1 Year Married to my Love

A year ago today, we were married on the most perfect autumn day here on Nantucket.  It was an intimate, joyous, spirit-filled gathering and today we go back to the same spot with our boy.  How beautiful life can be.  We've had the most full year of our lives, and we are grateful for so much love.

 www.lovebyjen.com--photographer

*We also remember Grandma Frances Paulson today.

Yoga during women's Moon time

Yoga happenings as of late have been scattered as usual in my mommy life.  I've been focusing on reclaiming a strong sirsana (headstand), so I'm at least doing that every day.  Feels great!  When I can't make it to a real class (which I did not this week), I practice at home for sure, and sometimes you just need an extra push my someone else doing the thinking.  There are a variety of podcasts or videos one can choose from.  I love my friend Sarah's!  She is such a skilled teacher and since I miss seeing her and taking her class in person, well, these are the next best thing.  Plus, they are free (though I highly suggest donating if you plan to do them on a regular basis)!  You can find the link at the upper corner of this here blog.  I did a nice 50 min. slow flow the other day that hit the spot.
Today, however, it's my Moon time.  Yes, I mean menstrual flow.  All of us women get it, no shame in bringing it up here!  And yes, I am one of the 10% or so of breastfeeding mothers who actually get theirs regularly (and have been since month 2 pp).  Glad to know, right? ')  Anyway, no headstands for me today.  The full moon is approaching in a few days and it's time for me to honor rest in my body.  As Isak naps, I just did a long stint in child's pose, some down dog, some hanging forward fold.  Add on a couple of very slow vinyasas then holding some forward folds, such as janu sirsana, parsvotanasana, and paschimottanasana.  Ending with gentle legs up the couch (onto pillows)!
Sarah's podcasts inspire me to make one someday (hopefully in the year to come) for exactly this--a woman's moon time.  It's left out of classes much too often and women should feel encouraged to take it however they choose.
Here's to healthy menstrual flows!

Now off to a delightful autumn island weekend:  time spent with Isak's grandparents, cranberry festival, farmers market, Yogawoman viewing with Nantucket yoginis, my 1st wedding anniversary with my love (and hopefully date night out!), and gratitude.

Getting into a new Flow with the first Autumn New Moon

I had planned to attend Clay's vinyasa class at The Yoga Room this morning...but my 6 1/2 month old boy decided he wanted to nurse 30 min. before class started.  I did zoom there but clocking in at 7 minutes too late, well, that is not so cool when it's a pretty full class already.  So, I began to head back home but it was a brilliant morning and heck, I already had the time to myself slotted, so why not head to the beach?  Nantucket is splendid this time of year.  I was the only person on the beach.  With water bottle and yoga mat in tow, I took some solitude to honor the Libra New Moon and work on balancing asanas.  A butterfly greeted me, seabirds twitted about, and then just as I was entering nataranjasana, a sweet seal swam up to greet me!  The sea sparkled and I am grateful.  So THIS is how one flows.  So happy I didn't just head home.  Learning to find balance in life is probably the hardest thing humans attempt, but yoga (and striving to live your yoga) is one of the only ways I have experienced it to be somewhat possible.  These days I find myself doing yoga asanas on walks while Isak is in the baby bjorn, in front of the tv if my husband and I want to watch something, out on the deck while baby is sleeping in his swing...so when I do have time slotted to myself just for me, well I better use it to breathe and move my body intuitively.
I am awakened a bit from the weekend, when the uber inspiring, down to earth, so experienced yogis of the White Lotus Foundation came to lead a retreat.  Ganga White and Tracey Rich were here to teach 3 days of asana, pranayama, meditation.  I was only able to sign up for the Saturday morning session, but I was so happy that I did!  I have not taken a workshop with such "high profile" yogis in the longest time where there was no ounce of ego from either of them, and I felt at ease and connected to learning new ways of looking at the breath and asanas.  I have been thinking about it ever since and am already scheming in my brain how I can study with them again someday.  Thank you Caitlin Marcoux for getting them to come here and share their energies!
With these last couple of days of listening to myself and doing what I feel, it's a strong Libra New Moon message.  I am ready to start a new cycle and to stop beating myself up.  As a new mom, life can be confusing and it's easy to get caught up in the rat race of shoulds and should nots.  I've felt a little lost at times knowing that I'm not back to teaching yet in Boston, I'm not working on marketing myself...will my students remember me?  Will I still be a desirable teacher?  Will I move out of mommy brain fog and remember how to be a smooth, knowledgable teacher?  Of course I will.  But it's taken me 6 months to find my flow again (in yoga practice, in motherhood, in who I am) and well, maybe it will take 6 more to get back to my teaching groove.  I don't care for the new competitiveness of the yoga world.  It leaves new mommies who like to live a simple life feeling like they don't exist anymore.  There's always a hot new yogini to take my place.

When thoughts like this enter my realm, I go back to the books I'm reading at the moment (Yoga as Medicine, Living Your Yoga, Iron Butterflies: Women Transforming Themselves and the World) and I take it all in.  I look at my sweet, beautiful, fun baby boy and I take it all in.  I kiss my supportive and amazing husband and I take it all in.  This is what my life is about right now.  My flow is a slow flow.  I will return to the fast paced flow soon enough and then I will yearn for this slow life back.  That's usually how it works, right?  But maybe I'm learning.  Maybe I'll hold on to some of this slowness and bring it back to the city.  Balance.  For now, I eat a little chocolate each day, dance with the flowers, feel the wind in my warrior, and love it just as it is.

Happy Autumn Equinox!

Here we go again...into a new season, and a new time for change.  The Libra New Moon is approaching and today is the time to bring life back to balance after the carefree time of summer.  Let's plant new internal seeds for more peace, joy, prosperity in our lives and let go of loneliness, confusion, chaos.

These photos are from last weekend (when dear friends were visiting and we made flower essences from the garden) up until yesterday (where my family and I stumbled upon an elf house in the woods).  Isak ended up on the mat with me after his nap, at the end of my practice!  We sent our energy out for the new season together.  Nantucket is so much like Iceland on days like this.  Fog and mist surround us here, and all glows with magic.

"When love speaks to you, believe in it, though its voice may shatter your dreams as the north wind lays waste the garden."  --From The Prophet

End of Summer Update

Hi hi my yoga friends,

I think of all of you SO very much.  It's true!  Random visions of many of you will pop into my brain when I'm practicing or when taking a class.  I'll see all of your different versions/alignments of asanas, I'll feel the energy from an old class if I'm practicing to an old playlist, or I'll hear some of your voices asking questions or telling me stories.  This is all proof for how much I miss teaching and how much it's such a part of me.  Since becoming a mother, I feel an even deeper urge to DO something more with teaching.  To create something that will take it to another level.  This is my new journey and I am excited to see what may come of it.  

DO share your latest yoga stories with me!  It will help me reconnect with you all and still be around (sort of).  Where are you practicing?  What has changed in your practice?  Anything you'd like to see different for when I do return?  Would love to hear your thoughts.  

So, I say final Summer update because it IS still summer ya know?  Maybe not in the sense of school or vacations or whatnot, and maybe the weather is changing, but we do have 2 more true weeks of summer left.  I hope you're all enjoying it in various ways and preparing to celebrate the coming season with a new spirit of patience and east.  

And patience?  Well, I talked a bit about it in the last blog post.  And now I need it even more, as we have found out that the work on our home in Somerville is probably going to last until November!  November?!  I won't be returning home until then, and maybe not even back to teaching til sometime after that?  Ugh.  Okay, deep breath, and again, patience.  

One thing that is very cool about this?  We get to continue living on the "faraway island" of Nantucket!  Now that it's beginning to be off-season here, we are much more on our own, with fewer visitors, and less people and tourists around.  It's really been special to be here all summer.  And now instead of being back to the daily grind, we get a couple more months to take in the magic of this land.  And to do it in autumn!  Plus, we got married here almost one year ago, and it will be lovely to celebrate here again, now with our little Isak.  

Another positive about getting to stay here longer?  More time to continue cultivating my practice.  If I were back in town again, I'd have millions of "things to do" on my schedule.  Out here I get to practice when I make the effort to, which has been often (yay!), around 5-6 days a week.  I'm so much stronger now (6 months postpartum)...hello chaturanga and continued vinyasas!  Still just working on getting some inversions back and such, but am in no rush to hurry on the advanced asanas.  In time.  

Luckily, I get to keep attending class at The Yoga Room.  It's such a peaceful studio with skilled teachers.  It's a joy to find a presence there and develop some relationship with the community over here.  Thank you Bettina, Sally, Paul, Elizabeth, Caitlin, Shannah, Clay...

Next time I write, it will be the new season and we'll all be in a new place internally, yet again.  Do connect with me on facebook or on here if you haven't already.

So, here's to fun yoga, new experiences, bright futures for us all.  

love, love,

Jenn

P.S.  My possible Family-oriented Yoga Vacay to St. Lucia-2012 is still in the cards.  If you or others you may know might be interested, contact me as soon as you can!  The earlier I know of interested folks, the easier it will be for me to make it happen.  Plan is for first week of March...

Oh, and a few more fun photos!

Since I won't be back to teaching in the Cambridge and Somerville areas until mid-fall, I'll try to update with more photos from time to time.  Isak is 5 1/2 months now and we're all doing great!

Practice, Practice, and August brings Patience

Here is my day so far....
Wake up with my boys sometime around 7:30.  Play and relax a bit with morning smoothie, coffee, and try to see if I can make it to the morning yoga class.  Not in the cards today due to timing, but ended up becoming a blessing because I got to do a full (I mean almost 90 min. of yoga) practice outside in a shady spot with my husband painting and my baby sleeping next to me.  What bliss!  For this to have happened was such a gift because rarely does the nap schedule of Isak fall into place just so...where I can get in a full practice (usually it's 20 min. here, 30 min. there, etc.).  Plus, for our whole little family to get to be together in the same space (near my mother in law's beautiful garden!) doing what we love for a piece of the morning... so rejuvenating.

You see, we've not been succeeding too well as of the last couple of weeks in keeping to our goals of the day.  My practice has been inconsistent for various reasons and it started to get my spirits down.  It can be hard enough to figure out time management as an individual, but then throw in an infant and try to get things done!  I now totally feel for and relate to all parents (especially you, Mom's) out there.  You'd think it'd be easy for us out here on Nantucket.  We are out of our usual weekly work during this time of transition, and it's amazingly peaceful of course.  We have had a lot of family around and visitors, plus my Isak and I just took a week long trip to Philly to see the Pici crew.  So, trying to schedule in everything we need to get done as well as personal time while also needing to visit with family members and tend to everyday things (cooking, laundry, cleaning up); well it can be overwhelming and exhausting.  Having an infant, may, above all other things, teach you patience.  For now at least, time is on his little hands.  Isak can only tell me what he needs through cries, gurgles, and facial expressions.  Learning them is the best thing in the world.  Sometimes I end up spending much longer than I should just holding him or sitting and playing with him, when I could be getting things done.  Another yogini mom friend of mine sent out an article this week about parenthood.  In it, the author discussed this very issue of 'being in the moment,' because your babies just move forward and grow so fast.  So I am working on letting go of dirty clothes, diapers, unwritten emails, missed chances of reading that article or searching for new music, because I don't need not doing those things bringing me down.  This is the time for me to be slow at life.  To be off the radar for a bit.
This doesn't mean I don't get time for ME each day.  And that is a whole new concept I am figuring out and trying to incorporate into this new life.  It simply means I have to be patient with myself, my baby, and my husband.  I have to manage time in a whole new way, and be okay if things don't go as planned.  And then some days, like today, it all just falls into place.  Ahh!