Sunday Funnies

I had a different Sunday Funny to post today, but after yesterday's laughfest, at Tejas teacher training, about hashtags and abbreviations and how yogis Om, I tought I'd post this oldie but goodie.

Yoga Inspiration

With arms outstretched I thank. With heart beating gratefully I love. With body in health I jump for joy. With spirit full I live. ~Terri Guillemets

Wanted to share my evening prayer last night. I belong to the most amazing Community. Today Gratitude is my yoga.

15 minute writing exercise blog….GO!

I just set the timer for 15 minutes. It’s a writing exercise where you just start writing whatever comes out, no editing, no going back and reading what you wrote. I’m doing this because I have not been blogging, hell I haven’t even been writing and I used to LOVE to write. I used to love seeing the world and making my observations and keeping journals full of thought meanderings and doodles and lyrics and all kinds of stuff. Writing is a practice just like yoga. And when you fall off the wagon, when you get out of your routine it’s hard to get back on. Sometimes, if it’s a minor blip, I can just chill out and rest and wait for the inspiration to come back, but not this time. I’ve been waiting, and waiting, and waiting….oh yeah and napping. But nothing’s coming back. I sit and stare at the little blinking cursor, I even have ideas about what I want to write about but nothing, just blinking pixels mocking my existence, my (what I once thought of as) talent. I used to think I was a good writer, sure my spelling and grammer are atrocious but I have spell just for that and grammar well I can write that off as my southern charm right? But lately it’s just a wash of………nothing. So I’m trying this little writing experience to see if I can get my juices flowing. I’m starting here with one public stream of conscious rant for all the cyber world to enjoy or not. And then I’ll take a little more disciplined path of writing. I’ll work at it. I’ll actually view this blog as an occupation, sort of occupation, no, not occupation. Practice. Like I said earlier, a practice. I will just sit and write of 15minutes a day about whatever comes into my little yoga brain. And I will reset my neuropathways, I will be a writer.

But why, why does this blog seem important to me? I don’t expect to get well known, I’ll never be a David Sedaris or….well insert the name of a blogger turned author here. But it does feel important to me. Maybe it’s because I’ve never found a blog about yoga that I like, because maybe I feel like yoga is just taken to damn seriously way too often. Sure it’s serious but it doesn’t have to read like a technical manual or a new age book promising the ultimate embrace by the Lord or Goddess or Universe or whatever! Sometimes yoga is just there, it’s just a part of us. Like the two by fours holding up our houses, it’s just the frame from which I choose to se my word. “Pause, build the foundation of your asana” I say that a lot. I guess I mean it. I guess I don’t think I need to be hit over the head with my yoga, or even told that my yoga has lofty potential. No. I just want to be reminded that yoga is there, always, every breath I take, every decision I make, ever stupid joke or pun I say and all the sacred giggles or eye rolls that follow. 

Yeah, I guess I blog because I need it. I need to remind myself about how I see yoga and I choose to make it public because that’s how I am. I share everything with my Community and even the tiny things I share sometimes find the right ears. It’s not why I blog but its part of it. Just me meandering around my brain and sharing it with a broader Community.

Ok 15 minutes up. Time to spell check!

Sunday Funnies

Sunday Funnies

Good Links

Ok Yogis, I have a few good blogs in the works for you but right now I'm up to my 3rd eye in yogic cramming for my oral final on Saturday. Am I worried? not really but I REALLY like my teachers and I want them to be proud of me so I've been focusing more on my studies than my observation of daily life. As far as "off the mat and into life..." it's all mat all the time! So when I get back to my life I'll get some blogs up about the two.

In the meantime however here are a few of my favorite yoga and yoga lifestyle-ish websites that I dig and sometimes visit when I need a study break.

Foat Designs: This is a small independent business run buy the Foat sisters, two rockin' yogis who reign supreme in the upcycling, save the planet with good fashion realm. I  met them a few years ago at a yoga conference and picked up a pair of custom leg warmers for in between workshops to keep warm.

Heart Of The Sky Fair Trade: Y'all know I live in a tiny town in Wisconsin and how much I love my tiny town and the amazing Community here. Heart of the Sky is run by one of the amazing women in the amazing Community, Melinda. Melinda takes trips to Guatemala where she cultivates relationships with women's co-ops and small family businesses, she pays them fair market value for the goods and brings them back to sell not only to promote these women's and family's talents and business but also to help raise awareness for the Network in Solidarity With The People Of Guatemala.

Daily Cup of Yoga: DCY is a great blog (that actually updates regularly) the life and styles of yoga.

Joyful Belly:  If you are a reader of this blog you notice that I mention Ayurveda pretty regularly. If you are curious about Ayurveda or are a follower of the Ayurvedic lifestyle and looking for some good resources this is the place to check out!

Ok readers it's back to the books for me. I promise new and exciting things when I return as a dually certified yoga teacher. 

Sunday Funnies

Promo

This is me talking about my teachers Jim Bennit and James Tennant of Tejas Yoga Teacher Training and Mentorship. It was also filmed and edited by one of my yogamates Jacob Gigler!

Amy Mills on Tejas Yoga Teacher Training from Jacob Gigler on Vimeo.

If you are in Chicago and thinking about becoming a teacher or are looking for a way to deepen your practice go visit Tejas. You won't regret it!

2012 in Review

The sun has set on 2012 so in the tradition of every news organization, radio station, periodical and facebooker I will now post my year end list. Here are my top 5 things I am grateful for from 2012.

1. I had my very first (and probably only) art show. It was called 'Evolve: the turning of a chapter.' I don't know how good it was but it for me it was a challenge I thought I’d never rise too.

2. I turned 30! Finally! I've been waiting to be 30 since I was 16, seriously. Maybe I’m a Louie the Late Bloomer or maybe I’m fully bloomed but just don't realize it yet but I’ve always know the 20s wasn't where it's was going to be at for me. I grew up an old soul and lately it's like I get to be a child again, something about the distance I have come and the things I have survived have allowed me to find that childlike wonder from so very long ago.

3. Tejas. I've been teaching yoga for a while but I decided I was ready to go back to school so I re-did my 200 hour certification at Tejas Yoga in the South Loop of Chicago. Trekking down to Chicago almost every weekend of 2012 could get tiresome but I have found 2 amazing teachers and the type of yoga Community I have been searching for as well as trying to create.

4. I found a home! I spent a lot of 2012, and I do mean A LOT, without a home. I wasn't homeless by any means but I surely wasn't in a place of my own nor was there any feeling of being settled in the various places I was living. Yes there were a few different places. So now I have a wonderful little house that I’m happily renting with a big back yard, a white picket fence, a mud room, and an attic bedroom. It suits me and my dog just perfectly.

5. I have hope. See hope and I have a fickle relationship. I've spent the past few years approaching New Year's Eve thinking "Thank God that year is over, next year has got to be better!" But it never worked out and I felt like I was tripping over myself to see how fast I could self sabotage my life. But as the sun is coming up on the first day of 2013 I can look back and say "yes, I make some mistakes, but I have learned from them and I now have both of my feet on the ground, I am living with good intention and being true to myself not the image of me I was so busy creating, and I am ready to entertain the potential of good things happening in my life." So see here 2013 I’m not allowing hope that you will be a better year but the hope that I will be a better person.

Best wishes to you all. Stay well, stay warm and go hug someone.

Peace Y'all!