Corinne Bailey Rae ~ I'd Do It All Again

الحاج

now i remember why I worked so hard to deliberately forget you. you live on the cool side of the pillow.

(fear makes the wolf look bigger)

And I quote: Tolstoy

The most difficult thing - but an essential one - is to love Life, to love it even while one suffers, because Life is all. Life is God, and to love Life means to love God. - Tolstoy

earth sign

I'm often scared of being in nature under the cloak of darkness, but never deterred. It's a healthy fear. The sounds amplified in dense silence make my heart palpitate; they're what keep me alive.

And the moment I begin to forget that, disastrous things start to happen.

inverted 俳句: capitalism

capitalism is not
the answer, yet we
pursue it with such gusto

musings: make peace so you can rest in it

Can those who claim righteousness be jubilant in the wake of Osama Bin Laden's death? I guess, but expressing a feeling of greater safety (albeit misguided) or ... seems a stronger investment in one's karma. All I'm saying, the bandwagon's strong, but don't fuck yourself (in the now/end/hereafter). The Law, in its purest iteration, bends not to our own justifications. Mere mortals cannot execute the work of the God's unscathed.

Make peace so you can rest in it.

PSA

channel your inner Paul Robeson more outwardly.

27.

colored boy, young sol, radiant chile'
your light is blinding
spotted sun
crucified by the pompous public
he painted. suffered. escaped. was buried alive. buried himself. alive. and died.
he painted. suffered and died. trying to escape. buried alive. himself died.
"sometimes, often (un)willingly, artists prophesize their own future."
Sea!
men are gods, because they wash feet
and *this* is the good life
so live it until what is promised
comes to
(pass)

there is no wrong road, only the road you are taking

the collective maya that reinforces this notion of human perfection fuels language's greatest oxymoron.

setting perfection as one's intention makes for a lousy goal. is it measurable? can you possibly acheive it? does the journey to it manifest stress before you even start walking the path? sure, you want to get there, but do you really want to go there?

even striving to be one's personal best, admittedly, a more humble approach to excellence, overshoots the mark. just. be. here. now. this is all you have; this is all you need. make it all you desire, for this is all there is.

fight it, flight it, face it or embrace it.

Black Orpheus

One of my favorite movies EVER!

Tracy Chapman - fast car Video

You've got to make a decision.

reinventing urdhva dhanurasana

w e n t b a c k a n d f e t c h e d i t .

an ode to the educators i love

For a job that starts at 8 and ends at 3, you sure are working late. And your summers off – if you can afford to take them – are necessary mental health and restoration days.

These kids, there are a lot of them in homeroom. And knowledge isn’t valued as widely/in the same way that it used to be. And you’re trying to impart the lesson that it should be, at times without reinforcement, while the government is proposing cuts to education and rich folk tax breaks. Priorities.

And the school supplies you buy to make sure all your kids have the greatest opportunity to learn and their/your bulletin board is the flyest while illustrating a level of mastery in learning – we see you.

Thanks.

Kristen a.k.a. Che’s Mom a.k.a. your daughter a.k.a. your niece a.k.a. your granddaughter a.k.a. your student a.k.a. parent of your student a.k.a. your friend a.k.a. my best friend's mom a.k.a. your comrade

The Daily Show
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~my mind's racing from chasing pirates~

uprising ii

t h e y w i l l n o t f o r c e u s ; t h e y w i l l s t o p d e g r a d i n g u s ; t h e y w i l l n o t c o n t r o l u s ; w e w i l l b e v i c t o r i o u s !

the most kickinist kapha mat spray ever!

the level of granola i've evolved into is at times too crunchy for even me. that being said, i made the most kickinist kapha mat spray ever tonight!


materials/ingredients

medium to large size empty spray bottle
1 cup water
1/4 cup rose petal witch hazel
30 drops of tea tree oil
15 drops rose oil
15 drops peppermint oil
15 drops rosemary oil

i shudder at my seamless use of ayurvedic terminology, but there is something phenomenal to the orchestra that is know-thyself preventative medicine and holistic treatment. and i need it. all of it. to propel myself forward (at times).

making your own yoga mat spray is not a tall order. you'll need: a spray bottle with an adjustable nozzle; we're aiming for mist, purified or distilled water (love your equipment), and tea tree oil - that's your base. stop right here and your mat is clean (but you should keep reading, it gets way better).

pure tea tree oil is expensive, but you'll be using this same bottle to make many personal aromatherapy mat sprays to come. it's as great a treatment as benzoyl peroxide for zits with way less irritation. and it's your household's ultimate antiseptic, essential oil's version of the miracle aloe plant. even without a bottle of the most kickinist kapha mat spray, it's an added value to your medicine cabinet - so buy some.

aromatherapily speaking, peppermint, rose and rosemary are my rage! scents. i do ashtanga and i'm more at a point in my practice where i need energy when i approach the top of my mat rather than a lavenderific chamomilian soothe. i gotta get through 90 minutes of chataranga dandasanas, it's six a.m., and frankly, i'd rather be sleeping (until i'm done and feel all the benefits, of course). but i digress, how the blend helps...

peppermint is exhilarating. it improves thinking, uplifts and warms you with coolness. what is that? go smell some peppermint, i can't explain it any other way.

le scent du rose - and remember, you're doubled up with the rose witch hazel - is anti-melancholic, uplifting, confidence improving, warmly warm (not to be confused with the coolly warm of peppermint :-) and in most circles, thought to be an aphrodisiac (or ayurvedically speaking, thought to "increase desire").

we're at move, go, get it! already, and then there's the rosemary. it's an unusual one, no? subtle. but rosemary shares some of peppermints properties: inspiring, stimulating, a solid warm warm, definitely an upper, clears thinking and quickens the senses. you are so good to go, earthy girl!

but different strokes for different doshas, right? other olfactory options i love and the rationale behind them are as follows:

peppermint & rosemary (sin rose) - use an unscented witch hazel if you're going hardcore - spray on to get focused!

clary sage, lavender & chamomile - great for evening practice or the more unfortunate (and hopefully rare) exasperated insomnia induced practice. it'll help you sleep, boo. take savasana to a whole new level.

peppermint, rose & orange - dory's k.i.m. (keep it moving) blend - an intersection between "just keep swimming, swimming, swimming," and "ain't got no time for shucking and jiving." (backpackers? anyone?)

orange, rose & lavender - this is extremely decadent and delicious so you should do it for yourself. rich relaxation.

(respiration is critical).

There are some people in this world who suck up all the air in a room while convincing those siting within it that they are the sole source of oxygen. Do not be with these people. They poison the well, at times inadvertently.

Sometimes, being alone is the best agua purificada. So please, drink up.

(you are not a force to be reckoned with or acted upon, you are the source. re member to breathe).

Get off ye Steve Harvey! Happy Radical Love Day.

The Colbert Report
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"Justice is what love looks like in public just like tenderness is what love feels like in private... Love is a steadfast commitment to the well-being of other people." ~ Cornel West

jolene

Grammy's 2011 Norah Jones, John Mayer & Keith Urban

Jolene, jolene, jolene, jolene!
I'm begging of you please don't take my man.

lady in red

Politics. It's dancing through the rain. You have to be sharp at every occasion. It's the color of your tie; your wife's dress, not american flag red, not red state red - communist red. And that's just how we do.

all hail queen Yashodhara

have you ever thought about the Buddha's wife? 16 years old, left with a two year old, while her baby daddy sat under a tree for 8 years (to find himself)? yes, I think about things like this sometimes.

one doesn't get over it on purpose. it's a process. a cross country road trip of sorts.

uprising

Today Mubarak fell. The 18 days worth of photographs and video footage were phenomenal. We were left inspired and forever changed. It was televised. Take that, Gil Scott Heron and Malcolm Gladwell.

Today was historic. There were people who died for freedom, people who repped the human condition - hard. People who did something not knowing that their actions would spark a revolution. I'm talking go-risk-your-life-for-something-you-believe-in-do-gooders-channeling-a-merciful-God.

This was sparked by a Tunisian man named Mohamed Bouazizi, who set himself ablaze because police seized his vegetable cart - an act of defiance so declarative that it ignited revolution two countries over.

And a girl named Asmaa Mahfouz, who took to her webcam to declare the martyrdom of this man who'd rather die than suffer from his inhumane humanity.

Today was the m'n f'n day. We watched David slew Goliath. We saw how a laptop could be more powerful than a fleet of semi-automatic weapons. Facebook and Twitter - mediums we've used to inspire, share information on and piss our lives away with simultaneously became a force to be reckoned with. There was no poking. And when the Internet was censored, these revolutionaries took it offline, old-school community organizing style.

Al Jazeera English, rising from the American ashes like a royal blue phoenix, played the background special interest story to a catalyst of the likes of which most of us have never witnessed or even conceived - and it has only just begun. And it was all live, via the vantage point of any participant's mobile phone from Tahir Square to Mansoura, Assiut, Suez to Luxor.

Civilian journalism.

We have witnessed the best of what technology has to offer, the activist equivalent of stem cell cures, a moral force. We hold the passwords to critical mass which holds the key to change.

I want to finish a Martin Luther King quote being thrown around in light of today's events because it could quite possibly be more applicable today than it was when it was first uttered 54 years ago:

"There is something in the soul that cries out for freedom. There is something deep down within the very soul of man that reaches out for Canaan. Men cannot be satisfied with Egypt. They tried to adjust to it for a while. Many men have vested interests in Egypt, and they are slow to leave. Egypt makes it profitable to them, some people profit by Egypt. The vast majority, the masses of people never profit by Egypt, and they are never content with it. And eventually they rise up and begin to cry out for Canaan's land."

The revolution is calling. What are you willing to give?