our-yoga

Front View of Heart and Lungs

Q: Got a friend (a smoker) who ended a camping trip in the mountains (probably around 6K feet) by getting a collapsed lung. His wife got him to the hospital and all is well--he is even back to enjoying his electronic cigarettes (says it is not really smoking!) Anyway, I was thinking of using this as an opportunity to (finally) get him to try breathing meditation, Yoga/Tai Chi—but the lung thing has me worried. This was spontaneous with no obvious indications of why it happened or if it will happen again. He does nothing half-way, this guy, so if I get him doing deep-breathing exercises he will be going for the max. Is there a danger of the collapse happening again or can we use deep breathing to strengthen his lungs?

A: Thanks for writing to us about your friend’s condition. As always, the information I will share is of a general nature and in no way a prescription for how you will want to work with your friend. But I hope the following discussion will give you more information to work with as you try to help your buddy. 

Let’s start with the condition that your friend developed. He has what is called a spontaneous pneumothorax (SP), when air gets in between the lungs and the space around the lungs—not a natural state of affairs—resulting in a change in air pressure inside the chest cavity, with the air pushing on the lung.  The lung subsequently collapses a little or a lot and leads to chest pain and shortness of breath of varying degrees, depending on the size of the collapse. With a small, uncomplicated collapse, the person's lung may quickly heal on its own.

Although pneumothorax can occur for no obvious reason, as a cigarette smoker, your friend would be at higher risk for this right away. Known causes of SP include a chest injury, underlying lung disease or ruptured air blisters (blebs). According to the Mayo Clinic website, the following are risk factors for the development of SP:

• Gender. In general, men are far more likely to have a pneumothorax than are women.
• Smoking. The risk increases with the length of time and the number of cigarettes smoked, even without emphysema.
• Age. The type of pneumothorax caused by ruptured air blisters is most likely to occur in people between 20 and 40 years old, especially if the person is a very tall and underweight man.
• Genetics. Certain types of pneumothorax appear to run in families.
• Lung Disease. Having an underlying lung disease, especially emphysema, pulmonary fibrosis, sarcoidosis and cystic fibrosis, makes having a collapsed lung more likely.
• Mechanical Ventilation. People who need mechanical ventilation to breathe effectively are at higher risk of pneumothorax.
• History of Pneumothorax. Anyone who has had one pneumothorax is at increased risk of another, usually within one to two years of the first episode. This may occur in the same lung or the opposite lung.

Before I address the value of yogic breathing techniques for SP, I do want to mention a potential downside to yoga and SP. There is one report in the medical journal Chest about a pneumothorax arising in a yoga practitioner who had been doing the pranayama technique called the Bellow’s Breath, which is a fast breathing technique of inhaling and exhaling. Fortunately, this is a very rare occurrence; but you would likely want to avoid that and similar breathing techniques for quite some time after the person’s lungs re-inflate and they get the go-ahead from their doctor to return to normal activity. And in the case of our above SP person, they are at an increased risk of a recurrence of a pneumothorax, so you will need take care.

So what do I think would be a reasonable approach of yoga breath techniques for SP? We do know from a few studies done in India that yoga practices, including pranayama, can be helpful for other lung conditions like asthma and emphysema. That means yoga has been used safely in other people whose lungs that don’t work quite right. To me, this is very encouraging about the overall safety of yoga for lung diseases. One possible unwanted result of someone having a SP might be a reluctance to take even a normal inhalation due to fear of a recurrent collapse. However, practicing a gradual increase in the length of the inhalation and exhalation while monitoring for pain or shortness of breath could effectively re-establish a person’s pre-SP breathing ability. And if you encouraged the breathing to have a gentle quality on both the inhale and exhale portions of the breath cycle, you could also eventually improve the overall deep breathing capacity of your student.

It would likely be important if your student has a type-A personality to observe his breathing while you teach him the technique to verify that the breath is not aggressive in any way.  If you yourself do not do a lot of pranayama in your own practice, I’d really recommend that you find an experienced teacher to work with your student.

As things progress, your friend may be able to do the modern three-part breath that is very commonly taught in all levels of yoga classes in the US (you start by imagining you are filling the belly first, then the lower chest second, and finally the upper chest last, but in one continuous breath without a pause). It is also possible that once a good three-part breath is established, teaching a very mild form of ujjayi breathing could be helpful. Ujjayi mimics the effect of using a device called a spirometer that is used in a different lung condition called atelectasis, which is more a problem inside the lung’s tiny air sacs the alveoli, not a result of a collapsed lung specifically. Again, I’d have the student create a very quite ujjayi sound as you monitor  his work for a while to ensure he is keeping it on a more gentle level.

So, to recap, you could gradually reintroduce the three-part breath. Once that is safely accomplished, you might add in some gentle ujjayi to the three-part breath. And with all beginning breath teaching, I’d recommend starting off with the student lying supine to learn these techniques. To be on the safe side, avoid holding the breath at the top of the inhale, and also the bastrika and kapalabhati forms of pranayama.


 —Baxter

Our Guineas have been remarkably fertile this Summer and we'll have 100 babies available for purchase.   They're $4 each.

Guineas are tick eaters and will rid your yard of many undesirable insects.   You will need a coop to keep them safe from predators at night.

Our first hatching of 20 is extremely healthy and we'll have another 30 hatching this weekend.

Although chicks are shipped in general, our experience is that the process is extremely stressful for them.    Anyone wanting guineas should contact us at khalamka@gmail.com for New England (Sherborn, MA) pick-up.  Here are the details:

Straight Run (M/F) Hatched 8/20/2013
Pearl Gray (standard dark color)
Pearl Gray Pied (white chest)

Colors possible (Pearl Gray, Pearl Gray Pied, White, Lavender and Lavender Pied)
2nd Hatch on 9/3/2012
3rd Hatch (last for the year) on 9/18/2013
All will be well feathered by the time cold weather arrives

$4 each or 10/$30

by Nina

Just a brief announcement today that one of our guest bloggers, Carol Krucoff (see Yoga May Be the Best Activity for the Elderly), has released a new book! It is called Yoga Sparks: 108 Easy Practices for Stress Relief in a Minute or Less.

Baxter reviews the book in the September 2103 of Yoga Journal Magazine, which is currently available.

Since Sherborn's founding in 1652, the land of Unity Farm has been adjacent to the town center.  In the past, the property has been a dairy, sheep paddocks, and part of a much larger farm.   As I've cut trails through the property I've uncovered old tools, old timbers, and numerous rock walls.

Along the Unity Farm Marsh trail are two particularly interesting sights - the Sherborn Powder House and the Old Dug Well/Windmill.

The Powder House
The Powder House for Sherborn was built by the town in 1800 so that gun powder could be removed from the public meetinghouse where it had been stored, much to the relief of concerned citizens.  James Bullard was appointed keeper and the building was constructed in a meadow overlooking the lane behind his house at 33 North Main Street.  Although the actual building was demolished in 1857, the site of the Powder House is on our property.    The circular foundation is still in place and the rocks used to build up the walls are lying adjacent to the foundation.   An ash tree has grown up inside the former building.   Today, railroad tracks cross Powder House Lane in Sherborn, so the Powder House is no longer publicly accessible.      I've cleared the area, connected it to our trails and will be adding National Forest Service-like signage to it soon.

The Old Dug Well
About 100 feet south from the Powder House is an old, hand dug, brick-lined well.   When I first found it, the well was filled with 5 feet of mud, wood debris and midden.   What do I mean by midden?   As I began to excavate the well, I found 10 old milk crates, hundreds of pounds of old unmilled lumber, rusted iron tools, and an old menu board, pictured below.    Although fragments of the menu board are missing, it appears to announce "Great Steaks" like the "Powder House Tenderloin", Sirloin, Round, etc.  The lettering appears to be from the early 1900's.   I've asked Historical Society members about the well and steak sign.  Their only guess is that it might have been related to the old train station on Powder House Lane (no longer there) that used to be the major transportation hub in Sherborn.

Next to the well, an old windmill (blades shown above) provided the energy to pump the well water uphill to sheep grazing meadows.

Since the well has now been restored to be a fully functional water source, I built a cover for it from 6x6 and 3x5 lumber.   We do not want wandering deer (or wayward teens) to fall into the well.   Our Great Pyrenees may not be as communicative as Lassie if Timmy falls into it.

by Nina

Horses Grazing by Brad Gibson

It's a running joke in our family that when Brad gets impatient with me—because I often do various household tasks a bit slower than he does—he says to me, "Take your time!" He swears that Bill Murray said this repeatedly in the movie Caddy Shack, but when we watched it again recently, no one actually ever uttered that line. Regardless, I always reply, "You take your time."

But many worthwhile things really do take time. For example, if you want to cook a really good meal instead of eating fast food, you need to shop for fresh ingredients and prepare everything from scratch. And if you want to turn a new acquaintance into a close friend, you need to spend a lot of time together, getting to know and trust each other. The same is true for seeing results from yoga practice. Obviously, one Downward-Facing Dog pose doesn't instantly make your arms stronger, though with regular practice, it definitely will increase your strength. And it also seems obvious that if you want to reduce your stress levels, you'll need to practice stress management regularly over a period of time.

So it was very interesting for me to hear about a recent study at the Feinberg School of Medicine, Northwestern University, that looked at the effect of exercise on insomnia. One of the findings as reported by Gretchen Reynolds in the New York Times post How Exercise Can Help Us Sleep Better was:

"After the first two months of their exercise program, the exercising volunteers (all of them women) were sleeping no better than at the start of the study. Only after four months of the program had their insomnia improved."

Yes, it took four whole months of regular exercising to bring improvements. That's quite a bit of time, don't you think? The women in this study were not practicing yoga for exercise, but it's likely that using yoga as a form of exercise to help with insomnia (something I definitely recommend) might take a similar amount of time. And it also makes sense to me that if you are practicing yoga for insomnia (see Yoga for Insomnia, Part 1) by using stress management techniques, you should also give that some time (though some people report that doing breath practices in the middle of the night produces immediate results). So be patient.

In general, the time you invest in your yoga practice—whether you are practicing for your physical health, your emotional health or both—is what brings the payoffs. After all, yoga sutra 1.14 tells us that equanimity is attained only through steady, dedicated, attentive practice:

Long, uninterrupted, alert practice is the firm foundation for restraining the fluctuations of the mind. —trans. by B.K.S. Iyengar

by Baxter

Recently while reading through one of my Family Medicine journals, I came across an article that caught my interest due to the frequent complaints of some of my students.  It was on nocturnal leg cramps.  Yes, quite often my students will ask me what they can do to address these ill-timed leg cramps (as if there is any good time for a leg cramp!).  I’ll get into what we know about the nocturnal leg cramps (NLCs) in a minute, but what caught my eye in reading was the recommendation for treatment:

“Limited evidence supports treating NLCs with exercise and stretching…”

Now, they don’t specify yoga, but as we all know by now, modern yoga would fit the bill. This treatment was recommended before any mention of medications, which is quite unusual for these journal articles.  It is usually the other way around—meds first, non-drug options mentioned last. This gave me a great sense of hope that modern medicine is beginning to grasp the benefit of starting with non-drug treatments for some conditions!

So what are these NLCs and how common are they? Well, according to the American Academy of Family Practice, they are super common, with up to 60% of adults reporting they get these kind of leg cramps.  They are described as recurrent, painful tightening of muscles in the legs, usually the calf muscles. And the NLCs can contribute significantly to insomnia. The exact cause in not known, but they hypothesize that the cramps are probably caused by muscle fatigue or nerve dysfunction, as opposed to low levels of blood electrolytes like sodium, potassium and such, or from other abnormalities.

Just to flesh out the symptoms of NLCs, they are painful and incapacitating, like no walking while they are occurring! They last an average of nine minutes per episode, and the first bout can be followed by hours of recurrent episodes and residual pain. Even though the calf is the most common muscle affected, cramps in the feet and thighs are also fairly common. Sufferers describe them as a spasm, tightening, twinge, strain, or a muscle seizure. And they are usually in one leg, and can cause the limb to move.

Folks with other conditions are sometimes more likely to have NLCs, such as those with vascular diseases, lumbar canal stenosis (narrowing of the spinal cord channel in the lower back), cirrhosis of the liver, patients on hemodialysis, and those who are pregnant, to name a few. Certain medications are also associated with NLCs, such as estrogen, Naprosyn and others. So, definitely check that out with your family MD if you start having them. NLCs are different from other conditions that might seem similar, like restless leg syndrome, claudication (cramps due to vascular narrowing of blood vessels in legs that occur with walking), myositis (muscle inflammation), and peripheral neuropathy (which has many causes).  So you do need to get checked out with your doc to rule out these other conditions, which may not respond to yoga so favorably.

Once you have been diagnosed, you will obviously want to do something to diminish the number of attacks or completely prevent them. A yoga asana approach would include practices and poses that bring movement and stretching to the lower legs, as well as practices that quiet the nervous system, as nerve dysfunction is one of the purported causes of NLCs. I’d start by reclining on the back and doing Thread the Needle pose (Sucirandhrasana), also known as Eye of the Needle or Figure 4 pose. Focus on circling your ankles as well as flexing and extending your foot at the ankle joint.

From there, I’d take one leg up into Reclined Leg Stretch pose. Start with the strap on your heel pad for a few breaths, move it to the arch of your foot for a few breaths, and finally place it on the ball of your foot and more actively pull down with the strap as you push up with the heel of the foot. This last variation will likely give you the most feeling of stretch in the calf muscles, which include the superficial gastrocnemius, the deep soleus, the posterior-lateral peroneus longus, and the posterior-medial tibialis posterior.
Many of the standing poses will bring some stretch to your calves and feet, especially the back foot in poses like Warrior 1 and Pyramid pose (Parsvottanasana). But even Warrior 2, Triangle pose and Extended Side Angle pose (Parsvokanasana) will provide a little stretch to the area, and might be better starting poses for newer students with lots of tightness in that calves. Wall Calf Stretch (a modified version of Warrior 1 with the toes of your front foot touching the wall and either hands or forearms on the wall) really isolates the calf muscles nicely, too. There are other poses that will have some nice benefits for the calves as well, like versions of Childs pose that will bring some stretching pressure and compression from the thigh bones and body down onto the calves and lend to some widening of the muscles. So throw a few Childs poses in the mix. And you can fulfill the “exercise” part of the recommendation by doing more active flowing practices, which will encourage warming and improved circulation to the lower extremities. And finishing off with some supported inversions like Legs Up the Wall or Chair Shoulderstand will release increased blood pressure from the legs for a bit, which could have a lovely calming effect on your legs, as well as your nervous system.
Pranayama practices that quiet the nervous system, like extending the exhalation (perhaps a 1:2 ratio of inhale to exhale) and others would be of great benefit, as would a body scan meditation, where you encourage all of the muscles of your body to release deeply.  Such a meditation could be done just prior to bed to prepare you for a good night’s sleep. There are, of course, other options you could include, but this will get you or your students started if nocturnal leg cramps are disturbing your rest. Let us know if you have a favorite calf release that I did not mention. We love your feedback!

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I think it really shows how uninspired my blogging has become, that I should be reduced to blogging about something that is the byproduct of a byproduct of practice. But then again, all we ever have is this moment in time. The past has gone, the future is yet to be. Only this present moment is really real. Well, at this moment, I am feeling that almost-indescribable feeling of lightness that comes from having taken a substantial poop after having my post-practice espresso. So I thought I'd report this feeling right here, right now on this blog before it gets swallowed up in the river of time.

I suppose that, ideally, according to the Ashtanga Party Line, one is supposed to have done one's pooping before practice, not after. Well, actually, truth be told, I did manage to poop a little before practice this morning. But I sensed that that wasn't all the poop that my body had to produce today. Rather than dwelling on the fact that my body wasn't particularly poop-productive and wasting precious practice time, I decided to just go ahead and practice anyway, come what may. And, as they say, good things come to those who wait. The combination of practice and coffee conspired to give rise to the substantial poop that I had just taken a few minutes ago. Ahhh.... Gives new meaning to "No Coffee, No Prana", don't you think?

I sometimes wonder if at least half of the great philosophers of the western tradition were constipated when they wrote their great works. I don't have any particular reason for thinking this; I'm just speculating. But then again, when was the last time you saw any philosopher smile in his or her portrait? They always look stern and, well, maybe a little constipated. This makes me wonder: If they had pooped more frequently, would they not have been in the state of mind to produce the great works they did? After all, the shit that is in there has to come out one way or the other. If it doesn't come out through the anus, it probably gets sublimated and comes out through the... pen. So, could it be that something as banal as constipation might actually be the mother of philosophy?   

I have no idea why I wrote any of this. As a matter of fact, I will probably come to regret having written this post if I become a great philosopher one day. And then I will have to delete this post, and try to pretend it never existed... but then again, if my theory is correct, and I continue to be as poop-productive as I am now, how will I ever be constipated enough to achieve philosophical greatness? It really is a chicken-and-egg question (or is it really an anus-and-poop question?), isn't it?    

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Hello readers! First of all, apologies for the long silence - things in the non-virtual world have been super busy lately, chiefly because my partner and I have been moving house - an exhausting task now complete! Yes, as I type this I'm sitting in our new apartment that will be our home for at least the next 12 months. For a gypsy like me, that's pretty darn exciting... Too bad I'm off on a 3-month work trip in a few weeks!!

Anyway, as part of last week's giveaway, I asked readers to leave questions or suggestions for posts on the blog, and this post is in answer to one of those comments (don't worry, the rest will be coming along!). The request was for a post on how to make a daily commitment to yoga as part of a healthy lifestyle.

SUCH a good question! We all know that we feel better when we do some yoga - but many of us get to a point where we are going to as many classes as we can - a few times a week, or maybe only a few times a month - but we want to get more out of our yoga! Yet making the transition from practicing in class to a daily practice can be daunting and many of us don't know where to start.

First of all, many of us might ask: is it worth it? Well, if you are feeling the urge to bring more yoga into your life, then of course it is worth it! Everytime you follow your instincts, you come closer to living a lifestyle that allows you to express who you really are. I have had a regular home practice since about 2005. Now, I can hardly live without my yoga - and those who live with me would agree! My regular practice (usually 5 days a week) helps me stay happy, healthy, balanced, and be generally a nice person to be around.

How to create a yoga habit

Building a home practice is like creating a new habit. The good news here is that people are creatures of habit. Just try depriving us of our morning cup of coffee or our 2pm cookie-break and it becomes clear: we gravitate towards our habits, in fact, we crave them. So the secret to creating a home practice is to let yoga become a new habit. Thankfully this is something that people have been researching for years! Read some fascinating insights from a Zen perspective, here.

Step 1: Make it so easy you can't say no
The most critical part of creating a new habit is to make it easy for yourself. For most of us, the idea of taking 90 minutes every day to practice yoga is not easy. So while a 90-minute home practice might be your eventual goal, you won't be doing any favours by trying to make it a habit right away. In fact, trying to do your full goal straight away is one of the top reasons that people fail to make the changes in their lives that they dream of.

So instead of picking something difficult that you will then have a hundred excuses not to do, pick something that is SO EASY YOU CAN'T NOT DO IT. And once you've picked that, REALLY COMMIT to it. The easier you make it, the more certain you will be that you can fulfill your commitment.

My recommendation? 7 minutes. 7 minutes is a perfect amount of time to start out with. It's more satisfying than 5 but not as long as 10. Even the busiest among us can carve out 7 minutes (say, the time we spend staring at Facebook) in our day. Now, you might not be busy - you might be able to immediately commit to 10, 15, or even 20 minutes. But remember that when you're starting out, keep your minimum commitment to something that you can really do. If you do more, great, but make sure you can always do that minimum.

Then, decide what you're going to practice. Again, the key at this stage is not what you do, it's simply doing it. So start with something familiar and easy - perhaps cat and cow, followed by a few sun salutations. Or, choose a short online class and follow along.

Whatever you do, don't give in to negative thoughts! Acknowledge them, let them go, and stick with your plan.

Step 2: Pick a reminder from your daily routine
One of the hardest things about creating a new habit is to remember just to do it! And the best way to do this is not to rely on our fickle human memories, but to make sure that we are reminded.

A good reminder is not the same as a beeping noise from your smartphone. To be really effective, it should be connected to something that you already do in your everyday life, so that your new habit becomes a part of your daily routine.

First, think of the time of day when you would like to practice. For the purpose of forming a habit, it's really helpful if this can be the same time everyday, or at least a scheduled time if your daily routine varies too much. Then, think of other things that you regularly do around that time of day and make a list of the things that you do without fail.

For example, my morning list (without yoga) might look something like this:

- Get up
- Shower
- Make coffee
- Drink coffee
- Check my email
- Have breakfast

Next, decide where you want to insert your yoga practice. For me, it comes after I check my email. If you are able to pick the right spot for your practice and regularise the sequence of events around it, your yoga habit will form MUCH more easily.

Second, when you are starting out, use a strong visual cue that can't be ignored.

For example, when I used to practice in the mornings before going to the office (now I work from home), just setting an early alarm clock was not enough, so I would do 2 things to remind myself to get up for yoga in the morning. First, I would get out my yoga clothes and set them by my bed. Second, I would move my furniture and unroll my yoga mat. Setting the alarm wasn't a good enough reminder for me - I had to a) make it easy for myself and b) give myself a visual reminder that made sure I got on my mat in the mornings.

So, if you want to practice in the morning, you could unroll your mat the night before and set up your yoga space. Or, if you want to practice in the evening, unroll your mat before you leave the house, to remind you to do yoga when you get home.

Step 3: Reward yourself when you stick to it!
Getting a reward is a critical part of habit formation. Your subconscious will be much more likely to stick to your new habit if it knows that a reward is coming. For example, my reward after my morning practice is a nice hot shower and a good, big breakfast. Your reward can be as simple as just saying to yourself: "I did it! I'm awesome!"


Step 4: Take your practice with you, everywhere

The wonderful thing about yoga is that it's so much more than just a few postures or meditation. The practices that underpin yoga are things that you can take with you everywhere. I like to call these things "tiny yogas" - breath and body awareness, being present, taking a few deep breaths, and practicing the yamas and niyamas - things you can do anytime, anywhere.

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It's August in New England and although everyone in healthcare IT is consumed by Meaningful Use stage 2, ICD10, ACA, the HIPAA Omnibus Rule, and various compliance initiatives, it's also the time we try to take a few hours off before the busy Fall.   Although I'm not taking any vacation this year, I have reduced my writing schedule (hence fewer blog posts this month) and spent more time at Unity Farm.

This week our first 20 guinea fowl hatched and the keets (the name for young guinea fowl) are running around the brooder, eating, drinking, chirping, and sleeping.

Here's how we did it.

Guinea fowl are terrible parents.  They lay eggs in a community pile and one female incubates them all.   Unfortunately, they tend to lay in the forest near fox dens, fisher cat habitat, and coyote trails.   We've lost several females this Summer but luckily found the nests and gathered the eggs before they were too chilled to be viable.

We placed them incubators at 100F and 50% humidity.   The gestation period of a guinea is 26-28 days.

Automated egg turners slowly moved the eggs for the first 23 days.  Then we laid them flat in the incubator, making it easy for the chicks to peck through the shells.

On day 25, one of the larger eggs started to roll, crack, and chirp.    A few hours later, a piebald keet was born  (Keets come in pearl black, white, grey, and piebald).

On day 26 and 27, the rest of the eggs popped like popcorn with little keets running around the incubator.   About an hour after birth we moved them to the brooder, a larger space kept at 100F with ample food and water.

Three of the 23 eggs did not hatch (hence the expression don't count your chickens before they're hatched), which is typical for game birds.   After verifying that there were no signs of movement, I carefully opened the 3 unhatched eggs and found that all  had developmental issues and an early demise.

The 20 keets that hatched are amazingly active, large, and robust.   Our batch of keets last year arrived in the mail and we had quite a lot of attrition.  There are definite advantages to hatching your own poultry.

Animal husbandry is hard and Guinea Fowl can be challenging, as illustrated by this great article in the Atlantic.

At 4 weeks, we'll move the guineas to the coop, but keep them from free ranging until 12 weeks.  We find that 2 months in the coop gives the guineas a chance to mature and be able to defend themselves agains predators.  It also firmly establishes the coop as their home and they'll return to sleep there every night as adults after a day in the forest.

We've gathered nearly 100 guinea eggs from forest nests and all are in our incubators.  Although we can keep 50 or so in our coop and sheds, we'll sell the others to local farms.   Given the significant increase in tick-borne disease across the country. we believe that guinea fowl, nature's most efficient tick eater, will be very popular with homeowners in the rural areas west of Boston.

Guineas have become such a regular part of our lives that I cannot imagine a day without them.  Looking out my home office window, I expect to see the guineas running by on their quest for food and camaraderie.

Happy Moon Day, folks! As you are reading this, you must no doubt be taking a well-deserved break from your Ashtangic labors, doing whatever it is that you do on rest days such as this. I actually did not take a complete break from practice this morning; when I woke up this morning, I was feeling so tight and stiff that I felt that I had to do a few Suryas in order to get through the day. And I did. Perhaps this is a sign that the practice has somehow "hardwired" itself into my system, so that I can't start my day without it. Or maybe this is a sign of not being able to foster non-attachment from the practice; I don't know, whatever works, I guess. These days, I'm starting to think that all this emphasis on non-attachment is really a bit overrated, anyway.

As I mentioned in a previous post, my rate of blogging over the last month has been averaging at around one a week. What's even more interesting is that these once-a-week posts tend to fall on a Tuesday. Makes me wonder if I shouldn't perhaps rename this blog Tuesdays with Nobelji (as in Tuesdays with Timji). But then, of course, I have nowhere near the presence of Tim Miller, so this is probably just me and my grandiosity speaking.

In other news: My days of leisure, of playing online chess and watching seemingly endless seasons of Battlestar Galactica on Netflix, are about to come to an end. The new academic year here in Idaho will begin next week--oh, I guess I never mentioned on this blog that I have been offered a teaching position here at Idaho for another year. Apparently, the good people here have decided that I am not halfway bad as a teacher of philosophy, and have decided to use the services of this itinerant teacher-scholar for another year. Which gives me another year of gainful employment while I continue my quest for that Holy Grail of academia, a.k.a. the tenure-track position. Oh, and speaking of Holy Grail, let's have a quick look at this little clip from what one of my colleagues has termed the Greatest Creation of the Human Mind:

Watching this clip makes me wonder about the state of the blogosphere. I wonder if the blogosphere is also a sort of anarcho-syndicalist commune, minus the voting by two-thirds majority.

But anyway, I see that I have digressed majorly. As I was saying, my days of leisure are coming to an end. Which is just as well. It may well be in the order of things that a good man (or woman) must put the resources from which his prosperity arises to good works, if he or she is to remain in good standing with whoever or whatever is running the universe. This brings to mind these words of Kant: "so paramount is the value of a good will, that it ought not to escape without notice, that an impartial spectator cannot be expected to share any emotion of delight from contemplating the uninterrupted prosperity of a being whom no trait of a good will adorns." (Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals)

So it shall be. But in the meantime, I see that this post has been about everything and nothing at the same time. Maybe I shall have something more substantial to say in the next post, whenever that might come (next Tuesday?). In the meantime, enjoy whatever is left of the summer.   

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Take Back Your Life by Melina Meza