Who are you? Who do you want to be?

What patterns are serving you, what patterns aren’t?

What is holding you back, what is pushing you forward?

What brings you energy? What drains you?

Where do you want to head from here?

Pretty deep considerations, huh?

Retreats offer an environment to ask these questions.  Toreally sit, think and feel what the answers are. I snapped at this opportunity; heading into this New Year I wanted to reflect on the challenges and gifts of the past year and bring some intentions to the year ahead.  Which is where I’ve been this month- reintegrating and carefully shifting my energies to serve me and hopefully others.  Hope to see on the mat over the coming weeks.

My next yoga retreat:

Pranafication: Lasqueti Yoga Retreat July 20-22

See blog posts from August from last years retreat

Stay Tuned

While Im not necessarily into labelling diets- or “steps” to achieve- I did think these are good suggestions…

DON’T JUST EAT IT – LIVE IT

Here are six key elements of the Paleolithic lifestyle, according to Pedro Carrera-Bastos, a Swedish health researcher specializing in the effects of “ancestral” diets, and his colleagues.

1. SUNSHINE

Getting enough vitamin D is crucial to bone health, and may also play a role in preventing cardiovascular disease and some cancers. The simplest way to meet your needs: sunlight. But modern office-bound humans rarely spend enough time outside to get enough. Some hunter-gatherer cultures at high latitudes have found other ways – the Inuit, for example, rely on fatty fish for vitamin D.

2. SLEEP

Go to sleep when it’s dark, get up when it’s light. Our bodies have powerful internal clocks that try to enforce this simple rule. Even a night or two of disrupted sleep has immediate effects on your appetite hormones ghrelin and leptin. That’s why sleep patterns are closely related to obesity and metabolic syndrome: Too little sleep is most common these days, but too much isn’t good either.

3. NO POLLUTION

An obvious one – but easier said than done in the modern world.

4. ACUTE STRESS

The typical hunter-gatherer life punctuated long periods of low stress with short bouts of acute stress that triggered the fight-or-flight response. In contrast, modern office workers often show signs of chronically elevated stress, which can have consequences such as elevated blood pressure and a weakened immune system.

5. PHYSICAL ACTIVITY

Sure, paleo folks got more exercise than we do. But what kind?

-Large amounts of light-to-moderate activity, such as walking or jogging, while hunting and foraging. Estimates place the typical distance covered at five to 16 kilometres per day.

-Hard days were usually followed by easy days – though not totally sedentary.

-Short bursts of very high-intensity activity. This can be mimicked with interval training once or twice per week.

-Wide variety of daily activities that strengthen the whole body, ranging from carrying children and digging tubers to dancing.

6. FRESH, UNPROCESSED FOOD

The paleo diet is often hyped as a meat lover’s fantasy. While it varies from culture to culture, modern hunter-gatherers typically get only 35 per cent of their calories from meat, with the rest derived from plants. Even if we assume a 50-50 split, the greater caloric density of meat means that, by volume, the paleo “plate” would have had significantly more vegetables and fruit than meat on it.

BOTTOM LINE: So will going paleo really pay off with better health? As a big-picture guide to how to organize your life, definitely. But don’t get carried away with trying to recreate the exact details of a long-lost diet. Humans have changed and diversified even over the past few thousand years, so the only way to know what works best for your genes is to experiment. Go wild.

Special to The Globe and Mail

Whether you like downhill, snow-shoeing, cross country, tubing, hiking, mountaineering… do not be afraid of snow folks- recharge your battery and keep your juices flowing by keeping it moving in the mountains.

We will be prepping our ski & snowboard legs in yoga for the next few weeks.

Any suggestions?

New Year’s Pranafication Retreat in Costa RicaDec 24th, 2011 – Jan 1st, 2012 and Jan 1st – Jan 7th, 2012
At Nosara, Costa Rica
Recharge, Renew and Rejuvenate in one of the most pranafied places on the planet – Costa Rica – where we return for our seventh year to world-renown jungle surf spot – Nosara. Our one-week or two week transformation retreats allow you to create your own alchemical retreat experience with great community. From Ocean bliss to ecstatic breakthroughs, we will offer a way for you to create a living yoga retreat.
transformational prana flow® yoga • epic surfing for beginners/intermediate • ocean pranafication • tantric meditations and fire ceremony • flow arts: staff and kalari • mantra and ecstatic kirtan • yogadventures (horseback riding/ziplining) • ritual vision – New Year’s Eve-Day • salsa dancing with locals • yogatrancedance™ • optional living yoga sadhana teacher training

I wish I could take credit for this idea! About 5 years ago, when I was really getting into preserving local food for the winter.  I asked a gal at the farmers market- what her favourite recipe for tomato sauce was.  She told me it was SO simple.  Always slow roast your tomatoes.

Boy was she right.  Slow roasting elimates excess water, concentrates flavour and caramelizes the natural sugars.

Simple roasted tomato sauce recipe

10 pounds of organic heirloom tomatoes

2 onions

1 head of garlic

1 tablespoon olive oil

splash of red wine or balsmaic

fresh herbs (optional: oregano, basil, rosemary, parsley)

salt & pepper

Roast tomatoes at 350 for 3 hours. In a heavy bottom pot, sauté onions and garlic in the olive oil until translucent.  Add tomato- bring to boil & simmer. Add herbs, salt, pepper & remove from heat.  You can hand blend sauce depending on your desired consistency.

Eat fresh, freeze or process in jars.

Imagine how this will taste come February?!

While I was in San Francisco last year- I HAD to check out Cultured.

I came across this video a few years ago.  So I make the trek to her pickle shop like any fermenting groupie would.  She did not let me down.

With that I think we should get together and make kombucha!! I will need to grow some babies.

Making Kombucha & other fermented drinks

November 18th

5-6:30pm

Cost: $10

My House- address to be given upon registration

Register by emailing me with a quick note about why you want to ferment/ make kombucha or be a local sustainable eater!

lasqueti island yoga retreat trailer from will on Vimeo.