Everything is beautiful when you're upside down

On my way into yoga today, I was informed that my one month membership, which I got very cheap in a silent auction, was about to lapse. Bummer. I love yoga, not just because it feels so good physically, but because it is always full of little lessons that translate into every day life.

I was in some crazy upside down yoga pose today, looking out the window at a tree. In the tree there were two white feathery objects, fluttering in the wind. They looked so beautiful. I thought maybe they were two white birds with long tails. Whatever they were, they were mesmerizing. I could have held that pose for twice as long, just gazing at them.

When I flipped right side up again, I looked at the tree to see what was really there. Oh, right, those two old shredded rags that have been pissing me off for the whole month I’ve been coming to yoga.

That was what I took from class today. The rags are not an eyesore. I only thought they were because of all my thoughts about them. The rags represented some jerk who was thoughtless enough to put them in a beautiful tree and all the people that left them there, day after day until they became tattered and dirty.

There is a trick I learned from Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain. If you take a picture and turn it upside down, you can copy it so well that anyone would think you were a talented artist, even if you couldn’t draw at all. This works because when the picture is upside down, your brain can’t quite see what it is and so it can’t confuse the lines of the picture with irrelevant mental concepts. You are free to draw just what you see.

It is the same with the rags in the tree. I didn’t know what they were so I couldn’t assign “good” or “bad” to them. I just accepted and appreciated them as they were.

If only my dog would smell like roses, or my cat’s incessant whining would sound like a symphony if I stood on my head.

Raw food dish of the week - Valentine's Day cookies



Apple Raisin Cookies: sunflower seeds, fuji apples, bananas, dates, vanilla, cinnamon, raisins, walnuts

Strawberry Frosted cookies: cashews, walnuts, dried apricots, raisins, agave nectar, vanilla, water
frosting: frozen strawberries, agave nectar, cacao butter