Simple is simply the best

I love to cook, but I've learned over the years (mostly from cooking mishaps) that using whole, fresh foods and keeping recipes simple with a few key herbs, spices or other additions is usually best.

Below is a super easy and surprisingly delicious recipe that I took as a side dish to a party last night. I love squash and the combination of lemon, thyme and pepper is so basic, but so yummy!

2 butternut squash - skinned, seeded and cut into pieces
Juice of 1 lemon
3-4 TB fresh thyme (roughly chopped)
2-4 TB extra virgin olive oil (just eyeball it and use enough to coat the squash)
Freshly ground pepper to taste

Toss squash with lemon, thyme, pepper and olive oil in a roasting pan. Cover with foil and roast for 45 min. or until tender (you may want to check it and give it a stir once or twice while cooking). For the last 5 minutes, uncover, and turn on the broiler (this just browns up the edges a bit). Add a bit more pepper, if desired.

Enjoy!

Tejas in the house

Last night I celebrated seven years of teaching at the same location. Many of the students who attend the class now are the very same folks that started with me seven years ago. Oh, how we've grown together!

Teaching last night, I was especially grateful for the Tantric principle of looking for the good first. I recall when I first learned this principle, thinking it was naive and impossible. Yet, teaching last night, I realized that seeing the good in each student first has become the primary lens through which I teach.

It's not that I don't notice misalignments in the postures and work collaboratively with students to address them, with the aim of helping them enjoy yoga to the fullest. But, it's honestly not the first thing I see. A quality of inner brightness or "tejas" is what I see first. We've all seen this - think of the light in a child's eyes that seems to come from deep within (and, indeed, it does).

Last night, midway through class, I looked around the room and had to pause in gratitude. Each student stood in mountain pose, hands at heart, eyes closed - tejas was in the house!

Memory and presence

I just finished reading the last poem in W.S. Merwin's extraordinary newest book, The Shadow of Sirius. I am not certain if there is anything more beautiful than the words on those pages—no wonder he got the Pulitzer for this one!

Now in his early eighties, there is wisdom here. Yet, what struck me so profoundly about this body of work is that while each poem is unique in its subject matter, each shares the theme of remembrance.

Merwin's poems don't speak about what he's done in his life or what he's been; they speak about what he's experienced. And, because he writes like a man who has walked with awareness, there is deep clarity and tenderness reflected.

As I finished the final poem, I was reminded of what drew me to Yoga so many years ago: The practice of Yoga is an invitation to fully experience life—to be awake and present to what is really happening right here and now. It was a good reminder.