Treehouse Jukebox: Adventures In Earth

Goodness! I’m a bit tickled to have been tagged by Joanna of LotusHaus to do the 8 Things Meme. LotusHaus is a gorgeous blog that you really should visit ASAP.

I actually did this meme a little bit ago, calling it the 7 Things Meme. Check it out here.

But I am ready, willing, and able to do it again with all new, fascinating (?) tidbits about myself. And this time there’s something of a theme.

1. I finally took my first yoga class at the very end of June. After one class, I was completely smitten, hooked, enflamed, in love with yoga. It was a kundalini yoga class taught by a wonderful teacher and I now go as often as I can. I feel different after yoga. My mind is at its quietest. I feel all sorts of things.

2. I love to be near the ocean. It’s another thing that makes me feel peaceful and just changes me. At the same time, I’m afraid of the idea of being more than waist deep in the sea.

3. Two people who are special spiritual figures to me are Amma and Mister Rogers.

4. Two musical groups/artists that create uplifting spiritual experiences for my had new albums this year! Bjork and Polyphonic Spree. I love them both and both often strike me as profound.

5. I guess I read more poetry than many people, but I really don’t read all that much. I browse until I find poems and poets that say something that strikes me at my core. Two of my top favorites are Mary Oliver and Rumi.

6. I love trees - especially trees with lovely, twisting roots.

7. I share a name with a goddess.

8. Since I can’t take yoga classes every day at this time in my life, I’m starting morning routines at home using Kundalini Yoga to Detox and Destress with Maya Fiennes and Shiva Rea - Yoga Shakti  DVDs.

***

You now know me 8-things-better!

I just can’t pick 8 people to tag and I never know who likes to be tagged and who does not. So, this time I won’t tag anybody. But please feel free to tell me things about yourself, but I’m always curious! =)

Remember when I won that mp3 player? It came today and it is awesome!!

It looks pretty much like this:

It’s really neat! Thank you, b5media!

Anyway, it’s nifty and comes with a lot of free music (200 songs). It plays videos and can store photos and recordings. Fun!

Song of excess,
strength, mighty tenderness, pliant ecstasy.
Magnificence
lovingly dancing.

I quiver as a body in rapture,
I quiver as a wing,
I am an explosion,
I overstep myself,
I am a fountain,
I have its resilience.
Excess,
a thousand excesses,
strength,
song of gushing strength.

There are gifts in me,
Flowerings of abundance,
curls of light are sobbing,
a flame is foaming, its lofty ripeness
is ripening.
Oceans of glare,
rosy as the palate
of a big mouth in ecstasy.

I am astonished
up to my nostrils, I snort,
a snorting universe of astonishment
inundates me.
I am gulping excess,
I am choking with fullness.
I am impossible as reality.

~Anna Swir

So many beautiful phrases in this one…

1. _Lakshmi_, 2. Tropical Blue Water Lily, 3. ≈ 2 sKy hEaRtS ≈, 4. opening, 5. Beautiful Hands, Kerala India #2, 6. Open Heart, 7. Flags, 8. gladioli, 9. She’s like the wind…

Somehow we must see
through the shimmering cloth
of daily life, its painted,
evasive facings of what to eat,
to wear? Which work
matters? Is a bird more
or less than a man?

*

There have been people
who helped the world. Named
or not named. They weren’t interested
in what might matter,
doubled over as they were
with compassion. Laden
branches, bright rivers.

*

When a bulb burns out
we just change it–
it’s not the bulb we love;
it’s the light.

Remember this post about music from the UK?

It won me an mp3 player! Yippee!

I don’t have one, so that’s quite nice. I can’t wait for it to arrive.

Many cheers all around!

gier

Originally uploaded by 123betty

I believe this is an Egyptian Vulture.

Before this photo, I’d never seen a bird like this. Isn’t it amazing? It’s so reminiscent of a griffin. Quite breathtaking.

I don’t know where I heard of this group, but something led me to request their album from the library. It came in the other day and I love it!

You can sample some of their music at their myspace page.

It’s always nice to stumble upon new music you love. Have you had any great music finds lately?

What’s “PBM,” you ask? It’s Picture Book Monday!

On PBMs, I shortly and sweetly highlight a picture book. For instance:

Twist: Yoga Poems
written by Janet S. Wong
illustrated by Julie Paschkis

Why Read It: This is one of my favorite picture books ever. It shows a variety of yoga poses and accompanies each with a poem about it. Even if you don’t love yoga, this is a gorgeous book to enjoy. If you do love yoga, I’d say this is a spiritual experience. It’s glorious.

I would love to have some posters of these illustrations as posters, but it looks like those don’t exist - yet, at least.

Themes: Yoga!

Bonus Bits: Here’s author Janet Wong’s site and here’s illustrator Julie Paschkis’ site. Each has nifty glimpses into their other projects.

If I gave books stars, I’d give this one them all!

I was having such a hard time getting to a certain local yarn shop that sells Mission Falls 1824 Cotton. It was becoming a joke between Pine and I. My schedule is very hectic, but I kept going to this shop when I had time and it kept being closed for some random reason!

Finally, though, I got in there last weekend. I wanted this particular yarn, because I’m knitting some squares for a friend’s baby blanket and she mentioned liking this yarn. It is really nice to work with!

I’ve just started casting on and I imagine it might take some experimentation to find exactly how many stitches will equal a 10-inch square. Oh, there’s such a thing as knitting a gauge swatch. And I know you’re supposed to always do it or disaster will strike!! But I truly hate it and never, ever do it. I don’t plan to start now! (I do plan to start when I knit my first baby sweater or something like that, because I really don’t want to spend a billion hours knitting something and find it horribly mis-sized.)

Anyway, I’m going to do something with cables for my first square. I hope it turns out wonderfully! I’ll be working on it this weekend, so maybe I’ll have a picture to post in a few days.

One more thing: While at the yarn shop, we felt some Oh My! yarn. It really is…remarkble. It’s so soft that it’s kind of disturbing.

That’s the knitting news for this morning!