Bending Pages or A Few of My Favorite Things

What do Downward-Facing Death and Wild have in common? I never wanted them to end.

Downward-Facing Death (DFD) is a Kindle serial and I knew that I wanted to buy it from the moment that I saw it advertised. It's a yoga mystery written by Neal Pollack. How could I go wrong? I had already read Pollack's Stretch: The Unlikely Making of a Yoga Dude and enjoyed it. Pollack is really good and he's funny. It was pretty cool, too, to get an email from Amazon letting me know when the next episode of the novel was available.

DFD is about a charismatic guru who is found all contorted and dead in a yoga studio. Loved this whodunit tale. And here's wisdom from Slim, a friend of the detective Matt Bolster:

"They try to warn us when we start practicing," Slim said. "Don't get attached. Don't trust your gurus. But then, before you know it, you're following your meditation teacher up to Mendocino and he's asking you to monitor his pot farm for three months while he goes on a silent retreat in Thailand..."

I tweeted at Pollack that I wanted more Matt Bolster and Lora Powell, a meditation teacher in the book and he tweeted back coming soon! Sweet...

I am usually a huge page bender but not so with Wild. I just went along for the ride and had an urge to go on some trail and hike...

I often click on recommendations that Netflix gives me and so that's how I ended up watching Kumare about a man, Vikram Gandhi, from New Jersey who pretends to be a guru. I felt discomfort as I watched Gandhi's charade and I would like to think that I would speak to him after it was all over with but I don't know...

I was so moved by Raw Faith, an amazing documentary about Marilyn Sewell.





On a final note, totally dug My 2-Year-Old Judges Books By Their Cover by Robert Bruce.

Okay, that was a preacher's final note. I also liked a recent Neal Pollack article featured in Yoga Journal -- When Your Teachers Leave.

What are you diggin' these days?

Temptation

Try not to over-think it, Jen said as we were in a sumo-like position dipping our shoulders left then right.

Try telling that to a chronic over-thinker.

Before we started practicing yoga, we meditated. Closing the eyes lets the body know that it's time to go inside...

I instinctively close my eyes when I do self-chakra connections and it does make me feel internally calm.

After yoga, I felt like I wanted to exercise more but, the previous day, I practiced kettlebell, walked and did yoga so it was time to let my body recuperate.

I drew a bath, put in eucalyptus salt plus lavender bubbles, got deeper into Cheryl Strayed's Wild and emerged an hour later.

I woke up before the alarm and, though horizontal, experienced equal standing.

I got a surprise in the mail from Yoga Journal who is tempting me with a Netflix-like program and the offer is totally inviting but this offer finds me at a time when I'm trying to dig deep and unclutter but I definitely think Gingerzingi should have a DVD like this one.

Latest Acquisition -- A Strap for One of My Mats