Sunday sadhana

To me, sadhana is a daily spiritual practice allowing time and space for an individual to turn inward.

As Yogi Bhajan (of the Kundalini yoga tradition) says, "Sadhana is self-enrichment. It is not something which is done to please somebody or to gain something. Sadhana is a personal process in which you bring out your best."

Sadhana could be taking a walk in nature, doing breath work or yoga asanas on a mat, spending time meditating or chanting, reading and reflecting on a poem, or simply watching the sun rise.

Please accept this post as a possible starting point for your own practice today.

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Faith, by David Whyte, from Where Many Rivers Meet

I want to write about faith, about the way the moon rises over cold snow, night after night,

faithful even as it fades from fullness, slowly becoming that last curving and impossible sliver of light before the final darkness.

But I have no faith myself I refuse it even the smallest entry.

Let this then, my small poem, like a new moon, slender and barely open, be the first prayer that opens me to faith.

"41 before 42" — three months left

Counting down the months to my 42nd birthday. And once again running through my "41 before 42" list. I still can't believe it's 2016 already. I just took down my Christmas tree!

Anywho ... notes added and italicized where I've started or completed an item.

Read on, friends.

• 41 Before 42 •

1. Choreograph a country line dance (and see if Barb will teach it at Cowboys) — I've picked the song I want to use. Time to start working.
2. Plant and grow garlic — Hmmm. Not sure this will happen. Can I plant in the spring?
3. Watch every episode of MASH — G's watching with me, and — SUPER EXCITING — my parents bought us the entire collection for Christmas so we're moving faster now that we don't have to wait for the library. We're into the second disc of the third season. 
4. Try aerial yoga and/or aerial silks — Done! May also take some local classes this spring.
5. Plan my next trip to France (perhaps running a retreat at Little French Retreat)
6. Attend a Switchbacks match — Ugh. Missed out because I wasn't paying attention to the calendar. Next year!
7. Try kayaking — Done. Not just once, not just twice, but three times. I've learned how much I love water sports.
8. Learn barista basics — Done! And I wrote a story about it too. Find it here, in the premier issue of Springs Magazine.
9. Plant flower bulbs this fall — Also missed the ball on this. Maybe I'll get some in-house early bloomers.
10. Take a birding and/or bird banding class — Pitched a story on this, so hoping for it to happen in early spring.
11. Continue to reduce my wardrobe, a la Project 333 — Progressing. Gonna post another update in the next week or so.
12. Take French language lessons
13. Read at least 75 books — To date: 63 books done, re-read one, and in progress on four.
14. Take classes on how to use the manual functions on my DSLR camera — I'm actually looking at purchasing a new, much smaller and lighter camera to use on my travels, so this goal may shift some over the year.
15. Have at least one item of clothing tailored to fit
16. Learn to bake croissants — Done! The fabulous Stephanie from Steffi's Bakery & Confections taught me. Now I gotta make them on my own at home.
17. Get will and living will in order
18. Have a bouquet of flowers in the house, fresh once a month — I've had flowers in the house about every other month. I'm good with that.
19. Attend a fest in Telluride — I had this on the calendar and then we had some family issues that meant I had to cancel. Perhaps in the spring...
20. Take performance driving lessons
21. Add a piece of original art to my collection from an artist I have not yet met
22. Stay up once all night until sunrise
23. Perform at a poetry slam/open mic
24. Learn to bake French macarons — My croissant-baking friend is going to help me with this as well. Lots of baking this winter!
25. Attend the Santa Fe Opera — Going, again, on the not-gonna-happen list. Missed the summer season. Sigh. Next year.
26. Be involved with a stage show in some way
27. Bake a fruit pie, with homemade crust, from scratch — OK, I have NOT baked a fruit pie yet, but I did bake a pecan pie from scratch (see photo proof above). Thanks, again, to Stephanie. (See #16.) I learned a ton, and I'm planning to tackle a fruit pie later in the spring.
28. Visit at least one new-to-me museum — Visited Taliesan West in Scottsdale. Absolutely beautiful. Also, visited the Museum of International Folk Art in Santa Fe. Visited the Portland Museum of Art in Maine; Ministers Island in New Brunswick; the Canadian Museum of Immigration at Pier 21 in Halifax, Nova Scotia; the Maritime Museum of the Atlantic in Halifax; and the Sherbrooke Village Museum in Nova Scotia. Also the Pinball Museum and the Taubman Museum of Art in Roanoke, Virginia.
29. Watch one new-to-me movie and one classic film a month — Saw Pitch Perfect 2! (Laughed and cried.) Tomorrowland, and Mr. Holmes. Also watched Frances Ha. At the Santa Fe Independent Film Festival earlier this month, I viewed the classic A Woman Under the Influence, as well as a bunch of New Mexico shorts and the documentary The Seventh Fire. G and I re-watched all of the Hunger Games movies, and then went and saw the final one in the theater. (So good!) Others we've seen: Spanglish, Packed in a Trunk (doc), Her, and The Way.
30. Play Settlers of Catan — Found friends who have the game and want to play.
31. Stay at the Beaumont Hotel in Ouray
32. Take an oracle card-making class — Took the awesome Inner Alchemy Fire Cards class, taught online by Mindy Tsonas.
33. Research and read more about walking the Camino de Santiago — Picked up a few books and watched The Way.
34. Travel (again) with a girlfriend — Travelled to Santa Fe with two girlfriends. So much fun. Visited Brush Creek Ranch with another friend. (Story on this trip ran as the cover piece for the November/December issue of Springs Style Magazine.)
35. Fly a kite
36. Send postcards to friends once a month just because — Doing.
37. Try fly fishing — Ah! Done! And enjoyed more than I expected.
38. Visit Shambhala Mountain Center
39. Do a Georgia O'Keeffe tour around New Mexico (Ghost Ranch, Abiquiu, etc.) — No tour yet, but I did get back to the O'Keeffe Museum in Santa Fe, and saw a great O'Keeffe exhibit at the New Mexico Museum of Art.
40. Do a not-just-head-shot photo shoot (with Becky)
41. Get off my ass already and pitch the nun story to Oprah Magazine

Other accomplishments not on this list: Tried archery for the first time. Played paintball. Rode a horse. Stayed at a dude ranch. Learned to stand-up paddle board. Hiked a chunk of the Appalachian Trail. Learned to make tortillas with Chef Mica at the Santa Fe School of Cooking. Sat a few rows away from George R.R. Martin as he honored Gena Rowlands at the Santa Fe Independent Film Festival. Acquired a ukelele for Christmas and have started online lessons. Indoor rock climbing — top-rope and bouldering — a few times a week. Learning, slowly, to walk a slackline. Taught my first two yoga/writing workshops. Started working on a documentary. Learned to make sauerkraut at The Brinery and cheese at Zingerman's while visiting Ann Arbor, Michigan, for the first time.

What's on your to-do-that-you've-never-done list for this month or this year?

Sunday sadhana

To me, sadhana is a daily spiritual practice allowing time and space for an individual to turn inward.

As Yogi Bhajan (of the Kundalini yoga tradition) says, "Sadhana is self-enrichment. It is not something which is done to please somebody or to gain something. Sadhana is a personal process in which you bring out your best."

Sadhana could be taking a walk in nature, doing breath work or yoga asanas on a mat, spending time meditating or chanting, reading and reflecting on a poem, or simply watching the sun rise.

Please accept this post as a possible starting point for your own practice today.

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Welcoming the new year with new tunes

Happy New Year!

Yes, I realize I'm two weeks behind on the sentiment. Since mid-December, I've been overwhelmed with a new fosterpup, and then both I and my Lucy pup got sick (see example of how we looked in the photo to the right).

As excited as I was about a new year, and about the many ideas I wanted to share with you, I just couldn't muster up a post. (I couldn't even keep up with my Savor blogging project. Which looking back has me a bit bummed out now.)

But that's life sometimes, right? Sometimes we have to choose to step back.

So that's what I did. In addition to much restorative napping, blowing my nose, sipping ginger-lemon-honey-cayenne tea, and making sure Lucy wasn't eating anything she shouldn't be, I've been listening to a lot of music and I wanted to share what I've been dipping in.

You can stream my Seeds Beneath the Snow Winter 2016 playlist below or find it over here on Spotify. It features some of my favorite artists: Gregory Alan Isakov, Tow'rs, Danielle Ate the Sandwich, Tracy Chapman, and Ingrid Michaelson, along with some newer to me.

I hope you enjoy it. Have an amazing weekend and I'll be back next week.

P.S. I've also been reading a lot — I'm seven books in to my goal of reading 78 this year. Have you picked up Elizabeth Gilbert's Big Magic: Creative Living Beyond Fear yet? So. Good.

Winter with Aventura (& a giveaway!)

It's finally cold enough here in Colorado to don long sleeves, coats, sweaters, sweater dresses, hats and scarves — and I've being doing a lot of that cold-weather wearing in Aventura clothing.

If you've been following along, you already know that earlier this year, I was named one of the 2015 Aventura Ambassadors. Aventura is a women's clothing brand with the awesome mission of helping the earth one garment at a time.

What that means to this 50-year-old, family-owned company housed in the Sierra Nevadas is that they focus on creating fashion-forward clothing with low environmental impact — over the years, they've produced more than 100 styles of sustainable clothing.

Sustainable, and cute and comfortable. The magical three in clothing.

This winter, as an ambassador I was able to choose and test out a few outfits and accessories and I wanted to not only share some of my favorites with you, but also give you one more chance this year to win a 60-percent-off discount card, good for a one-time purchase of up to $250. (Whether you use it to buy yourself a present, or someone else, is up to you! You can order until 12/15 and still get items in time for Christmas with standard shipping.)

You'll see one of the two items that I've been wearing most this season featured in the photo above: the Floral Zip Neck Top in Garnet Rose. I wear a ton of black (and I mean a TON of black) so this pop of pink has been fun to play with. I wear it hiking. I wear it working out. I wear it with jeans, running errands. It does run a bit snug, so I recommend sizing up.

The second item I've been wearing and taking with me on all of my travels is the Bergamo Infinity Scarf in Grey. So soft, so cute and so warm. I wasn't sure if I'd like the infinity scarf concept, but it has been nice to be able to have a scarf "on auto." No worrying about how to wrap it. It comes in purple and rust as well, if you're not as black-obsessed as I am.

I can't finish this up without mentioning the Millbrae Jacket (I got mine in Merlot). I love the fit on this coat because it's nice and snug around the rib cage, giving it a little extra-feminine touch. Great pockets and funky big snap closures. Give it a try!

OK, on to the giveaway. Just leave a comment below, by 5 p.m. MT, Friday, December 11, and let me know what item in Aventura's gift guide strikes your fancy the most. I'll pick one winner from the group.

Happy holidays!

P.S. If you're interested in applying to be an Aventura Ambassador for 2016, applications are being accepted until Dec. 31 and the new roster will be announced mid-January. Find all the information here.