A few events to put out there for everyone.

We are offering a volunteer orientation in Portland (July 23) and San Francisco (August 12) for those interested in volunteering in either of those cities in the coming months. If you'd like to attend either of these, please fill out the online application. Thanks!

We'll be starting our first yoga series in the Bay Area in August, offering weekly classes at the Hamilton Family Center, a transitional shelter for mothers of young children and their families. We're launching this offering with a Spa Day Celebration for the mothers there on August 11th. If you're curious, you can peek at the flyer

We'll be offering a full Teacher Training in Vancouver October 6-8 at the Radha Studio downtown Eastside. More details coming soon.

The Yoga Hip Hop Play was most excellent!! Look for a detailed update and some video soon!

When i was at the National Health Care for the Homeless Conference last week, i was struck by two things. One, the heroic sense of commitment, duty and dedication among so many of the caregivers and service providers. Many literally walk the streets tending to those who suffer gravely, and cannot care well for themselves. They treat the 3 a.m. frostbite under bridges in January, the screaming nightmares of the traumatized, the utter despair of those with nowhere else to turn.

The second bit that struck me was the sense of scarcity that permeates this work. I've been wrestling with the scarcity-abundance dyad for some time, and i made a vow to myself that i would do all i can to bring abundance to the world of homeless people and those who serve them. It cannot be that a bandage on the left arm means the right one will bleed without tending. That is not the way Life has endowed this planet, nor how God has endowed our Spirits.

We are meant to live abundantly. I know there are material scarcities in the lives of many many people, but that does not exclude a parallel abundance. Here's how i see it works:

You, each of us, studies ourselves to achieve insight, clarity and a sense of our own unique truth. Then, we begin giving away what is uniquely ours. For example, if you are a gifted singer, sing!! Share your voice with those who live in dull silence. If you garden, grow extra flowers and give them away. If you sew, sew eye pillows. If you teach yoga, teach someone who might not know how to breathe.

Give it away until it feels Great! Until that point, you still have more to give. Give your time, your smiles, your honesty, your hope, your desire for the well-being of all creation! And the crazy miracle is, that you will be rewarded ten fold for every gift you give. You may not realize it at once; it may not be immediate, but it will creep up on you and one day you'll realize that your life is overflowing with beauty and love and friendship and hope. And if i might be so bold as to make a suggestion, when you get to that point, give all that away as fast as you can!

I promised the clinicians who serve our nation's homeless kin that we of the yoga community are growing our awareness of our own power to heal. Later i realized that i was telling them that we are becoming aware of our power to create abundance! When you give away your yoga, you will literally change people's lives. You will give people something that makes them feel great, that gives them hope, that transforms deadly despair into mere sadness.

I promised them that we of the yoga community were marshalling our resources to be of service, and that in a year, in five, in a decade or a generation, it will be normal for everyone to do yoga. Everyone!! That means in 25 years, the President of the United States will practice yoga, will have known stillness for most of her life. And our job right now is to make sure that she it not overlooked, that no matter where she is right now --in a shelter, on the streets, in rehab, in foster care or with a loving family, that she can do yoga. A lot rides on our pulling this off!

Our newest program, engendered lovingly by Ariel Singer, is The Living Foods Project. It's main goal is "to connect at-risk youth with the nutritional bounty of Northwest farms, to provide an understanding of fresh, local produce as an available dietary resource, and to build the skills required to make delicious and cost-effective meals. The project will be oriented towards building community by educating the program participants on the importance of local food systems, and sharing with farmers the invaluable service that they can offer to those in need."

"The Living Foods program will use produce gleaned at the Portland Farmer's Market to teach weekly cooking classes at the Salvation Army White Shield Center throughout the summer. The cooking classes will cover food prep, basic cooking techniques, information on nutrition and food combining, as well as sustainable and community food systems. The program will also include information on local food resources available to low-income Portlanders. The program participants will build a recipe and resource book over the course of the classes."

We'll keep you posted as this unfurls.

You gotta listen to this! (Acutally, do whatever you want, but it's got a cool edge and it inspires!)

We pulled off another spa day this month, at CTS. It rocked!! You must try it; we'll be posting instructions, recipes and guidelines shortly. It's an easy, fun, sublime way to serve. I asked Lauren to write up her notes of the Day, but before i do, i want to share with you plans for next fall. As part of our Alternative Schools Program, we will be starting the year with a Family Spa Day Celebration. The kids and their parents will share Spa Day, good food, tea and community. Imagine how totally cool it's going to be when an 11 year old boy massages his mother's tired feet, or two siblings unite to care for a third. This stuff is so real!! OK... here's Lauren:

Lauren you rock!! If you're interested in sponsoring our next Spa Day, you are most welcome to make a donation or contribute in any other create way (just drop us a note anytime.)

The Compassionate Response to Overwhelming Need (CRON) pattern is a strategy for dealing with the feelings associated with heart-felt observations of overwhelming need. The pattern suggests direct action as closely aligned with the overwhelming need as possible. For example, you witness time and again young people poisoned with processed sugar foods masquerading as meals. You see them behave in troubling ways that call forth punishments and civic interventions by police, judges, school managers, case workers and other system professionals. What do you do in the face of tens of thousands of hyperactive kids living outside their body and far from hope? In our work teaching yoga to just these kids, we've chose simple steps. Take the Living Foods Program. We started simply by bringing oranges. And plums. We handed them to each of the kids we work with as a gift and a seed, a seed perhaps in their life, but surely in ours. That seed set in motion an energy flow. That seed sought expression and enlivenment. That seed sought sympathetic energies and complimentary vibrations. The seed of a small orange given led to Ariel phoning the farmer's market and asking for leavings. It is leading this summer to open-hearted people taking that food up to the girls in shelter and showing them how to prepare the living fresh bounty into a feast for the soul, the senses and the body. It will cause farmers to share their part in this work with their friends who will venture to try something similar with the old people endlesly convelescing in silence down the street. One seed, freely given, grows into a bountiful tree, which only finds completion by giving of its bounty to the hungery creatures who find rest in its shade.

See a need. Seek to meet it. Start small. Think big. Tend lovingly and watch it grow.

I wrote the following to the dear folks who attended the first Teacher's Training last month. I was so moved by the incredible coming together, by the willingness of so many to give from their heart. The next morning, i was so moved with the feelings that i penned the following, which i wanted to share here with all of you.

Secret of the day: Hope is Real. Pass it on.

Namaste, marq