International Day of Yoga

yoga1

June 21st is the United Nations-sanctioned International Day of Yoga (International Yoga Day). United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, in his Message on the 2016 International Day of Yoga, tells us, “Yoga balances body and soul, physical health and mental well-being.”

Pertinent to this year’s observance of #YogaDay, Ban Ki-moon states:

“Practicing yoga can also help raise awareness of our role as consumers of the planet’s resources and as individuals with a duty to respect and live in peace with our neighbours. All these elements are essential to building a sustainable future of dignity and opportunity for all.”

http://www.un.org/en/events/yogaday/message.shtml

Here are some poses that have definitely improved my mental well-being:

yoga legupwall
legs up the wall pose (Viparita Karani)

 

yoga downward dog
downward-facing dog pose (Adho Mukha Svanasana.)

 

yoga cow
cow pose (bitilasana)

 

yoga corpse
corpse pose (Shavasana)

 

yoga child
child pose (Balasana)

 

yoga treed pose
treed pose (Squirrelasana)

 

How will you observe International Yoga Day?

NaBloPoMo ~ NoMore

We made it! It’s the last day of November, and the last day of the 2015 National Blog Posting Month (NaBloPoMo) challenge. I succeeded in posting to this blog daily for 30 days and — as promised — I didn’t resort to regaling you with endless photos of my cat and dog. Well, maybe I did. But they’re so stinkin’ cute!

No More

 

Most of the time it was fun, sometimes tedious. It certainly did force me to crank up my creative juices, and to acknowledge that I don’t have to wait around like some mutt underfoot begging for table scraps, hoping my muse tosses a few ideas my way.

Okay, so it’s never been that bad. My usual writing process is that some notion begins buzzing around my head like an annoying insect. I roll up a metaphorical newspaper and swat it. When it falls to the ground, I poke at it to see if there’s any life left in it. If there is, then maybe I write about it. The metaphorical insect, that is.

If it’s a real insect, I try to get the dog to catch it and either escort it outside or ensure its demise. He usually just sniffs at it and walks away. As does the insect.

insect2

Outdoors: live and let live.

 

Outdoors, my bug philosophy is “live and let live.” Indoors, the rule is if it won’t go away or if it creeps me out, it dies. Kind of like a blind date. But I digress.

There aren’t many insects flying around my part of the world at this time of year. Except stink bugs. And who wants to write about a stink bug, metaphorical or otherwise?

insect1

Indoors: sic ’em, Chules!

 

The point of all this is to say that I will write with less frequency from now on, that I’ll try not to write if I have nothing to say, and that you probably shouldn’t go on a blind date with me.

Thanks for seeing me through this month, and for reading each and every one of my posts. You did that, right?

WPC: Pet Victory

The theme for this week’s Daily Post photo challenge is Victory. Victories come in so many shapes and sizes, we probably experience them in one form or another on a daily basis.

Some examples of victories:

Getting your human trained to carry you wherever you go.

V1

 

Finally achieving that yoga pose you’ve been working on.

V5

 

Succeeding in laying that Grade AA extra large egg.

V4

 

Acing puppy kindergarten.

V6

 

Mastering the piano.

V3a

 

And the real biggie… being rescued and finding your forever home.

V2

NaBloPoMo

November is the “official” Na’Mo month. NaNoWriMo, for example, stands for National Novel Writing Month. The challenge is to write a novel in 30 days, beginning on November 1st.  There are similar challenges for poetry, drawing, nonfiction writing, and I don’t know what else. Oh, wait! I do know what else… NaBloPoMo!

National Blog Posting Month is a challenge to publish a blog post every day of November. And yes, I’m going to go where – well, where a whole lot of bloggers have bravely gone before. I’m taking the challenge.

Posting daily is easy, really. I could do a daily series on my cat’s antics, but that would just look like the photo below multiplied by thirty.

antics

Posting something of quality, though, is a whole ‘nother matter. And a very subjective one at that.

I’ll try to be diligent in keeping the month’s posts reader-worthy. If I happen to toss in a few (or more) clunkers, please don’t judge (too harshly). And I promise I won’t post thirty photos of my cat or dog for NaBloPoMo.
(NaBloPoMo sounds like something a dentist would hear after shooting a patient’s mouth full of Novocain, doesn’t it? Now my teeth hurt.)
NaBloPoMo November 2015