Category: Yoga

The Lotus Kitchen- Quinoa Tabouli

Welcome to The Lotus Kitchen, the title of my upcoming book with co-author Gwen Keannelly and a place where yoga and vegetarian cooking entwine. This week’s recipe is Quinoa Tabouli.

The Lotus Kitchen-Quinoa Tabouli

 

  • 2 cups quinoa, cooked
  • 1 cup chopped parsley
  • 1/2 cup chopped scallions
  • 2 tablespoons mint
  • 2 tablespoons basil
  • 3 garlic cloves, minced
  • Juice of 1 lemon
  • ¼ cup olive oil
  • Salt and pepper to taste
  • ¼ cup olives, sliced

Place all ingredients in a mixing bowl and toss together lightly. Chill for 1 hour or more to allow flavors to blend. Garnish with olives Serves 4 

The Practice:

Traditionally tabouli, also spelled tabbouleh, is an Arab salad filled with Mediterranean delight. When exploring the connection of tabouli and yoga, we are reminded of what yoga is all about – the practice of seeing the Oneness of two things that appear to be separate. When connecting India and The Middle East, what better way than to do it with food and yoga. It takes a practice to experience the Oneness Consciousness.   We must begin to see what cultures have in common instead of what separates us.

Thread the Needle Pose (Parsva Balasana) Instruction:

If you have stiffness and pain, this pose can provide relief by stretching and opening the shoulders, chest, arms, upper back and neck. It releases the tension that is commonly held in the upper back between the shoulder blades. This pose also provides a mild twist to the spine, which further reduces tension. Begin on all fours (table pose), with hands shoulder width apart. Turn the right palm upwards and thread the right hand underneath the left arm. Bring the right shoulder and the right side of the face toward the floor. Rest on the right cheek for three long breaths. Bring the left arm up off the floor and send it straight up towards the ceiling, releasing the left shoulder. Bend the left elbow and see if you can reach around to hold your waist or the right thigh. Stay here for six to twelve breaths. To get out of the pose plant your left hand firmly on the ground and use the weight of it and return to table pose. Repeat on the other side.

 

Skip’s Body Connection and Affirmation – The Practice of Love

This week’s Body Connection we’ll focus on Yoga as it relates to our theme, The Practice of Love.Skip's The Power Of Love in Yoga

Physical practice is a form of self-love and to feel the vibration of Joy that lives within our soul.  The word “yoga” means to yoke or to bring together two things that appear to be separate.

This week, get physical, move, dance and connect this “yoke” to the spiritual and set your intention to elevate your love and joy vibrations. 

“The Practice Of Love” Affirmation:  Just for this moment…just for this breath, I am the love energy that blesses the planet.  I move from a place of love and my life is good.  And so it is.

Peace and blessings,

-Skip

The Shift with Skip Radio Guests- Kathleen Bywater and Emill Kim

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Skip talks exercise, alternative medicine, how to avoid colds during the height of season and more with Kathleen Bywater of Revive Juicery and Emill Kim acupuncturist on the latest episode of The Shift With Skip Radio.

revivefox-300x168Discover easy ways on how to avoid feeling fatigued, unwell or unmotivated as Emill and Kathleen share their excellent tips into loving your body naturally, fueling it with foods for the soul, and adding exercise can dramatically change your quality of life.

Click here to listen On-Demand

 

Kathleen Bywater: Founder and Owner of Revive Juicery who’s 100% Locally Grown Organic Produce are made  Unpasteurized into Cold Pressed Juice and Smoothies. Revive Juicery drinks are available throughout Southern California.

Emil Kim: Is a second generation acupuncturist living in Los Angeles, he spends most of his time practicing yoga, studying the intricacies of energetic medicine, and finding ways to live a long, healthy, more efficient life.

Listen to the Shift With Skip On-Demand

Skip’s segment with Kathleen and Emill is available on On-Demand here 

The ShiftWithSkip Radio are LIVE every Wednesday at 10 AM PST
Stay up to date with my latest guests or listen to past shows On-Demand via my radio page.

 

The Lotus Kitchen-Cucumber Mint Salad

You will absolutely love the Lotus Kitchen – Cucumber Mint Salad. It’s so refreshing in so many ways, from a main dish on a warm day, to a light palette refresher.  This recipe and more is from my collection of vegan recipes from my upcoming book, the Lotus Kitchen with co-author Gwen Keannelly that combines good vegan eats with a yoga practice.

Enjoy,

-Skip

Ingredients:

4 cups chopped cucumber (3 medium sized cucumbers)
2 cups fresh mint leaves, de-stemmed
1 cup fresh cilantro, de-stemmed
1 cup lime juice
1/3 cup grape seed oil
1 cup fresh yellow cherry tomatoes
Raw macadamia nuts, chopped
Fresh basil

Combine all ingredients in a large bowl and serve. Serves 4

The Practice: The cucumber is the most perfect food for hydration, nutrients and releasing weight. The practice of yoga also helps release weight and unwanted heavy energy. One of the effects of yoga is building heat within, and allowing the body to sweat out everything we do not need. To balance the body, take the time to hydrate with water and cucumbers.

Mindful Eating Practice: This practice is to be aware that the salad is hydrating, nurturing, and creating a healthy body. With each bite be aware of the water of the cucumber that is hydrating the body. Be mindful of each quenching morsel that is blessing your mouth. Feel the energy that the salad is stimulating within the body. The vibration that is delivered from the food is helping to elevate the vibration of the soul. During the ritual create an affirmation that helps remind you that eating is a practice. For example, “I know my mind, body, and spirit are strong as I eat my cucumber salad.”

 

The Lotus Kitchen-Roasted Carrot, Asparagus and Ginger Soup

My latest recipe, a roasted carrot, asparagus and ginger soup is perfect for when you need that extra energy and open up your chakras. This recipe and more are from my upcoming book, The Lotus Kitchen, with Gwen Keannelly, a vegan cook book that combines good eats with a yoga practice.

Let me know how you like it.

Enjoy,

– Skip

Ingredients

1 tablespoon olive oil
2 medium red onions, sliced
1 (4 inch) piece fresh ginger, peeled
6 cloves garlic, peeled
8 cups vegetable stock
2 pounds carrots
2 pounds asparagus
Pinch of kosher salt
½ teaspoon white pepper

Roughly chop the carrots, asparagus, red onions, peeled ginger and garlic. Toss with olive oil and place on sheet pan. Sprinkle with salt and pepper and roast for about one hour until tender. Move to soup pot and add the stock. Simmer over medium heat until the carrots are tender. Puree and season with salt and pepper. Serves 4-6

The Yoga Practice:

As children we’re told to eat our carrots to improve vision. Jnana yoga is the practice of seeing clearly what is right and what is real. As we dive into this soup, ask the Universe to show you what is real, and what is the illusion you have made up for yourself to protect you from transformation. One pose that allows us to see the truth of our strength is the Warrior Pose. When we stand erect and channel the warrior within, we begin to clearly see our strength. The practice is to see who and what you are. You are a divine being who is strong and full or power.

Warrior One Pose (Virabhadrasana One) Instruction:

The Warrior pose cultivates the qualities of a warrior – honesty, righteousness, standing up for justice. Stand tall and focused on your mat. Step the left leg back into a long leg lunge and turn the foot diagonal to the left corner. Deepen the front knee to a 45-degree bend and reach the arms strong over head.

 

The Shift With Skip Radio Guest – Stephen Ewashkiw

Stephen Ewashkiw

International yoga teacher Stephen Ewashkiw is my guest on the ShiftWithSkip radio podcast. Stephen has taught almost everywhere — from Canada, Italy, Sweden to China, Russia, Indonesia and more. He strives to bring the joy of the practice to his students and his classes are a fun, challenging blend of Hatha yoga, alignment, meditation, and Tantric philosophy. Stephen believes a yoga class should involve laughing, learning, and sharing, coupled with the other benefits of yoga – a really incredible workout, getting fit, learning about yourself, being healthy.  In 2013 Stephen and his wife Jane decided to take a few months off and travel the world on their bikes and after 16 months of travel, visited 22 countries, and covering 10,000 miles all on bicycles.

Join us as we talk global yoga, the world bike trip and how those experiences shaped his yoga practice.

Stephen Ewashkiw-china

Stephen Ewashkiw

Listen On-Demand

My segment with Stephen Ewashkiw is available by clicking here.

For information on California Native plants and more visit: Theodore Payne Foundation

For real honest to good Vegan donuts from the Donut Friend visit: here.

Follow Stephen’s Journey via:

Webpages: www.blaim.mewww.myfiveacres.com

Twitter: https://twitter.com/blaimyoga

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/blaimYoga

Instagram: http://instagram.com/blaim

Stay up to date with my latest guests or listen to past shows On-Demand via my radio page.

The Lotus Kitchen – Party Miso Soup

My latest recipe from my upcoming book, The Lotus Kitchen is Miso Soup. New Years seems to be a perfect time to make this great meal. For over 2,500 years miso has been a staple in Chinese and Japanese diets, where most people greet their day with a warm bowl of miso for breakfast to energize their bodies and stimulate digestion. Miso is a powerful detoxifier containing essential amino acids, making it a complete protein. You can make this soup for a crowd or you can store it in the refrigerator and enjoy a hot cup in the morning before you begin your yoga practice.

8 cups water
1 inch fresh ginger, finely chopped
1 cup Shiro miso (a fermented soybean paste)
Bunch of scallions, thinly sliced
1-cup firm tofu, chopped 1/4 of an inch

Bring 7 ½ cups of water and ginger to a boil. Whisk miso and 1/2 cup water in a small bowl until smooth and whisk into soup. Add tofu and scallions and simmer for a few minutes before serving. Serves 8-10

The Practice: The healing properties of Miso bring you back to a state of equilibrium as does the classic yoga pose Downward Facing Dog. It is a perfect pose to rest, so we may begin again. When the practice brings you to fatigue, remember Downward Facing Dog and the perfect equilibrium.

Downward Facing Dog Pose(Adho Mukha Svanasana) Instruction:  From a kneeling position place hands and feet on the mat and lift the hips toward the sky to create the perfect upside down V shape.  Hands should be shoulder width apart and feet hip width apart, spreading fingers and toes to create a strong base.  While practicing Downward Facing Dog, create a mantra or chant that states that you are whole and renewed. Create an affirmation that affirms your healing is taking place now. For example: “My body knows how to heal itself and I am open and will allow it to be.”

Stepping outside the Black Box: The Power of Invitation by Emill Kim

Anxiously clutching rosary beads in my hand, I walked through the quiet church. Every one of my movement possessed a certain gravitas in the still of this sacred space. This was the church of my boyhood; I had gone to school here, learned my catechism, grown up here, and lost my faith here.

I stood quietly at the foot of the statue of the Virgin mother. I have been a student, a scientist, a doctor, some would say a scholar at times. But here, in this place I was a penitent asking for grace.

In this internal and external space, I felt my energy release.

I wept openly.

********************************

There are several expressions.

“We don’t know what we don’t know.”
“We are blind to our own problems.”
“It’s hard to see when you are in the middle of it.”

These are a few common aphorisms that transcend language and culture; The instinctual acknolweldgement of the limits of our perspective coming from our mortal origins.

One of the biggest clinical challenge I have is when someone cannot understand that their lifestyle, fears, and beliefs is the source of their pathology.

That chronic disorders, debilitating pain, lack of healing can comes from a belief structure not rooted in truth but in fear.

If the mind believes something to be true then it will be expressed as truth in their reality. Physical reality starts first in the body. They are a locked self contained black box. Not aware of what they don’t know.

********************************

A question, “Why does one meditate?”

There are several answers but one popular response is that it “quiets the mind.” Although a great answer my follow up question is always

“Toward what end?”

There is an esoteric framework that we all hold reverent when practicing traditional spiritual practices. Their ways and promised outcomes we hold sacrosanct and beyond question. After devoting my adult life to studying such phenomena, I have developed a certain amount of pragmatism concerning everything.

The most desirable quality in any and all of my personal practices is efficacy coupled with efficiency.

I need it to work.
I need my efforts to affect a desireable change.

Thinking in the black box does not do this.
The self contained system is self referential.

*******************************

I posed this question to my friend, Ken, a highly gifted intuitive and one of the few people I have met who has used their gift to live a very comfortable life. Ken, once a civil servant, started developmenting his intuitive skills in adulthodd and began using his insights and impressions in both his investments in stocks and real estate. Coming from a relatively small humble start, he has reached a point in his life where he has amassed a considerable amount of wealth.

He told me the reason he meditates is to see things that is hidden from his mortal perspective. The goal of his meditation is reaching a particular point of resonance where he feels connected to the universe (or the collective unconscious). In that space he opens himself (asks) for information and insight.

This is a far cry and much different practice than thinking about nothing and performing triangle pose. Ken is explicitly connecting to the source with the intent of transcending his small self to connect to the larger Self.

*****************************

Our lives are on a path created by our lives up to this point.
The readjustments and recalibrations of this path are continually made but solely by our own manipulation of information.

As I’ve already described, some people are on paths of pain, suffering, and misery that are caused by misinformation. Their recalibrations are based on a narrative that has perpetuated illness. Although I can provide information to help them to change their course, their cognitive filter can also be altered by fear, ignorance, weariness, and closed energy

****************************

As I sat weeping in the church, I could feel the weight of the intents imparted into this space, the collective reverance, my own connection, hit me strongly. In that moment, my personal moment connection, I asked to be given grace.

Grace isn’t a particularly Catholic or Christian term, it is the invitation of our larger essence into our lives. When we set an intention for something good to come into our lives, we are asking for enormity of what we are to channel into our existence for our to receive our hearts longing.

This is grace.

My friend Ken had shown me that meditation was more than ‘thinking about nothing.’ It was an invitation for the cosmos, universe, God consciousness, collective unconscious, God, Allah, Ascended masters, angels, whatever, to come into our lives to provide special insight and wisdom.

If the overt spirituality of this is disagreeable, then we call call it the subconscious or collective mind. Whatever the case, when we are lost, feeling powerless, or just completely confused about our life path, journey, this is a good moment to ask for:

The spiritual non-sequitor.

Insight that comes from “left field,”

Something beyond the black box of our body, of our community, of our humanity, of our known world, to come grace us with energy and a glimpse of our divinity.

**********************************

In those moments of inhertied fear, doubt, anger, and uncertainty, I have made it my practice to take a deep breath and ask for help. The more I have been asking, the more I get a response. It’s been frankly wonderful but,

This takes practice.

Although a very powerful tool, it takes practice to,

Admit that you don’t know.
Surrender control.
Ask for wisdom.
Recognize the connection.

These blog post is my way of saying thank you for my gifts of grace.
These blogs are more than an invitation to you into something larger.
They are are reminders to recognize your connection.

Ernest Holmes, noted spiritual philosopher, once said,

“It is the nature of the Universe to give us what we are able to take.
It cannot give us more.
It has given all, we have not accepted the greater git.”

To receive more, sometimes you just have to ask for more.
Give an invitation and accept the invitation.
Reach out and you’ll be met halfway 

Namaste,

Emill (aka Dr. Kim).

Emill.kim@gmail.com

facebook.com/dr.emillkim

Fish Tacos, Yoga Joes, Renewing the Mind, Paris

Dan Abramson, brogamats

 

 

 

 

Some blog highlights of the past week.

Peace and Blessings,

Skip

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