"I don't care who you are, that's funny right there."

Random title from Cars which I have resumed watching almost every night since I am back in St. Paul with Nathan who must watch it every night. :)

So the random funny thing: We just bought my daddy an iPod for his birthday. Great dad gift - he feels young and cool and hip when he has new tech stuffs. I cannot describe the happiness of watching him lie on the couch tapping on his feet with his eyes closed, howling along to "eternal flame." All kinds of priceless. I have it on video but I think that's not very nice to my da. :)

Adventures in Going Green in my Belly!

This week I slowly became more sure of wanting to live a vegetarian life. At first I wasn't deadset, then it sort of just happened... so yes, its still super early on, but its been really funny and fun so far. My daddy just arrived at my sister's place for Thanksgiving and he loves to cook, and almost every dish has meat, so as a nice transition for him, we bought some meatless ground meat looking soy stuff by Bocca. I dunno why but the whole fam thought it was sooooo exciting to make "nu ro bing" a.k.a. chinese beef patty things... but without beefs. EKEKEKEKE. WEEEEE!

Its been really eye opening so far though. It reminds me in a less drastic way of the pink triangle exercise in my InterGroup Dialogue course where we all wore pink triangles for a week and would take not to see when we kept it on, when we took it off, and how we replied to people asking about it. Just in the sense of realizing how it is to be in the "un-normalized" life-style, but of course diff in more ways. But yeah - sometimes I avoid using the V word, sometimes I get super defensive, and its been weird to see how people react if they hear the V word... they right away ask my reasons, and then slowly beging trying to break apart each of these arguments... I think to myself... "um, why?" Reading about it a lot has helped a lot. I even read how there's like this really juvenile thing that happens between vegetarians about who's more hardcore, or its better to be lacto-veg or ovo-veg or however its called. Woah momma.

Its also been eye opening w.r.t. nutitrition. Those 7th grade health classes that I never paid attention to are starting to ring a bell again! ;p Its hard to believe I've lived 25 years of my life without ever a 2nd thought to nutrition besides MAYBE too much fat or something. Aiyo.

My mom is turning veg for health reasons with me. She has already been off dairy for a while now. My sister is pretty supportive, since she knows lots of about nutrition and stuffs. Daddy thinks its funny and giggles whenever he says something about it or says the v word. I think that's also why it reminded me of pink triange, because he used to giggle everytime he said the word lesbian.

Ashram Goodness.

I just got back from a beginner's yoga week in the Grass Valley ashram of Sivananda Vedantic Yoga. Before going I was not sure what to expect at all, worried that it might be some place just trying to make money off Americans who find the East intriging. Well, it might have been, but the folks I met and the experience I had were really lovely. Its funny, I would want to write about it with lots of flair and gusto, but alas, when one comes away from a week of meditation, philisophical discussion, living in a cabin in a beautiful area around the same latitude as the south of France, eats vegetarian meals twice a day low in spice and salt, and 4 hours of yogic breathing and asanas each day... flair and gusto isn't really the mode you're in, nor feel like being in. ;p

I am really glad I went. I didn't go in with many expectations of how it would be like, but I did know the reasons that I wanted to go, and those were well met if not exceeded. I now have confidence in my mental and physical (that's a big one) to meditate for at 30 minutes, (after many experiences of my leg becoming more numb than I can ever recall in my life), basic understanding of yogic philosophy, and naturally, improved my asanas as well as my clarity on what we do them for and the order, etc - so now I can do them without an instructor, although it is nice to do things with a class. What's more, some of the extra goodies were - the amaaaaazing scenery and feeling of rejuvenation from living in a beautiful area, learning about proper diet, how the brain and mind work, some lovely new friends, and generally a refreshed if not deeper appreciation of simplicity and life.

The diet discussion was the most practical. We really pushed back on our instructor when it got to the vegetarian issue. I learned loads, and am already feeling myself eat less and less meat - let's see where this leads. There are, of course many reasons, and the environmental ones (i.e. amount of protein grain feeding beef cows today could end world hunger if it were given to humans and the amount of water they consume compared to grains is a big problem, etc, etc, etc) and those concerned me, but hearing it all at once really helped - since I've been wanting to eat less meat but couldn't muster the will power.

Our discussion on the mind and positive thinking was the most important conversation. In a nutshell - WOW, are there are LOT of ways to stay positive if you wish to do so. We went through 8 different simple approaches. Rock. :)

A cool other random conversation I had that was really great for me was about fear, and I can say I am a lot less paranoid about supernatural stuffs, now, and rather accepting. My Chinese self had me growing up with the certainty that there is more on earth than that you see, but growing up in America, all such things were depicted as dangerous. In the west, giving our psyche, there is nothing more scary to us than that is not material, which is why that is how anything supernatural is depicted as harmful. It was interesting to see how meditation and asanas can help you realize that there is more than the material, and by connecting to your own greater consciousness, you can become less fearful of other astral beings, etc. Sounds hokey, but as I mentioned it to people, it turns out I'm not the only one who felt stupid for such fears, so I thought I'd share. :)

While a lot about the yogic lifestlye is taking away unneccesary sensory stimulation to relax, we did have quite a lot of laughs there. The beginner's favourite conversation topic was joking about foods that we believed to be considered "contraband", although nothing's not allowed, just less recommended. One night we had "puja", a ceremony for the founder of our ashram, then the next morning instead of sitting meditation we did walking meditation through a labrynth, and at night instead of a discussion after meditation watched a peace video about the founder, and even had some popcorn! We couldn't stop laughing at how absurd it was that this for us was such a CRAZY intense day, there'd be no way we could sleep after such stimulation. :) Also during our beginner's asana course we always had demonstrations about how to properly do the poses. For anyone who has tried the lotus, and then sees the real one done in person, WOW. The whole class was rolling around the floor laughing at the absurd thought of us coming even remotely close to a proper full lotus. Oh good times... :D

Well Wonders Never Cease

Yes, seems super trite, but I just realized today that I really heart the West Coast. Coming from the mid-west and always feeling like NYC was my second home in the US, I never reckoned I'd really love the West Coast. Well... its here. The time has come. Its the sun, the scenery, the slower pace, and generally v. green conscious lifestyle... If I live in the US I can really see myself living in Cali now. WEIRD.