Spring Cleaning for Writers (and people with minor floods in their laundry room)

I kidnapped my friend by accident. She was just tagging along on a quick carpooling run, but non-road detours (namely kids and a flood in my laundry room) kept us from our destination to hear some musician friends play at a restaurant. As she helped me soak up water with used towels, I blurted out,  “I just want to go to my beach house.”

 

I don’t really have a beach house but she humored me so I kept going, “I’m going to my beach house, alone. It’s got new wood floors and large white windows and I’m gonna sit on the only piece of furniture inside it, a couch, a plain sand color couch. The view is amazing too.  Picture windows and no plumbing issues. I’m really going, okay?”
“Okay, she said.” And we got back in the car.

We made it to music, but I didn’t feel like dancing. I sat uninterrupted for the first time that whole entire day and went to the beach house in my head.  Unlike my real house which had been uncharacteristically clutter-filled and flooded on Friday, the beach house was pristine.

Clutter is not just physical and external. Often our inner state, reflects our outer and vice versa. When my house and desk are clean and clear, everything flows better, including my writing. I’m not the only one who thinks so. Turns out that some of my favorite  gurus have been saying this for decades. Cleaning and clearing space makes magical things happen. Deepak Chopra, Oprah, Cheryl Richardson, and Denise Linn have each said in different ways that getting rid of things you don’t love, need or use can change your life.

Denise Linn calls it “modern day alchemy” and I highly recommend her books on the topic where she details how to “clear your space.” Cheryl Richardson’s books will incorporate this process as a life skill necessary for making room for greater things to come. She’ll get your butt in gear and help you learn to take good care of yourself too. (This is the librarian in me talking, so listen up!)

When my Dad died in 2006, I went to the beach with papers and burned them at the fire pit. I tossed the ashes in the sea. I had no idea what I was doing then, but now I know. I was testing the wings of the Phoenix.

SPRING CLEANING FOR WRITERS (PLUS PROMPTS)

• Get your notebook ready, but don’t write a word. We’re going to de-clutter your desk first. Set aside some time to go through every single drawer, surface, crevice of your desk. Have a big hefty bag ready and purge. Spray some lemon oil mixed with water in the air before you begin. You will immediately feel refreshed. Once the desk is clean, have a seat. Write a thank you note to yourself in the voice of your desk.

• Go through your files, paper and electronic. Condense. Delete, delete, delete. I have been working on that for two weeks and it feels amazing. Pull out one old draft that you had given up on long ago and revisit it. Read and edit as the writer you are today. Did you notice a different in voice and style? Hope so, it’s 2012!

• This is a tricky. Edit a friend’s work. Set a page limit and make a trade. I have had my share of editing through the writing course. It’s time consuming, but well worth the effort.  Did you find it easier to make changes in another’s work? Could you see “mistakes” and patterns that you do as well but were too close to the material to recognize your own flaws?

WHEN YOU FINISH WRITING (and cleaning):

• Post a comment here to share your words of wisdom and wit. What did it feel like to clean your space? Any tips for the rest of us? Was it easier to create in your lemon-scented clean room?

• Find a writing buddy and help each other out. Post here asking to exchange or on my wall on FB if you would like a virtual one: http://www.facebook.com/StefanieLipsey.Writer.

• Visit:  www.stefanielipsey.com to see event and workshop info.  

also posted on: www.soundcliffwritingspa.com

Stories We Keep: a Yoga as Muse Anthology, Writings by the YAM Tribe with an Introduction by Jeffery Davis. A Review.

Gather around the fire, roast a yam, listen to the journeys that brought five women to their writer’s desks, but first, skip to the stories. Although the contributors are accomplished yoga teachers and practitioners, none of their pieces mention the word yoga. The structure of this multi-layered anthology goes like this: a woman tells a story, she is interviewed, and then gives you her yam recipe.

Each work is unique and compelling, the interviews are fascinating, but yam recipes? At first I wasn’t sure I wanted them to be there. It seemed a little kitch. But as I read on, I saw that the YAMs were a story too. YAM is an acronym for Yoga as Muse, and the treatment of this vegetable by the writers is quite revealing.

Take Catherine, who wrote the chilling story, “A Cold Minnesota Day for a Rape.” She says, “A Recipe? …cooking is more of a chore for me than anything.” I’m with you, Catherine. Tanya, an active MFA graduate and yoga teacher who also enjoys working with children, contributes a playful recipe for yam fries. Bhavi, the author of a sophisticated domestic themed story, “Swan Song," contributes an equally sophisticated recipe for “Curried Sweet Potato Bisque.”

Am I psychoanalyzing the YAMs? Maybe, but it only made me love the stories and the writers more. It made me take myself less seriously, which I believe was an intention of its inclusion in a serious anthology. Best of all, it even made me want to turn on the oven.

Now that your mouth is watering, let the stories speak. “This anthology contains no…ecstatic moments of the writer or a character becoming one with green leaves and mountain streams….what a relief.” writes Jeffery Davis in the introduction.

The “relief” will be welcomed by yogis and non-yogis all, because although yoga is the vehicle, it’s not the destination here. The stories stand alone.

After Davis’ gorgeous introduction comes Darlene Rivais', “Swan Song,” a lovely and complex relationship story that begins, “Two years ago, for six months, we were pregnant. Then we weren’t.” My heart sank. The miscarriage leads to betrayal in a marriage that is often treated with humorous irony, “That was different, you say, please tell me you read a book. No book. Marco. He’s tantric. But you say please, so I say yes.” The metaphoric and literal swans glide along the lake, and like a poem, the scenic scope is wide and deep. Emotions lay quiet, until they explode. “I’ve cried and smashed vases and stained the new carpet in the nursery – now exercise room – with blood from the cuts on my hands.”

Co-editor Dawn Curtis’ novel excerpt, “Butter Girl,” is a wild rush in the life of sixteen year old Lily whose forty year old Mama just gave birth - yet again. Lots to unpack here, a fire that charred the town and trees two weeks ago, a mother who still hasn’t recovered from childbirth and Victor, an older brother who “spies” on her. Like the first story, the lake figures prominently. Lily wades in it with her Ukulele and sketchbook held high, two symbolic objects that intriguingly resurface throughout. The language captures the voices of this large family living in rural America beside a lake while successfully retaining a sense of urgency and artistry. Fire, wild dogs, peering eyes of men, a cruel father, and too much responsibility culminate in the ending at a fever pitch. “Lily…moved through the water...the air was filled with cries and smoke too thick to see from whose throats they sprung.”

Story three gets us out of the water and into the city, actually the suburbs of St. Paul, Minnesota. I wished that the rape in “A Cold Minnesota Day for a Rape”was metaphoric, but no, it was brutal. Part one is the voice of the victim called, “daughter” and part two carries her mother’s rage in a scene that depicts a sighting of the rapist in a local McDonalds. Both are told in the present tense which heightens immediacy and intensity. From“2. The Mother”: “I am a wolf. Don’t dare to mess with me. I’ll cut your balls off.” and later, “My daughter looks at me. Fear and nausea in her eyes…I sit up, my backbone an ebony skyscraper.…‘Eat.”

The lead-in to the rape is stunning. In part One, we follow the girl’s footsteps.“Walk the two blocks toward the school, woodland across the street on your left, apartment complexes on the right that gradually fade, leaving you with hard cold sunlight…” Details such as, “A dachshund runs out of nowhere…clawed feet too big for its legs” are skillfully engrained throughout the story. And this one too, which follows the rape, “Janitor helps you up…The wall is thickening, growing roots through your heart and skin and cells. Take his hand.”

“Motion” by Tanya Robie is another novel excerpt about a young woman, but unlike “Butter Girl,” the character, Annabel, is going through the tribulations that often accompany divorce. She is filled with rage and ready to “fly the coop” on the brink of her last years of high school. Her parents are filled with hypocrisy, trying to keep the family together in the mist of dysfunction. When her boyfriend can’t stay over, she becomes enraged to her core, her fear and anger palatable, “She wanted to blast them out of her body. She felt their weight in her stomach, and in her mind she could their mass…[and]…the triangle of her pelvis, and the oval of her ribcage.” There is a familiarity in Annabel that makes for a smooth read. Right from the start, Robie masterfully sets up the story with a broken welcome sign, a shattering of familial bliss, “– a lilac painted on a thin piece of slate – fell to the ground and cracked.”

The last story, “Throwing Like a Girl” is a novel excerpt from Robin Bourjaily, one of the editors with a busy yoga and writing business in Des Moines, Iowa. She likes her yams “Casual or Dressed Up.” Two recipes even I could handle.

In this final story, Tanya invites us into her inner musings about marriage that circumnavigate around a conversation with her decorator, Maria. Tanya’s husband, Jeremy, is an executive with Consumer Reports and lately, “all they seemed to do was rub each other the wrong way.” In a short space of time, this beautifully written tale of a suburban marriage documents a lifetime of love and lost loves before landing into present ambivalence. The excerpt concludes with Maria asking for some masking tape, but no, there is none available.“Without getting up to look, Tanya shook her head, no. Nothing in the house was that binding.”

Fire-keeper Robin, tends the flames of inspiration well, but let the stories speak for themselves. Read each one with care. It takes a tribe to maintain the flames, and each writer lives up to the task and name bestowed upon them around the circle, Love Keeper, Twilight Keeper, Mystery Keeper, River Keeper. Get the book to learn who is who.

As Davis said in the introduction, there are “No Rumi-esque songs of the Divine.”But there is some kind of magic happening in this tribe and anthology. The magic of the three elements: story, interview, recipe. The magic of life, art, and stories told off the mat with sutras, asanas, teacher, elements, and tribe as muse.

I highly recommend this anthology, as a librarian, writer, yoga teacher and mostly, as a girl who likes a good story. And who doesn’t like a good story ‘round a fire?

GET YOUR COPY OF STORIES WE KEEP: www.storieswekeep.com

FOR MORE ABOUT THE TRIBE: http://www.trackingwonder.com/yoga-as-muse.html

Disclaimer: I have no connection with YAM and have never met any of the writers in person. My only connection is a love of writing, yoga and story. 

Thank you for reading! - Stef

Follow Writing Yoga for gems about writing and yoga. Follow the Sound Cliff Writing Spa and get free writing prompts by email.

http://www.writingyoga.com - http://www.stefanielipsey.com – http://soundcliffwritingspa.com

©Stefanie Lipsey 2012

Healthy Writers Series: Is There a Traffic Jam in Your Body? How to Keep the Words Flowing

This photo of Long Island City is courtesy of TripAdvisor

Hey, I'm a guest blogger!  It's a short article with lots of resources and links to help keep us writers and yogis flowing along with our pens.

Healthy Writers Series: Is There a Traffic Jam in Your Body? How to Keep the Words Flowing...

Svadhyaya and Some Ya Ya's at Walt's House

Whitman Well from WWBA

This weekend, I went to hear a poetry reading at the place where Walt Whitman was born.

Later, I thought of the weekend as being complete and whole. Time for dancing, food, family and friends, room to sit and listen to poetry plus active hours on the mat. That doesn't always happen, does it?

As I sit with three newly purchased books of poems from yesterday's reading, I think of a particular yogic principle from the "internal disciplines" called Niyamas.  (Some Yoga 101 here:  basically, there are eight components in yoga philosophy called "Yoga Sutras." You can read these teachings in a book called, The Yoga Sutras of Pantanjali. Part 2 of 8 is called The Niyamas.)  Niyamas are interesting because they feel private - things like purification, contentment, and self-study.

Personally, I love the Niyama, svadhyaya. I just like saying the last two syllables out loud! You try it: yah-yah. Anyway, it means self-study. When we read the yogic philosophical texts, and connect to teachings, that's svadhyaya. As a poet, reading poems are my philosophical texts too. Writing is the asana, the poses and practice.

And then there's Walt. I don't usually do this, but here's a poem I birthed at the birthplace, on the place he called the "fish-shaped Island of his birth, Paumanok." 



Concrete Walt

The gate wasn't here a hundred years ago
before stockade fences kept us
from running through wheat fields,
escaping woods to rocky shore,

when I park a single car
among ten it feels wrong,
ten thousand painted wheels
line stillness at a mall across the street.

I dip my fingers in an empty well,
listen for hints of footsteps rising.
Are you still in a flood-tide west --
riding with the ferryman from Brooklyn?

Louisa, the pain of childbirth
is almost two hundred years old.
Will you come with me to Macy's,
to the mall named after your son?

It's so hard here without ships or sea,
with DDT flavored groundwater,
but we can walk, Louisa.
We can walk across Route 110,

with ghosts of soldiers, immigrant workers,
defy speed racing past --
or just stay here and listen
to the sound of leaves crash against the gates.


(first published in Rogue Scholars,  ©Stefanie Lipsey 2003)


Thank you for reading. I can't promise you will see the ghosts too, but it's worth a visit to the WWBA.  Do you find self-study to be a portal? I would love to hear your thoughts and reactions to what you read, visit and practice. Come on back and post. 

See you next time! - Stef

www.stefanielipsey.com

Links to Get You to the Writer's Desk and Inspire Creativity

Look at this, my first time clicking the "share on blogger" button!  Lucky for you, it's a great share. My friend, adventurer, and excellent writer, Deonne, has posts on two different blogs this week and they were so informative, I just had to share. 

Deonne and I got our MFA degrees together and since she moved back to Taos I don't get to see her much. (Those of you who lived through a creative writing program know how much you bond with your peers & how much you miss them when you stop pouring out your soul to each other every week in class.) But now, here she is. And there she is. Everywhere. Her blog is hilarious and you will enjoy her subtle bits of wisdom.

Oh, did I mention that she traveled across country in a scamp and blogged about it??  Really: http://www.gonescamping.com/2012/02/07/here-there-and-everywhere/

Then find her here on Creativity Portal:
20 Questions Interview with Deonne Kahler - Writer, Photographer, Owner of JournalsAndNotepads.com

And there on Fear of Writing:http://fearofwriting.com/blog/2012/02/from-stuck-to-unstuck-in-one-easy-step/

And at journals and notepads too.

As you can see, there's no advertising on this blog. It gives me the freedom to share what I think might be helpful to writers, yogis, and creatives. Deonne doesn't even know I'm writing this post. I think I better send her a text.

Enjoy!!!  - Stef

www.stefanielipsey.com

Being Flexible is all in the Head!

This week in the Sound Cliff Writing Spa, my other blog and online writing community, we are talking about flexibility as writers. 

The question is "how flexible are you?" Does a flexible body make a more bendable mind? Maybe yes, maybe no. 

What do you think? Come visit the spa and post your thoughts. Here or there. It doesn't matter. I'm flexible.

http://soundcliffwritingspa.com/2012/01/30/writing-prompt-17/

www.stefanielipsey.com

© Stefanie Lipsey 2012

Picture credit: http://www.freedigitalphotos.net/images/view_photog.php?photogid=3229

Can Your Calendar Turn the Office Desk into a Yoga Studio?

I like my iCal, but I love my paper cals better. I never have to back them up.

There is something personal about a paper calendar that online calendars can't replace. After yesterday's internet censorship protests, you can't help but wonder what would happen if someone decided one day to delete you. It might be okay to delete me, but not my calendar.

I have a pocket sized filofax for my bag (my love), a beautiful paper calendar for the fridge with family events, my ical, and Louise Hay's affirmation calendar for the circulation desk of the library where I work.

When we got back to school after our December vacation, I unpacked my new Louise Hay calendar and placed the 2012 version in a vacant spot.  I love that one of the first things I see each day when I walk into work is that calendar and so do the teachers. Joyful teachers make joyful students make a joyful workplace.

What is the first thing you see in your workplace? Your writer's desk? A pile of work? Clutter?

Could sitting at your desk feel like sitting on a meditation pillow in a yoga studio?  Could it be cleaner, clearer, filled with purposefully placed objects in a lavender-scented room?

Yoga cultivates imagination and in my own imagination, I say yes.  Why not?

Clear off the desk today. Spray some lavender. Hang a beautiful calendar instead of the yucky one. Hang one with inspirational images and quotes. Make it yourself on your computer. Or, keep it zen and place a plain calendar next to a rock.

Once you are finished, dump all those other piles of papers into the shredder and tell us how THAT felt!

It's a new year -- how will you keep track of time?

www.stefanielipsey.com

Counting Calories in the Borough of Queens, Ann Podracky, Her Mother, and Andy and Marie

Special Fiction Issue of Writing Yoga.

 I heard this moving and humorous piece read by my friend, Ann, on Saturday night. It was at a new reading series in Sunnyside Queens so artfully curated that each reader entertained and enlightened the audience without a single gap in interest. All I can tell you is that the QC MFA based series, Oh, Bernice! blew me away. Don't miss it next time if you live in NYC. I wish I could deliver this story as well as Ann read it, but I guess I'm just lucky she let me steal it for the blog.

Andy and Marie

by Ann Podracky 

      My mother counted calories. Throughout my childhood I'd find her tabulations scrawled on the edges of newspapers, table napkins, lunch boxes, and McCall’s magazines. Once she used a birthday hat I had saved.  100, 200, 100, 500 were scribbled on the tail of a gray monkey holding a large pink birthday candle. These numbers were the one thing that let me know as a young girl where she had been in the world without me. 

      She got her caloric values from a small red booklet whose cover featured a muscle bound couple in matching leopard-patterned bathing suits. It was the one Jack LaLanne had recommended on his morning TV show that my mother turned on but never exercised to. The couple on the booklet held up the letters that spelled out Andy and Marie’s Calorie Counter. My mother tried to keep it with her wherever she went. When she couldn’t find the booklet she would ask in the same voice she used to ask where my brothers were, “Ann, where’s Andy and Marie?"

     One night I found out how she arrived at her numbers, which always ended in zeros. I had asked her to tell me a story before I went to bed.  Still standing in the kitchen washing dishes, she grabbed Andy and Marie who were lying on the toaster. “If I eat a piece of rye bread, I look it up in Andy and Marie under breads,” she said.  She turned to the section on breads and pressed her wet finger on it, leaving a mark.

 “If Andy and Marie say a slice of bread is 75 calories, I round it down to 70,” she told me.

   “Why do you go lower?” I said.

   “It’s easier,” she said. “Go to bed, Ann.”

    With all that counting, my mother never did lose weight until she was in her seventies, about ten years after my father died. She was very thin by then because she was having trouble swallowing. The day before she went into the hospital for the last time, I visited her in her apartment. I noticed there were numbers penciled on the wall: 200, 100. There were even erasure marks. 
     "What's this? I asked, pointing to the wall.
     "I still like to count my calories," she said. 
     “But you’re hardly eating,” I said.

    “You were always such a worrywart, Ann,” she said. Then she took a small red booklet from her housecoat pocket. The pages were yellowed, held together with crisp scotch tape. The cover was torn. I recognized the leopard bathing suits.  Andy and Marie were headless.

     “Let’s see, a small can of tuna in water,” my mother said. She leaned over to the wall next to her recliner and penciled 150.

__________________________________________________________________________________________

 

Ann Podracky has read her work at different venues in the city including Ear Inn, the Bowery Poetry Club, Earshot, and CUNY’s Turnstlye Reading Series. She was a Writer-in-Residence at the Louis Armstrong Museum and Archives in 2010 and a fiction editor for the online journal Ozone Park. Her writing can be found on the City University of New York 9/11 Memorial Site, the Revision’s Journal, Little Perversities, (Wasteland Press 2005), and Poetry in Performance 38 and 39.

For more stories from Ann and info about the Oh, Bernice! Reading Series, please visit, http://ohbernice.tumblr.com/
Visit Stefanie at www.stefanielipsey.com.  Free writing prompts at the Sound Cliff Writing Spa Workshops.

1,2, wear no shoes...3,4,open the door... 5,6 - 7,8, Mat and Pen, Childhood - Begin Again

It's the middle of the night and I reach for my pen in the dark. Jack be nibble....jack be quick.....I write in my journal. I add three other nursery rhymes. In the morning, I can't make out my handwriting, the part where I stop quoting Mother Goose, but know what it says. It's part dream, part abstraction, part future poem.

Photo by Jessica Lipsey

Doesn't everyone dream in childhood? Working with children each day is like getting a childhood rewind button. (Do you remember having to rewind things?)  It also teaches me how to live creatively within structure. Monday through Friday = pledge of allegiance, stories (I love stories), research, lessons, lesson planning, lunch, more stories, research....dismissal.

Those things are set. My school day is set. But what happens before and after is up to me. Each day is a choice. Do I hit the snooze or tip-toe into in the living room and meditate before the kids get up?  Do I keep my journal with me so flashes of words from sleep to wakefulness don't get lost? Or do I go to work, come home, eat a bag of cheeze doodles, dinner, TV and sleep?

Nothing against cheeze doodles, but as crunchy and indulgent as they are, they won't make me feel delicious. I want my life to feel delicious. I want that for my own family, friends, and the kids I teach. I want that for you.

What is a delicious life? It's splashed with joy. It's a snowball fight (seasonal metaphor), feathery flakes, blue sky and tiny intervals of freedom. "Free time" is short and it's long. It's being a child an an adult at the same time. A delicious life is filled with love, creativity and ritual. A meditation ritual extends time, writing re-lives it, and yoga integrates you and time with all that is. In short, the future and past are up to you.

Namaste,
Stef

p.s - Need some help getting to the mat? The free Yoga Journal 21 day challenge starts Monday, January 9th. I have no connection with Yoga Journal. I'm just a fan. See you on the mat: http://www.yogajournal.com/21daychallenge/#.TuF7aWyUrFx.facebook. You can even practice with your kids if you've got them.

Writing, Yoga, and Staying Curious in the New Year

Are you ready for 2012? Goal-setting books, classes,and websites are filled with experts ready to help.This year, my only goals are to stay flexible, curious and welcome in mystery. 

from the AMNH website

Today, I walked through the American Museum of Natural History with my family. The guard said that over 30,000 people visited yesterday and at 12 noon today when we arrived, there were already 17,000 viewers ready to take on the blue whale and dinosaurs. When my kids were little, we spent days in the museum, digging for dinosaurs in the discovery room. But now, experience and curiosity let each one of us find our own artifacts to wonder about.

I'm expecting 2012 to be a year of discovery, in the same way I expect to discover new aspects of myself, my students, my family and friends each year. I've often limited myself at the start of any given January 1st by setting so many specific goals. This year, I'm staying open to discovery.

The art of discovery and staying "curious" is an integral part of every yoga and writing practice. We write to surprise ourselves and our readers. In yoga, a certain amount of curiosity is needed to gain flexibility and move through challenging poses.

Even when we think we are being flexible, inviting discovery, and staying mildly curious, are we allowing it to happen naturally? Is there more? Of course there is. But what?

Yoga teaches us to be present and stay curious in the body and mind. This year, where can you delight in your own discovery?

Tell me. I'm curious.

Meditation and Quiet Yoga is Always in Season

Tonight I went to an evening vinyasa flow class followed by a meditation class. I don't know where I floated to, but I was very "floaty."  Ahhh.  A long group meditation session is exactly what I needed to counter the stress of holiday planning, a busy work week, and a wonderful, but active family life. 

It is true that you create more time if you allow yourself to sit quietly and meditate. The beauty of mediation is that just like yoga, you don't need to spend money on equipment or leave your house to have a healing session. Meditation indeed heals. It also has been known to reverse the aging process. How does that sound?

I'm going to entertain you with a quiet page this week.  Your life is busy enough. Finish up that holiday shopping and get to the mat and/ or meditation pillow.I'm thrilled that you show up to Writing Yoga to read and share your wisdom. Speaking of wisdom, what helps you make room for mediation in your own busy life? 

Happy Holidays and New Year!

Namaste,  

Stefanie 

PS - When you float back to your computer, can you please take a moment to visit my new Facebook page?   http://www.facebook.com/pages/Stefanie-Lipsey/113744045398986.  I'll be posting more writing & yoga goodies next week in 2012! 

www.stefanielipsey.com

www.writingyoga.com
www.soundcliffwritingspa.com

"The Weather Outside is Frightful....." but the Weather Inside is Perfect: Building Heat with Yoga

I really wanted to eat a huge bowl of piping hot pasta for lunch today. I imagined steam and carbs stirring up a warmth I haven't felt since August.  I love August - even in New York.

"Snowy Hills in Alaska." from powermediaplus.com

 Winter's like that for me. A cold time of year when the quest for heat is insatiable.  I used
to believe that I would get used to it. I tried winter sports for a while, but all those layers of clothing, changing, expensive equipment and lift tickets just don't seem to be worth the effort when compared with a single mat and a writer's notebook. Of course, that's just me.  My family loves sledding and other winter activities. They make fun of me for staying back. 

It seems that once the temperature drops I can't eat and drink enough warm things. The only problem with "warm things" is that they usually come with high caloric counts. Unless you count steamed vegetables, but after all, how much steamed broccoli can one eat?

YOGA
In comes yoga - our perfect mind-body exercise that increases well-being, stamina, flexibility and warmth.  It's totally FREE too (when done on your own). Instead of scarfing down bowls of rice pilaf, I unroll my mat during lunch hour, change into yoga pants, close my office door, and flow through three A and B sun salutations. A couple of standing and balancing poses later, I still have 15 minutes left to eat a delicious cold sandwich. Yoga is better than any seasoning you can buy.

Today, after my quiet practice, far away from the faculty room chatter, I was overjoyed to not be cold any longer.  The sun salutations did exactly what they are supposed to do which is build heat and prepare you for more advanced postures. I would say tackling winter is as advanced for me as it gets.  

How do you feel about winter? Writing or yoga - does your practice change when the days get cold and short?  I bet there are enlightened souls reading right now who flow through seasonal changes with grace and little disruption.  I am in awe of them.  Yes, I've got some work to do and I'll be turning to yoga asanas and philosophy for help, but OMG, it's still technically only late autumn. 

STAY WARM!

For more information about Writing and Yoga workshops, please visit www.stefanielipsey.com. 
 ©Stefanie Lipsey 2011

Who Supports You on the More Difficult Path?

You can't get from there to here on your own. It is much easier to wake up, go to the office, come home, watch TV. Rinse and repeat. 

If you are reading this, then chances are the TV is off and your yoga mat or journal lay open beside you somewhere in the room. 

What I mean to say is that choosing a creative life is always harder. That is why we find each other and I am ever so grateful that you showed up today. 

Think of someone in your life who "gets" you and your choices. Can you think of more than one? Many people? If you can, you're lucky! Give those people today a little nod of thanks. It doesn't have to be Thanksgiving to do so and maybe even more meaningful if it is just a regular day.

This Saturday, I will be spending my day at a booth with two of my biggest supporters, Karen Chrappa and Tracy Warzer. Karen has written a most incredible book to help anyone find a solid base in a fast paced world, A Structure for Spirit.

Tracy Warzer is beacon of light for Long Island artists. As owner of the Creative Arts Studio on Sea Cliff Avenue, she has opened her doors to local, national and international talents for years. This weekend is an artisan showcase, art opening for Joan Harrison and CD release party for Kathy Virgilio. 

I also would like to thank the Glen Cove Public Library for hosting my "Live Your Dreams" journal writing workshops for the past two years.  

Glad to be closing out the year with my community. 

HOPE TO SEE YOU AT ONE OF THESE LONG ISLAND EVENTS!!! 

Sea Cliff Creative Arts Studio

Sea Cliff Holiday House Tour Dec. 3rd, 2011 from 12-5pm - 256 Sea Cliff Avenue, Sea Cliff, NY 11579

Stop by my booth for a FREE writing prompt card. Karen Chrappa will also be selling her wonderful new book, a Structure for Spirit. Event features local artisan vendors and art show opening in the Box Gallery for Joan Harrison all at the Creative Arts Studio.  See you then!

FREE "Live Your Dreams" Writing Workshops!

JOIN US on Tuesday,  December 6, 2011 from 7 - 8:15 pm at the Glen Cove Public Library for a FREE writing and creativity workshop. Call 676-2130 for more information. Glen Cove Public Library 4 Glen Cove Av. Glen Cove, NY

The Art of Alone Time: Scheduling in Solitude

Photo by Jessica Lipsey, Hong Kong airport

The Billy Holiday song is playing in my head. "In my solitude..." That's as far as I get before I start to shake my head and think, What's that word?  My appointment with solitude isn't until Saturday. 

SOLITUDE BY THE DAY

If you work for a living and take care of a family like I do, solitude is a prized state of being. I'm often writing while dinner is on the stove, or during quick breaks between work and home. But real solitude is something to put on the calendar:

• From 7-9 pm on Monday night, mom will be writing. Do not disturb. 
• On Thursday morning, she will get up at 5:30 am and you won't even know that a one hour candle-lit yoga practice occurred in the living room.
• Saturday she'll be at Starbucks until noon working on Chapter 12. 
• Daily 20 minute morning meditations. All welcome. We can sit in solitude together.

It really does help to put a creative schedule up on the calendar. I write mine on Thursdays for the upcoming week. That way, I can plan writing and yoga around appointments, kids activities, and meetings.  It also helps me know when to switch from mom brain, work brain, to writer brain.  

Is this something you do too? It would be interesting to hear about your relationship with solitude.  

SOLITUDE FOR A WEEK

The first time I went to Omega in Rhinebeck for a weekend R & R retreat five years ago, I filled several notebooks with writing. I was ecstatic! My thoughts rolled without distraction. They floated effortlessly with hummingbirds in the garden. I had never been away from home before and at first, it felt so strange even though my kids were away at camp.

I met a woman there who had a new baby at home. She said that she told her husband that a condition of bearing his child was that she needed to continue her week alone at Omega every summer. Wow! I wish I had made that deal years ago.

Since my husband is a musician, he understands and supports that need to be alone to create.  I just didn't know to ask for it. Luckily for me, that's all I had to do. (besides save up some money)

Do you ask others to support your solitude?  You might have to be creative to arrange time alone, but it's possible.

SOLITUDE AS A PRACTICE

It takes work for some people to sit with their own thoughts. Solitude is important, but I recognize it can be difficult. People generally either love to be alone or hate it.

I never thought of "alone time" as a practice, yet, I believe it is. It takes relaxation and confidence. You have to look at yourself in the mirror and listen to the truth. Maybe that's what really makes it so hard.

Share your thoughts on solitude. Do you have advise for the rest of us? 

Yoga and the Singer's Voice

My parents spent a ton of their hard-earned money on diction lessons for me in college as a supplement to my music degree. I'd ride the subway to the Upper West Side and be prepared to find my "singer's voice." We'd practice vocalizing on vowels, arching the roofs of our mouths, and speaking with obnoxiously perfect articulation.

I hated it, but at the time, I wanted to be an opera singer and needed to learn to speak like a newscaster instead of a nasally New Yorker. I begged my parents to help me and somehow they found a way.

As years went by, the results of my diction classes faded into my past. I talked just like everyone else around me. I felt guilty at times for what seemed like wasted lessons and subway tokens (no metrocards yet).

Until today.

As part of a yoga teacher training module at Bonda Yoga in Great Neck, we had a segment on voice. It was so powerful! Guess what? I had a voice. 

All the breathing, palate raising, articulation, projection, tone, and diction rules I had ever learned flashed before my eyes. I imagined myself standing like Rapunzel in the tower of Riverside Church. My hair flowing to the floor, my voice calling Surya Namaskar cues to the Hudson River.

Inhale, exhale, I pronounced each word on the correct beat.  Apparently, the voice has muscle memory too.

The funniest part of this realization, is that it IS a realization. People have told me that I speak well in public, but I never really connected it back to my voice training. I was in denial. My life had changed and that part of me was in the past.

But you know, probably better than I ever did, that all of our experiences always seem to come together to help us out in the future. 

Life school is awesome, don't you think?

How do your past experiences help you in your writing and/ or yoga practices?
 

Is there some part of your life you have forgotten about, by choice or not, that you can take advantage of today? 

"Follow” Writing Yoga for weekly gems about writing and yoga. Follow the Sound Cliff Writing Spa and get a free writing prompt by email. Emails arrive every Monday. 

http://www.writingyoga.com - http://www.stefanielipsey.com – http://soundcliffwritingspa.com

 ©Stefanie Lipsey 2011

Stretch Up to the Sky

 

A Poem for Halloween: Frankenfood!

Painting of Macbeth, Powermediaplus.com

I tried to buy a tomato today, but they all looked like little red plastic balls. Snow is here in October and fresh tomatoes only exist in poetry. Or do they?

You can still get a good organic tomato at some local markets like Rising Tide in Glen Cove. Thank goodness for them!  Where do get your tomatoes during the frosty times of year?

When I couldn't find a tomato and Rising Tide had already closed, I decided to post a poem. What else could I do? I wrote it in 1999 so not much has changed. I post it at midnight in honor of Halloween and the tomato I never got to eat today. RIP summer vine scented beet red juicy tomatoes.  See you next year.

Happy Halloween witches, ghosts, yogis, writers, and fresh veggie lovers! 

  SUPERMARKET TOMATO

             “When the hurly-burly’s done, When the battle’s lost and won, that will be ere the set of sun." - Shakespeare

She stops in the vegetable aisle,

adjusts her kerchief

leans over to examine

overflowing bins,

bubbling spheres

competing to be picked.

She flattens her housecoat

(but doesn’t get very far)

and reaches up

as if to make some

kind of incantation,

but there is a foulness

surrounding these fair,

perfected mutations

and for a minute –

she can not make a move.

In her trance

she snaps

the change purse

in her pocket, 

rubs her bony hands

and walks away

leaving these genetically

encoded relatives of flies,

distended from pesticides

to hover through the fog and filthy air. 

"Follow” Writing Yoga for weekly gems about writing and yoga. Follow the Sound Cliff Writing Spa and get a free writing prompt by email. Emails arrive every Monday and this Monday, in honor of Halloween, the prompt is extra fun!

http://www.writingyoga.com - http://www.stefanielipsey.com – http://soundcliffwritingspa.com

 ©Stefanie Lipsey 2011

WHY YOGA IS SO GOOD FOR YOU, YOUR HEALTH, AND YOUR LIFE: An interview with Mary-Beth Charno, yoga teacher, Urban Zen trainer, holistic nurse.

Mary-Beth Charno is one of the most magnetic people I have ever met. I have attended her yoga classes on Long Island at Yoga Flow Studio and at my gym where she has a huge following. While a yoga studio is certainly the preferred environment, Mary-Beth does a miraculous job of transforming space. She clears the room with incense, lights some candles, and dims the lights. She sets the mood with her weekly themes and doesn’t shy away from reading inspirational and even spiritual texts as you might expect a teacher to do in the gym setting. Her students love her for it. 
 

Mary-Beth Charno

This idea of creating a space for yoga nearly anywhere has served her, her students, and the patients she sees as a nurse well. We recently chatted about this over some lemon-water on a beautiful fall day. She spoke with me about yoga, health, creating a home practice and her work with Urban Zen. 

SL: What does yoga mean to you?

MC: Yoga is loosely defined as “to yoke” or “unite.” My yoga practice unites my mind and body and invites the breath to be there too. Yoga makes me more joyful, more present and filled with less stress, less fear. The physical practice, or the asanas, are very important for our mind and body to be healthy. When we move, sweat, and expand the body into different shapes, the mind can watch and be less active. At the end of a practice, we then have a chance to sit and be more receptive to new ways of thinking and being. Conscious movement is key. In yoga, you bring awareness to all areas of the body, and allow for a layering in of the breath.

SL: You were a personal trainer for many years before you became a yoga teacher. Why yoga?

MC: Yes, I was a trainer for 13 years. I found yoga during that time and came to it for the physical benefits like many people do. I enjoyed greater strength, flexibility, and endurance, but when you stay with yoga, you realize that something more interesting is happening. I also enjoyed the community aspect of yoga. You often notice that you can form an immediate relationship with someone who practices. You know what a challenge it can be to get to the mat each day and there is an understanding between people who make that commitment. Often there is an interest in some greater good. Most people who are practicing for a long time might be recycling more, donating their time and money to humanitarian, animal, and environmental causes. They see how their everyday choices effect others. 

SL: Yes, this is certainly evident in your own life! Tell us about your work with Urban Zen. It is an incredible organization and many people would be interested to learn about it.

MC: Donna Karen and Urban Zen are trying to change the way we care for the sick in our society. It is the first formal training program that brings different modalities together for healthcare workers to use as a “toolbox” throughout various healthcare facilities. Rodney Yee and Colleen Saidman Yee run the therapeutic branch. They teach yoga, breath awareness and body scans to help patients deal with PANIC: pain, anxiety, nausea, insomnia, and constipation. We also have aromatherapy, Reiki, and contemplative care components.

There are two aspects to the program: 1) reaching out to nurses to teach them self-care, and 2) Training yoga teachers and health care professionals to become integrated therapists and to use these modalities in various settings.

 

SL: This is such important work!

MC: I know that I’m a better person practicing yoga and therefore I know we can all become healthier, stronger, more present with a regular practice. I’m more grounded, less reactive and more available now. Anyone can benefit from this intelligence that comes alive in the body when they practice yoga.

SL: Any advice for our writingyoga readers, many of whom are new to practicing yoga?

MC: Ideally, it’s important to be consistent and to create a space for a yoga practice in your home. Students should have a home practice to compliment classes taken in studios. There is something special that takes place when you roll out your mat, by yourself, even if you don’t know what to do. It helps you figure out what to go and that is a skill that is useful for all areas of our lives.

SL: Can you suggest a way for people to create a yoga space, especially if they are living in a small apartment and/ or with a noisy family?

MC: It doesn’t have to be a big space, but it is a good idea to use the same space. Cover the TV and computer with a blanket or scarf. Reduce the buzz of technology. Desensitize the room and turn off the phone. Get up early before the rest of the house and savor this time for yourself. Just you and your mat.

Mary-Beth Charno

SL: Thank you for your time, Mary-Beth. We look forward to reading more about you and your work with Urban Zen! (http://www.urbanzen.org/tag/mary-beth-charno/. 

Read more words of wisdom from Mary-Beth on her new blog, www.marybethcharno.com

http://www.writingyoga.com - http://www.stefanielipsey.com - http://soundcliffwritingspa.com 

 ©Stefanie Lipsey 2011

 

YOGA AND WRITING ON THE SOUND

seagull with notebook

Not a mall in sight! I took this picture of an amusing seagull one morning last week before work. He was taking it all in while the other gulls circled overhead.  

Zen gull chilling out by the waves. 

I rolled out my mat. Put my notebook on my bag. The seagull looked out toward the waves the whole time. What was he thinking? 

In yoga, air and breath are probably more important than anything else. In writing too. This humanized seagull reminded me to breathe. With all that wind in his lungs he was just waiting for the perfect moment to fly.

Visit my free writing classes to learn more about "air" as our writing prompt for this week. Online at: http://soundcliffwritingspa.com or at the Glen Cove Public Library. 7-8:15 pm this Tuesday, October 4th. 

Thank you for reading and don't forget to BREATHE.  

* Next YOGA post: an interview with Mary Beth Charno, Urban Zen trainer, yogi and holistic nurse. Subscribe now to not miss a word.

 

http://www.writingyoga.com - http://www.stefanielipsey.com - http://soundcliffwritingspa.com 

 ©Stefanie Lipsey 2011

Writing to the Cheeseburger: Changing Your Creative Space

Of all places to write, the Suffolk County Burger King on Sunrise Highway near my car dealership is a new, rare find. I only buy coffee and a cheese sandwich with pickles (hold the meat) but can sit there for hours while my car gets its recommended services and take it all in.

What to take in?

Does that picture say it all?

The main character of my novel is from a part of New Jersey that loves its quick access to cheeseburgers.  I imagine she's sitting at a Formica table as a teenager eating a pile of fries.  U2 plays over the sound system.  It is very easy to channel her here.

On the walls of this particular BK, there are images of 1950's to 1990's movie posters, record albums, and star shots. I'm transported to a time before blogs, laptops, iTunes and cellphones. No, I'm not romanticizing the past, but rather connecting to a part of myself that I forgot and a part of myself that I invent along the way.

Where do you go to invent?

http://www.writingyoga.com - http://www.stefanielipsey.com - http://soundcliffwritingspa.com - ©Stefanie Lipsey 2011