loving the sun and warmth!
Yay! Had a happy week. Got to work at BOTH places I enjoy freelancing at, my other project’s finally kicked in, and that means $$ will be coming in for me again.
This is a good thing. No. It is an EXCELLENT thing.
Tuesday’s teacher training was canceled, which was a YAY because I got an extra free day, but the reason was a BOO because my teacher had a family emergency. 🙁 Still, I got to go to Mia‘s class, which I haven’t in months, and it was so nice to be there again.
I’m seriously drawing a blank about Wednesday, except there was an AWESOME Amber Cook class involved. But that’s all I remember. Weird, right?
Thursday night, I attended a food healing workshop with Moses & Zeina. Oh my goodness. I learned SO MUCH. And got to taste some yummy things (cheesy kale for the win!)…. and I got to taste some things that made my tongue very angry. Yeah, pesto made from cilantro and onions? NEVER AGAIN.
Friday night, I attended a Kundalini workshop (another Moses & Zeina special) that included a fire ceremony and gong meditation.
I never realized how beautiful a gong could sound. My fault for only really knowing of them from The Gong Show, I suppose. Anyway. Every savasana should include gongs. Or wind chimes. (I once took a workshop and there were wind chimes and that was also amazing.) But this GONG. Wow. I’m actually looking up gong meditation albums on emusic.com. I don’t know if my iPod can replicate what it’s like being in the room with a gong, but seeing as I’m not going to be carting one around with me, listening to it in my iPod will have to do. 🙂
Although, I believe Kundalini Yoga In The Loop has gong meditation regularly….must research this more. AND THEN ATTEND ASAP!!
Speaking of Kundalini yoga… I’ve done it before, but wanted to try it in a class setting. It’s so so so different from what one thinks of as yoga. There are no asanas; there are kriyas, which is a set of kundalini exercises. The thing about Kundalini is that it’s hard core. It can bring up some stuff. The kriyas are uncomfortable, confrontational, and cleansing. Therefore, they are awesome. And scary.
I am so grateful for the opportunities I’m getting during my teacher training. Chances to push my practice. Chances to meet great people, learn new things. It’s seriously been insane in the best way possible. And I’m only what, 10 weeks or so into the program? There is so much more learning to be done, so many more experiences to have. I’m excited!
This journey is filling me with so much joy, and I want more! 😀
(I also got the cutest pair of yoga pants. Tie-died and pink with purple piece signs on the butt. My friend Christine says they give new meaning to the phrase “Piece/peace of ass.”)
The weather’s been great all week! Nice and warm, hot some days. Beautiful. Blue skies, sunshine. My favorite! Of course, it’s going to get cool and rainy by the end of the week, but for now? Loving it! This is the best Memorial Day weekend weather I’ve had since I moved here!!
I’d forgotten that I’d purchased a Disney Parades CD when I was at Disney World during one of my trips. Mickey’s Jammin’ Jungle Parade is a track on that album. WHAT. That song had only been stuck in my head for months since I was in the parade. OK, and only that first part because that’s the part of the parade Adam and I were in, so we only heard that loop over and over for 20 minutes BUT THAT’S NOT THE POINT. The point is that I’d had this CD, and had apparently already imported it onto my computer. I could have been listening to the parade all this time! And also hearing the REST of the parade at that. So, I’ve been making up for lost time. 🙂 Brings back happy memories!
I also looked on YouTube to see if anyone happened to record and post a video of my parade, but NOPE. Someone posted one from the DAY BEFORE, though. Oh well.
OK, so I started this entry many hours ago. This is what kept distracting me from finishing:
1. Aidan called.
2. I ate dinner.
3. Aidan called again.
4. I ate a 2nd dinner while watching the O.C.
5. Aidan called again.
6. I talked to my mom.
So now, it’s 1am, I’m trying to decide if I should get this gong meditation CD: Gong Suite: Six Meditations, but I need to be braiding my hair and getting to bed. LONG awesome Sunday ahead, and I need my beauty sleep!
I leave you with a photo of me reading one of my favorite magazines, more than 12 years running:
I’ll decide about the CD tomorrow/today. Right now, I’m going to sleep. Well, I’m gonna braid my hair first, probably have a snack, THEN sleep.
Byeeeee! 🙂
I am demanding a photo of you in those yoga pants. 🙂
OK OK. If I can figure out how to get a really flattering pic! 🙂
Need to see those pants – piece of ass love it
This is the 2nd request for pix. I tried to take one myself but it’s not that good. LOL.
I’d be curious to hear what your experience is with the gong meditation recordings and whether or not the experience listening to the recording on your iPod was comparable to your experience in person.
I spent twenty minutes trying to write a really geeky comment about listening and how we perceive sound, but i the end I decided to delete it because if there’s one thing I’ve learned about sound, the more you learn about it, the more your perception and experience change… and well, it’s something I’d rather not lay down on a person if they don’t want to hear it. 🙂
I’d LOVE to hear it, Nikkiana!!! 😀 Thank you for offering.
So sorry I’m just getting back to this now, I keep almost having a reply written and then I get distracted and accidentally close the browser window! Eek!
One of the cool things about sound is this… the vibrations aren’t just perceived by your ears, they’re perceived by your entire body, your ear just happens to be the organ of your body that’s fine tuned to process sound… If you’re paying attention, you might notice that the sound is causing different sensations in your body. You might notice certain parts of your body tingling, and it might change depending on what the tone is that’s being played.
When you’re in the room with an instrument (like a gong) or you’re listening to something on a reasonably decent set of speakers, the room you’re in is going to be filled with sound and you can notice these sorts of things within your body. Whereas, if you’re listening to something with a set of headphones, you’re limiting the range of things that you could be feeling because they’re directional to your ear specifically.
Based on that, being in the room vs. listening to a recording on headphones would seem to lend itself to say that you’re not going to have a similar visceral experience… However, I tend to believe based on nothing more than my own random experimenting around (aka feel free to take this with a grain of salt) is that when I listen to something on earphones, I will still feel the tones that I’m hearing through my ears in my body because my brain knows how that particular tone is supposed to feel in addition to how it sounds, and I don’t need to be physically feeling it vibrating along the floor to be able to feel it in my foot.
It’s neat stuff.
I agree with you. I know I won’t be able to recreate it in my headphones, and I know for sure that even if I had surround sound speakers, it wouldn’t be the same as being in the room with the gong. I really want to try to attend some of the gong baths in the city this fall because I want that full body immersion and experience.
Thank you for sharing! 🙂