birthday card.

here is a card i made for my beautiful friend risa who is turning 20 tomorrow. she is wise beyond her years, and enjoys kundalini yoga (much like myself).

front of card.

Inside. Listing Kundalini Sutras.

The Sutras for the so-called "Aquarian Age" are:

• Understand through compassion; otherwise you might misunderstand the times.
• Recognize that the other person is you.
• When the time is on you, start, and the pressure will be off.
• There is a way through every block.
• Vibrate the cosmos; the cosmos shall clear the path.

Kundalini in general can get pretty out there. Turbans, chanting, men with long beards dressed in white... but ya know, it's fun. Sure you might have to get up at 3am sometimes and find yourself a sheepskin rug, but the overall message is one of hope and compassion. No matter what you believe, or what "age" it is, the sutras seem like pretty good advice to me.

T-Shirts and Tablecloths

Made this quick design yesterday in GIMP. I'd wear this proudly; maybe I could sell some near MIT...

And, in a further effort to make my apartment more ridiculous, I present: old New Yorkers + Shellac = Tablecloth! Good way to get some reading in AND it's disposable! It looks pretty classy in real life, too; shellac will do that.

No time like the goddamn present.  Pass the Trail Mix.

Take that Moby Dick.

This morning I was FINALLY able to do full Garbha Pindasana!!

This has been my Moby Dick at Mysore practice for weeks... can't ever get my friggin right arm all the way through. And if/ when I do, I glamorously fall over like a dead bug.

Today, success.

Success and bruised elbows - but it was worth it !

My usual attempt. 

The way it is supposed to be done, as demonstrated by Shri K. Pattabhi Jois

 Now I just need to get the hang of rolling around on my back like that, clockwise, 9 times and then lifting myself up on both hands AND THEN doing a full jump back from Padmasana.

It'll happen. Maybe a shaved head and awesome diaper get-up would help.

A very, very good year.

So, today, today. November 10th.

Time has always been an issue for me. When I encounter a date, I can't help but think about what I may have been doing this time last year -- or what I might be doing this time next year. Same thing happens with days of the week -- "this time last Wednesday, I was..."

What's strange is how often I know, with a fair amount of precision, what I was doing not only last week, but also last year - and often years previous to that. It's odd, but it has always been this way. I think that this is possible because, up to this point, each year of my life has been profoundly different from the last. New place to live, new people, new hobbies; always change. I'm starting to realize that when too many things aren't changing I begin to feel stuck, as if somehow stability is some indication that progress has ceased and now I must GO and DO. 

Is Going or Doing somehow a measure of success? Well, yes, in a way: if I go and do, I change; I experience something new. My Self needs to cope with new situations and in this way I learn. Learning is improvement, but "improvement," while noble enough in and of itself, somehow seems shallow if confined only to the self. I do not exist in a vacuum. No one does. Part of success for me now is sharing whatever I have had the fortune to learn, in whatever form that may be. I struggle at times keeping these realizations close. The whispers of societal success sometimes transform into loud screams vibrating in my skull with heinous shouts of "MAKE MONEY!" "BE IMPRESSIVE!" "LOOK BEAUTIFUL!"

But then I just return to that old habit of reflection. So much has changed over the years, this one in particular. I really don't know what clicked, but I finally opened up to the possibility of living out my own view of success. Somehow this year the choice felt inevitable. Sadly, however, this inevitability has not made the path less challenging. Certainly more interesting, though. And much, much more satisfying.......

This time last year, I was amazed by leafless trees. 

Jorge Mayet/ De Mis Vivos y Mis Muertos