The Blissful Body Yoga Blog has moved to http://blissfulbodyyoga.blogspot.com/

Namaste Blissful Body Yoga blog readers! The Blissful Body Yoga blog has moved permanently to the following address on blogger:

http://blissfulbodyyoga.blogspot.com/

And you can keep up with everything I’m doing by following me on Twitter:

http://twitter.com/BlissfullyTeal

Blogger has always been my main site for the blog, and I had been basically copying all my post from that blog to this one, and my Tumblr blog, but I have been doing SO many post it has gotten too difficult to keep up with. I hope you will go to http://blissfulbodyyoga.blogspot.com/

and subscribe to my feed there so that you don’t miss a thing.

A lot of new, great things are coming from Blissful Body Yoga this year, and next, including the premiere of Blissful Body Yoga audio download meditations, available soon on yogadownload.com!! I am so excited about these. They are my offering to you, to bring yoga to your home and to help it grow in your life.

In the meanwhile, you many not be aware of my other blogs. I also write the Daily Gratitude Blog which can be subscribed to here:

http://dailygratitudeblog.blogspot.com

Many of you are familiar with my fine art and work as a graphic designer. I started a blog to showcase my own work, and work of other independant artists, called the Teal Designs Art Studio Blog. It can be found here:

http://tealdesigns.blogspot.com/

Prints on paper and canvas of some of my fine art work is available on ImageKind here:

http://tealdesigns.imagekind.com/

If you need a graphic designer with 15 years experience in designing for print and web, look no further. You can few a portion of my portfolio on my Teal Designs site here:

http://www.tealdesigns.net

Or contact me directly at, teal@tealdesigns.net

And of course a lot of you have been visiting my CafePress site for yoga inspired clothing and gifts, and…ahem..funny t-shirts, mostly inspired by friends and my husband, Mike. Thanks for making this the Blissful Body Yoga Store on CafePress so successful.

http://www.cafepress.com/blissfulbody

Thank you for all your support. If you love the Blissful Body Yoga blog please subscibe, and concider donating at my main site,

http://www.blissfulbodyyoga.com

or the blog

http://blissfulbodyyoga.blogspot.com/

May you be happy

May you be free from all suffering

Om Shanti, Shanti Shanti

Teal Marie Chimblo, Owner/Teacher, Blissful Body Yoga

CONTACT INFORMATION

Blissful Body Yoga
teal@blissfulbodyyoga.com
http://www.blissfulbodyyoga.com
http://blissfulbodyyoga.blogspot.com/
http://dailygratitudeblog.blogspot.com
http://www.cafepress.com/blissfulbody
http://tealdesigns.imagekind.com/

Teal Designs
teal@tealdesigns.net
http://www.tealdesigns.net
http://tealdesigns.blogspot.com/
http://tealdesigns.imagekind.com/
http://www.cafepress.com/blissfulbody

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Yogi Tea: A Blissful Autumn Drink

http://nileshmistryart.com/dancers.php

Yogi Tea is SOOOO good.
Once you start drinking it you will want to drink it all the time. It is so nourishing and calming to the body. All of the spices in the tea, following the Ayurvedic tradition, have a health building, medicinal quality; and many of the ones mentioned in this post – like ginger, cardamon and cinnamon – are very warming and appropriate for autumn and winter. They cure what ails you, and even better, the help to prevent the ailing in the first place.

Tea is comforting, and it can be used as a part of wonderful daily rituals that cultivate mindfulness, and foster gratitude for each small moment. Tea after yoga class is often used as a way to build sangha (community) by giving people a reason to sit down together to talk and share.

YOGI TEAS
These recipes came to me through a Kundalini Yoga yahoo group I belong to. Thank you, and Sat Nam, to RUTH SALDANHA, who posted them to the group. I have added some of my own notations as well.
This recipe comes from Yogi Bhajan, who introduced Kundalini to the west in the late 1960s. Yogi Bhajan is also the founder of the “Yogi Tea” brand, which is easy to find in health food stores.

Ingredients:
– 2 quarts water
– 15 whole cloves
– 20 black peppercorns
– 3 sticks of cinnamon
– 20 whole cardamon pods (split the pods first and be careful with the
tiny seed sticks that come from the inside)
– 8 fresh ginger slices (1/4″ thick, no need to peel)
– 1/2 teaspoon regular or decaf black tea leaves (approximately 1 tea
bag)

Preparation:
Bring two quarts of water to a boil. Add cloves and boil one
minute. Add cardamom, peppercorns, cinnamon, and ginger. Cover and boil for
30 minutes. Reduce heat and simmer for two to three hours. Remove from heat,
add black tea, and let cool. Strain and store in the refrigerator. Reheat
when you want a cup and add milk and honey to taste.

Spiced green tea
– 1 tablespoon organic green tea leaves,
– 3 pods black cardamom (green cardamom will do if black cardamom is
unavailable), crushed
– 1 piece of ginger, crushed

Makes one large teapot. Do not brew for more than three minutes, as green
tea becomes bitter after that. Black cardamom has a slightly smoky taste,
very different from that of green cardamom. This tea is good for digestion,
but it is heating, and both ginger and cardamom are said to be aphrodisiac,
so don’t have it before bed, unless you are planning not to sleep immediately.

Chamomile and ginger tea
– 1 tablespoon dried chamomile flowers
– 1 piece of ginger, sliced timely

Chamomile is a relaxing herb, calming to the nervous system. Add a teaspoon of honey and sip slowly before your evening meditation.

Thyme and mint tea
– 1 pinch dried thyme, or better, a few twigs fresh thyme,
– 1 pinch dried mint, or better, a few leaves fresh peppermint
– 1 small twig rosemary (optional)
– 2 pints boiling water

Mint can be grown in any garden, and even in pots on a window sill. This tea
taste much better with herbs freshly picked from the garden. Brew for a few
minutes.

Liquorice and fresh mint tea
– a few leaves fresh peppermint
– 1 piece of liquorice stick (it’s actually the rood of the plant, and
looks like a twig), about 1 inch long
– 1 pint boiling water

Pound the liquorice stick with a mortar and pestle. Brew with the mint for
at least five minutes as liquorice take a while to release its delicious
bitter sweet flavour. A great digestive tea, excellent for Pitta constitution.

Spicy pink tea
– 1 large pinch of dried hibiscus flower
– 1 large piece of ginger, crushed
– 1 stalk lemon grass, chopped
– 1 pint boiling water

Hibiscus flowers give this tea a reddish colour, as well as a distinctive
tang, which complement very well the fieriness of ginger. Brew for a few
minutes.

Indian Chai
– 1 tablespoon organic black tea leaves
– 5 pods green cardamom, crushed
– 1 piece of ginger, sliced
– 2 cloves
– 1 small piece of cinnamon bark
– 2 pints of water
– 1 cup milk
– 3 teaspoons organic cane sugar

Put all the ingredients in a large pan, bring to the boil and simmer for
five minutes. Strain and serve piping hot.

Clare island punch
– 1 large pinch of dried hibiscus flower
– 1 small pinch Bancha tea (black tea can be used as a substitute)
– 6 pods green cardamom, crushed
– 1 thumb size piece of ginger, finely sliced
– 3 cloves
– 1 cinnamon quill
– 3 seed black pepper, crushed
– 1 piece of liquorice root, crushed
– 1 sprinkle of allspice powder

Put all the ingredients in a large tea pot, cover with boiling water, and
keep on the stove for 10 minutes before serving.

Drink in good health!
Jai bhagwan-
Teal Marie

SIDE NOTE:
One interesting, and to me VERY surprising piece of information I came across regarding cinnamon: “Coumarin is a flavouring which is found in higher concentrations in the types of cinnamon grouped together under the name “cassia cinnamon”. Relatively small amounts of coumarin can already damage the liver of particularly sensitive individuals. However, this is not permanent damage.”

You can read more about it here, and find out more about Ceylon cinnamon that evidently does not have this component here.

Now cinnamon has been shown to be a very effective assistant in lowering blood sugar, and has many other healthy benefits, so I wouldn’t get to panicked about the coumarin issue. This article discusses the health benefits and the coumarin issue as well. Like all of these issues it is going to take some research to get to the bottom of. I will try to get back with some posts with my findings, I welcome any information readers may have to offer.

This site has a lot of useful information on the medicinal uses of herbs and spices. And this one as well. Here is a site for buying organic herbs.

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Healthy Treats for Big and Little Yogis

As a yoga teacher, I get a lot of questions about healthy eating,
particularly from parents who are trying to improve their own eating
habits, and start their children out on the right track. In general I
tell people:

A
healthy diet for the yogi or yogini of any age should be moderate to
help keep the body light and the mind calm; and full of vital nutrients
to support and build Prana. A correct diet will strengthen the immune
system, make meditation and yoga asana practice easier, and lead to a
more equananimous approach to life.

I also tell people, “if it’s green…eat it!” Basically, you can’t go wrong if you make 70% or more of your diet living, whole food.
Meaning something that grew in the ground, or on a tree and has had no
processing other that you lightly cooking it. The salad pictured above
is very typical of what we would have for dinner. My fiance Mike made
this one. Isn’t it gorgeous? How could you not want to eat that? It
even had edible flowers on it.

This
is doubly important for your littlest yoginis. I would highly encourage
any parent to make their own baby food. I know you are extremely busy,
but really it takes very little time, and the pay off is enourmous.
Your child will grow up with “whole food tastebuds”, instead of fat,
salt, sugar, aka “Mickey D’s”, taste buds. This summer I spent an
afternoon at each of my sis-in-law’s homes making baby food for their
little girls (see pic of eager eater Bella gazing at her stash of baby
food). It took a few hours to make, literally, a couple months worth of
food, and for a fraction of the cost of commercial baby food. Try it,
and tune back into my blog, those baby food recipes will be coming soon.

Besides
the baby food, over the next few months I’ll be sharing a lot of my
day-to-day favorite recipes, but in the meanwhile these came to my
email box and I thought I’d pass them along. If you’d like to see more
recipes like these you can find them, here.

Namaste, and may your food nourish you-
Teal Marie

Peanut Butter and Granola Breakfast Wraps or Snack
This
wrap recipe calls for bananas, but you could also use apple slices or
another fruit instead. Omit the honey for a fully vegan version.

Ingredients:
* 1 flour tortilla (use whole wheat if possible)
* 1-2 tbsp peanut butter
* 1 banana, sliced thin
* 1/3 cup granola
* honey (optional)

Preparation:
Spread the peanut butter on the flour tortilla. Place bananas and
granola on the peanut butter. Drizzle with honey, if desired and wrap.

Baked Sweet Potato Fries.
If
you’re craving a high-fat and salty treat like fast food French fries,
try this recipe for healthier baked sweet potato fries. Baked sweet
potato fries are much lower in fat than a deep-fried version and are
very quick to prepare. Kids will love these baked fries as well.

Ingredients:
* 3 large sweet potatoes, cut into wedges
* 1 tbsp olive oil
* 1 tsp cumin
* dash cayenne pepper
* 1/4 tsp paprika
* 1/2 tsp salt or seasoned salt

Preparation:
Pre-heat the oven to 400 degrees.
In
a large bowl, toss together all ingredients until potatoes are evenally
coated with oil and spices. Place potatoes on a single layer on a
baking sheet and bake for about 30 minutes, or until done.

Thai Peanut Sauce
A basic Thai peanut sauce can be used for dozens of things. I like to use it as a salad dressing, to dip spring rolls
in or as a sauce for noodles. This basic recipe isn’t too spicy, so
kids will especially love the peanutbuttery taste. You might also want
to try this spicier Thai peanut sauce recipe or a Thai peanut sauce
with ginger.
Prep Time: 10 minutes
Cook Time: 5 minutes

Ingredients:
* 1/4 cup peanut butter
* 1/4 cup water
* 1/4 cup soy sauce
* 2 tbsp lime juice
* 2 cloves garlic, minced and crushed
* 2 tbsp rice vinegar

Preparation:
Combine
all ingredients in a saucepan over low heat (mixture will become easy
to combine as peanut butter melts). Continue stirring over low heat
until ingredients are combined and mixture is smooth and creamy. This
recipe is perfect as it is, but you may want to thin it out a bit with
more water, depending on what you’re using it for.

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Meditation-In-Motion: a Kripalu Yoga Experience

Image via Wikipedia

In this post I am going to set the stage for you to experience Meditation-In-Motion, which is a unique aspect of the Kripalu Yoga tradition. This type of “prana awakening” will open doors to new body wisdom for you. First a little background, and explanation.

Kripalu Yoga comes from the lineage of Kundalini yoga and so it is all about cultivating, releasing and harnessing prana, which is energy or life-force. (I will discuss the concepts of prana and Kundalini in greater depth in up-coming posts.) The idea is that as we practice the different components of yoga, like asanas (postures), prana is strengthened and focused. This in turn has great and far-reaching effects in every area of our lives.

Meditation is often an elusive term for most people conjuring pictures of yogis cross-legged in full lotus for hours, but really it is a mental, physical, and biological event that occurs quite naturally when the conditions are right. Creating the conditions is key.
If you have ever been so totally absorbed in work that hours passed without you realizing; have felt the absorption of oneness with a beloved; walked in the forest and had a sense of oneness with all things; participated in an ecstatic dance class, or just danced with reckless abandon by yourself (one of my favorite things to do!) then you have experienced a form of meditative absorption, or Dhyana.

Spontaneous posture flows are something that can occur as prana is released during these deep states of meditative absorption. In fact, this is how yoga asanas were developed. 5000 years ago, yogis living in seclusion, spending hour upon hour in meditative absorption, began to have spontaneous movements as a result of their increased prana. They began recording some of the most common movements, and I would speculate the ones that seemed most effective in harnessing prana, and helping the body to deal with excruciating hours spent in sitting meditation. These were eventually refined into common sets of postures and practices that moved forward with the evolving yogic tradition.

So… what Meditation-In-Motion is, simply, is to allow yourself to come into a relaxed, meditative state and then let your prana move you.

Not you doing yoga…yoga doing you.

To begin…

Find a space where you have room to move around, and lay out a yoga mat (if you have one-it’s not required for this experience.) You can use music if you like, BIJA by Todd Norian is a favorite of mine for MIM. Begin on your back in Corpse Pose. Inhale and exhale deeply through your nose.

Feel the breath as it moves into your body and imagine it swirling in a spiraling motion in the center of your body. With each new breath, let this spiral expand, moving out into your limbs. Let the energy flow and grow with the breath as you inhale and exhale. Keep expanding until the energy is moving out through your finger tips, toes, and the crown of your head.Now let the breath and the energy begin to guide your movements. Forget what you know of yoga postures, or dance movements; follow the waves of sensation and energy. There is no wrong way to proceed.

You may find yourself, moving a lot, or a little, staying on the floor, or transitioning to standing movements. You may sway, arc, make shapes, find yourself in long, holding positions – anything is possible, everything is good.

Notice your breathing, and feel free to release any sighs or vocalizations that may come through. Continue this way, riding the wave of sensation, allowing your prana to awaken and flow, for as long as you like. When you feel complete, make your way back down to the floor and end with a five to ten minute Sivasana (relaxation and integration time), in Corpse Pose.

I hope you enjoy dancing with your prana-
Blesssings,
Teal

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