Green Chili Saturday

Nothing can bring back nostalgic memories of high minded dinners in Austin like cooking up a batch of green chili - as taught, or passed on to me by my friend Jay the archeologist and former cook in New Mexico. It's impossible to get real green chiles here unless you call up a certain restaurant and ask them to sell you a package of frozen green chiles. Otherwise you have to use the mild canned ones which totally don't work. We always drank rioja wine. Sometimes we ate outside and sometimes inside. Sometimes I made the chili and sometimes Jay. Maybe one of the last times Jay made it for me was for my birthday and I kept raving about how good it was. Now this was when I was a very strict, ovo-lacto vegetarian. Jay would just chuckle. Finally at the end of the meal he confessed that he'd made it with lard. I pretended to be super mad, but how could I be when he had cooked me one of the finest meals I'd ever had in my life. So if you have great food and think it's the love - think again - it might be the lard!
Yesterdays practice was all about the love. I got to mysore class a little late and the usual teacher wasn't there, but that was ok. And someone who basically "defriended" me was, but that was ok too. I was there for the practice. Since I was late, I only made it up to baddhakonasana before moving to closing. I probably could have gone faster and finished, but that wasn't really my point last night. My "goal" was just to show up and have a good time, go deep inside and really connect with my deeper self. I like to think that I accomplished that, though I was a little restless in final resting pose. Well, every day is different, every practice, every green chili :)

The Smile of Non-Fear Part 2

For some reason I've decided to name this post the Smile of Non-Fear part 2 or Starting Over. I feel as though when I went to Hawaii I received a real spiritual gift -- faith. I've started praying to a higher power - a god - God whatever is out there. I don't really have any idea what it is except that it dwells in most people and is everywhere and part of everything. Once I visited a non-demoniational chapel in Houston that had all of these paintings by that painter who paints the canvas just one color and these were all black or almost black I forget how many and you just sat there and contemplated these paintings, or not and I felt the presence of a higher power then and that has been the only other time. Now it is just there and I pray to it and I feel better. It's a simple formula, I guess that's why it's sold so well all of these years.
Practiced primary with a dear friend tonight - I know - a Saturday - who cares, I wanted to practice. It was good. Not my best, but in the flow and with a good balance of ease and effort. It worked, that's what matters.