Be yourself...

There is no better gift you can give the world then to be the person you dream you can be. Begin with yourself and watch the magic begin.

Image: Another taken on the recent hike I went on in the Blue Ridge Mountains <3

Blissful

I spent the past weekend at SevenOaks, a beautiful retreat center, in Madison, VA. The energy of the Journey Inward retreat was indescribable and many thanks to Ashley of Deep Green Wellness for organizing the event and bringing us all together. It was great to be at this very sacred place for spiritual growth surrounded by nature, with the cool crisp air, the mountains, walking trails, and the river all so close to us. At the retreat we did yoga, ate healthy vegetarian meals, listened to a very enlightening speaker, Jonathan Evatt. I also received a chakra cleansing (my first) from Sanjivani, which I am very grateful for. Ashely led the yoga classes and also an herb walk around SevenOaks. I have much more to write (and pictures too) but I just wanted to post a brief note here while I am still beaming with the pure bliss I felt at the retreat :) Now, onto hatha yoga here at yogaville, and a guest speaker, Dr. Sullivan, tomorrow morning who will be speaking about Ayurveda (he owns an Ayurvedic spa) which I am so looking forward to!! It just feels as if everything is starting to fall into place.
xoKatie

Fall!!

Washington Area Bicyclist Association 50 States and 13 Colonies Ride this Saturday Sept 26!

"Venus Music and Arts Festival is a three day, two night camping festival featuring over 100 artists from complimenting genres and mixed media of expression! Festival goers will enjoy fire artist competitions, workshops, graffiti paint exhibition, and art market. Van Hoy Farms, in scenic Harmony, NC, features amenities such as a swimming pool, showers, primitive camping, a general store, and 80 RV hook-ups! Come and be a part of this landmark event for the Carolinas!"

Carl Jung: the Holy Grail of the Unconscious

Autumn Leaves: Walks and hikes an easy drive from Washington with splendid foliage

Another list of Good Outdoor Walks for Fall via the Washingtonian

Summer Solstice this Sunday

I am looking forward to the Solstice on Sunday...at 12:45 am eastern time...how will you celebrate the day?

I hiked Meneka Peak yesterday, in the George Washington National Forest. What a gorgeous day to be outdoors and reconnect with mother Earth! We saw lots of wildlife, including a mouse, a few frogs, and a turtle. Also along the trail was the greatest variety of mushrooms/fungi I've ever seen in my life. The sunlight was just gorgeous shining on us through the trees. The trail was very rocky in parts, as most are in the area, and during a break in the hike I read this quote from my pocket Buddha reader, which I thought was a fitting meditation for the surroundings:

If your mind becomes firm like a rock
And no longer shakes
In a world where everything is shaking,
Your mind will be your greatest friend
And suffering will not come your way.

-Theragatha

More on the solstice later...

Saturday evening was one of the most enjoyable nights I've had in a while filled with good company and great conversation. It was a potluck dinner for our meditation group, and farewell gathering for our dear friend Kourosh who is moving abroad. I made mango spring rolls, recipe below, shared with me by Jen! :)

Ingredients:
Rice paper
Mango
Avocado
Bean Sprouts
Fresh cilantro
Cellophane noodles
Peanut sauce

Directions:
Slice avocado and mango (click here for how to slice a mango). Cook cellophane noodles until transparent. Set up all ingredients, and a bowl of warm water to soften the rice paper, in an assembly line fashion. Soften the rice paper for each roll, then add a bit of noodles, bean sprouts, a slice of mango, a slice of avocado, and some fresh cilantro leaves. Roll up the rice paper and filling (click on link for how-to), and serve with peanut sauce...or any dipping sauce you would like.

Mother's Day!

Here are some mother's day ideas to honor all the special mothers in your life :) As well as some other DC area links I came across during my search...and be sure to try and buy organic, local, and fair-trade gifts!

Brunch in DC, or Old Town!

Mother's day spa treatment specials

Mount Vernon Garden Tours (this is my Mom's pick for the day!)

Other Gardens in the DC Area

Bethesda Fine Arts Festival

Cruise along the Potomac

Mother's day in Virginia (scroll to bottom for Northern VA, including winery and vineyard specials)

DC Yoga Week: May 2-9, free or $5 classes at participating yoga studios in DC!

Also, a list of good hiking trails in the DC area. I've hiked some of the AT, in the Shennandoah National Park and George Washington National Forest, Great Falls, Sugarloaf Mountain, and Bull Run park. I'd like to try Rock Creek Park, Black Hill Park, Catoctin Mountain Park, and Cunningham Falls. :)
View of the sunset from my apartment window

Garden and Cosmos, Seascapes

Yesterday Scott and I went to see the IMAX movie Deep Sea 3D, which was a bit disappointing because i thought it would focus on the Deep Sea (like this amazing video) but instead focused on more familiar aquatic habitats. In any case, the visuals were stunning. Before the movie we got lunch at Java Green, an eco-friendly cafe which gets great reviews in the DC Area (voted best Vegetarian restaurant in the "Best of DC 2008" from the City Paper). All of the food and smoothies/juice bar looked delicious yet it was very crowded, and the curry noodles I ordered are surely not one of their specialties, but still its good that there is a cafe that is organic, sustainable, and vegetarian in DC.

We also went to the Freer and Sackler galleries, which I really enjoyed. I had been wanting to go to these galleries for a while now. A lot of the art was influenced by Buddhism, and I enjoyed reading about the different depictions of the Buddha and other gods and goddesses. Also the Chinese Landscapes were my favorite, I loved the black and white forests, mountains, rivers, and trees. We saw two exhibits, Seascapes, and the Garden and the Cosmos: the Royal Paintings of Jodhpur. I tried to let the concepts of the universe represented in the paintings radiate into my soul. I especially liked the last series of 7 paintings at the end of the exhibit. Each of the 7 paintings had a similar, yet different, cosmic ocean in the background. The exhibit also described the importance of hatha yoga and its teachings in many of the paintings. To learn more, click on the "Interactive Feature" on the exhibit's website. I find the "Chakras of the Subtle Body" explanation very informative.

Seascapes was a beautiful exhibit. Sugimoto's photographs, gelatin silver prints, captured so much detail of the sea. My favorite of his photographs was the darkest one, where the sea is virtually black and the sky is a dark gray.

I picked up a brochure on this campground, Abram's Creek Lodge, an eco-friendly retreat which seems peaceful and holistic. Hopefully I will get a chance to visit here one day.

Pumpkin Spice

Fall is my favorite season. I took this picture hiking last weekend in the Shennandoah national park. :)

A link to the Environmental Working Group. "At EWG, our team of scientists, engineers, policy experts, lawyers and computer programmers pores over government data, legal documents, scientific studies and our own laboratory tests to expose threats to your health and the environment, and to find solutions. Our research brings to light unsettling facts that you have a right to know."

The Alexandria-Arlington Extra from the Washington Post

The Washingtonian Website..I like searching for restaurants and spas on this site

TED Ideas Worth Spreading. Inspired talks by the world's greatest thinkers and doers. I posted this earlier but I think its worth repeating!

I want one of these. A link to the page for Kyu Che, an architect/artist based in San Francisco. His architectural research involves high tech portable capsule habitats that explore the relationship between man and nature from an eastern philosophical point of view while utilizing 21st century technologies to create bionic systems that are ecologically harmonious.

Express Night Out from the Washington Post. I love looking for cool events and stuff to do!

Wiki link of the day: Luke Vibert. Luke Vibert is a British recording artist and producer known for his work in many subgenres of electronica. -thanks Bloom

Wiki link of the day 2: Damien Hirst is an English artist and the most prominent of the group that has been dubbed "Young British Artists" (or YBAs).

I thought this was funny: Homeless Polar Bears converge on Washington DC

Blogging God Steve Pavlina Interview, by the author of one of my other favorite blogs, Zen Habits! I was excited about this :)

A superfood I hadn't heard about previously, Mesquite Powder. The website, Live Superfoods, seems like a good resource to learn more about superfoods as well.

Our organic mesquite is a nutritious powder with a sweet, nutty flavor, suitable for use in baking or as a seasoning on food and in drinks. The powder is ground from the seed pods of the mesquite plant, also known as algorroba (Prosopis juliflora), a leguminous plant found in arid areas around the world, including parts of South America and the southwestern U.S. In desert areas of the Americas, mesquite seed pods have long been used as a food source by the indigenous peoples, who traditionally ground them into a powder to be used as a flour or processed into a sweetener, a sweet beverage, or a fermented alcoholic drink. Mesquite is also highly effective in balancing blood sugar. Because its sugar is in the form of fructose, which does not require insulin for metabolism, mesquite helps maintain a constant blood sugar level for a sustained period of time.

Forecast Earth Videos from the Weather Channel. "News, science and debate advancing sustainable life on a changing planet.
This particular video details how one citizen was able to actually cause his power meter to run backwards and put power back ON the grid. He produces more energy that his family uses. This is exactly what the article I read in Ode magazine this summer (see the "Power Shift" post) was talking about as the future of energy use in the country. This is a very exciting video, and there are tons more good ones on this site, as well as other information about sustainability. Here's the link to the Forecast Earth main page.

Love

A few links for this Tuesday afternoon:

DCist: an excellent blog about all things DC. I usually read it to keep up with art, music, and events.

Has the LHC destroyed the world yet?

A really great website listing a bunch of the swimming holes in the area (and the country!)

Weather underground: A good weather site, and also I look at the astronomical information every day to see when the sun is rising and setting, the length of the day, how much shorter the next day will be, ect..

Various Links I have come across recently

DC Urban Hikers Group from Yahoo - thanks Jenny

Sadhana on wiki

Does time run backward in other universes? from SciAm

Becoming a LEED accredited professional from Treehugger

Portal to the mythical Mayan underworld - thanks Dave J

Lake Eden Arts Festival in NC

Astronomy Picture of the Day

Brain Food: How healthy eating makes you smarter - from Treehugger

Quote of the Day: All that you give to others you are giving to yourself.

Great Falls National Park, MD

Picture taken by Scott

Hustlin'

Hypem a music blog which compiles songs from a ton of other music blogs, click on the popup player for all the songs to play continuously...so awesome!! -thanks Vincent

Cityfile, a site about rich people in NYC

LHC "Dreams and Nightmares"...so excited!! The LHC is what particle physicists have been waiting for 14 years for to test their theories (I have been following its progress for about 4 years now...with excitement and anticipation...I can only imagine how the physicists working on the project must feel! I almost applied for an internship at CERN for a summer during college but as I wasn't a physics major, I decided not to...well this was around the time I was considering double majoring in physics and engineering). Currently the theories have surpassed experimental ability/capacity, and this particle accelerator will smash protons together at higher speeds than ever before in order to test the theories.

A great hiking resource for northern VA including the Shennandoah National Park and George Washington National Forest. This link is a map of VA showing many hikes in the area. If you move your cursor over the hike it will highlight the hike and give you the name, distance, and a short description. Then click on the hike for more info.

Wiki link... pertaining to "The Secret"
The Secret is a book which tells you that the law of affirmations is true, and that your thoughts will manifest themselves, and your thoughts have power to attract things in your life, good or bad, depending on your thoughts. Therefore think positive thoughts to bring abundance into your life. Saying a mantra or focusing on a goal that you want to achieve, in a positive light, will bring it into existence.

One of my favorites, Steve Pavlina, tells you why you shouldn't get a job--thanks Bloom

xoxo