Get a leg up on your summer!

Eka Pada Setu Bandha Sarvangasana (One-Legged Bridge Pose)

What other form of exercise can stretch the neck, chest, and spine while calming the brain and alleviating stress? Mild depression? Take the yoga cure! Stimulate the abdominal organs and thyroid as you increase your lung capacity. Improve your digestion as you rejuvenate fatigued legs. Level out the hormones. Tired? Anxiety? Headache? Backache? Insomnia? Take the yoga cure! Osteoporosis? High blood pressure? Sinusitis? Asthma? Hold One-Legged Bridge Pose!

Summer brings time to slow down and be still. The world tells us that many questions can be answered with the words faster, bigger, better, and more. Yoga subtly provides us with different answers: slower, quieter, simpler, and less.

Challenge yourself. Open and soften your heart. Call your mother!

Remembrance Day

"Have you news of my boy Jack?"
Not this tide.
"When d'you think that he'll come back?"
Not with this wind blowing, and this tide.
"Has any one else had word of him?"
Not this tide.
For what is sunk will hardly swim,
Not with this wind blowing, and this tide.

"Oh, dear, what comfort can I find?"
None this tide,
Nor any tide,
Except he did not shame his kind -
Not even with that wind blowing, and that tide.

Then hold your head up all the more,
This tide,
And every tide;
Because he was the son you bore,
And gave to that wind blowing and that tide.
~Rudyard Kipling


In Flanders Fields by Robert Vonnoh
American Impressionist Painter (1858-1933)

Gather some flowers, remember the fallen soldiers, and take your children to decorate a grave. Call a soldier's mother and keep her in your prayers!

i carry your heart with me

~E. E. Cummings

i carry your heart with me (i carry it in
my heart) i am never without it (anywhere
i go you go, my dear; and whatever is done
by only me is your doing, my darling)
i fear
no fate (for you are my fate, my sweet) i want
no world (for beautiful you are my world, my true)
and it’s you are whatever a moon has always meant
and whatever a sun will always sing is you

here is the deepest secret nobody knows
(here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud
and the sky of the sky of a tree called life; which grows
higher than soul can hope or mind can hide)
and this is the wonder that’s keeping the stars apart

i carry your heart (i carry it in my heart)

This is a poem on love that I love. It reminds me of God's personal love for me through his son, Jesus Christ. It also speaks of the profound love of husband and wife. And, today it reminds me of the deep need of love from my 11 wonderful children, who each long to feel as if they were my only child.


Salamba Sarvangasana

Yoga brings open-heartedness. Shoulder Stand is the MOTHER OF ALL YOGA POSES! For, just as a mother desires to keep her family happy and in harmony, this pose works to harmonize the body, mind, and spirit. Contraction of the stomach rejuvenates the abdominal organs. Forward bending of the spine relieves back ache and tight shoulders. Interlocking of the fingers relieves cramping of the hands. Fresh oxygenated blood nourishes the brain. This pose calms and restores the heart! Soften your heart toward others with Sarvangasana!

May I take this opportunity to wish some of my favorite blogmothers a happy Mother's Day? Have a wonderful day, Vicki, Margaret, Mary, Roxanne, Melanie, Spartan Sis, Raehan, Gail, Jane, Wende, April, Chris, Michelle, Judy, Beverly, Marie, and Stace!

I'm off to attend an impromptu tea party in our tree house featuring cucumber sandwiches and scones. A certain young son prefers the idiom "Let's feed two birds with one scone."

Call Mum!

So when the time comes and they reach grandmotherhood...

...they do extra little duties to show their appreciation.
~Henry Old Coyote, Educator and member of the Crow Tribe


Madonna with Green Cushion by Andrea Solario c.1460-1524
(Italian High Renaissance Painter and follower of Leonardo da Vinci)

A certain grandma came bearing gifts: a lambskin and almond massage oil for Baby and a Boppy for the beautiful, new mother. She cooked healthy meals and gave her daughter back rubs on the sunny porch. She encouraged and made Mother Tea. She took walks with her daughter and grandson and enjoyed the instinctive, graceful manner in which her daughter wore her baby in a sling. She delighted in watching her son-in-law protect and support her daughter as he fathered their new delight. This grandmother will have a hole in her heart until they meet again.



Praise God for children who respect and care for new life with tender devotion! Call your mother!