blisspassport.com

Warrior II pose by Susan Gill

I know we’re only 10 days in but I had not realized the difficulty of the intention I chose.

Last year, “opportunity” was easier. I took actions to create opportunities – Applied for things, made phone calls, sent emails.

“Possibility” is somewhat more passive. It requires shifting my perspective and I’ve already had to bring myself back it more than once. And it’s only Jan. 10!

I feel like putting a giant poster on my wall stating “possibilities, not problems.” I knew this was going to be a tough one when I started out. This economy and my current situation is not one calling for rose-colored glasses. And that’s not my goal. It’s seeing new ways to tackle the problems I already have because they’re not going to disappear.

To this end, I decided to take Yoga Journal’s 21-day yoga challenge.

In true me fashion, I’m starting it a day late. But I’ll do it one day longer to make up for it.

It’s sort of a yoga retreat at home. After my travels in 2010 and 2011, I kept up an at home yoga practice. But that has waned and this is a little taste of bringing that back. Sort of like how I bought spices in Asia and now cook with them to rekindle those memories.

To help focus my mindset, it’ll be good to have something pushing me to my mat everyday. Especially because Santa brought me an awesome new mat.

Cobra pose By Susan Gill

I never thought I would want yoga to be foisted on me. You know, these dreams that you’re body will tell you when to practice and you’ll just want to.

Yes, that’s true. But then there’s the slacker devil on my shoulder. Or maybe it’s the worker devil sitting there saying “You don’t have time for that today.”

In reality, it’s like writing. If I only wrote when I felt I was ready I’d never meet a deadline. All the greats have a writing schedule. You don’t wait for inspiration to hit, you cultivate it.

So I’m taking the same aim at my yoga practice and hoping that translates into not only a more lasting practice but also a daily reminder of my 2012 intention.

Welcoming 2011 with fireworks on the streets of Berlin, Germany By Sonja Bjelland

Heading into these waning days of 2011 I’ve been thinking about a new intention for 2012.

Last year I came up with this idea after resolutions left me unfulfilled. Well, or just not done. As much as I love lists, I think I accomplished more with my new method.

Often a teacher will set an intention at the beginning of a yoga class or encourage you to.

Popular choices include gratitude, compassion and joy.

Those make equally good yearly intentions. But last year I needed a different focus and set my intention to be opportunity.

There’s a quote sitting on the desk I’m working at for the time being, “Opportunity never arrives, it’s here.”

This intention changed my way of thinking as I kept a look out for opportunities. Keeping it to one word made it simple. New ideas percolated and I leapt when a chance presented itself.

It pushed me so when I saw something that was a good story idea I emailed an editor and on occasion got the job. In this last year that has landed me on NYTimes.com and again in Sailing magazine.

I plan to keep that spirit and add on to it with my 2012 intention: possibility.

Keeping warm with sparklers in Berlin By Sonja Bjelland

Society could pretty much be divided among the people who see problems and those who see possibilities. Many of us fall somewhere in between the two extremes. My Virgo sensibilities put me more on the seeing problems end than seeing possibilities.

But these days I’m trying to change that. Seeing possibilities creates opportunity and we’ll watch where 2012 takes me.

Each year, it’s just one step.

But without setting an intention, you don’t have your shoes on.

So what will yours be?

Feel free to share and keep the discussion going.

Snowy sunset near Heidelberg, German by Sonja Bjelland

By Shirin Parsavand

First things first: I didn’t finish the 108. Not even close. I kept moving for most of the class, but toward the end I wasn’t even attempting the Chaturanga or cobra poses. (For anyone who doesn’t practice yoga, that means I stopped doing anything resembling a pushup.)

I didn’t mind though. I wasn’t aiming for perfection on Sunday, or even seeking to be challenged. I went to the class at a nearby studio to stretch my creaky body and to learn about the practice of 108 sun salutations to greet the solstice.

As this blog’s owner, Sonja Bjelland, explained in June, yoga studios often make an event of performing 108 sun salutations to mark the summer and winter solstices. The number 108 is considered significant in Eastern religions, including Hinduism and Buddhism.

To me it seemed counterintuitive to practice yoga vigorously at the start of winter, a season when some yoga instructors say we can benefit from a more calming practice. But any event that honors the change of seasons interests me, because it seems to belong to an ancient time. Christmas may have ties to the solstice, but whether it is celebrated as a religious or secular holiday, the seasonal change itself is seldom the focus in our modern times.

Some people do still observe the winter solstice with traditions handed down through the ages, though. Among them are Iranians and members of the Zoroastrian religion, with roots in ancient Persia, who celebrate Shab-e Yalda on the eve of the solstice.

Winter moon in Illinois by Sonja Bjelland

On that night, friends and family members sit around the korsi, a low table covered in blankets with coals or a heater underneath. They stay up past midnight, telling stories, reciting poetry and eating mixed nuts, pomegranates and watermelon.

Though I’m half-Persian, I’ve never celebrated Shab-e Yalda. But I like the idea of embracing a cold season by gathering where it’s warm and enjoying the last of the summer’s bounty. And by remembering that while winter is just beginning, the nights are about to become a little shorter.

That brings me back to Sunday’s solstice yoga class. Four instructors each led 27 sets of sun salutations, with variations from one set to the next. The room was dimly lit at the start, but after each set, an instructor lit a candle and brightened the lights to mimic the coming of the sun. We moved quickly, but there were restful pauses and new poses to learn. I was surprised at how quickly the two hours went past.

Afterward, I drove off and saw the sun poking out from the clouds and illuminating the yellow leaves on trees along a nearby bike path. I stopped for a short walk to enjoy the midday warmth and watch my long shadow as I moved along the path.

Maybe this year I will stay up until the wee hours of Thursday morning telling stories for Yalda. More likely, I will go to sleep early Wednesday and greet the next day’s sun with a few more sun salutations. Either way, I will remember to notice the subtle changes that winter brings to Southern California, and to enjoy the sun when I can.

Varkala, India By Sonja Bjelland

This last weekend I had the chance to catch up with some old friends.

One reminded me of all the blissed-out wisdom I used to impart from my perch in India. I could take a simple emailed question and turn it into ponderous thoughts on happiness and attachments.

Now I see why people go back to India every year. It’s like a filling station and I need to return to the well.

It’s been more than a year since I left India and eight months since I returned to the States. These past few weeks have been particularly stressful in an American way ­– It’s work stress. Not my traveling stress of making sure I get a train figured out or roll-with-it and it’ll be over soon kind of stress of a chicken bus ride.

Musical service known as aarti in Rishikesh, India By Sonja Bjelland

This is a strong undercurrent of financial worries topped with a dose of deadline pressure wreaking havoc on my body.

I’ve had stories to file to newspapers and magazines and following up with other publications I’m still hoping will pay me. Then I get to see if all this work actually adds up to paying the bills.

It’s a fundamental balance between the opposing beliefs that the world will take you and that you will take on the world. I try to think it’s somewhere in between.

My current weekly yoga classes and attempts at daily meditation and yoga aren’t enough to restore the line of thinking India gave me. Far away from bills and my professional ego, I just sat and wrote.

But we aren’t all meant to escape our daily lives and become hermits even if it’s helpful for a little while. Yoga is about lessons that we bring to this crazy world. It’s easy to beat ourselves up for not following them, human as we are.

Tonight I needed to attend a yoga class for a story assignment. I didn’t even want to go and kept thinking about how I needed to be writing about yoga instead of doing it. Of course I felt better after class, but the writing was waiting for me when I got home.

So how do you retain a kernel of that experience when you leave a yoga retreat or vacation?  Coming back to this space to write helps. It breaks the cycle of whatever else I’m on deadline for and allows/forces me to think about yoga. But I’m looking for more if you’ve got some ideas.

I’d like to think if the same simple questions crossed my email now I’d still hand out some wisdom with a smaller dose of the cynicism and satire that remain part of my personality. But my brain has shifted the longer I’m back in the States. I’m working faster, I’m moving faster. People see me as a bit high strung, if only they’d met me before.

BaliSpirit Festival attendees attempt the acrobatics yoga posed I rocked in class the other night. By Sonja Bjelland

Held up by my friend’s feet, I was floating over the floor.

Then the giggles set in.

I was tipping forward and trying to tighten my abs but I cracked up instead and recovered before I went into full Tickle-Me-Elmo hysterics.

Several feet above the padded floor, I felt vulnerable, ungrounded.

The giggles apparently are a natural part of play and that’s exactly what acrobatic yoga was.

I’d seen such moves when I attended the BaliSpirit Festival earlier this year but was too worn out to try it myself. When a friend mentioned a class here in Colorado Springs at the rock climbing gym, City Rock, I figured it was time to try it out.

The nature of the location prevents the type of calming environment I’m used to in yoga classes but it brings out other elements that are hard to achieve in a more traditional yoga practice.

At its core, yoga is individual. I can practice at home or in a class and never touch another person the whole time. I don’t even have to speak to anyone save the person I’m handing money to.

Acrobatic yoga adds almost a 3D element. You’re not alone in your practice anymore.

Partner acrobatics yoga at the BaliSpirit Festival By Sonja Bjelland

The class I attended taught by Jeremy Hasty started with group introductions and efforts such as lining up in a circle and squatting together in chair pose with each person supporting the person in front of them. You’d better get used to touching because there’s going to be a lot of it.

That also means the challenges in a pose are not fully on you either. You and your partner have to communicate when something’s too much or just off.

I know there’s some argument if this is yoga or just some commoner’s attempt to look all Cirque Du Soleil. But it does require a heck of a lot of focus, serious breath work and individual muscle contractions. But then it takes that to another level by involving trust in your body and in your space. Not to mention your partner.

At one point, I was suspended in a locust pose held up again only by my partner’s feet not noticing how long I’d been there. He finally piped up and asked if I was just going to hang out there. I guess I was in the zone.

I watched our instructors do some incredibly complicated poses and realized the woman had no fear of being suspended in air. Maybe it helps that a lot of the people in class are rock climbers. Something else on my list of to dos.

But I have hung dozens of feet above sailboats while fixing mast parts and as the smallest child in my class typically was the one thrown around in elementary school cheerleading and gymnastics.

As adults we loose that comfort of freedom. We become more and more unable to let our bodies and minds float in new ways. Yes, this requires some good grounding poses afterward. But the mental follows the physical and the same in reverse so it’s worth it to let our bodies and our minds find new movement once in a while. Now I’ll have to go back for the slackline yoga class on Tuesdays.  Yep, that’s yoga on a wide tightrope.

Lighted tree near Heidelberg, Germany By Sonja Bjelland

It’s already getting busy. Weekends are filling up and it never seems like there’s enough time to get everything we want done for the holidays.

I’m even listening to some Christmas music to keep the spirit up. “Scarlet Ribbons” to be exact.

All add up to good reasons to give yourself a holiday yoga break.

It’s not likely most of us have time to enjoy a little weekend retreat right now, but many studios are having special holiday restorative classes. A great way to regroup after being on your feet shopping all day and get your head out of all that holiday anxiety.

I know in the past I had this massive list – cookies to bake, presents to buy. I’d get myself organized starting after Halloween and work my way through it. I happen to love the excitement of the holidays and being busy so this wasn’t something bad to me.

Economics and location have meant a scaled back version this year and a focus on continuing the holiday spirit without so many trimmings. One of the many special holiday classes allows yogis to come back to that sense of joy and warmth that shopping and hassles can diminish.

This Saturday, Yoga House in Pasadena, Calif., will continue its tradition of holiday restorative classes and mix it with live music. As noted on the website, many cultures see winter as a time for “introspection and hibernation.” Our body wants one thing and we’re forcing it to hit shopping malls and make small talk at office parties. A restorative class brings you back into hibernation mode if even just for an hour.

Stuttgart Christkindl market By Sonja Bjelland

The following weekend, Rasa Center for Yoga and Wellness in Meford, Ore., will hold a Holiday Restoration class on Dec. 10. Using supports such a heavy pillows called bolsters it’s a type of yoga that lets your body stretch and release without all the sweat.

Now if you are able to head overseas, NataRaj yoga in Cambodia is doing a yoga and trekking retreat. Mixed with a 5-hour jungle hike, the yoga and meditation program is run by an organization that I practiced with when I was in Cambodia that helps teach yoga to victims of sex trafficking.

If come Christmas Day you’re in need of more release, all across the U.S., CorePower studios is having customers post on its Facebook page what they do to give back and then Christmas Day yoga classes will benefit certain charities.

Maybe you can all at least find one such class or have a mini-restorative class at home to bring you out of anxiety and into holiday bliss.

In those days after Thanksgiving, yoga studios around the U.S. gathered some of us to recenter ourselves and think about others. OK and maybe work off a few of those sweet potatoes.

That sent my friend Shirin Parsavand to a yoga fundraiser benefiting Haiti and allowed her to meet the people involved. She’s written a guest post for us today to learn more about it.

Living in inland Southern California, I knew the tall pines and rustic wooden buildings in the mountain community of Idyllwild provide a welcome change of scene from the congested cities nearby.

I learned Friday that among the approximately 3,000 year-round residents is a tight-knit group of people who are quick to pitch in on each other’s projects. At the center of one such group is Kate Sirkin, the owner of Idyllwild Yoga Studio.

Sirkin got an immediate response when she planned a benefit to raise money for building a school in Haiti, a country still devastated from last year’s massive earthquake.

Outside of Idyllwild Yoga Studio with items for a silent auction during a fundraiser Friday to benefit Project Edeline, an effort to build a school in Haiti. By Shirin Parsavand

“The minute I put the call out, people were right on it,” Sirkin said Friday, as the fundraiser to benefit the school got under way.

Businesses donated artwork, jewelry and gift certificates for a silent auction. She also got ready offers of help from fellow yoga instructors. Judi Way, who owns a Pilates studio next door, and instructor Sandi Fulcher joined Sirkin to offer yoga classes throughout the day.  Donations and sales at the fundraiser added up to nearly $1,300 to go toward Project Edeline, named after earthquake survivor Edeline Felizor.

Felizor hopes to run a free school in Haiti, where many children do not attend school because their families cannot afford the fees and supplies. Felizor worked as an elementary school teacher in Port-au-Prince and before the earthquake was studying to become a high school teacher. She was in a building that collapsed during the earthquake and was trapped for several hours in the rubble with a broken neck and five fractured vertebrae. It was more than a week before she received surgery on a U.S. military hospital ship.

Felizor and her sister Isemene now live near San Diego, thanks to Byron Shewman, who met Felizor in Haiti while working as a translator for a medical team. Shewman is managing Project Edeline through his nonprofit, Youth Without Borders, which works on Haiti relief.

Shewman, who knew Felizor would not get the physical therapy she needed in Haiti, arranged for humanitarian visas so the sisters could come to the United States. He also found a physical therapist near San Diego willing to treat Felizor at no charge.

Edeline in the snow near Julian, Calif., early this year. Photo courtesy of Byron Shewman

Sirkin met Felizor through that physical therapist, Stephanie Hoffman. Now, the community of Idyllwild, about two hours from San Diego, has developed a connection to Shewman, Felizor and the school project. Early this year, Felizor came to Idyllwild for a monthly forum where she sang and told her story to about 75 people.

Lou Bacher, a friend of Sirkin’s, was at that talk and said he was deeply moved. He spent Friday running the silent auction outside the yoga studio for Project Edeline.

Bacher is president of the Idyllwild Help Center, which provides food and other services to local people in need. He said he understands the difficulty of aid work in places like Haiti but still believes in the school.

“Yes, it’s possible. If enough people get behind it and the organization stays legitimate, absolutely, it can be done,” Bacher said.

So far, Shewman said, Project Edeline has raised about $20,000 of the estimated $200,000 needed to purchase land, build the school and run it for the first year. Plans call for the school to begin small, starting with three kindergarten classes of 25 students each, and expand gradually. To learn more about Project Edeline, visit Youth Without Borders at http://youthwborders.org/.

Ceiling of Venue 515, host of the Manitou Springs Thanksgiving yoga class

More than 50 people showed up this morning in a stone and barn like art studio grateful for a pre-turkey yoga class.

I’d expected an easy, general class. Some light stretching and a couple warrior poses.

But the Manitou Yoga teacher, Patrick, didn’t let us off easy. He knows his regulars can handle it and figured we needed some ab work today.

I watched as the gray-haired, paunchy man next me floated his right hand and leg in the air for a side plank pose, like a cartwheel on your side. Now keep holding it.

He ended class telling us rest our brains today because we should lead with our hearts.

It’s something to remember all year round, but especially during the holidays when we spend a lot of time around family and people tend to stress out.

To hold on to this sense of heart and gratitude, studios across the country are holding Thanksgiving weekend events.

IIdyllwild Yoga Studio, in inland Southern California, will be open for free yoga classes Friday as part of a benefit to raise money for building a school in Haiti. Thanks to BlissPassport friend Shirin Parsavand for letting me know that the school is the dream of Edeline Felizor, a survivor of the 2010 earthquake in Haiti who now lives in the San Diego area. Studio owner Kate Sirkin got to know Felizor and decided she wanted to help with that dream.

Haiti's tent city By Jessica Kang

Sirkin told Shirin she chose Thanksgiving weekend for the benefit because that’s when the small mountain community of Idyllwild draws many visitors. Along with yoga, she’ll have food, entertainment and a silent auction featuring jewelry, artwork and other items.

In New Jersey, Onyx Mind Body is doing a 90-minute session with class members separating into slow and a hot flow before coming back together for a relaxation session. Depends I guess on if you’re feeling like working off those calories or just feeling a little better about it.

The Yoga in Common studio in Myrtle Beach, S.C., is holding a whole three days of yoga starting with Friday’s energizing and metabolizing class followed by a harmonizing class on Saturday and a restoring and renewing class this Sunday.

Nearby on Pawley’s Island, Island Wave Yoga is holding multiple events. Celebrating and countering the in-store frenzy, their Black Friday event focuses on “restoring your sanity” by having yoga classes, massages and a sale on gear and gift certificates. Following that, their weekend intensive honors this busy time of year with classes are only three hours on Saturday and Sunday.

Similar such events are taking place in cities and villages across the U.S. so think about  Googling them in your area and clearing your mind to reset your goals and attitude on entering this holiday season.

By Susan Gill

Recent emails about re-uping my hosting and domain name for BlissPassport reminded me that it’s been two years since I started this venture.

Since I purchased BlissPassport.com on Nov. 20, 2009, you loyal readers have followed me across 14 countries and several states.

I’m hoping you’ll follow along for several more journeys as I continue to build this site.

Actually, it won’t be quite this site that I’m building. In the next few months, I’ll be transitioning over to www.YogaRetreatsandTravel.com.

I’ll still post great yoga finds and give you travel tips with the addition of listings and reviews of yoga retreats and resorts.

In business speak, I’m taking it to the next level.

It’s been a long journey to get here and I am grateful for everyone who has helped me. I had the first nugget of this idea back in the summer of 2009. I’d been working full time in daily newspapers for almost 10 years. The industry was not looking good but it was all I’d ever known. Newsrooms are not something left willingly or lightly by most journalists.

Kanyakumari, India By Sonja Bjelland

I loved what I did. So believing that I could possibly do something else created a major shift in my brain that ultimately saved me. I didn’t see most newspapers as having a very sustainable business model and all of us had to prepare for a day when our job was no longer there. That day came for me sooner than I’d planned but it also opened time for me to focus on building a new career.

This road has not been easy as my savings have evaporated into Indian dust and I have debated if this is the best use of my talents. I have loved all the amazing places I have had the opportunity to see and the chance twice each week to sit with myself and think about something related to yoga. Even if it’s on deadline and I’m staring at a blank page, this site has been a way of bringing myself back to the wisdom of the practice. I’m hoping that it does the same for at least a few of you.

I will continue to pursue my goal of bringing more information to those who want to travel with yoga and share my insights about the world with my readers. From my days covering homicides to now, my focus has always been to help people understand a part of the world they cannot see themselves. It’s a sisyphean task because people don’t often want to know what I want to tell them.

But that’s part of the journey that’s yoga for me. Enlightening those around me without judgment but with observations.

Fall colors in Colorado By Sonja Bjelland

For many of us across the U.S., some pretty serious temperature shifts hit this last week.

The weather changing around us can send our bodies and minds into orbit.

Everything can feel unsettled and difficult.

It might not even be in your conscience, but a few yoga moves can help warm up your body and acknowledging the change.

This is also key for times when you travel and hit a massive temperature shift.

I know for the holidays many of you will be heading from warmer climates to a land of snow and mittens. Some of you may head in the opposite direction though and end up sweating in Florida or Arizona.

Either way, a couple yoga hints I picked up at a recent class will help ease those degree-changing transitions. And yes, that means I’ve finally found a class I like.

* Warm up your body with the breath of fire exercise. This breathing exercise has you make short releases of breath through your nose. When I was in India, we would have to do this for multiple minutes at a time. Not sure I really needed to be warmed up in India but it does a good job.

* Cool off your body by breathing in slowly through your nose and feeling the breath cool the brain. Imagine the heat releasing from your body. Instructors in Thailand and Bali would have classes do this when hot yoga was the only option.

* Keep warming up the belly with ab work. Oh yeah, time for some crunches. Really, it’ll warm you up and help with everything you’re going to be chowing down in the next two months. Do yourself good and while on your back push the soles of your feet up to the ceiling while you raise your shoulder blades off the floor. Yeah, now do that 19 more times.

* Cool off with forward bends. This is a calming pose that’s also good for easing your mind before bed. It relaxes the body and releases stress and heat. Just bend over and let your arms and head dangle.

* Stretch out hip muscles. OK this might not warm you up or cool you down but until we all have jetpacks travel will require sitting. That shortens our hip muscles and leads to back problems. Yoga Journal has a great primer on the problem and what to do about it.