Money, wealth, and abundance are complicated concepts for the yogi or kabbalist who wants to extend the philosophy of yoga or Kabbalah into their everyday life.
In the name of living the life of our yoga or Kabbalah, we spend more money on organic items, amulets, buy fair-trade and goods made in the USA, and we donate our old yoga mats to those who are less fortunate. But, if we’re really being honest, these are all things that we reap benefits for ourselves, too. We feel like we’ve done our good deed for the day by helping the environment or supporting fair wages for others, and we’ve helped ourselves become healthier, boosted our images as conscious yogis, our spiritual awareness as kabbalists and cleaned out our closets at the same time. Everybody wins, yeah?
At the same time, I don’t think twice about spending $18 on one yoga class. My dog eats better than many of the children living in low-income homes in Oakland. And if I stop buying overpriced organic and fair trade products, I would not have to hurt the environment driving to Whole Foods AND I could afford to donate a lot more than a hamsa to people in Haiti.
With each purchase and donation, we make a choice prioritizing which lives are most worthy of being saved. People or animals? People or the environment? Local or Third-World children?
Could my commitment to being a “conscious consumer” be less helpful to the world, than I’ve been led to believe now for so long? If my intentions are actually to make the world a better place as a whole, would my spending habits change? Is my yoga practice actually inspiring those choices, or am I just allowing myself to be led by the big businesses yoga machine that boosts its bottom line by taking advantage of my efforts to live consciously?
The best part of the movie however, was the wardrobe. All I wanna do now is wear men’s suits, and straw hats, and sailor stripes, and lots more tweed.
Whether it was an accurate portrayal of the real Chanel or not, is beyond me. But the movie was great. It pulled me right in. After it was over I thought about becoming a fashion-designer. I even started researching design schools and searched google for “self-taught” designers and read about Chanel’s life. But then I snapped out of it.
It did leave me with an itch to find my “something.” To become more passionate about what I love to do and then really make it happen.
To embrace whatever sort of innate talent lies within me, and go for it. Because if a little orphaned French girl can go from teenage cabaret singer to mistress to one of the most famous fashion designers in the world, then I can write a book someday or own the little jewelry shop of my dreams. I only need to choose a path, put my heart into it, and I can really make it happen.
Ok, the Jewish holiday of Passover is coming up on the 29th of March. If you have Jews in your family or many Jewish friends, you just might receive an invitation to a Passover Seder. If so, you should be both excited and touched. This special meal is something that everyone should experience at least once in their life!
Should this happen, and it is your first time, how will you prepare yourself? Should you bring a gift? If so, what kind of gift should you bring?
First, before the meal, everyone at the table will participate in the reading of the Haggadah. This is a wonderfully spiritual communal experience. At most Passover Seders, once the reading of the Haggadah is complete, it’s time to feast. The meal usually starts with such staples as matzo-ball soup and gefilte fish.
This is usually followed by a brisket, a specially prepared cut of meat from the breast or lower chest, served with gravy; maybe a special chicken dish; and of course a couple of veggie dishes on the side.
As for bringing Passover gifts, you can go Judaica or you can go generic. For the latter, a nice kosher wine or some seasonal flowers should do the trick. For the former, that is Judaica, you can really have some fun; try surfing the Web to see what’s out there! Some ideas are: a beautiful mezuzah, silver serving dishes or a Haggadah.
Are there ethics in fashion? Senior retail manager for Prada Japan, Rina Bovrisse seems to think there should be.
She claims that the CEO of Prada Japan, Davide Sesia requested that she “eliminate” fifteen employees who were “old, fat, ugly, disgusting or not having the Prada look,” according to the Daily Mail. Bovrisse also said that she was told to lose weight and get a new hairdo. Now she is suing Prada for discrimination and harassment.
After Sesia’s visit last May, thirteen employees were transferred to other locations, but most of them ended up quitting as an alternative. Bovrisse went on involuntary leave in November when she decided to pursue her lawsuit.
Bovrisse said:
“The level of harassment is beyond human understanding. My responsibility is to protect hard-working women and make sure their working environment is safe.”
As of Saturday there was no settlement, according to The Japan Times:
“The case was handled by an industrial tribunal, a streamlined system for resolving labor disputes without trial. If no settlement is reached through the tribunal, the parties involved can opt to proceed with a civil suit to seek a court ruling.”
“I am planning to collect more witnesses and file a lawsuit as soon as possible,” Bovrisse said, adding that the process may take a month or two.
Every yogi parent would love to see their children do yoga, but beware, the surest way to get kids to run in the other direction is to force it on them, says Judith Hanson Lasater, an East-West psychologist and a yoga teacher. Realizing that children will rebel when forced into something, Lasater let her three little ones come to yoga and other spiritual practice on their own.
“If I had made them do yoga, I would have been missing the whole point…It’s when they choose it, with their own intention, that it really has value.”
Lasater’s recommendation is this: make your practice part of everyday life—and a public part—so that kids can join in if they want to, but don’t feel like they are being forced.
“Do your practice or meditate in the living room…Eventually, they’ll ask to do it with you.”
When Lasater’s children asked to be part of her practice, she delightedly asked them to help lead the session.
Janice Gates, a meditation and yoga teacher in San Anselmo, California, with a five-year-old daughter named Sacha, has found a technique that both sets bounda-ries and empowers children. When Sacha starts doing something that she knows is wrong, she gets disciplined, but Gates also asks Sacha how she felt in her body before she made the decision to break the rules. Gates then tells Sacha that every time she makes a choice that might have negative repercussions, she should check the feeling in her body:
“I really see her making the connection…She’s learning to both trust her intuition and understand the causality between actions and consequences. I’m hoping it will carry over to when she’s a teenager and has to make a harder decision with drugs or relationships.”
If it’s a dinnertime prayer or an equinox celebration, ritual seems to bring kids closer to yogic principles and also brings families closer to one another. Yoga teachers Charles Matkin and Noah Maze, who were raised around ashrams and later became prominent teachers; count-chanting with their families as some of their warmest memories from childhood, memories that kept them tethered to the yogic tradition even when they rebelled against it in high school. Matkin says:
“Chanting is just natural to kids…It plants a good seed.”
Making an altar to put in the bedroom is another ritual that kids just love. “Sacha puts on her altar anything that means a lot to her…She has feathers and special stones and her favorite stuffed animals. It’s a way to teach her about gratitude and also a way for her to connect to what her parents are doing.”
I was on vacation in New Mexico last week. It was my quest to find the best possible South-Western food and artwork.
Hungry on afternoon two, I went to a little Native-American hole-in-the-wall type joint, in a small town, some exit between Albuquerque and Santa Fe.
I ordered beef tacos, (no not buffalo!) a chicken burrito, and two Dos Equis’. The meal was out of this world! So good, I wanted to cry. When the waitress came over, a young Navajo girl, I asked her to give my compliments to the chef. She smiled and invited me to come in the kitchen to meet him.
Coda, the chef, was taking a break, sitting on an over-turned carton in a little room with a fan outside of the kitchen. There on the wall, behind him hung something very beautiful. It was a splendidly crafted cross – different than the ones I had been seeing during the whole vacation. There was turquoise of course, joined by copper, brass and what seemed to be Swarovski crystals. I was amazed. I asked Coda, besides for a taco recipe, from where was this amazing cross?
“Thank you friend, I am glad you loved the tacos. The recipe, though, I could never share with anyone outside of my family. My grandmother made me swear to never give eet away. I am glad you like the cross too. Actually, eet’s not even from Santa Fe. I found eet while e-shopping. I think the name of the store was, AmuletGifts.com.”
I laughed so hard when I heard that! AmuletGifts.com? I know that site well!
Me, a professional web-surfer and shopper, came all of the way to New Mexico, to find the loveliest turquoise cross I’ve ever seen, purchased by a Navajo culinary genius, online!
Anyway, I logged onto the site and bought seven of them to give as gifts throughout the year.
This year is all about being green. So for the busy lives of my readers, I’ve compiled a list of must-have multitasking basics – from clothes to foods to tools – which really get amazing mileage.
Little Black Dress
The little eco black dress is the updated version of the critical wardrobe staple and statement that is always in style. Go for a little stretchy (give or take five pounds) with some understated lines and the dress which you slip on year-round can be dressed up or down with the right accessories.
Distressed Jeans
Denim does double duty from a basic tank top or biker jacket to a nighttime gallery hopping with a nice sleek blazer. Distressed can be $200 of intentionally torn or the most broken-in pair in the closet, of course authentic is usually the way to go.
Button Down White Shirt
An organic cotton or hemp basic button down for day or night can take you to a business meeting or a formal dinner.
Toothpaste
For a toxin-free smile you may brush with an eco-alternative, but you also can use toothpaste for a plethora of other tasks, like scrubbing the rubber on your sneakers, cleaning your keys, brightening jewelry, removing watermarks from furniture and stains from clothing, nixing zits and cleaning silver.
Baby Shampoo
Not just for washing gentle little heads of hair without dyes and surfactants, organic baby shampoo is great for bathing pets and for hand washing lingerie or hand knit sweaters.
Accordion Folder
There is a very good reason that teachers highly recommend these expanding cardboard file folders with sections: They are excellent for keeping order, and can be reused for various projects. They are thin enough to fit into a backpack or satchel and are pretty much indestructible. We have not abolished paper just yet, so until we can live without filing, this style is more versatile than most others.
Farrah Fawcett’s longtime partner, Ryan O’Neal, has joined the chorus of other Hollywood figures including Jane Fonda and Roger Ebert in expressing dismay that Fawcett was left out of the “In Memoriam” segment of Sunday’s Academy Awards.
There is no comment other than we were disappointed that she was not included,” a rep for O’Neal told PEOPLE.
Fonda and Ebert both Tweeted about the snub during the broadcast. “No Farrah Fawcett in the memorial tribute? Major fail,” Ebert wrote. “And where was Farrah Fawcett? She should have been included,” wrote Fonda.
The “In Memoriam” portion of the broadcast features a montage of film-industry figures who have passed away in the previous year. Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences spokeswoman Leslie Unger says that the segment can only honor so many people.
“Every year it’s an unfortunate reality that we can’t include everybody,” she told the Associated Press.
Before the show, Academy executive director Bruce Davis spoke about the difficult process of creating the segment:
“It is the single most troubling element of the Oscar show every year…Because more people die each year than can possibly be included in that segment…It gets close to agonizing by the end,” he said. “You are dropping people who the public knows. It’s just not comfortable.”
Fawcett, whose untimely demise happened last June, at the young age of 62, was firstly a TV actress, though she did appear in a number of feature films.
Sarah Palin has a new defense for her conspicuous use of hand notes: God uses them.
When the media first challenged her on the need to write her core beliefs on her hand to remember them, she said:
“I didn’t really have a good answer, as so often — is me…But then somebody sent me the other day, Isaiah 49:16, and you need to go home and look it up. Before you look it up, I’ll tell you what it says though. It says, hey, if it was good enough for God, scribbling on the palm of his hand, it’s good enough for me, for us. He says, in that passage, ‘I wrote your name on the palm of my hand to remember you,’ and I’m like, ‘Okay, I’m in good company.’”
The line alluded to by Mrs. Palin:
“Behold, I have graven thee upon the palms of my hands.”
Was Isaiah referring to permanent marker, or something more drastic?
Before invoking God, Palin tried to explain the hand notes by calling them “a poor man’s teleprompter.” Earlier in her speech before Ohio Right to Life, she claimed that she really got the idea from her father, a schoolteacher, who would “read the palm of his hand to see what, you know, was on tap first for the curriculum the next day.”
Palin also repeated the God story in Calgary on Saturday, after Canadian Senator Pamela Wallin joked about her hand notes during a question-and-answer session. One audience member yelled out, “Atta girl!”
Cecilia Attias, the former first lady of France, officially made New York her home at Thursday night’s inaugural gala dinner for the Cecilia Attias Foundation for Women.
Mrs. Attias divorced Parkozy in 2007 after 11 years of marriage. The following year she married Morocco-born and New York-based global events planner Richard Attias, who recently founded the New York Forum, a conference for the global business elite that will launch in New York in June. Mr.
Attias also serves as vice president for the Foundation, which aims “to be a guiding force in making positive change for women across the globe,” according to the Website.
Guests at the New York Public Library event enjoyed a dinner of Atlantic cod confit, short ribs, and roasted beef tenderloin prepared by famous chef, Daniel Boulud.
Mrs. Attias, a former fitting model for Elsa Schiaparelli, looked elegant in a black sequin top and tuxedo jacket and slacks.
The breakout star of the evening, though, was Louis Sarkozy, Cecilia and Nicolas’s only child. Upon accepting a surprise award for his support of the Foundation, the 12-year-old admitted to the audience:
Money, wealth, and abundance are complicated concepts for the yogi or kabbalist who wants to extend the philosophy of yoga or Kabbalah into their everyday life.
Have you heard about the flick, 
First, before the meal, everyone at the table will participate in the reading of the Haggadah. This is a wonderfully spiritual communal experience. At most Passover Seders, once the reading of the Haggadah is complete, it’s time to feast. The meal usually starts with such staples as 
Are there ethics in 
Every yogi parent would love to see their children do yoga, but beware, the surest way to get kids to run in the other direction is to force it on them, says Judith Hanson Lasater, an East-West psychologist and a yoga teacher. Realizing that children will rebel when forced into something, Lasater let her three little ones come to yoga and 
“Thank you friend, I am glad you loved the tacos. The recipe, though, I could never share with anyone outside of my family. My grandmother made me swear to never give eet away. I am glad you like the cross too. Actually, eet’s not even from Santa Fe. I found eet while e-shopping. I think the name of the store was, AmuletGifts.com.”
Button Down White Shirt
Farrah Fawcett’s longtime partner, Ryan O’Neal, has joined the chorus of other Hollywood figures including Jane Fonda and Roger Ebert in expressing dismay that Fawcett was left out of the “In Memoriam” segment of Sunday’s Academy Awards.
Cecilia Attias, the former first lady of France, officially made New York her home at Thursday night’s inaugural gala dinner for the 
Mrs. Attias, a former fitting model for Elsa Schiaparelli, looked elegant in a black sequin top and tuxedo jacket and slacks.
