I've been travelling for the past 9 days and there's only so much airplane crackers and coke one can consume before one falls ill.... Sure I'm kidding. But the airline industry needs to take a serious look at what they've been calling "food" these days. In my humble opinion, it is only slightly better than hospital food. And the surprising thing is everywhere I look, people are wolfing it down like it's the cure to cancer. Of course, I'm well aware that it could be me that's crazy....

The Bethlehem, PA wedding of Ravi Howard. This is me with my date, April, and my college friends from New York.

Nonetheless, somewhere during those six flights, uninspiring meals, weather changes, and loss of sleep, my body fell out of balance. And as a result, my poor little voice has turned jumpy and raspy. It's kind of sexy actually. But I digress.

Where have I been, you may wonder? Well, first, I went to my college friend, Ravi's wedding in Bethlehem, PA (Pictured at the top). It was refreshing to return to the East Coast. And I also got to connect with some really good friends who came down from New York, and up from Alabama (Ravi and I also went to Sidney Lanier High School together in Montgomery). Then, I went down to Montgomery to visit my family, and specifically, my little neices and nephews, aged 5, 3 1/2, 2, and 10 months. When you ring the doorbell, they all come running, walking, shuffling or crawling from every corner of the house, very much like that opening scene in The Lion King. It's the cutest thing you will ever see.

After that, I took a quick trip home to regroup, then left for my older brother, Donald's wedding in Cancun (pictured below). That was great. It was held on the grounds of El Dorado Royale, an all-inclusive resort, about 30 miles from the city center. The resort was small enough to bump into friends and family from the 50+ wedding party in the restaurants or on the beach, yet large enough to lose yourself if you needed some quiet time. My whole immediate family came together for the first time since I don't know when. That was great to experience as well.

My brothers and I with my cousin in Cancun at the wedding reception. Donald, in the dark shirt, was the groom and I was his best man.

The highlights of my trip were reading my book---The Last Hours of Ancient Sunlight, by Thom Hartmann---on my airline flights, and the fact that my whole family started calling me 'Light'. That one happened unexpectantly. I didn't plan on mentioning that I'd changed my name unless I was asked worthily (only because it tends to be a big conversation piece and I wanted to keep the conversation directed on my brother and his bride-to-be). But once everyone got wind of it, thanks to my Mom (after about two cocktails mind you), they all started calling me 'Light'. At first, their tone was slightly sarcastic. Then, they started using it more casually. And finally, it just became my name---one of the benefits of spending so much time around one another in close quarters I imagine .

It's good to be back in LA now. Time to get back into my teaching, and to get caught up on some projects I've been sorely neglecting. Not to mention, getting back into my diet. I'm trying raw meat next, and I'll be giving the full report on that sooner than later.