Yoga Retreat

Last week I went to Kripalu for an R&R Yoga Retreat with Mallory. In addition to delicious organic vegetarian meals and plenty of yoga, we had a choice of several workshops each day and some of them felt like being in the best part of grad school again: drum circles, collage, medicine and movement... Good times.

One of the workshops we went to was called "Realize Your Dreams" (I think). First we were asked if we could do one thing and were guaranteed we would not fail, what would it be and we announced it to the room full of fellow traveler strangers on R&R retreats, which was super uncomfortable for me, but has gotten me thinking more about what I told everyone. Then we were given a handout with a list of categories for a dream journal and asked to think of goals for each area. The list is as follows:

physical

emotional

spiritual

material

creative

legacy

professional

intellectual

psychological

financial

adventure

character

A part of me was really excited about the idea and the other part of me was like, "Stop it! How many goals and projects can you juggle? You got enough going on already," but I just can't say no and couldn't stop thinking what I would do with dreams in a journal. I can even rationalize, because I have goals in most of this areas already. It's just organization and format really. Right? So after a couple of days of thinking about it and telling myself no and trying to thought block ideas for taking on another project, told myself yes and went to Michael's and bought a Smash Book to act as my dream journal/scrap book.

It has always surprised me that I am not a scrapbook person, because I love taking photos and I love working with paper. For the first page, I glued down an envelop and I am making simple cards with collage images and goals. I will work on each of the pages with details regarding each of the goals. This is what I have so far.

I am pretty stoked about it. And... I am still keeping up on my daily calendar modifications, so so far so good. This is a fun idea and it has created a sense of positivity and feeling like all I reach for is possible. Maybe so possible, I might someday tell you what I said I would do if I could not fail.

 

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Art On The Go

One of the awesome things I have been loving about doing races is the travel. I have been running for just under a year and I have only run in four states, including my own, but I am loving going places I have never been and maybe would have never considered going otherwise. On a side note, I need to design a U.S. map to chart my travels as well as some way to display medals, but that's a post for another day.

This year I did two races that required overnight travel and both were artistic adventure gold: Corning, NY for the Wineglass Marathon and Half Marathon and Philadelphia, PA for Marathon Weekend. Corning is home of the Museum of Glass, quite possibly the coolest museum I have ever seen. In addition to awesome work on display, they offered demonstrations of various glass making techniques, which is way more mesmerizing than the newest Twilight movie (not that I've seen it) or bowling or whatever one might do for entertainment on a long weekend. They also offer various workshops, so a visitor may do actual glass blowing, bead making, sand blasting etc., with the comfort of a teacher who knows stuff, guiding your hands who will not allow glass to explode in your eye or a blowtorch to light your hair on fire, which is a nice way to work with glass the first time. Oh, AND runners got a two day pass to the museum for just six dollars!

some of the work I liked in the museum

bead I made

Finishers' Medals at the race are also glass

Last weekend I attended Philadelphia Marathon Weekend and ran the half marathon. It was the biggest race I have been in yet. Last year had 23,000 runners -- I don't know how many this year, but it took us about 25 minutes from the gun to cross the starting line due to all the people who needed to cross it. Although we started in front of the Museum of Art, we did not get discounts at that museum. How rude! (We went anyway.) Runners did get a discount to Isaiah Zagar's Magic Gardens, however. It was the first time I have ever seen something that made me feel like crying for no recognizable reason. It was powerful. I know the Philadelphia Museum of Art is rated as the second best art museum in the country and tickets cost more than double the entry fee to Magic Gardens, but South Street is where it is at for this chick. I am inspired.

Magic Gardens

And the murals around town were AMAZING! I really would love to live in Philly. Seems like a great place to be an art therapist.

Murals of Philly

Places to come: Virginia, Utah, Wyoming and New Hampshire. Having a job is good. Too bad I don't get more vacation time.