Elisa's Green Scene

Random but wonderful blog find of the week

OK, you yoga fans...just in case you sometimes find yourself taking yourself and your yoga practice a little too seriously, here is the site that can cure that. I give you yogabeans!

This adorable site is the work of a blogger who shall not be named, but goes by the moniker Elastigirl.

She takes her child's plastic action figures and puts them through their yoga paces. Not only that, she writes scripts for the figures, playful, imaginative dialogues that are, frankly, kinda hard to explain. No, this is definitely one of thsoe sites you have to see for yourself to truly appreciate. So check it out!

technorati tags:yoga, humor

More hip & zen yoga mats

Hat tip to Treehugger for yet another example of hip & zen yoga mats. This time they're made of organic cotton, cost $60, and are from a company called Intent. They are toxin and pesticide-free plus they are "fairly-traded." Yes, they put that in quotation marks on their actual web site, so I was a little skeptical. They kindly do provide a link to their definition of fairly traded here.

I'm also a little skeptical that this cotton rug wouldn't slide around under you while doing various poses. Anyone out there use a mat like this?

Eco-friendly yoga mats

hippyshopper points us to a new option for yoga mats. In truth it had occurred to me that the bright purple mat I use for Pilates seemed a little, shall we say, shiny and synthetic. And so it is. These yoga mats are natural and even biodegradable, which conjures up images for me of doing yoga in the woods and then just leaving your mat there to be absorbed by the forest around it. But then, I'm a bit strange.

My only question is how much the store selling them, yogamatters.com, charges to ship to the US?

Carnival of Healing is up at Positive Perspectives

It's a rather petite Carnival of Healing this week...come on, I know there must be more of you out there blogging about wellness, life balance and spirituality, no?

Positive Perspectives blogger Lucy has linked to my post extolling the virutes of appreciating the small things, and very kindly also linked to my post about dealing with it when you're too late to a loved one's dying bedside, from my HealthyConcerns blog.

Lucy herself submitted a post about pet therapy, which is an interesting and informative introduction to the topic. I have a friend who wants to get her Lhasa Apso trained to be a pet therapy dog. Somehow I don't think my diva cat is a candidate!

Any of you out there do pet therapy? (Give or receive, I suppose.)

Sonic Yoga

Check out this brief (8 minute) podcast on a new form of the yoga discipline being introduced in the U.S., sonic yoga. Source: The Health Show

The idea is to focus on the chanting aspect that already is part of yoga practice to promote well-being and relaxation. Doesn't sound like it will help make you more flexible or improve core strength though! Guess it depends on why you practice yoga. Seemes to me that some of the hard-core gym-yoga folks are much more into the fitness aspect than the spiritual/mental aspect.

Either way, sounds interesting...no pun intended.

Feel good design

One of the reasons I started hip & zen was my belief that great design stirs the soul.  In my mind, good design should always say something new to you, and that is what inspires us.  We are so bombarded by mass-produced, formulaic products that it is just wonderful when someone creates something new and different (if you haven't figured out that I'm passionate about finding unique ideas and creations that move us forward, you soon will). 

One such visionary is Chip Conley, the brilliant creative mind behind the Joie de Vivre boutique hotel company.  I have long been a fan of his, because each of his hotels is completely unique and a feast for the senses.  I was very honored to recently be invited to his party bash by my wonderful PR queen, Debra Amador of Mindful PR.  His bash was at his new hotel which just opened on the Embarcadero in San Francisco, the Hotel Vitale.  Take a look at the pictures of the hotel - the place is truly stunning. I spent the whole evening drooling over all the dozens of small details that are just so gorgeous to behold.  The textures and colors everywhere you look are organic and sensuous, and evoke such a feeling of tranquility and beauty.  The place is truly hip & zen. 

This guy is so ahead of the curve - he gets what it takes to make people feel good.  Here is his view of what he does: "People actually have emotional experiences when they stay in our hotels. Sometimes I've used the term "identity refreshment" to describe this dynamic. People who stay in a hotel that feels worldly, artistic, literate, creative and sophisticated, feel just a little closer to that themselves when they leave - that's an "identity refreshment" ".  To this end, there is a yoga studio and a spa, which includes a rooftop bamboo garden with private hot tubs overlooking the bay.  My personal favorite little detail is that you can order warm cookies and milk to your room before bed. Now if that doesn't make you feel nurtured and special, nothing will.

The New Yoga Journal Blog

Yoga Journal's new blog has launched, to coincide with both a visit from Mr. B.K.S. Iyengar, the father of Western yoga, and their annual conference in Colorado. Now is a great time to check out their blog as they are going to be blogging from the conference live, making you feel like you're getting C-SPAN coverage of the event!

Here's how one of their BlogMasters describes it:

"Hi, everyone--For the next week, Yoga Journal and a small group of blogerati will be working together to bring you almost real-time quality coverage of the 10th annual Yoga Journal conference in Estes Park--and of the visit of Mr. B.K.S. Iyengar, father of yoga in the West.
We'll be posting photos, video, audio and lots of talk/observations/comments so that everyone interested in yoga, relaxation, wellness and balanced living can tune in and enjoy a look at what's happening here."

Namaste

UPDATED: What's wrong with being a hippie or vegetarian, I ask you?

Well, it's certainly not the main point of her post, but I have to rib Lisa Haneberg over at the Third Age blog just a little bit for busting that "myth" about Yoga practitioners.

Actually the post is a good one about the benefits of yoga for just about anyone of any fitness level, and I particularly like it because it emphasizes that you can do it at home in a corner of the room; it's not required to participate in a room full of frighteningly fit and limber people! Of course Lisa's first commenter indicates that he needs the structure of a live class, and personally I do too. But if you're one of those odd people who have self-discipline, then rest assured you can do Yoga in the privacy of your home in old, ratty sweats.

Not sure why you'd want to do that when you could wear cute Yoga gear, though!

(and no, sad to say, those are not pictures of moi!)

UPDATED: Coincidentally I just found that the very two outfits that I chose to pull from the site for this post have been put on sale for 15% off (and use promotion code 'BLOG' to get an additional 5% off your order.) I must be psychic!

5 Things to Know about Yoga

One of my regular blog reads (and in our hip & zen blog roll) is Evelyn Rodriguez's Crossroads Dispatch. Although ostensibly a business blog, Evelyn firmly believes that one's heart and soul needs to be engaged with one's work. And she is not afraid to expose hers in her blog.

One post, for example, tells us 5 Things to Know about Yoga.

What does it have to do with business? Well, maybe it has more to do with how we conduct business.

Read it and find out. And as a bonus, if you get to the comments, you'll find out more about me than you probably wanted to know.