I Live in a World with Little Yoga Warriors

BUY THE BOOK: www.littleyogawarriors.com

In January 2007 I co- founded a company with a friend of mine, Jeff Mix. We call it Little Yoga Warriors. We believe that creative story telling and magical illustrations will encourage children to continue to view the world through fresh new eyes. Our first children's book debuted at the Summer Outdoor Retail Show in 2007. "Sasha and Mishoo: Little Yoga Warriors" (cover illustration placed above) Our mission is to educate children on cultural and environmental issues through children's books. We believe knowledge is the key to a more peaceful world.

We choose to self publish all of our books until the Publishing world steps up to the plate and starts using printing methods that strive to create sustainable material. We distribute non toxic and earth friendly books by using 100% recycled PCW paper, soy based inks, 100% wind power, and NO that doesn't necessarily mean that there is a full blown wind mill on the top of our printers building in upstate NY, and if it DID, I would be the first one to commend them for it. We support companies that do their part in getting on the GREEN band wagon. Those who believe in respecting our Earth and all that live in it, usually tend to be the ones treading lightly on the Earth so that future generations know the beauty we have been blessed to experience. We want to work with these people and IF you happen to be one of them, please let me know.

Little Yoga Warriors means exactly THAT. A warrior is known as a mercenary or soldier: a member of an army or one who works for a specified cause. We encourage children to become not a fighter but a believer in the difference they can make in the world and within themselves. We encourage them to connect to their bodies, minds, and to the earth. We encourage them to get out of the house, away from technology and back into the natural surroundings which welcomes them. We support a world where children have who no concept of religious discrimination.

Each region of the world has their own history, cultural, way of life. By introducing these different ways of life, we will encourage children to think outside of the box, past conformity, and into a world of endless wonder and respect for ALL people and the natural world. We are therefore committed to working with non profits, organizations, or with independent people who live within the villages we seek our research in, and to give back to their communities in anyway we can. Currently we donate a % of all proceeds from Sasha and Mishoo: Little Yoga Warriors to The Tibetan Village Project, www.tibetanvillageproject.org

By becoming involved with Little Yoga Warriors you are saying YES to a more sustainable planet, YES to cultural awareness and acceptances, and YES to a more peaceful planet.

We welcome you to a NEW generation of children.

Tentanda Via Est

Since the beginning of my verbal existence, Gram, my grandmother, ACTUALLY granted me the nick name, "the mouth", which quickly and rightfully so, stuck with my mom, dad, grandfather, and all immediate family members, until the dam broke and my entire world would come to know of this name. A small girl, in an even smaller body, with a mouth that would take OFF, when, where, and how it wanted too, I have slowly learned to tone it down quite a bit. But only by a mere fracture line, and it has taken me my entire life to do so. That being said, it's kind of befitting that I now have a blog, for me to freely and openly say, what ever it is, that I feel needs to be said.


A bit of history for you. Some insight to this blog and just HOW this came to be.

My first year out of college I was still in the mode of, " I can change the world". I had that naive belief that it was ACTUALLY possible. I believed, do believe, that with an education based around nature and environmental awareness, children will grow up learning the fundamental values of living with compassion, not hatred; acceptance, not judgement; peace, NOT war. Over the years I have passionately studied the impact the environment has on our well being and how something as simple as a flower, or a ripple in the ocean, has a PROFOUND effect on our mood and how we view the world. I wanted to move the world. All the people in it, to a more peaceful state. Education was the vehicle. Education IS the vehicle.

With my high hopes and even bigger dreams, I couldn't decide how to merge my love for life with the rat race work ethic. "Maybe I will hit the road make a record and sell a million copies, retire early? Travel Journalist? Painter, photographer, herbalist, kayak guide?" Life had become an overwhelming list of choices and I couldn't decide which one would fit me best. Nothing was on that list that made me say, "OK. This is what my life should look like". CHAOS. And it was chaos. Me living in a box that I couldn't get out of. Find the right job, right living situation, right man, right look, right laughter, right smile, right opinion, right walk...RUN.. and that's just what I did. I ran straight out of the country and found myself driving solo on the windy roads of New Zealand, in an old beat up Nissan van called HOMEY. No kidding, right after my given name.

I have never felt more at home than when I was living out of that van.

If you have ever had the chance to reinvent yourself, you might just guess what kind of layers I shed on that trip I called, "Fleeing America". I peeled off so many layers that I was naked right down to the bare soul of my existence. Nothing made sense. Everything made sense. I was able to finally choose the layers I wanted to put back on and one by one I did. I tossed the rest away. I felt like a 4 year old girl in my mom's closet, grabbing everything that caught my eye. Trying it on, taking it off, wearing shoes that were too big for me, hat's that covered my eyes. I had the time of my life, and by the end I was exhausted, crawled into my favorite attire and flew home.

People get so caught up in the things that they are expected to do that they lose sight of themselves in the process. They then wonder why every day seem to be full of chores and the weekends some kind of God that they worship. When I returned back home my eyes had changed. Not the color, although they often do, but my view. I could finally see. It's not that I couldn't see before I left, but it had been hazy. It's like this: I had been blind since the age of 14 and then all of a sudden the universe recommended contacts.

We choose to see what we want to see. We choose to feel what we want to feel. I chose a different life, vowing to never get trapped in a box again. I decided that If I was going to be trapped, it better be circular and made out of water so I could easily remove any belief that didn't serve me anymore with one flick of my little finger. I lived on a friends couch, because she wouldn't let me put up the tent in the front yard, and I painted to release my uncertainty. Wrote music to release my fear, and started to drink mound fulls of Mate' at the local coffee shop, who decided to hire me when they realized they needed an overly obnoxious, happy person, to run the front counter. I was high on life and believed that every moment was an opportunity to reinvent myself, over and over, creating anything I wanted to experience. Each experience brought me back to day one. AND YES, it involves changing the world.

In Native American folklore, a chief tells a story to a young boy. He speaks of two wolves that live and fight inside of every person. One wolf fights for anger, jealousy, stubbornness, and selfishness. The other wolf fights for joy, love, acceptance, and selflessness. When the boy asks which wolf wins, the chief simply replies, "the one we feed". We stoke our own fire. We fuel every desire and every misfortune just by the thoughts inside our head. We create it all and yet we point fingers to everyone but ourselves.

If you don't like the life you lead, the job you have, the friends you share company with, step out of your box. Make a new one. Take a step in your own direction. Cut back the overgrown grass of a path that is yet to exist. Make it your own. Make your life one that you think is worth living. Have no regrets. Speak up for what you believe in. Make it happen. Get outside more. Outside of the structure that doesn't serve you. Get INSIDE more. Make time to see the beauty that this life has to offer. My grandfather used to say " Tentanda Via Est". There is always a way to be found.

Have you found YOURS?

Soundless Until Recently

The other night I sang a song. The "on the spot" kind of song, the unrehearsed, never played before kind of song. The one that pours out of you while you sit on stage, with a red light shining down that says "look at her, she is to be looked at, stared at, all the creases in her eyes, in her mouth, the twitching of her nose, her hands"

The light turned into a fierce heat, thick with expectation, holding me hostage until I gave it up. So I did. I wore a baseball cap as if to hide the truth of the words that slowly and shockingly came out of my mouth. They seemed to have a movement all their own. It's the kind of movement that doesn't think. It feels. It goes where and WHEN it wants to go.

Because you cannot turn the light off ON the musician, it's like turning the light off IN the musician, when ironically the light shouldn't really be a light at all but a sound, a noise, that is somehow heard through the 2 speakers that hang above. One on the left and one on the right, me in the middle playing god, singing anything I want to because people will believe you if you sing the truth that resides within you. So here we go... time to give my heart, a bit of my soul, some humor, depth.... "close your eyes...... turn yourself in... lyrics will then emerge" Thoughts take form. Beats fill the air. Music is created. Emotions are handed out. The audience wakes up or falls asleep. They are changed, opened, or shut down. Turned off or turned on. Me, I turn on.

That's kind of how it is with writing. Words on paper. At once we are judged for everything we haven't said and too much for what we HAVE said. Still, this is who I am. Nothing more and nothing less. I am afraid to share it. Just like on stage, in those few moments. Do it all or something less? I give it all. My sponsors expect it. I expect it. Don't rewrite, rethink, redo. I don't get a second chance on stage and I surrender to that small detail. One slip of the finger, lack of pronunciation, wrong pretense.

No, I will not edit this not for the over usage of comma's or run on sentences. My life IS taking place in the past, present and future, all jumbled up like a ball of rubber bands, overlapping in an array of color and meaning. I will not edit my life. I will not cut out one color so that the other one can shine through. I am no longer the onlooker, reading the journey of others. I have become the journey. I have become the song I sing. Welcome to my blog. Naked and shared.