Cultivating Joy

Happy July! I have got positive feelings about this month and thought it would be time to give this blog a seasonal facelift (hope you like it) and restart blogging more regularly. 

So, what is it so good about this summer? Well, it's been consistently hot for weeks (so unusual in this country), my love for yoga is growing day by day, and Loftino's love + generosity have been unsurpassed recently. Not only he put great effort in arranging  our first anniversary's celebrations (kabuki dance, dinner at the OXO Tower and silk kimono by Fleur of England), he has also surprised me with tickets for the Hop Farm Festival headlined by Bob Dylan (and Devendra Banhart). I am so, so excited about it. I have been listening to their rock folk music for months! We are driving to Kent tomorrow and will be camping with our brand new pop-up tent and self-inflatable mattresses. Wow!

Tonight I am doing an Acro Yoga workshop. I was a bit hesitant as inversions are still my Achilles' tendon, but it will help face my fears -- or so I thought when I signed up. Besides, Acro Yoga is also about connecting with the other fellow yogini, exchanging some juicy Thai massage, and, most of all, it's fun! Isn't yoga about cultivating joy, after all?

And what is more joyful than sharing yoga with children? I believe it could entertain and empower many needy children around the world. In view of a few volunteering with children ideas for 2011, Loftino got me this Teach Children Yoga Kit. I was a tiny bit disappointed to find out it is downloadable (rather than paper-based) material in PDF and MP3 formats, but this means I can print as many copies as I want and reuse the kit on different projects. The beauty of this kit is that it's designed for vivacious children. The guide says:: do not adjust children as they want to play with the shapes, but show them the right alignment IN CASE they DECIDE to mimic you. : D 

I look forward to putting it into practice with some of my friends' active kids! {Not that many, actually!}

OmShanti&PREM xxx

Yoga Methodologies

Today we look at the various methodologies of early yoga traditions and we answer the question "how", "how can enlightenment be attained". 

All forms of yoga adopt meditation as their primary technique to attain a higher awareness, a state beyond disturbance, but each school places a different emphasis upon it, which is prompted by a different weltanschauung.

Buddhists and Jainists agree that life is ultimately a source of pain and sorrow. Suffering arises from the frustrated desire (tŗşņa) to keep a comfortable life. The only way to liberate the self from the eternal cycle of birth, death (= suffering), rebirth (samsara) is to stop creating karma. Jainists practice self control, renunciation, discipline and observance as a means to reduce karma to a minimum (the less you do the less you create). This requires a great deal of inner strength and concentration which builds up heat (tapas), which, in turns, enlightens the soul. The Buddhists’ approach is more moderate. They believe extreme renunciation is a threat to the body's wellbeing and therefore an obstacle to spiritual development. Right understanding, intention, ethical action (i.e. positive karma) and meditation (samadi) become the values of the Buddhist *middle way*. Without turning their back on society, Buddhists use meditation as their prime ascetic practice to achieve nirvana, the extinction of all phenomena. 

Karma yogis arrive at a new awareness: they appreciate that there is nothing wrong with actions per se and that the problem is in the ego becoming the main matrix. Thus, if an action is egoless, it can still lead to enlightenment as it does not produce karma. Karma yogis introduce a social dimension to the yoga practice. Bhakti yogis identify a divine quality in all things. If god is everything, then everything is god, human beings included. Through meditation based on love and devotion to god, Bhakti yogis get closer to their own divine essence and thus to god.

Unlike its predecessors, Tantric philosophy is integrative: for the first time, all social classes are welcome and, although it is still a male-dominated environment, women make their appearance. The Tantric tradition inherits the Bhakti’s worldview whereby the universe is regarded as the divine play of god. Liberation is therefore possible alongside social involvement. The accent is shifted from the action to the experience: it is not important what you do or what you have, the key is how you deal with the various aspects of life including the material aspects. If you behave ethically without harming others, you can still reach transcendence through *expansion*. Three branches of yoga arise within the Tantric tradition: Laya, Mantra and Kundalini Yoga (precursor of modern Hatha yoga). 


In Laya, the ego expands through dissolution into the universe, thus entering into a blissful dimension. Mantra yogis use chant’s vibrations to achieve a higher state of deep concentration at which the divine form becomes manifest. In Kundalini, metaphysics made an important discovery: the potential lies in our body, made of matter and subtle energy. The serpent’s vital energy (kundalini-shakti) is latent in us and needs to be awakened. The body should therefore be respected and nurtured as it is the tool for self-transcendence. Āsanas, bandhas, prāņāyāma, meditation and mantras are the various techniques deployed by modern yogis to stimulate the vital energy, whose movements affect our mind and expand our consciousness.

Meri Meri Cute Kittens

What's cuter than kittens OR cupcakes? Kitten Cupcakes!

Spotted on Babyccino.

Remember Remember the 5th of November

Hello there, I have been blogging very erratically this week, but I have all the good intentions to keep up the good work. I have tons of draft posts waiting to be finalised. I also have quite ambitious plans to develop the design and look and feel of AmicaC who  has just celebrated her fourth birthday and is finally taking  a more defined shape thanks to all the bloggers out there who keep providing inspiration and ideas.

I am also trying to find a new balance between the various things that are going on in my life: my family, work, yoga, blog and social life. I am particularly enjoying married life in this season as we are spending more time between the domestic walls entertaining each other and venturing ourselves in cooking, baking and redecorating experiments. We also got the entire collection of Hitchcock films (67 or so!) and we have been watching them relentlessly. They are just too good, on so many levels (fashion included!).

And yes, I am still looking for my perfect black cat. It has to be fluffy and with an intelligent face.

Off to watch the 8th episode of Gossip Girls. Let's hope it has resumed some charm as the last three episodes were rather disappointing. xoxo

Photos from We Heart It

Small is Beautiful :: NYC Box Apartments

I am a big fanatic of classics like Breakfast at Tiffany's, Une Femme est une Femme and Barefoot in the Park, which I watched for the first time at an early age. So, I can say that they shaped my taste for a quirky urban life and vivacious relationships. Yesterday, Steve and I watched Barefoot in the Park. it was the first time for him and the 10th time for me. For an ironic turn of the fate, we both agreed that their story speaks, to a certain extent, about our relationship and relative personalities {she is a bit nutty and he is a bit *restrained*} ~ who would have thought that 18 years ago! Their tiny apartment, a quasi perfect love nest, reminded me our flat hunting almost four years ago. Next year we will most likely move into a bigger house, and my nostalgia is already kicking in. So, this post is a homage to all the studio e one bedroom apartments out there. Let's start with one of my beloved cities: NYC. 

{Click on the photos to enlarge}

Half/Bedroom Apartment, Greenwich Village 

{Barefoot in the Park}

Carrie Bradshaw's Studio with Walk-in Wardrobe 

{Sex and the City}

Holly Golightly's One Bed Apartment, Unfurnished 

{Breakfast at Tiffany's}

Michael Bargo's Studio 

{Real}

Here you can see another small, yet well formed, gem of NYC. Incidentally, it has been inspired by Breakfast at Tiffany's. Really lovely. And in this article, Small is Back, you can find useful tips on how to make the most out of a cramped space. 

I would love to own a studio in NYC or Paris... A kind of pied-a-terre where I can hide to whenever I want... One day, one day. 

Sources: Mimi & Meg, One Simple Addition, Stil Films

** London and Parisian box flats, including mine, to follow! **

FOOD FEAST

I was missing blogging and now I can't stop. Ah ah ah. I have got so much to catch up that I will not tell stories in a chronological way. Everything will be told as it springs to my mind. And here some delicious meaty food for your watering mouths:

Homemade pizza

Savoury pancake for Pancake's Day!

Meat feast

OSSO BUCO Giant salmon nigiri prepared by uber-stylish Nippo-friend Hisano Delicious Japanese dumplings courtesy of Hisano

I am off to cook risotto with prawns, mint and asparagus until the next post. Ah ah ah.

king of the kitchen

I am glad to present two master-dishes of Loftino's Kitchen:

Shepherd's Pie (half with sweet potatoes and half with regular potatoes)

happy loftino in action

and Roast-beef:

baked in beer and mustard and garnished by sweet potatoes and veggies (asparagus and runner-beans)

al fresco

it's not as tropical as it has been in the last two weeks but i enjoyed my time clearing the balcony and rearranging the new furnitures...

paprika sirloin steak wrap - jamie oliver's recipe

Proud owner of a Vaporella

i am the proud owner of vaporella polti! it was a very welcome present from my cousins. poor guys, they had to drag this beast all the way from italy and be questioned at the airport security. my slowness and reluctance to ironing is proverbial -- watching me ironing is painful. i trust that this powerful new gadget will renew my ironing enthusiasm and ease my work. i have also decided to get a proper ironing board after living with over two years with a table board.remember i broke the basin some time ago? here it is what i have in mind as a replacement - the usual compromise between design, functionality and affordability.

it may also be time for a new washing machine - will depend on our finances. seeing as i come from the Ariston-land, i will have to go for an indesit... this Moon is as stylish as an i-pod and its slim figure would fit in my tiny kitchen.


today was full summer - i started roasting after ten minutes in the sun... i had to go to two routine doctor appointments and walked all the way. i popped into the local DVD store to feed my obsession with Japanese Animes and got Over the Sky for only 50p. the guy told me that new kids' releases are free. sweet! got to tell my little neighbours!

i should be making the most of my balcony. with my wireless connection i could be typing from there. i just need to set it up for this summer mirage with chairs and parasols. what about this director's chair and coordinated parasol?


my only child perfectionism mania is kicking in. my mum, who incidentally shares the same birthday of Queen Elizabeth, is coming in 20 days time and i want the house and its surroundings to be quasi-perfect. hence, my emails and calls to the council and my home shopping frenzy....

my deco~ravelry~oblivious yogina~bad foot~juno

my deco

two interesting discoveries: the first is not a real discovery as my brother-in-law-to-be sent me this link. it's a portal that gathers together highstreet and designer online furniture shops! i had a hard time looking for something quirky and yet affordable until i browsed this. in less than a morning, i got three new pendant lamps for my tall flat, a floor light for our studio area and a cheap coffee table. little touches to improve our living space. next will be a new basin because i managed to break it! don't ask me why - i am not that strong but i am that clumsy.

ravelry
second discovery - a facebook-type community for knitters! it is not live yet, but i already registered to be in first line.

bad foot
i have a foot-ache which started in belgium. it is an on/off pain, whose origin is hard to identify. so, i booked a reflexology session next week, as well as my annual dentist appointment. it seems like february will be *check-up month*, so i may well visit also my doctor for a routine blood test. bring on the hypochondria that it's in me.

oblivious yogina

my yoga centre is magic - i keep forgetting things there and i keep finding them again. tonight i left on the yoga studio's floor my mum's yellow gold ring with ruby and realised about it only at the bus station. [digression - this is the engaged girl who is about to receive an expensive ring!] i ran back swearing to myself that i will no longer take it out. an angel had handed it in at the reception. previous to this, i lost and found there a pair of Dior glasses, my wallet, my credit card.

juno
tomorrow i am seeing sian, an ex-colleague of mine, and i want to propose to go and watch juno, which was presented at the london film festival and received incredibly good reviews despite the unoriginal theme. it is described as cunning, humorous and with cast talented actors. we'll see if it lives up to my pumped expectations.

BIG UPDATE

Hey, here I am... bright and sound. I have been quite caught up in the blog of life lately, but now I am back with a few stories to divulge... But, first of all, here are some highlights of the last two months you may be curious to nose:

Makeover: I have a new haircut - the usual sixties bob but with a long fringe thrown on one side - and a new colour: ^rich chocolate^. I also have - here I am going to be really personal - a Brazilian bikini. I had it done in August for the first time in my life and am now addicted to it - I have just had a second one this afternoon. I also began a laser treatment for permanent hair removal. Both are new territory for me, but, so far, I am v. happy of this ^smooth^ choice. Ah ah ah.

Social Life:
The 30th of August was my 31st birthday which I celebrated together with Richard's* leaving do at the local pub, which recently received a ^poncification^. I was lucky enough to find an Italian bar-woman who prepared me delicious Bellinis with freshly squeezed raspberries all night long. Despite the absence of some good friends, the party was successful. A group of us ended up crashing at Richard's, on the sofa, one on top of each others. Great fun. In the morning, four of us, with smudged make-up and aching bodies, decided to conclude the fiesta with an organic breakfast in Queen's Park. What a great birthday! Thanks to all, again!

*He is off to experience this world and I am following him with the atlas and my mind.

Sunday just past, we had a ^Haircut Day^ at Vale's, who, after 30 years of house-sharing, has finally got her own space and is over the moon (her, not her house). Four of us gathered for a Spanish-inspired lunch followed by a haircut session with a premier stylist from Tony & Guy.

Facebook - my blessing and my ruin. Thanks to Facebook (even if I was not here, I have always been there, BTW), I found two old friends: Eli, who I met when I had just arrived from Italy and she was about to leave for Milan, and Betta, a girl with whom I have been glued for the four months I have lived in Venice. She was a student at the time and I was an intern at La Biennale di Venezia. They are both back in London, one with a lovely English husband (what a coincidence!) and one with a new sparkling job! But thanks to Facebook, I also forgot to invite some friends to my party. Che figura!

Entertainment:
I went to Gwen Stefani concert last weekend and it was fun. She is so cool - an uplifting model of glam and energy. Both her style, burlesque and sophisticated, and her music, (hip) pop with a twist, distinguish her from the other crap artists such as Sugarbabes or Britney. She was really personal as well, a very well tailored approach to her fans, mainly scrappy teenagers, tasteful children, stylish gays, chameleon-type women, exuberant ladies and us (I am not sure where we fell into).

I saw Two Days in Paris at the cinema and loved it because it reflected, in many ways, the relationship between myself and Lofty, at both cultural and personal level. Lofty had the same impression and found this rather embarrassing. Ehm... ehm....

I also watched Atonement and its first crucial scene at the villa was exactly as I imagined it. Whereas the war scene, although slow going as it was in the book, on the big screen it kinda lost its rhetorical function of making the personal story epic. Admittedly, it would be a boring story had you not read the book, an inner path towards an horrendous awareness and a painful process of atonement, indeed.

I read three books by Kundera and am about to start his masterpiece, the Unbearable Lightness of Being, for the second time. Kundera and his quotes deserve their own raison d'etre.

I watched tons of Kusturica's films, including documentaries and interviews. I love that man. He is, artistically speaking, at the antipodes of my other idol: Almodovar. The former is manly, rough and chaotic, whereas the latter is stylish, feminine and fame-adamant. But both are colourful, folkloric, in love with their countries and uplifting.

Holidays: No holidays till Christmas. Sigh. But in three weeks I am doing a SPA Day in Bath and we have just booked a trip to Italy/Finland for Christmas/New Year. Yuppy! So, much of my time has been spent planning for this adventure with other 10 people from all over Europe. More to follow.

Family issues: My buddy has got a new job! Yu Hhuuu. And il culone is in gardening leave for nonetheless than three weeks. Scusate se e' poco! I proposed him to go to Italy for a couple of weeks to learn the language, but how can we plan accommodation, course and flight in three days? Unless he goes and stays at my parents... I threw the coin at him and I am waiting for a response... or reaction. Eh eh eh....

Shopping:
I bought myself a huge bookshelf which is doing my life much easier. I have started cataloging all my books by genre and sub-genre. Next pile to tackle will be CDs and DVDs, for which I bought a ^tower^.

As a good Londoner, I could not not to own a pair of Converse trainers, low cut in optic white (for now) framed by a red stripe (in other words, the most common shoes in London earth).

In August I spent a week with my mother looking for the perfect dress for the book launch we never did (it has been post-poned and trans-posed: it'll be some time in Jan and in Brussels instead of Florence). And the dress we found is unusually black and less than perfect. On the contrary, it was source of shame. A dedicated post will elaborate on this.

Finally, I got a tunic dress in silk and seventies print, which I inaugurated at Gwen's concert, and the longest earrings you can find in the market.

Next purchases: a powerful laptop, a duffle coat (or montgomery coat) from Gant and skii trousers by Stella McCarthy for Adidas - savings allowing. ; )

"i love london.

i love the formality, the manners, the drunkenness"

tom ford

last weekend was the last smoky one for london, and we fully inhhaled it both nights. we returned home stinky but happy. to date, i have only briefly enjoyed the smoke-free pubs. tonight i am forced to stay in, while my cousin and his friends, vale and her friend, magali and her friends, michela and her friends are out and about. i am tempted to say "that's not fair", but it is my fault that i over-spent, dressed for the day in weird clothes, okay for work but not for the night, and let my mobile phone die. i am regretting now that i did not buy The Book of Laughter and Forgettng today when i passed by my local bookshop. i am in need of kundera...

strumming an ukulele

ladies and gentlement, here it is my new ukulele, an unexpected surprise from my caring companion!!!

isn't it lovely?

now i am trying to figure out how to play it.
here the first C-note song i learnt:

row row

; P