The Velvet Underground & Josh Ritter - a really good mix

I had a dream last night, I dreamt that I was swimming in the stars up above, directionless and drifting... Change of Time, Josh Ritter

There is nothing like crazy good music to breathe inspiration into my home yoga practice. This playlist is a mellow mix of The Velvet Underground (timeless, right) and Josh Ritter (can this guy write or what!?). It's just under 30 minutes, so I use it for a short practice or repeat it for a longer one.

Southern Pacifica, Josh Ritter
Oh! Sweet Nuthin', The Velvet Underground
Beginning to See the Light, The Velevet Underground
Some Kind of Love, The Velvet Underground
Beautiful Night, Josh Ritter
Change of Time, Josh Ritter

What's on your windowsill

I once dreamed of a perfect house. I also dreamed about having kids someday. Well, as anyone who has kids knows, kids and a perfect house don't mix.

Today, I looked at my windowsill and immediately thought, "What a mess." Then I took a closer look and realized the contents of the windowsill were a perfect snapshot into my life at that very moment:

• A jar filled with my daughter's hair accesories.
• Ganesha, who always graces our kitchen window.
• The potted flowers from my daughter for Mother's Day.
• Half a packet of sweet corn that never made it into the garden due to my son's meltdown halfway through planting the other half.
• The wooden, Polish box that my son loves to play with - it keeps him occupied just long enough for me to get dinner on the table.
• The first two jalapenos from the garden picked just the night before.
• A bowl of apricots from our neighbor's tree that I've been eating for breakfast every morning.
• Hand sanitizer in an effort to keep us all from getting colds, flus, etc.

As one of my yoga teachers says, "Striving for perfection will put us quickly on the road to hell."

So, with that in mind, on second look at my windowsill, I guess it's a bit of a perfectly imperfect mess.

What's on your windowsill? And, how does it reflect your life right now?

A time to do and a time to be

Clearly I am a very novice gardener - several months ago we planted our first artichoke plant and watched it grow and grow and grow. I had no idea what to expect, but I did expect to get at least one artichoke out of it. Yet, it just kept on growing, showing no signs of producing anything but enormous leaves that were taking over everything else around them, including the fledgling strawberries.

One morning I went out to the garden, looked at the gigantic plant and said, "So, are you just going to keep growing or what?" Perhaps shamed into "doing something," the very next day our first artichoke appeared. And, then another and another and another ... for weeks and weeks ...

Today, while watering the garden, I looked at the artichoke plant now in its final days of yielding nourishment and was reminded that sometimes things just have to get sturdy enough before they can "produce" anything - a process that takes time. There is also a time to rest and take a break from all that producing as our hard-working artichoke is about to do.

Amidst the very busy life phase I am in at present, my yoga practice is a constant refuge from the doingness of life, an opportunity to stop all the producing and just be.