Laurel Nest Yurts

When Hal and I committed to our relationship 4 years ago, one of our commitments was to pursue healthy lifestyle choices of diet and yoga.  It has been my dream for over 5 years to be a yoga teacher, and this week I am starting on that journey.  I feel giddy just talking about it.

Thank you Sierra for helping me start this journey!

I remember talking to a yoga teacher of mine when I lived in Charleston 5 years ago, and telling her how I knew that one day I would be a yoga teacher, but I was still exploring the various yogas and had not found the one that deeply resonated with me.  I have to thank Sierra Hollister, kundalini yoga teacher extraordinaire, for helping me start on the journey to become a Kundalini Yoga teacher sometime four years ago.  (Sierra teaches on Monday mornings from 10:15 am – 11:45 and Thursday evenings from 7-8:30 at Asheville Yoga Center and on Tuesdays for lunch from noon- 1pm at One Center Yoga.)

The Kundalini Chakras

Kundalini yoga is a physical, mental and spiritual discipline which is a consolidation of the highest physical and meditative techniques found in the teachings of Raja yoga, Shakti yoga, Bhakti yoga, tantra, Kriya yoga, Laya-yoga, Nada yoga and the pillars and Yoga Sutra of Patanjali.  Kundalini yoga is called the yoga of awareness because it directly affects ones consciousness, develops intuition, increases self knowledge, and unleashes the unlimited creative potential that exists within every human being.

Mainstream traditions have shown that kundalini energy can be awakened and enlightenment attained by practicing a combination of yogic techniques—ideally following the guidance of a certified teacher—including the use of mantra, prana and breathing techniques, sadhana, asana practice, meditation, or purely through devotion and prayer.

The Kundalini, Coiled serpent

According to one source, the word kundalini literally means “the curl of the lock of hair of the beloved.” It is a metaphor, a poetic way of describing the flow of energy and consciousness which already is said to exist within each person. The practices are said to enable the person to merge with or “yoke” the universal self. This merging of individual consciousness with the universal consciousness is said to create a “divine union” called “yoga”.

Kundalini is a Sanskrit word meaning either “coiled up” or “coiling like a snake.” There are a number of other translations of the term usually emphasizing a more serpent nature to the word – e.g. ’serpent power’.

According to the yogic tradition Kundalini is curled up in the back part of the root chakra in three and one-half turns around the sacrum. Yogic phenomenology states that kundalini awakening is associated with the appearance of bio-energetic phenomena that are said to be experienced somatically by the yogi.

This appearance is also referred to as “pranic awakening”. Prana is interpreted as the vital, life-sustaining force in the body. Uplifted, or intensified life-energy is called pranotthana and is supposed to originate from an apparent reservoir of subtle bio-energy at the base of the spine. This energy is also interpreted as a vibrational phenomena that initiates a period, or a process of vibrational spiritual development.

The main emphasis is a difficult regime of breathing techniques meant to increase the store of “prana” in the body. The well known physical postures are only meant to be an aid to maintain peak physical fitness, so as to support the real work of the breathing practices. All of this has, according to tradition, to be accompanied by prolonged and unbroken meditation practice.

Thank you to these sources for the information and pictures for this blog.

Sierra Hollister

Asheville Yoga Center http://youryoga.com

One Center Yoga http://onecenteryoga.com

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kundalini_yoga

http://www.crystalinks.com/kundalini.html

http://truthspeaker.wordpress.com/2010/01/20/urgent-kundalini-warning-from-andrew-strom/

Today, Friday October 15th, is Blog Action Day.  People all over are coming together to share some shocking, disheartening, yet hopeful issues around water.

Did you know that  nearly 1 billion people lack access to clean water, which causes more death than anything else in the world?

African women walk over 40 billion hours each year carrying cisterns weighing up to 18 kilograms to gather water, which is usually still not safe to drink.  Every week, nearly 38,000 children under the age of 5 die from unsafe drinking water and unhygienic living conditions.  Many scholars attribute the conflict in Darfur at least in part to lack of access to water. A report commissioned by the UN found that in the 21st century, water scarcity will become one of the leading causes of conflict in Africa.  In July, to address the water crisis, the United Nations declared access to clean water and sanitation a human right.  But we are far from implementing solutions to secure basic access to safe drinking water.

While the developing world faces a water crisis, those in industrialized countries consume far more than their fair share.  It takes 24 liters of water to produce one hamburger. That means it would take over 19.9 billion liters of water to make just one hamburger for every person in Europe.  The shiny new iPhone in your pocket requires half a liter of water to charge. That may not seem like much, but with over 80 million active iPhones in the world, that’s 40 million liters to charge those alone.   That cotton t-shirt you’re wearing right now took 1,514 liters of water to produce, and your jeans required an extra 6,813 liters.  The US, Mexico and China lead the world in bottled water consumption, with people in the US drinking an average of 200 bottles of water per person each year. Over 17 million barrels of oil are needed to manufacture those water bottles, 86 percent of which will never be recycled.  

The disregard for water resources in industrialized countries impacts more than humans – it causes environmental devastation.  Every day, 2 million tons of human waste are disposed of in water sources. This not only negatively impacts the environment but also harms the health of surrounding communities.  Death and disease caused by polluted coastal waters costs the global economy $12.8 billion a year.   Today, 40% of America’s rivers and 46% of America’s lakes are too polluted for fishing, swimming, or aquatic life.

So what can we do?

We can try to minimize our water use, of course… There’s a great web page that allows you to analyze your water usage… I will say I was shocked at what I read… I thought with composting toilets and not using sinks for a lot of what we do, having a water efficient dishwasher, that we would be golden… unfortunately, we still have work to do. We’re better than average, but still use over 100 gallons of water a day!! I could not believe it…Check out your water usage on this link: http://www.h2oconserve.org/?page_id=503  After you find out how much you’re using, you can also find ways to cut down your usage.

Another simple and easy thing to do is stop drinking bottled water.  Get yourself a nice glass jar and pour your tap water, well water, or filtered water in there.  It’s one way to help save the world.  Reducing the amount of bottled water we use helps cut back on petroleum, carbon emissions, and of course, waste. It also helps protect ecosystems in rural areas where spring water is mined, often with little regulation on how much water can be pumped. Instead of spending money on bottled water, we should be directing our efforts to making sure all of our water infrastructure is properly maintained and that everyone has clean, affordable water coming from their taps.

The good news is that there are great organizations working on solutions and new tools that empower people to do their part to address the water crisis. Organizations like Water.org and charitywater.org are leading the charge in bringing fresh water to communities in the developing world.  

Please help spread the word…. and get informed! Water, food, and shelter are our basic needs.  We do not want to fight wars over survival.

Whatever happened to the big oil spill in the Gulf Coast anyway?

BP Oil washing up our Gulf Coast

It’s been a while since the country’s worst oil disaster was front page news, but the spill remains a hugely destructive force in the lives of people, businesses, and wildlife in the region. In some ways, the region will never fully recover.
Florida State oceanography professor Ian MacDonald told colleagues on Tuesday that while much of the oil is gone from the surface now, it is still in the environment and he expects harmful effects for years.
MacDonald says more than a half million tons of oil remain in the ecosystem and that will probably reduce the productivity and diversity of the Gulf’s plants and animals.

A bird covered in oil

The gusher was contained in mid-July after a temporary cap was successfully fitted atop the well. Mud and cement were later pushed down through the top of the well, allowing the cap to be removed. But the well could not be declared dead until a relief well was drilled so that the ruptured well could be sealed from the bottom, ensuring it never causes a problem again. The relief well intersected the blown-out well last Thursday, and crews started pumping in the cement Friday.
Yesterday morning the effort was finished, and the spill was officially declared “dead”.
While I am grateful for all the work that was done to fix this nightmare of a problem, I am personally outraged at the greed that drove it. The spill caused an environmental and economic nightmare for people who live, work and play along hundreds of miles of Gulf shoreline from Florida to Texas.  BP took some of the blame for the Gulf oil disaster in an internal report issued earlier this month, acknowledging among other things that its workers misinterpreted a key pressure test of the well. But in a possible preview of its legal strategy, it also pointed the finger at its partners on the doomed rig. Their old image as a “green” petrol company is tarnished (and is there such a thing as green petrol?).
Since the oil spill, I’ve given my cute little Mazda Protege away, and bought a grease car. I’m learning about how to clean the veggie oil out to make BioDiesel, and I’m glad to put gas money to another use…

Tar washed ashore..

Thanks to these websites for information I collected for this blog…

http://www.dosomething.org/news/remember-gulf-coast-oil-spill

http://www.wtsp.com/news/local/story.aspx?storyid=147061&catid=19

http://www.wtsp.com/news/local/story.aspx?storyid=146909

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/us_gulf_oil_spill

My dad and I were talking on Skype the other day, and he showed me the fish he was going to eat for dinner.  It was a huge Blue fish, which is my favorite.  My dad told me he went to the seafood store to buy some fish, and the owner of the store gave it to him for free, because noone ever wants to buy Blue Fish.

My dad and his buddy made a nice fish dinner for my mom on the grill…. and I found this recipe online that I thought I could share.

http://allrecipes.com//Recipe/super-summer-grilled-bluefish/Detail.aspx

According to the Sustainable Seafood Guide, http://eartheasy.com/eat_sustainable_seafoods.htm Blue Fish is a better choice fish.

“Around the world, many traditional fisheries are threatened with collapse, due to unsustainable fishing practises and habitat destruction.  Some fisheries, however, remain healthy and productive due to succesful management, responsible harvesting and advances in contained fish farming. You can help support sustainable fisheries with the choices you make at the restaurant or the seafood counter.

When I was little, we always just cleaned of the blue fish, and fried it in the frying pan.  Yum… I might just drive 21 hours for a bite of that meal.

Some of you may know that one of my secret passions is teaching.  I go back and forth from the idea of the value of a school that offers wisdom and thoughtful materials for a child to learn from to straight up homeschooling.  I wish that we could afford to dedicate every minute of our time to Emilia and homeschooling, but this is not our reality.

Luckily, the Montessori Cooperative School is.  A  few women and I got together to start this little grass-roots school, that offers children Montessori experience coupled with beautiful outdoor exploration on the campus’s 22 acres of marsh, hiking trails, creek, and open land.

I am thrilled about learning Montessori methods, and how beautiful the experience is.  Montessori has many very intentional goals, one of them being to help teach children to be kind and peaceful.
Children learn through hands-on experience, investigation, and research.  We have many exciting projects planned, including cooking various dishes in the slow cooker (the children will do cutting and measuring).  Our job is to guide the children, to provide them with work that will engage them and allow them to learn.

If you are in the Asheville area and interested in more information about our school, please visit montessoricooperativeschool.com or find us on facebook!

There’s a new school starting this fall in a Laurel Nest Yurt, called the Little Round Schoolhouse.  It’s a Waldorf inspired school, with lots of beautiful activities and learning for rising kindergarteners from 3-6 years old.

They recently “raised” their yurt and are making preparations to start the school year shortly.  It was a wonderful yurt-raising, the children participated and so much thought went into the children’s experience in the yurt.   Here Becca writes how much fun they had choosing where to place their door:

“The fun part of this step was actually after the octagon was finished and we all gathered around and decided which way the door should face.  What do we want our children to see when they look out the front door?  What do we want them to walk past as they come to the schoolhouse each day?  After much shifting of directions, our front door has found a way to face–the woods and beyond to the mountains.”

Their yurt raising was a community event, and they had lots of people come out and help.

The yurt raising for the school!

Their vision for the school is so beautiful, and I know the children will thrive in a round schoolhouse with such a wonderful vision for learning!  Good luck with the next school year!

For more information about The Little Round Schoolhouse, check out their website, http://littleroundschoolhouse.com.  They also have a facebook page, so you may want to find them there.

This summer, one of my goals has been to explore more water holes and swim spots… One of the most popular ones around is Sliding Rock, which if you’re in the WNC area, this is a can’t miss, must do!

Emilia went down the rock twice, and loved it! She was braver than me, screaming the whole way down! Brr… cold water… and I can’t wait to take my family out there in a few weeks!

Here I am, sliding down the rocks...

Hal and Emilia going down the rock!

Sliding Rock is a naturally occurring 60-foot waterslide with a seven-foot deep pool that has been developed by the US Forest Service into a recreation area.  You can either slide yourself or watch others do it from an observation deck opposite the slide or above the waterfall.

This water is cold, so come on a smoldering hot day! Enjoy!

Hal, Emilia and I had so much fun at Sliding Rock!

There is a small fee to enter the recreation area.  The recreation area is open year-round, but the bathrooms and changing rooms are only open from Memorial Day to Labor Day.  Lifeguards are on duty during that time as well.

A few weeks ago, we built a mud oven at our home.  We had a lovely girl, Julia, who was woofing (see WWOOF.ORG), with us.  She came to work on the oven, and got most of her information about building from some books we have and various internet sites.  While she was working, she played around a lot with the mud, and shared that making a working oven is a lot of experimentation… so get out there and try one. (And please, invite me over for pizza whenever…)

The first step in making the oven involved getting the foundation ready.  We had to dig a pretty deep hole and then filled it with sand a gravel.

Once the foundation was ready, we arranged some blocks in a roundish shape, and made sure they were level… This is important, you would do better to use a level of some sort, not just eye balling it.

Once everything was nice and level we chose a piece of granite for the main base, and then more cinder blocks and fire bricks.  Any part of the oven that will touch fire needs to be fire brick.  We purchased this brick from a local chimney supply store.

Once all the brick is assembled, we made a form for the oven out of sand.

Then comes the fun part! Time to get your feet dirty and mix up some Mud!

On top of the sand went wet newspaper, then our cob clay mixture.  At this point an insulative cob base was built.  This holds the heat when you’re making your breads and pizzas…

Once the proper shape for the oven was created, and it had dried a good bit, the sand got emptied out of the oven.  We made several layers- a cob/clay layer and then another layer with straw and then a final layer of cleaner clay.

As you clean out the sand, you need to be careful and take your time.  Once you touch newspaper, you know you’ve gone high enough. The newspaper is your signal that you have emptied all the sand out.

At that point, we decorated the oven and put beads and other decorations.

Thanks Julia for all the hard work! And home cooked pizza, here we come!

I was hiking in the woods near our home the other day, and growing in the bark of a fallen tree was some Chicken of the woods!  This is the common name for the mushroom, Laetiporus is a genus of edible mushrooms found throughout much of the world. Some species are commonly know as chicken of the woods, the chicken mushroom, or the chicken fungus because many think they taste like chicken.

I ended up cooking the mushroom for dinner, and it was delicious.  Sometimes these mushrooms are a little dry, so I added a lot of butter and also water to moisten it up.  I’ve heard a lot of people cook it with greens, and then it can soak up some of the juice…

To prepare, clean the leafy sections thoroughly and cut away the woody core, using only the leafy sections of young tender specimens. If the mushroom is to be stored, keep it refrigerated and use within several days for the best flavor or cut into pieces, blanche or sauté and then freeze. The flavor which represents the name, tastes somewhat like chicken.

The peach tree blooms were so beautiful this year. Our friend Zack caught a bunch of pictures that show how the tree bloomed, from bud to flower. Enjoy!

Our peach tree in bloom...