Mom's New Home

Debbie & I visited Mom at her new ALF this weekend. It is brand new & delightful. Her room is sunny & seems just the right size & arrangement for her mobility.The staff is wonderfully attentive & present everywhere. We ate several meals in the dining room with Mom, and they were quite good, & offered choices each time. We took her for a little outing on Furman's beautiful campus that is right next door & sat by a pond. Thanks again to Randy for arranging this and for everything he does for Mom each day!

Larissa Carlson Workshops

I did two workshops with Larissa Carlson at Full Circle Yoga, a great studio in Winter Park. Larissa has heavyweight credentials from Kripalu & she really delivered. A two day workshop on Pranayama, yogic breathing, was informative & a great experience. She presented 5 different techniques & connected them with asanas & meditation. Day three Larissa did a chakra yoga workshop, in which she included a series of seated & standing postures for the 7 major chakras, meditation, & the basics of the science of the chakras. The chakras are a big part of my personal practice, so I was glad to attend. I told Larissa how important her work is & encouraged her to continue. The world is crawling with celebrity yoga teachers who roll into conferences like rock stars & mainly teach yogaerobics, with no treatment of the other 7 "Limbs" of yoga. Larissa started the first class with an in-depth discussion of the 8 Limbs of Patanjali's Yoga Sutras, a very unusual move. By the way, Patanjali told us that the purpose of yoga is to prepare the body & mind for seated meditation, something that is totally lost in the world of make-it-burn-yoga that substitutes sweat for insight. The 8 Limbs are a recipe for holistic, healthy living & personal growth. Oh, yes, we did sweat in Larissa's workshops, but the empasis was on insight & growth. Hooray, Larissa! A big thank you to Lewis & Susan for hosting her!

See: http://www.larissacarlson.com/ & http://www.fullcircleyoga.com/

Fun Recital

My oft' postponed recital finally happened & it was a fun night! I performed 12 original compositions on piano & electronic keyboard, most of them on the keyboard. Some utilized the remarkable electronic sound bank to cool effect! They ranged from a simple blues-jazz piano piece, "Film Noir", to rockin' guitar, "6 String", & some unusual techno in between. It was fun to share this music that's be percolating for the past 2 years with my closest friends. Lots of vino and conversation followed!