Archive for Zero Waste

April Yoga Class Schedule; Sun Salutation Workshop; Chair Yoga; Super Blood Moon; Plastic Pollution Seminar;

Wishing you a very happy holiday weekend!  This weekend brings us Easter, Passover and a second “blue moon”.  A very auspicious time, it seems!  Here is an interesting article, with a beautiful photo slide show, describing this weekend’s phenomenon that also gives us a super blood moon and full lunar eclipse:  https://www.express.co.uk/news/weird/938509/Blue-moon-2018-spiritual-meaning-superstitions-astrology  Happy viewing!


Google Images

This April I have a number of workshops and classes I am offering; full descriptions are below. I hope to see you at one or more of these.  Also, I am seeking donations for my environmental community event I host in May that helps educate about the importance of our street trees, and provides tools and materials for New Yorkers to “adopt” and care for their own neighborhood tree! See below for more details.  Any donations would be most appreciated, as this is a matching opportunity, and is tax deductible!   https://www.ioby.org/project/love-your-street-tree-day-2018

SUN SALUTATION WORKSHOP: 
If you have struggled with all or part of the famous yoga sequence, the Sun Salutation, this workshop is for you!  Learn each position and transition in the flow with time to dissect it part by part and discover which modifications or versions work best for you.  This workshop involves discussion and practice and comes with a take home outline.  Bring a pen and your questions, and learn how to flow with ease the next time you salute the sun!


PLASTIC POLLUTION SEMINAR:
In honor of Earth Day 2018 and its’ focus on plastic pollution, I will be speaking at the Dorot Center for Seniors on Friday, April 27 on “How to Reduce Our Single-Use Plastic Consumption and Why It’s So Important”.  I will be joined by marine biologist Dr. Judith Weis; we are both steering committee members of the NY/NJ Plastic Free Waters Partnershiphttp://www.plasticfreewaters.org  Learn about the plastic pollution crisis currently facing our planet, how it impacts all of us, and what we can do to reduce our plastic footprint with easy to implement solutions.  It is estimated that at the current rate of plastic consumption, there will be more plastic in the oceans than fish by 2050!

An impromptu 1-hour beach cleanup in Boca, Florida (Feb. 2018)

MY CROWDFUNDING CAMPAIGN TO HELP THE STREET TREES:
Seeking your support!  As you may know, I cofounded with a couple other folks, the NYC “Love Your Street Tree” initiative almost four years ago.  This initiative is to bring awareness to the importance of caring for our street trees especially now that the city completed its’ million trees planting initiative.  As part of our “Love Your Street Tree” project, we provide free educational events at schools and in the community, created and host our Annual “Love Your Street Tree Day” Spring Cleanup and Planting Day every May.  This May 20th, will be our 4th year hosting tree loving New Yorkers and providing them with free gardening gift bags that contain all the tools and supplies they will need to take care and steward the street trees in their neighborhood, including our popular double-sided “curb your dog signs” – dog waste being a health issue when it is not properly disposed of (and frankly disgusting when it is tracked into our homes on the bottom of our shoes).   At our event, we also teach participants how to properly care for a street tree and do sample demonstrations.


http://www.loveyourstreettreeday.com

This year, our project has been accepted by non-profit crowdfunding site – ioby.  This is very exciting, as all donations will be matched dollar for dollar!  Your donations will help us purchase the items for our free urban gardening gift bags, such as gardening tools, the curb your dog signs, watering buckets, gloves, plants or seeds – all the items necessary for beautifying the neighborhood and properly taking care of our beautiful and beneficial street trees!  You will be emailed a charitable tax receipt.  I and our other tree cleanup volunteers will be so grateful!

If you can do me a favor and donate this week before our official public ioby launch next week, I would very much appreciate it as that creates important momentum!  Street trees help clean, cool and purify our urban air, improve citizens’ physical and emotional health, absorb stormwater thus keeping raw sewage and other pollutants from entering our waterways during storms, increase property and business values, provide shelter for birds, and beautify our city!  

Please donate here:  https://www.ioby.org/project/love-your-street-tree-day-2018

By the way, when you donate, there will be an ask from ioby to make an optional gratuity to them as well – they are also a non-profit.  Just a heads up, in case that is confusing!  Thanks again.

Other Class Descriptions:  

Chair Chi and Prana is hosted by the beautiful yoga center – Integral Yoga. This fusion class increases our vitality, and improves balance and coordination by combining Chair Yoga, Qigong, and Tai Chi Easy™ walking. Seated and standing Yoga poses strengthen and stretch the body, gentle and flowing Qigong movements enhance our life force energy (chi or prana), and Tai Chi walking increases balance and helps with fall prevention.  Additionally, these practices are a moving meditation that calm the nervous system, increase immune support, focus the mind, and are accessible to all bodies and ages.  We end class with a long savasana and yoga nidra (deep relaxation) to fully relax and absorb the benefits of our practices.  All levels are welcome! No prior experience is necessary.

Seated Tai Chi Easy Teleclass hosted by Dorot Center for Seniors “University Without Walls” brings the benefits of seated qigong, meditation, and breathwork to those who cannot attend in-person classes. This is now our fifth semester of our teleclass, and I have found that distance is no obstacle to having a profound group and individual experience.  Written materials are provided in advance of the class, and each session is devoted to reading and discussing the materials, alternating with experiential movement and guided meditations.  We will continue with this course throughout 2018, so please call Dorot to sign up, or for a catalog.  No prior experience is necessary!  In general, Dorot’s University Without Walls is a wonderful resource for telephone learning and community-building, and their courses cover a myriad of topics.  Please help spread the word about this wonderful resource! http:// http://www.dorotusa.org/site/DocServer/UWW_Spring_Summer_2018_Catalog.pdf

August 2016 Schedule

Happy August!  After the recent heat wave (or “dome” as the newscasters labeled it), it feels as if we have already been in the midst of August, and yet, there are likely more hot and humid NYC days still before us.  So please stay hydrated, especially after yoga or dance classes or working out.  To help me remember to drink more water during these Summer days, I have been adding fruit slices, such as oranges, lemon and lime into my reusable water bottle and it is much more refreshing and flavorful than plain water.  Other nice additions are watermelon and cucumber slices – very cooling!  Berries can be added too. Be creative!  But please use a reusable water bottle made from glass or steel, and try to avoid all plastic bottles for your health and the health of the planet! Please see:  https://www.banthebottle.net/bottled-water-facts/

Some scheduling notes this month: I will be on vacation, the last week of August through Labor Day, so please see the side bar for my August teaching dates.  Also, on Sunday, August 7, I am teaching two ballet classes at Alvin Ailey Extension – subbing for my teacher, Finis Jhung.  For brand new beginners (no experience necessary), the 12 noon class is ideal.  For those of you with ballet experience, you can take the 12 noon class if you want a great refresher on the basics and an opportunity to really feel your muscles work, and/or the 2 pm class as well – which moves faster, includes turns and more center work off the barre. Sometimes, I take both classes in a row, and it a great combo to solidify one’s technique and build strength.  Please email me any questions!

If you are interested in learning Tai Chi Easy™ and Qigong from my first teacher, Roger Jahnke, OMD, he will be teaching at Kripalu in the Berkshires this month!  I highly recommend studying with him, and if you take my classes where I blend in Tai Chi Easy™ with yoga, you will recognize some of the healing movements.  This would be a way to deepen your practice and learn from the tai chi master himself!  See http://www.kripalu.org
August 19 – 21: Public Workshop: Portal to Happiness, Healing and Inner Peace – Awaken Your Healer Within and  August 21 – 26: Certification Training: Healer Within™ Practice Leader Training: Medical Qigong Certification

June Schedule; New Yoga and Ballet Classes this Month and Change to Thursday Core Strength Yoga

Hope you had a lovely Memorial Day weekend and took some time to honor all those who have bravely served all over the world in defense of freedom, human rights and liberty.  
Sailors and Soldiers Memorial, Riverside Park, NYC (2016)

Some scheduling announcements:

I am teaching a Yoga & Qigong fusion class at Integral Yoga Thur., night, June 16th – subbing for my friend Nadiya.  Additionally, this Sunday, June 5th, I am teaching two ballet classes at Alvin Ailey Extension – subbing for my teacher, Finis Jhung.  For brand new beginners (no experience necessary), the 12 noon class is ideal.  For those of you with ballet experience, you can take the 12 noon class if you want a great refresher on the basics and an opportunity to really feel your muscles work, and/or the 2 pm class as well – which moves faster, includes turns and more center work off the barre. Sometimes, I take both classes in a row, and it a great combo to solidify one’s technique and build strength.  Please email me any questions!

Also, staring this month, I am taking a leave from teaching the Thursday noon Core Strength Yoga class at UWS Yoga & Wellness in order to work on a friend’s local political campaign through the Fall.  Micah Lasher is running for State Senate in my district (to replace Senator Espaillat who is running to replace Congressman Rangel).  In case you live in my district, here is Micah’s site:  http://www.lasherforsenate.com

Depending on my campaign workload, I will possibly be subbing other classes at UWS Yoga and offering periodic workshops.  I have loved getting to know all of you at UWS Yoga individually and collectively, and being a part of the UWS Yoga and Wellness family!  I hope to remain a part of the teaching group there, and am trying to consolidate all my weekly group yoga classes on Mondays and Tuesdays during this Summer and early Fall (the primary is September 13th).  Currently, I am looking at spaces to potentially rent on Tuesdays for Core Strength Yoga, and I will let you know the details if a studio space is available.

So please, stay in touch, and email me if you want to organize periodic classes or semi-privates, etc., that can work around my campaign hours. I want to remain flexible (no pun intended) with my teaching and will have a better idea of my schedule once I start with the Lasher campaign.  Please email me your thoughts and/or concerns.  I do hope we can still practice yoga together, and can work something out if you are interested!

On another note, my neighborhood association’s Second Annual “Love Your Street Tree Day” event went very well on Sunday, May 22, with a large turnout of volunteers who came from the W. 90s down to the W. 30s in Manhattan!  It was a lovely day for cleaning and beautifying tree beds, removing litter, adding compost, mulch, flowers, curb your dog signs, and tabulating the amount and type of litter for our sidewalk trash audit. Here is a short article on the event, and stay tuned for hopefully a longer piece to be published.  http://www.westsidespirit.com/local-news/20160524/uws-trees-get-tlc

                                                                 

April Schedule; Earth Day “Bag It” Screening & Plastic Pollution

I am away on vacation April 12 – 17, traveling to the beautiful red rock area of Sedona, AZ.  Hoping to have deep and transcendent meditations in some of the area’s world-famous vortexes while hiking. We shall see!  I am open to the possibilities.

Friday, April 22 is Earth Day 2016, and I would like to invite you to an environmental event I am co-hosting that afternoon. See flyer and links below. Yoga means “union” in Sanskrit, and union can be defined many ways, such as the union of mind, body, spirit when we practice yoga and qigong.  But I view union also as our connection to one another, the planet, and all the planet’s inhabitants.  My personal belief is that practicing yoga extends way beyond the mat (in fact, that is generally the least amount of time we may be practicing yoga). The true practice of yoga is how we consciously engage with one another and the planet that is our home and source of life.  As such, my community work is very much a yogic practice to me; it is my karma yoga (volunteer work or selfless service).  I see a direct relationship between my teaching and practicing yoga and my lifestyle choices, and that includes trying to make environmentally-friendly choices as much as I can – such as refusing to use single-use throwaway plastics like plastic bags and bottles (and that includes no longer buying those “healthy” ready-made green juices that come in plastic bottles, and of course not buying plastic water bottles).

One of the documentaries that inspired me to make these personal lifestyle changes is “Bag It”. Because it is so profound, my neighborhood association is showing the 45-minute version of “Bag It“, followed by a panel, and audience Q and A on Earth Day 2016!  Please join us to learn about  the alarming environmental issue of plastics in our oceans and the health implications to ourselves and the planet, as well as our economies – and what we can all do to confront this growing problem, and turn the current disastrous trend around.  The event will end with a free raffle drawing during which we will give away eco-friendly bags and other prizes! This event is family friendly and is co-hosted by the environmental club of the Trevor Day School, so it is perfect for all ages!See http://www.west80s.org

https://www.facebook.com/events/558759577622973/   Please feel free to share this email and Facebook Event widely!

Some sobering facts about plastic:

Did you know it costs NYC approximately $ 10 million per year to transport our single-use throwaway plastic bags to landfills each year, and that New Yorkers use over 5 million plastic bags each year – the majority of which are not recycled.  We have all seen plastic bags stuck in our street trees, clogging storm and sewage drains, and being washed out to our waterways; this creates visual urban blight, harm to animals and marine-life, and contamination of our food system.

A recent local study found that there are at least 165 million particles of plastic floating in the waters surrounding NYC at any given time.  Seehttp://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/waters-nyc-165m-plastic-particles-article-1.2530618
It is estimated that by 2050 if we do not reduce our reliance on fossil-fuel based plastics, there will be more plastic in the oceans than fish.   http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/2016/01/24/oceans-more-plastic-than-fish/79267192/

Find out more about what we can all do locally about this alarming global pollution issue, and learn about the status of NYC’s pending carryout bag legislation by attending my Earth Day event!  See also www.plasticbaglaws.org andwww.bagitnyc.org