do things

Stuff done: Not only did I work at the yoga studio the other night, I also took a yoga class with an amazing teacher. I showed up about 20 minutes early; I wanted to settle into the room, the class, and stretch a little. When I first took to my mat I realized my hips and the back of my legs were super tight. I knew class was going to be a challenge, especially since I hadn’t taken an hour and a half class in quite a while.  But - this is the point - challenge myself to DO things.

Anyway, Sarah (our teacher) started the class by talking about Buddhism. I studied Buddhism a little in college and really enjoyed it. I was drawn to it. To the idea of awareness.  To the idea of nature and simplicity.  She started talking about how yogic philosophy and Buddhist philosophy were very much akin and how the main principles of Buddhism - the four noble truths - align with yogic practices as well.

Which are:
1. Life means suffering.
2. The origin of suffering is attachment.
3. The cessation of suffering is attainable.
4. The path to the cessation of suffering.
(Found this cool website that I pulled these from!)


The overall idea is that life involves suffering - the point is not to wallow in it, the point is to use it and figure out how to get past it. She was linking this back to yoga in the sense of recognizing your bodies limitations but also knowing that it’s part of the journey to exist a little in your suffering (a pose that may be painful or feel weird to you). You can and will figure out how to work through it. How to overcome it. Also, something that always hits home for me when I think about Buddhism is that we all have a “path” - no two paths are the same. We each must walk down our road...once you're on that road; it’s not going away. You can try to jump off, but it will always follow you. There will always be this voice in the back of your head saying, "hey, dummy. I'm still here, we're still working!" and you don’t have to suffer all the time.  You just get beyond it and keep moving.

So, tha’ts my mini rant on yoga and Buddhism. I, myself, am going to work harder to incorporate both into my life!

After yoga I went here. Sort of counter productive but it’s such an awesome place and their burgers are great.

goo

Stuff not done: Getting up early. I just can't seem to manage it. Le sigh.

ce soir

Stuff done: I worked at a yoga studio tonight for 2 hours. I don't know why but being in a yoga studio, literally just being there, sets me at ease and fills me with this unbridled compassion towards every living thing. 

Does that sound cheesy? I'm a big cheese head, but I'm serious. All I want to do right now is go hang out with people and smile and giggle. And, do yoga, duh. I would spend hours doing yoga. That’s what I like. That’s what gets me going.


So. I think everyone should do yoga. Now I'm going to go geek out and meditate and go to bed.

weekend doings

Stuff done: Friday, my theatre company had a fundraiser and I must say, I was pretty impressed. We had a great party, awesome performers, yummy food, cold pbr and an amazing raffle. I was so proud of the way we all came together to make it happen.

(Shout out to unscene.com who posted our event. They have a pretty cool flier they put out on a regular basis and we were able to contact tons of folks for donations through the unscene: brooklyn. You should totally check it out; grab one if you see one. Shop and eat local!)

We had great donations for our raffle from places like monkeytown, northeast kingdom (who have AMAZING food, by the way), china grill, the ifpda print fair, casey fatchett, and diana pappas to name a few!

All in all, a huge success!

Also - I did a workshop with the NY neo-futurists; eff-ing amazing. I fell in love with the neo-futurists when I saw the Chicago crew perform too much light makes the baby go blind back in 2007 at the DC Fringe Festival. It literally almost blew my mind. They did this piece that was focused on our "War on Terrorism" and how we don't hear about those that have been wounded and have suffered. They simply had 4 people onstage with a bunch of papers with names on them. The names were of those wounded in battle but not talked about. They just kept flipping through hundreds of names, in silence; while one woman read a monologue and when she was done she left. But they kept flipping until they were done and then they left the stage. The papers with the names stayed on stage the entire rest of the show so we would remember.

Talk about working in a workshop. We did some exercises, then we wrote and created a piece and performed it and combined our work with someone else's before the class was done. It was so invigorating. It was fun. It was challenging. It was inspiring. Cannot wait until Saturday! Yee-haw.

how wonderful good friends are

Stuff done: I went to a wedding this past weekend for a very dear friend of mine and it was unbelievable. It was the most beautiful ceremony I think I have ever been to. The reception was amazing. The utter support and love for the newlyweds was so clear. 

It made me realize how wonderful good friends are. You may have certain friends come in and out of your life - when their time passes, it’s gone. This doesn't make any of those friends less important, it's just part of life, it's part of some grander process. You can reconnect with people and it's as if you never missed a step, were never uninformed of something in their lives. If some new piece of information pops into the conversation it's like "oh, wait, did I know that?" and you're off on a new topic.


A quote from the hand blessing: these are the hands that will express passion, gentleness, and strength for you.

Le sigh. Love it. Maybe I’m just a hopeless romantic...

Oh, ps. other stuff done: I started this blog. Let's see if I can keep doing stuff.