Dancing in your Socks: The Best way to Celebrate the New Year

Happy New Years my fellow EcoYogi(ni)s! Here in Halifax the sunrise is a beautiful array of colours over the blue blue ocean... I wish I had remembered to bring my camera so I could share it with you. My absolute favourite part of this time of year though? Seeing the Moon set each morning (right now a small slice in the sky; a new moon coming up!).

New Years Eve, like many other secular (ish) holidays tend to be ridiculously wasteful. There are many ways to celebrate NYE though, without blowing a ton of money, plastic, energy and paper while still having a good time- maritimer style. I swear there are.

Here are a few ideas:

Gathering at home:

• Having friends over is a surefire way to save money, instead of going out and controling the energy used for your fun.
• Buy local wine and beer for the celebrations. Acadie Vineyards and Grand Pré make excellent local bubbly (Acadie Vineyards actually has an organic cider! Yum Yum).
• Use decorations you had during the Yulemas holidays. I just took all the sparkly bulbs donated for our Yulemas and hung them up around the apartment. Free and less to clean up afterwards!
• Instead of confetti or prepackaged plastic-y sound makers, take wrapping paper or scraps, cut up in strips and attach together for a wavy-around thingy. I mean, at midnight after all that organic cider- will you *really* notice the difference?
• Serve locally made foods and ask friends to potluck it! (although after all that baking there is no shame in serving chips. Seriously, no judgement here).
• Dance in your pretty dress with socks on in your livingroom with friends. The more random the socks, the better.

Going out:

• Choose a free activity and attend with friends (tonight there's a parade and fireworks. Not exactly eco-friendly, but free!).
• Go out for supper at a sustainable restaurant in your city for yummy local food.
• Go NYE skating in an outdoor rink (Halifax now has the 'Oval' on the commons- free and fun!)

Our plans? Andrew and I were gifted a supper at Jane's on the Commons (local yummy food served there!). Afterwards we're coming home, I'm donning my leopard print purple socks with my dress, drinking local organic cider and having friends over. We may even attempt a tipsy 'Scribblish' game!

Blessings and Here Here to a New Year!

I am so over the "Kickstart Your Yoga Practice" mantra

Final days of 2010... and where did my yoga practice go? I need a plan... remember my "Personal Practice Adventure" series? Ugh. Down the tubes for sure.  The local studios are pushing for "kickstarting" your 2011 practice with a class, or a 30 day practice or.... ya know. Sure, I'll just commit myself to every evening for the next 30 days, pay a ridiculous amount of money that I just happen to have after the money sucking holidays and "kickstart" my yoga practice.

 Atlantic ocean when it snows! In front of my parents house a few days ago.

 Blue Jays at home. They scared away the beautiful red cardinal, chickadees and red breasted nuthatch...

A lobster fisherman's backyard... so nice and tidy eh? Mom totally wants a shed, and I can see why. However, I am not going to argue with the yummy lobsters I was given....

 

Hmm, anyone else hearing the crankyness? lol.

So. Needless to say I feel a little disenchanted with the whole marketing yoga as a New Year's resolution. That and I am going to be traveling all over the province in the next three months for work. (which I'm hoping means sampling some yoga from studios across the province during the evenings!).

My loose plan to reignite the yoga fires?

1. Attending one yoga class a week (in a studio... gasp!)
2. Continuing the fun "friend yoga" with Yogaglo once a week at our apartment.
3. Practicing once by myself with either yogaglo or just my own sequence- same day every week.

In order for this to work, I'll have to commit to attending a yoga class either on a Monday or Thursday... weeks in advance. Halifax Yoga and The Shala will be my main choices, mostly because  I still have passes for Halifax Yoga (and I adore Krista's Monday Flow class) and the Shala is within close walking distance.

Friend yoga will be easy to keep up, since my awesome yoga peeps keep me in line- no punking out when people are showing up to your apartment for yoga!

And practicing by myself will be a bit trickier. I'm hoping Andrew will keep me motivated, we'll have "active" time. He lifts weights and I practice yoga before supper.

What about you, yogis? Ever have a yoga slump, or feel the edges of yoga burnout?

(ps, there will be some fun news coming up for EcoYogini..... I have a picture to share, but have no idea how to transfer it from Andrew's computer to my own blogging computer... lol. So soon!)


article copyright of EcoYogini at ecoyogini.blogspot.com

Yulemas Spirit to All

This is Yulemas to me.



Merry Yulemas my Eco Yogi(ni)s! And thank you Dr. Jay for sharing this on facebook and allowing me to feel a bit of perfect Spirit.

Homemade Spicy Hot Chocolate- Coffee with a Kick

I totally stole this from Shelagh over at Alice in Paris loves Art and Tea.... and gave it a try. And it is deliciously perfect and so so easy! So I thought I'd share it with you :)

As a espresso and chocolate gal, my daily coffee needs are woefully unmet by plain ole (organic and fair trade mind you) french pressed grinds. I usually supplement with honey, brown sugar...ahem-eggnogg-what? You know you want to try it.

The best addition to make daily coffee awesomer was this 'spicy hot chocolate' mix I bought at JustUs! Coffee last year. (I even sent a small container of it to Yancy @ Greenspell it was so good!). It had chocolate and a hit of some hot pepper-y spice that just warmed you up from the inside. Sigh.

That stuff costs money and requires packaging... Until Shelagh posted on how to make your very own homemade hot chocolate powder. Huh. I never thought I could just make my own. (perhaps all of you are reading this and thinking- what is wrong with her?? I've been making hot chocolate powder for years~! lol).

Anyhoo- gave it a go and what do you know? It's perfect! Although JustUs! doesn't have the nasty extra preservatives that most hot chocolate mixes do, making my own means less packaging and saved moneys!

Spicy Hot Chocolate Recipe:

A bunch of cocoa powder (I think I put about 2/3rds of the honey jar full)
Some brown sugar (two or three teaspoons)
Some white sugar (three teaspoons)
Three pinches of cayenne pepper powder. (maybe I put four... hah).

I actually only had cayenne pepper flakes. So I put a bunch in our coffee grinder and voilà! Powder! Super easy.

If I were more prepared here's some extra earth friendly steps to take:

• Use fair trade organic cocoa powder and sugar
• somehow process fresh peppers into a substance you can add to the mix.
• Also, I did consider grating some fair trade organic baker's chocolate I happened to have... but didn't.

Add one (or two) tablespoons to your coffee (travel mug or not) and there you have it. Instant coffee with a kick for the chilly, blustery day. Wrap a pretty ribbon on the jar and you got a very special, homemade gift. (ps, go visit Shelagh's lovely site- because her art is fabulous and I'll feel less guilty about stealing her idea :) )

Blessings!



(pps, ecoYogi(ni)s, the winter solstice is coming up- WITH a full lunar eclipse- are we pumped or what?)

article and photographs copyright of EcoYogini at ecoyogini.blogspot.com

A Challenge to Stop Asana

Quiet. Stillness. When was the last time you've taken a few moments to be still and simply "be". We move in such a frenzy, especially this time of year. Oh yeah, we wax poetic about quiet evenings in front of a lit tree- at least we watch commercials about those silent looks, a wink from a mother to her son etc, and somehow these commercials have convinced us it really is happening.

I can tell you that before university, (10 years ago! eek!) my life had a lot of quiet moments. Growing up in rural Nova Scotia means no traffic noises and many afternoons of just looking out over the water, taking a break from playing the piano, solitary walks along the shore. Watching the snowflakes fall quietly over the ocean.

Something happened when I started University- I moved to a city and spent so many hours "doing" instead of "being". Even now, without any children, my life is spent working during daylight hours, preparing for Yulemas during evenings and weekends. It's taken a sick day (hmmm, my body's way of saying "stop!") and some lightly falling snow for me to sit back and be for 15 minutes.

I could do my usual "studies show..." quoting the research that is increasingly showing our children and culture are becoming less connected, having more difficulty with attending and learning.... but ya know. These gently falling snowflakes outside my window just aren't conducive to strong words. 

Sometimes even a physical yoga practice is too much "doing" in our uptight busy world. I challenge you yogis to take that yoga asana practice time you have set aside, and instead make yourself a cup of tea and just sit. And be. Watch the snow fall (or leaves wave depending on your hemisphere). Watch you. Practice a different kind of yoga.


article copyright of EcoYogini at ecoyogini.blogspot.com

Experiencing Life instead of Digitalizing It

I was listening to Spark today while chopping up some potatoes for a yummy lobster chowder (perks of having a lobster fisherman dad!). Spark is a tech-culture-idea program on the cbc, and you can listen via podcasts. A snippet of the program was about how perhaps our unquestioned techno-advances aren't necessarily advisable for creativity and human culture.

A professor at Ryerson University argued that our constant and increasing need to 'back up' every single memorable aspect of our lives digitally may in fact not be the greatest idea. She pointed out that our current need to photograph, videotape and blog every single memory, essentially transforms our lives into a digital experience. But, in order to be creative, in order to be efficient do our brains need to reformulate memories, forget things and transform how we think about the past?

I thought the interview was timely, as it definitely tied into a work conversation I had the other day. A co-worker announced that five years ago her family lost their entire house to a fire. She went on to describe the horrifying experience and we all marveled at just how quickly you can lose all your 'stuff'.

One thing that she said that really stood out for me was the fact that she has since changed her way of experiencing her family's life events. She used to be that person videotaping and photographing every single tiny moment of a recital, sports game or family gathering. She felt like she had to, that it was valuable. She even said she would feel jealous of how her husband really *got* to experience the event fully while she felt she needed to zoom in on her child's face, or catch a certain part.

After loosing all of their digital 'memories' she realized just how temporary digital files and photos can be. She now hardly ever takes photos or videos and instead actively experiences her life.

Andrew and I experiencing life- while I was reading my vows to him... Although there is a photo to share, my actual memory of this is just so much more special.

I think that is so important to remember during these times of digitalized lives. We try to document so much digitally that we lose part of the actual experience in the process. While practicing yoga we are constantly reminded to be an active and mindful participant in our lives. Then we leave the studio, our mat and enter our crazy lives. I actually feel guilty about not taking photographs of an event. Often I'll say something like- 'Oh I need to take a picture for my blog!'

In the past few months I've tried to make choices about how I use my time. Do I spend it blogging, writing on facebook or twittering? Or do I spend my evening hanging out with my husband, going to a pub with friends or practicing yoga with friends? Lately, my initial blogging days of a post every two days has decreased to about twice a week. A conscious decision on my part.

During these busy Holiday moments, shut off your cell phone, disconnect yourself from twitter and put away your camera. Try to be an active and present participant in your life. Once the moment has passed, a digital memory for something you really didn't experience in the first place won't cut it.

article copyright of EcoYogini at ecoyogini.blogspot.com

Albert the Organic Yulemas Tree

Meet Albert the Organic Yulemas Tree. I am so excited that we have our first ever Yulemas tree and that it's certified organic!

The experience was definitely interesting for this country mouse. I guess I never really thought about how city folk pick up their tree...

Andrew and I hopped into my little yaris two door hatchback sans roof racks with slight hesitation as to how we were going to fit an entire tree in there. But we had bungee cords bought special for the occasion (and will serve us for years to come) and spunk. (hah).

We had google mapped where the trees were being held- which was a complete gong show; we must have driven around the block and I was shouting obscenities most of the time. When we finally found the place parking was a nightmare. Oh right, city parking sucks in Halifax on a good day. Our fun tree pick up time started with me yelling at other 'granola' tree pedestrians to get the *%@# out of my way. (did I ever say that I have a touch of road rage...?).

With Andrew's soothing voice, we did manage to find a good parking spot and wandered over to see the trees. I've never ever chosen a tree. We were almost a little ridiculous. Andrew holding up a tree, me trying to evaluate whether it was too skinny, too tall, were the needs the pouffy kind. Really I finally just saw a tree that was ok height and I felt like there was a Lisa to tree connection. LMAO, I totally had a yoga-fouffy moment with this tree. Didn't even fluff it out to see what it looked like.

 Mr Kitten, meet Albert. Love at first bite.

We picked up 'Albert' and marched proudly over to our car. As we fumbled with how to work the hatch with the bungee cord, I could see people walking buy and laughing at us. People who actually know how to hook up bungee cords to cars. lol. It was awesome.

When we managed to hook up our tree into the tree stand dealy (made in New Brunswick!), pouff it up and we realized that our tree was a little lumpy. Well, ok a lot lumpy. I love it. I'm of the opinion that a tree needs to look like... well a natural tree. Not a weirdly perfect 'factory farmed tree' that is symmetrical. Trees aren't symmetrical triangles. Albert definitely is not symmetrical...

 

Success! Side note- my stocking on the left was handmade for my first Christmas by my late Tante Virginia 29 years ago. It has my name and is very very special to me.

Our decorations were donated by my mom. She brought up her box of decorations she had made herself when we were toddlers (approximately 25 years ago!). Funnily enough, I adore them! Not only do they bring back memories, but I think the tree actually looks vintage. The lights were sourced from mom's friend and are the ugly multi-coloured. But they're free! We listened to jazz music, drank some yummy Garrison Winter Warmer and decorated our first ever Yulemas Organic Tree.

One of mom's handmade wreaths- so cute!

Some ideas on decorating your tree as eco-friendly as possible:
- Ask around, perhaps you also have some friends or relatives who are into the whole 'trendy tree' thing and have some older stuff they no longer use.
- Check out a second hand store like Value Village to find 'new to you' decorations.
- Make your own! I saw some pretty fabulously made paper ornaments at Crafters. Although I could never make them, I could make some awesome ornaments with character. (key word, character lol).
- Buy handmade. Although usually pricier, these ornaments cut out the carbon spewage of huge factories and shipping. Also, they are works of art and are made with love! Don't have an awesome handmade store or crafters Christmas market near you? Etsy will be your friend.
- Try the popcorn garland and edible ornaments like candy canes.
- if you can't find second hand lights, invest in LED lights. You no longer have to have spaceship blue LED lights, 'soft white' is just as pretty as the regular white tree lights. (I know, since those lights were a gift to my mom a few years ago...and they look beautiful).

Happy Holidays my EcoYogi(ni)s!! I am seriously pumped to put our newspaper wrapped gifts under Albert the Organic Yulemas tree :)

article and photographs copyrighted by EcoYogini of ecoyogini.blogspot.com

Se découvrir, des miettes à la fois.

(You asked for a French post, ok Emma and Yancy asked... here ya go!  :) )

C'est la fin de l'année, et pis le solstice d'hiver s'approche rapidement. Avec une éclipse de lune sur la même journée que le solstice ça fait pour une introspection plus intense que d'habitude.

J'ai beaucoup appris de moi même c't'année. C'est évident que shu acadienne, que ma langue parlée la plus comfortable c'est l'Acadien... mais être acceptée par les autres francophones, les autres parleurs du français demeure dans mon esprit, mes pensées et mes actions. Pour la plupart du temps ces inquiétudes, en forme de tissu collant qui s'attache à tout, habitaient dans l'inconscient.

L'ironie, c'est une belle partie de mes journées sont consacrées à expliquer et éduquer mes collègues et les parents de mes clients les particularités de la culture acadienne. J'ai passé des heures à parler de la différence en attitude envers notre français et pourquoi les acadiens choisissent de parler en anglais au lieu d'expliquer mille fois que 'non, je ne suis pas anglophone, ma première langue c'est bien le français'. J'explique que les mots ne sont pas juste des 'pas-vrai-mots', ni la grammaire n'est pas juste 'mauvais'- mais ce sont souvent des archéismes et font partie d'une linguistique riche en culture. Qu'on a des centaines de raisons d'être fier(e) de notre langage et héritage.

Et qu'est-ce que je fait? Je passe beaucoup de ma journée à m'excuser de mon 'accent', de ma grammaire... à m'expliquer et me sentir moins 'francophone' à cause de ça.

Mais shu fiere d'être acadienne. J'aime mes mots, mon accent de twang de par-en-bas, la grammaire du temps de Molière. Ouaiye, je serre les jouets y-ou-cequ'ys alléouwn, j'amarre mes souliers et j'arrumions ce que a besouin.

(Si vous vouliez entendre les mots, grammaire et l'accent- voici une chanson youtube qu'est vraiment proche.... Par Eric Surette, Acadien des carineaux, appeler: 'Ma dernière pêche' :) ).

Des 'fun facts' du français Acadien:
- les aspects grammaticales 'ions' attaché au 'je' au lieu de 'nous' est noté en histoire depuis les 16ième siécle du 'vieux français'. Au temps de Molière, c'était correcte de conjuger 'ions' avec 'je'- par exemple: 'j'allions'. Les Acadiens utilisent encore ce façon de conjuger.

- Les Acadiens sont aussi les seules francophones qui utilisent encore dans leur parler le passé simple. J'connais beaucoup de monde qui diriont 'je décolire du quai(tchat)'.

- Nos mots ne sont pas juste créer- ils sont aussi des vieux mots avec des provenances de centaines d'années (parfois les 1500's). Par example: 'bailler' pour dire 'donner'- utiliser en Clare, c'est un vieux mot de la France dans les 1500's. Ou ben, 'pende-oreille'(boucle d'oreille), 'gobelet' (verre), vître (fenêtre), hardes (vêtements), drapeau (couches) et arrumer (arranger)...

J'essaye avec ma pratique de yoga d'accepter ma propre 'histoire' comme acadienne et reconnaître en soi comment une histoire et héritage de centaines d'années puisse avoir un impact si tranchante sur ma vie.

Je me vois, et je pratique d'me dire- 'J'te donne permission de parler avec ton accent et d'avoir la patience d'expliquer quand c'est necessaire et d'accoutûmer aux réactions et l'ignorance.  Et de ne pas m'excuser pour ma grammaire dans ce poste-ci....'

Yulemas Tree; Putting the 'Pagan' back in 'Tree'...

I grew up with real Christmas Trees. Sometimes we choose them from farmed options at someone's house (Debra who lead Girl Guide's actually), sometimes we went to the Morton family tree farm to cut our own down and once we even went on Crown land to chop down a giant fir tree for our cottage.

Decorating the Christmas tree has always been one of my favourite parts of the holidays. Even after I moved away for school my parents would wait (even until the 20th of December) for me to get home and decorate the tree, listening to Christmas music and drinking spiced eggnog.

This year will be our first away from family, trees and traditions. We considered just not going through the hassle and money that having a tree would have. We're not Christian, so why go through traditions that make no sense for us?

Except... Christmas trees are not in any way Christian... they are in fact very pagan. From ancient Egypt, Greece and Germany pagans have been decorating trees during the winter solstice season to celebrate and worship respective gods and goddesses (see Mrs. B's post for more details). So we are taking back the pagan holiday tree-WOOT!

First off though is the choice in tree. Regardless of your spiritual beliefs, there has been some debate over what is better for the environment- chopping down a tree or buying plastic.

Let's take a quick look:

Fake tree:

Made from plastic (aka petroleum), requires toxic chemicals and more petroleum for energy to create, shipping involves loads of carbon via trucks and ships and the tree *might* last 20 years (while the plastic lasts forever). These trees may be convenient in the short term, unless you consider the nice plastic off-gas that will increase your home's dirty air level and the trees ultimate end in our beautiful green world.

Real tree:

1. Locally grown organic trees: yep they exist! As opposed to the scary cutting down of trees like clear cutting, these farmed trees can be sustainably grown to increase habitat for wildlife, richness in soil from the roots and the filtering of our air. Organically grown trees won't involve toxic pesticides. Best choice of the best!

2. Locally farmed tree, non-organic. This option is still a better choice in my opinion than a fake plastic toxic monstrosity (ok, I like real trees- is it obvious?). Although the farmer probably used pesticides to grow your tree, it still provides habitat, soil protection and carbon filtering. Buying a locally grown tree is key here as it decreases the shipping footprint.

3. The third extra option is to either get a potted tree to plant outside after the holiday season or decorate an outside tree (with sustainable materials! don't want the squirrels eating that plastic tinsel!). Just make sure that the potted tree you buy will actually grow in your climate. Sobey's here in Atlantic Canada sells these terrible little potted trees that are sprayed with glitter (ick) and not even indigenous to this growing region. Awesome.

Halifax Seaport Farmer's Market- check out the pretty pretty windmills!!

Andrew and I chose option numéro un: Locally grown organic tree! YAY!

Where to find one in Halifax? The Ecology Action Centre is selling Lunenburg grown organic trees- and it was UBER easy to purchase one. Tree's typically sell for about 20$, certified organic trees are 30-35 (depending on size) which really isn't that big of a deal, two yoga classes for a planet friendly tree! You can easily order a tree online at the EAC's site- but we had a few questions for them so we ran down to the new Halifax Farmer's Market.

 The very nice man who posed for a blog photo! Thanks Ecology Action Centre dude! :)

The nice girl at the booth assured us that although on their site it says 'regular tree' and 'large organic tree' that all trees are certified organic. They also informed us that they were grown at a Lunenburg farm and not shipped from some far off place. Perfect! Our tree will be ready for pick next Saturday between 9-1pm... hopefully we can strap it to my tiny hatchback or find a really small apartment sized tree.... :)

I am so happy to be at the market on a Sunday! Not busy and still able to buy locally- YES!

If you live in HRM hurry hurry to order your tree though! Ordering closes December 6th (tomorrow) at noon!! Of course, if you're reading this too late, you can always bookmark the site and order one next year!

Now... sustainable Yulemas tree decoration action plan-GO!

article and photographs copyright of EcoYogini at ecoyogini.blogspot.com