Because I love Jal Neti and recently bought a new ceramic neti pot, I’ve decided to rerun a post from a few months back.
Please enjoy reading about this wonderful shat karma.

Here I am, setting up to do jal neti in Chamrajanagar, Karnataka, India.

Jal neti, or nasal irrigation, is a beautiful cleansing process that removes excess mucus and pollutants from the nasal passage and sinuses. Read the rest of this entry »

Here is something a friend of mine recently passed along. I thought I’d share it.

Clarity Statements

1. These are the ways my childhood affected me.

2. These are the problems that I cause myself.

3. This is how I work on myself.

4. This is who I am.

5. This is what I want to add to my life.

Each statement is an essential building block to the one following it.

I am happy to announce the opening of my photography exhibit at Stain in Brooklyn! The show, which features 41 images from India, officially opened last night. The opening party will be this Thursday, July 10th, starting at 7pm! Stay after 9 and here live jazz music by The Tom Blatt Project. See below for directions.

Read the rest of this entry »

If you’re in the United States, I hope you’ve had an enjoyable long weekend. I spent a bit of time on the North Fork of Long Island with my family, which was lovely.

Before leaving the city on Friday, I taught a morning class at East Yoga in Alphabet City. En route there on the Q train, I came across an article in the New York Times Metro section that was particularly moving… or maybe it’s just particularly New York.
You can read A New York Slice of America, July 3: 128 Riders United by clicking the title.

“Without firm foundations a house cannot stand. Without the practice of the principles of yama and niyama (social and self discipline), which lay down firm foundations for building character, there cannot be an integrated personality. Practice of asanas without the backing of yama and niyama is mere acrobatics.”
- B.K.S. Iyengar, the 1st Requisites of Yogasanas, Light on Yoga

Finding balance in sari. Tamil Nadu, December 2007

While we were out for a drive the other day, my mother mentioned that her physical therapist friend has been treating a rising number of patients with yoga related injuries. This brought to mind something a very wise teacher of mine once said. It was something along the lines of, “Yoga has and can never hurt me. I have only hurt myself by misusing (misunderstanding) yoga.”

Read the rest of this entry »

Enjoying the heat of a steamy New York Sunday morning. The humidity is actually ideal practicing yogasana and I look forward to a somewhat gentle self-practice before teaching in Park Slope this afternoon. My experiments in Macrobiotics have been going well and I apologize for not providing more information over the past few days. Read the rest of this entry »

The following is a quote I find very grounding and try to remember if I feel my concentration involuntarily shifting elsewhere. It is quoted in B.K.S. Iyengar’s Light on Yoga. He does not directly reference the source.

“Yoga is not for him who gorges too much, nor for him who starves himself. It is not for him who sleeps too much, not for him who stays awake. By moderation in eating and in resting, by regulation in working and by concordance in sleeping and waking, Yoga destroys all pain and sorrow.”

Fabulous and sometimes stressful New York. The Brooklyn Bridge on the first day of June’s heatwave.
Read the rest of this entry »

The latest blog topics seem to be food.

A few weeks back, I decided to eventually experiment with a macrobiotic diet and write about my experience and exploration. Well, the time has come. Until recently, I knew next to nothing about macrobiotics, which means “large/ long life” in Greek.
My palate was first wetted (literally) back in April at Souen, a wonderful macrobiotic restaurant by Union Square. (There is also one in SoHo.) Since this dinner with my friend Joe Young, I keep hearing radiant things about macrobiotics.
Read the rest of this entry »