New Moon Musings - February 2012 Edition

I've been trying to be pay more attention to the cycles of the moon for the past few months...and there's one thing I've realized...I seem to be "lunar powered" just as much as I've always been "solar powered."  On a sunny day I feel like a super-hero - I can accomplish astonishing things with the greatest of ease, I have limitless energy, and am completely in love with life.  On a cloudy/rainy/snowy day you can usually find me curled up on the couch with a cup of tea reading Proust, battling with a migraine while dirty dishes pile up, emails are left unanswered and task lists are completely abandoned. 

For a while I thought that my energy levels were solely linked to the amount of sunlight I was exposed to in a day, but my recent lunar-cycle studies have taught me that I'm equally effected by exposure to moonlight.  During the waxing gibbous/full moon/waning gibbous part of the lunar cycle I have a lot more spring in my step than during the waning crescent/new moon/waxing crescent portion.  Instead of trying to fight against nature, I've decided to embrace these fluctuations.

So, for the three evenings surrounding the new moon when the lack of lunar illumination tends to make me lethargic, especially after the sun goes down, I let myself relax - I meditate and take baths and go to bed early (if my ten-month-old son Dylan lets me)...and I create bulletin boards like this:

I call it my "Inspiration Board."  I collect magazine clippings and photos and mementos and all sorts of pretty little things.  During the new moon, I'll take down the previous Inspiration Board, look through my collection of images and select new ones to go up on the board.  Some of the clippings are merely decorative...like the flowers on this board...but most of the images I put up represent things I hope to manifest in my life during the course of the next moon cycle.

This may sound like new-age/hippie/granola nonsense to you, but there are numerous cultures throughout history that have believed that the period of the waxing moon is a nifty time to start new projects...that you can use the energy of the growing moon to help you grow things in your life.  I happen to be a new-age/hippie/granola-type person, and have really connected with this concept.  So, here's a peek at my current Inspiration Board...

My baby boy is growing up so fast...his first birthday will be on April 4th.  Soon he won't be a baby, he'll be a rambunctious toddler.  This picture is a reminder to cherish these moments of "baby-hood" before they're gone.

There'll probably always be at least one inspirational quote/picture from Yoga Journal on the board...it helps keep me committed to developing a serious home practice.

This quote totally resonated with me and my current struggle with chronic migraines...too often I neglect to give myself the things I need to get better - adequate sleep, regular exercise, avoidance of trigger foods, taking my vitamins and supplements.  I don't have a way to completely eliminate my migraines, but I have enough tools to make things more manageable...I just need to remember to use them.

I'm a terrible sleeper...always have been.  Now that Dylan's sleeping through the night on a regular basis I need to work on learning how to sleep through the night myself.

I literally dream about running on a regular basis.  I haven't been running since before I was pregnant and I miss it terribly.  I'm really looking forward springtime, to buying a jogging stroller and taking Dylan out for runs around town.

I also haven't played my guitar since before Dylan was born...I think it's about time to dust it off and tune it up...

I'll probably always have a picture of delicious looking food on my board...I hope to spend more time this month cooking things from scratch, finding new healthy non-migraine-triggering recipes for my family, and baking terribly decadent things to share with the people I love.

And finally my main focus for this moon cycle...I like to pick one thing to pour most of my energy into, and this time it's my art.  I pinned up an old photocopy of a drawing I'm working on as a reminder that I'm an artist, and that I should be working on art every day.

Now that the images are on the board, and the moon is starting to wax I'll spend the next few days planning and organizing, devising a way to turn inspiration into action.

Namaste,

- Lori

  

Beethoven and Balance

I've played the piano for almost as long as I can remember.   My mother often fondly tells the story of how my love affair with the piano began.  She had signed my brother, Bryce, (who's four years older than me) up for lessons, but every time he would try to sit and play the piano in our living room I would have a total meltdown because he was playing MY piano.  He wasn't nearly as interested in the instrument as I was so my parents had the piano teacher work with me instead.

Also for almost as long as I can remember, my favorite composer has been Ludwig van Beethoven.  Being a bit of a dramatic person, I've always been drawn to the theatrical nature of many of his compositions.  I love how he can create a huge array of emotions within a few measures of music...changing tempos and harmonies and dynamics and time signatures in the most unexpected ways, forcing you to play his music not just with your hands, but with your whole body.

But there's one piece by Beethoven that I simply could never appreciate...the first movement of the "Moonlight Sonata."  Yes, it's beautiful, dramatic, haunting and incredibly popular, but it was always too darn slow and steady for me to listen to or want to play it myself.  I prefer playing pieces where my fingers are sent dancing across the keyboard, where I can play bold magnificent chords one minute, and delicate 32nd notes the next...I'm drawn towards physically difficult compositions.



I've always had similar attitudes about the music I like to play and the types of yoga practices I participate in.  I love vigorous vinyasa classes that ask me to move quickly from one asana to another...I love the feeling of rhythm and movement as I move through the poses of Surya Namaskara (Sun Salutation), lengthening and folding along with my respiratory metronome.  During the few years when I attended yoga classes at a studio on an almost daily basis, I don't believe I went to a single "Restorative" or "Gentle Flow" class...I simply wasn't interested in yoga unless I left the class soaked with sweat, my arms and abs burning from intense plank sequences, my legs quivering from numerous lunges.

Lately I've started to reevaluate my views towards yoga and music and life in general.  A few days ago I very badly wanted to spend some time on the mat, but was having a difficult migraine day...normally I would have given up on the idea of an asana practice, telling myself that I couldn't do "real yoga" when I felt so ill.  For some reason, I didn't give up this time.  Instead, I actually participated in and greatly enjoyed my first ever restorative yoga session.  Ninety minutes of slow-paced Chandra Namaskara (Moon Salutation), seated twists and forward bends, supine poses, pranayama, soham mantra meditation and shavasana.  It was absolutely heavenly.

This hour and a half on the mat made me realize just how much I've been missing by ignoring the more gentle, restorative side of Hatha yoga.  The word "hatha" has many translations, but one popular translation is Sun (ha) Moon (tha).  The goal of a Hatha yoga practice is to find the balance between the solar and lunar aspects, power and flexibility, strength and balance, effort and surrender.  By focusing so strongly on the solar aspect of my practice and ignoring the lunar side, I had become completely imbalanced.

Inspired by my new-found appreciation for the lunar aspect of my yoga practice, I decided to give Beethoven's "Moonlight Sonata" another chance, this time listening to all three movements instead of giving up halfway through the first one.  Not only did I actually enjoy the first movement, I was delightfully surprised by the third movement...it's lively and dramatic and deliciously complicated, just what I look for in a piano composition.  It turns out, Beethoven might have just as much to teach me about balance as my yoga practice does.

Namaste,
- Lori

P.S.  You should try listening to the first movement of the "Moonlight Sonata" during Shavasana sometime....it's amazing.

Why Yoga?

I'm going to get a little serious here...if you want to read one of my super happy blog posts where I talk about how much I love rainbows and butterflies and puppies, I suggest you skip this one and maybe reread "Seasonal Santosha" (which will definitely make you feel better on this gloomy winter day).


I usually like to be a Polly-Positive (as opposed to a Debbie-Downer), but sometimes life is hard, and ignoring those times in this blog just doesn't feel like the honest thing to do.  So, I'm going to write this post about a topic I try not to talk about too much...about my struggle with living with a chronic illness, and how yoga has helped me along the way.


I have chronic migraines.  What does that mean?  While there are some people who get migraines a few times a year, or for many women once a month based on hormonal changes, I rarely experience a completely symptom-free day.  That's right....I get migraines pretty much every day. 


So what are these migraines like?  First there's the prodrome - I can always tell a migraine's coming when I get really exhausted and angry for no reason.  Also, I'll have issues speaking, to the point where I'll sometimes stop using words and start pantomiming without realizing that I'm doing it.  And I often get a terrible stomach ache too...no fun at all.


Then there's the aura - I get blank spots in my vision like someone smudged things with an eraser, and little floating amoeba shapes in my vision too.  And things look distorted, sort of like I'm looking at the world through really old handmade window glass...this can make driving pretty difficult, and working on my art downright impossible.  I'll also smell imaginary smells (usually onions which is kind of weird) and my hands will go numb - I'll drop things left and right and sometimes can't even hold a fork right to eat (or a pencil to draw).  


Then the fun begins with the headache phase - the pain is hard to describe.  It usually starts behind my left eye and spreads outward until it feels like I have a headache/ear infection/sinus infection/toothache.  The pain can be dull and throbbing at it's best...at it's worst it feels like someone's trying to pull my left eye out of my skull.  And then there's the "ice pick headaches" - random jolts of pain where it feels like someone's trying to drive an ice pick through part of my skull.  


The headache pain is usually accompanied by extreme sensitivity to light and sound (to the point where I wish I could wear sunglasses and earplugs inside in a dark quiet room), nasal congestion, major dehydration, and a complete inability to regulate my body temperature....one minute I'll be so cold I have goosebumps, the next I'll be sweating.  


Finally, there's the postdrome - during the "migraine hangover" phase I feel slow and tired and dumb...the simplest task can seem impossible.  I unfortunately have a huge number of migraine triggers, which means that by the time I hit the postdrome phase I'm usually already transitioning into the prodrome of the next migraine.  


I know what some of you must be thinking - "But you don't look sick...if this is really what you're going through all the time, why haven't we seen it?"  The answer is simple...I try really freaking hard to keep my act together and at least appear to go through life like a normal healthy human being.  There are some people with chronic illnesses who act like complete victims...I choose not to be a complainy-pants.  It's bad enough that I'm suffering on a regular basis, I don't want to make my friends and family suffer too.


Where does my yoga practice fit into all of this?  In my first ever blog post, I wrote about a period in my life when I spent 6 or more hours a week attending classes at an amazing yoga studio, and how much I miss those days.  One of the things I miss most is that during that period my migraines got a heck of a lot better.  It astounded me that pranayama and asana and meditation could alleviate my suffering when multiple neurologists and dozens of prescription drugs were unable to help me.  


So that's why yoga is so important to me, why I'm trying so hard to develop a regular home practice.  Someday I hope to return to attending several yoga classes a week, but in the mean time, I need to focus on healing myself at home.


Namaste,
- Lori


P.S.  If you read this far, thank you...it means the world to me.  I promise my next post will be astonishingly cheerful :)

A Homemade Yogini Valentine's Day

I'm completely willing to admit that I love Valentine's Day...I love the thought of there being one special day in the year that's dedicated to showing the people in your life just how much you adore them.  I love the fancy chocolates and fragrant flowers and candlelit dinners and sparkly greeting cards.  But there's one thing I really dislike about February 14th....the Valentine's Day haters.

There are the singletons who are bitter about having no romantic prospects on Valentine's Day.  I'd argue that this holiday isn't just about romance...it's also about platonic and familial love.  To them I'd say "send some flowers to your mom, go out for a fancy-pants dinner with your friends, heck, buy yourself some amazing candy and a sappy card and realize how blessed you are to be loved by so many people."

There are the anti-consumerism non-conformists that argue against the superficial materialistic displays of affection that abound this time of year.  My feelings are, if you don't want to buy roses and diamonds and heart-shaped boxes of chocolate, then don't (and if you're in a relationship with someone who wants these things which you so strongly disapprove of it might be time to reevaluate things).

There are the idealists who claim that you don't need a special day devoted to love, that you should "treat every day like Valentine's Day."  Let's all be honest here....NOBODY does this.  Life is busy and complicated and sometimes you forget to take the time to say "I love you" to the people you care about most.  It's nice to have an annual reminder.

So how did I celebrate Valentine's day?  I started the day with heart-shaped pancakes with homemade strawberry syrup (a family tradition that I hope to continue for years to come).  I read through every Valentine's Day card Ed and I ever exchanged (which was an amazing trip down memory lane).  I cried a little while writing out my baby boy's first Valentine.  Ed gave me pink carnations and I put them in a red vase in my hallway and I stop and smile at them every time I walk past. I wrote out cards for Dylan to send to his extended family and all the babies and little kids we know.  Inspired by a Yoga Journal blog post, I meditated on the different times in my life when I felt truly loved.

And I ended the day with a four-course gourmet meal at the best restaurant in town...my apartment.  I made thinly sliced melon drizzled with honey, a salad with strawberries, toasted pecans, goat cheese and homemade honey-balsamic vinaigrette, roasted sage butternut squash risotto and roasted garlic asparagus, and finally dark chocolate mocha mousse.  As I cooked I thought about how much I love my husband and how the food I was making was an expression of that love.  Ed and I ate by candlelight, listening to the music of Jack Johnson and the sounds of Dylan happily playing in his playpen a few feet away from us.

It wasn't what everyone would want for Valentine's Day, but it was exactly what I wanted.  My hope is that everyone, including the haters, can find a way to celebrate the love in their lives in a way that is personal and meaningful for them.

Namaste,
- Lori

Seasonal Santosha

Now that the holidays are officially over, I've noticed more and more people grumbling about the long winter ahead of them, wishing they could hasten the arrival of springtime and skip the cold winter months altogether.  I try my best not to join in on the complaining, but sometimes I get frustrated by the inadequate central heat in our apartment and the limited hours of winter daylight and I find myself longing for the warm sunny days of summer.

This winter, instead of grumbling about the cold and the dark, I hope to develop a sense of "seasonal santosha" or "climate contentment."  I want to focus on appreciating the wonderful things that make this time of year so special and unique.

I love the visual delights of winter - a perfect 6-sided snowflake caught in the palm of my gloved hand, the brilliant red of a cardinal perched on a bare tree limb, the imprint of a freshly-made snow angel.

I love the music of winter - the rhythmic crunch of my boots in the snow, the melodic laughter of children sledding in my neighbors' yard, the haunting voice of the winter wind breaking up the silence of a long dark night.

I love the tangible pleasures of winter - the softness of my son's fleece footie-pajamas, the weight of my down comforter wrapping me in warmth as I sleep, the blazing heat of a hearth-fire.

I love the intoxicating smells of winter - freshly-baked cookies cooling on metal racks, long hot baths infused with scented oils, the mix of musky chimney smoke and crisp cold winter air.

I love the luxurious tastes of winter - the pots of spiced tea I share with my husband in the evenings, freshly-baked bread soaked in homemade soup, my favorite chocolates that I get once a year on Valentines Day.

So, the next time I find myself fantasizing about spring flowers and sandals and sundresses, I'll remind myself that the winter has its own joys...that without these cold dark months we wouldn't have icicles and snowmen and big cozy sweaters and steaming cups of hot cocoa and so many other wonderful things.

Namaste,

- Lori

10 Goals for 2012

So, I'm not a huge fan of new year's resolutions...I really don't like the idea of people trying to "fix" themselves as soon as the clock strikes 12 on New Year's Eve.  As far as I'm concerned, I'm already pretty great as is.  So, instead of a list of resolutions, here's a list of things I look forward to doing in 2012:


1. Create a work of art that I like enough to frame and hang in my apartment.
It doesn't have to be a masterpiece, and I don't have to display it forever. But I'm an artist and all the walls in my apartment are blank which is pretty ridiculous!


2. Grow a plant, from a seed, and then eat it.
Someday I dream of owning a little house with a tiny yard and a huge veggie garden.  For now, I'll happily enjoy growing some herbs in my sunny kitchen windows.


3. Run a mile, nonstop.
I don't have to be especially fast and I don't need to look good doing it.  I just want enough speed and stamina to outrun the undead in case of a zombie apocalypse.


4. Go on 12 perfect dates with my amazing husband.
Possible date options include mini-golf, live jazz, local art, stand-up comedy, bowling, and drive-in movies.


5. Learn how to play a new song on my guitar.
This will require me to dust off my poor neglected guitar, tune it, and practice 'till my fingers toughen up again...I'm up for the challenge.


6. Do one perfect Chaturanga Dandasana (Four-Limbed Staff Pose)
I've always struggled with upper-body strength and fantasize about someday doing an "un-modified" Sun Salutation. 


7. Spend a full day volunteering.
That's a full 24 hours. They don't have to be consecutive...I just want to spend at least 1 day out of the next 365 helping others.  It's not nearly enough, but it's a start.


8. Bake a lattice-crust pie from scratch.
Preferably with berries I pick myself at a local farm.  I want to bake it on a sunny summer day, letting the breeze from my kitchen windows cool it, and then share it with people that I love.


9. Spend a day in NYC.
This day will (most likely) include a long walk through central park, a visit to at least one major museum, and meals shared with old friends at new restaurants.  I lived in the city for five years...it will always feel a little bit like home to me.


10. Teach my son how to walk...
...and talk and swim and sing and dance and give kisses and wave "bye-bye" and so much more.  He'll probably teach me just as much in the process.


So many amazing things to look forward to.  I hope you all are anticipating a wonderful year ahead of you as well!


Namaste,
- Lori

Top 10 of 2011

As 2011 very rapidly draws to a close, I find myself reminiscing about the overwhelmingly amazing things that have happened in my life in the past 365 days...there have been a lot of them, but here are a few of my faves (in no particular order):

1. The birth of our son, Dylan Edward McQuade, on April 4th 

OK, so this IS my favorite thing that happened this year, and probably my favorite thing that's EVER happened.

2. Writing my first blog post
I've thought about entering the blogosphere for a few years but never had the nerve. Turns out that parenthood has made me kinda gutsy.  


3. Turning 30
Spent the perfect day with my guys...had a picnic, went for a hike, cooled down with some strawberry fro-yo, and consumed excessive amounts of Indian food.

Dylan loved his first hike with his Dad!

4. Celebrating my second anniversary with my husband, Ed
It was our first date since Dylan was born. I got dressed up, drank wine, and held hands all evening with the most wonderful man in the world...perfection.


5. Dylan's dedication ceremony at the UUFNW
I'm so lucky that I get to raise my son in such an awesome spiritual community.


6. My first Mothers Day as a mom
Spent the day with three generations of amazing mothers (myself included). I smiled a ton, and cried a bit too (but in a good, sappy, "I'm a new mom and life is so beautiful" way).

Dylan made me a delicious breakfast in bed

7. My brother's engagement
My brother, Bryce, proposed to his sweet, amazing, loving, gorgeous girlfriend Vanessa on Christmas Day. I've decided that Bryce gave me the BEST Christmas gift ever...a new sister. 


8. Seeing Dylan's face for the first time
In a 3D ultrasound in March...it was totally love at first sight.

9. Painting again
I created these Andy Warhol-inspired paintings as a Secret Santa gift for my brother-in-law who works for Heineken. Working on this project while wrangling an 8-month-old during the busy holiday season made me realize that I CAN find time to work on my art on a regular basis.

10.  All of Dylan's firsts
His first smile, first laugh, the first time he rolled over, crawled, and pulled up to standing. Each of these moments took my breath away.


2011 has been a magical year for me and my family...I can't wait to see what 2012 will bring.


Namaste,
- Lori