Thursday, July 30, 2009

Uganda Rocks Benefit Show


This Friday ... July 31st at the Appalacian Brewing Co. in Harrisburg PA.
The line up is an army of spiritual gangsters gathering together and playing for the greater good.

First band begins at 9:00 pm... and it goes on for hours.

Your ticket price { $10 } goes towards helping communities in Uganda where basic human needs are not being met.

Come out, make your Friday night count...

... and printing...


Wednesday, July 29, 2009

Thursday, July 23, 2009

Making Sirshasana my mantra for artistic adventures


Sirshasana is a headstand. And I struggle with this pose. Upside down, engaging long forgotten muscles and breathing - this is a tad harder than it seems. It bothers me that I do not glide effortlessly into headstand and stay up there gently breathing. For now I approach with a little fear, confusion, and some resistance. And that approach can get in the way in general - on the mat and off.

It must be said that in order to finally "get" headstand you have to fall a few times - ok perhaps more than a few. Sometimes falling hurts and personally I find it scary - all in all this headstand is frustrating path but one that has an end so I forge on. (I mean, I will eventually get it, right?) Same deal with life, sometimes you have to try and not fully succeed before you "get it".

This past Wednesday in class my Ashtanga teacher Bobbi taught me the right way to fall out of a headstand.This method prevents the dreaded finger crack (which I did, and it still hurts months later) and lands you in a back bend. I now feel (almost) free to flail and fall until I get it, confident that safety is on the other end of letting go.

Fast forward some hours and through a few obstacles with the screen printing project and you would land in today. Right now, almost. Here is a brief overview of how my internal dialog went today "My order of shirts and tanks and totes arrived. Yay! yikes! I have no idea what I am doing. How am I going to screen print these. I have never done it. Internet. Oh.... Deep breath. Hmm. Poster screens are not working. More Hmm." ... feeling doubtful and daunted without even giving it a go. Letting confusion frustrate the flow. And then the yoga crept in... where the approach on the mat translates to life "off" the mat. Approach with no expectation, an open mind and be a-ok with what happens. It's cool... breathe.

So I took a deep breath and decided to just go for it, try bust out a few sample shirts. First time screen printing take one. And ta-da... it worked. I have three printed shirts drying in my basement. They are very simple but all went well. No tears or gnashing of teeth. Two color is next... and headstand.

Tuesday, July 21, 2009


The printing has started. What was a vision and a thought for so long is now manifested in my basement. Megan (the amazing graphic designer) and I have started to print. This past Sunday we set up shop and the process has begun. The plan is to hand screen concert posters and create the first batch of t-shirts so they will be ready for the benefit concert next week. It is all very exciting and I am finding that amongst so many other things, creativity is being born out of this fund raising challenge.

The first day we ran into some snags. Someone had told we could use house paint to print the posters, this did not work. The paint clogged the screens and while we tried feverishly to get the paint out of the screen we only succeeded in scrubbing off the image. The screens had to be re-burned. We now have the correct ink, beautiful paper and about 80 apparel items to print on.

The printing resumes on Thursday night, hopefully it will be smooth sailing...

Sunday, July 12, 2009

Radio Free Harrisburg ...


Last night, at what is rumored to have been quite the party, the uber fantastico band The Greatest Funeral Ever released their new CD.

Tonight on 97.3 @ 10pm The Greatest Funeral Ever will be playing cuts from the new album ~ to make it even better they have asked me to join them and say a few words about the upcoming benefit Uganda Rocks!

tune in...

Saturday, July 11, 2009

Yoga talking


This morning my Ashtanga teacher gave a short talk about the Sanskrit language and its roll in yoga. Sanskrit is believed to have been created by the sages and structured so that the five areas of your mouth and the breath is being fully used while speaking it, creating the word's cosmic vibration - its significance. Yoga talking.

She asked that during our practice we say the name of each pose prior to doing it and in doing so honor the tradition of yoga and the significance of its name. And in saying its name calling the presence of the pose to you and your focus to it. Connecting to the vibrational structure of the word and the pose and so tapping into the vibration structure of the everything.

I realized that I already do this during my practice say the name silently to myself, I was using it as a tool to learn the Primary series sequence and also because the language is very fun to say. This took it to another level for me. I started thinking that the names when spoken make a song, a poem, a prayer. Yoga has always felt to me like a prayer in motion. Connecting with something beyond yourself by getting really in touch with the self.

The whole thing makes me want to rap out the primary series while dancing around through the prayers.