Recently in Los Angeles Category

During these crazy times, remember the good stuff.

Owning that attitude of gratitude became an inspiration for my Kundalini Yogi friend Jodi Fuchs and her sister Wendy. The Fuchs sisters, both yogis and artists too, started the Gratitude Art Project (GAP) during a time when Jodi was experiencing some financial hardship. "I knew if I focused on what I had instead of what I was lacking, that might offer the key to unlock more prosperity in my life," says Jodi. The sisters also had wanted to work together as a way to heal, co-create, uplift, inspire themselves (and others) by focusing on the positive that already EXISTS in all of our lives.

So they distributed a 1,000 postcards via friends and in yoga studios all over the country asking for people to mail back their "gratitudinals". They also started a blog and a Facebook group (The Gratitude Art Project), so they could share all this gratefulness and use it as inspiration to create works of art (pictured here) focusing on big themes like family, health, God, abundance and small thank yous like car seat warmers, great lip gloss, and good coffee.

This grateful theme is also something near and dear to my New York friend and YJ colleague Valerie, who has been blogging about her gratitudinals both big and small, mundane and fabulous, for quite some time.

Thanks ladies. Your attitude of gratitude reminds me that I have lots to be thankful for too. Please share your gratitudinals with Jodi and Wendy either on Facebook or on the GAP website and if you like, post them here.

Sat Nam.

WHAT: Eco Gift Festival
Over 150 green companies presenting innovative gifts, an organic food court, children's Stage, live music and a speaker series with leading Eco-Preneurs and Visionaries.

WHO: Speakers include:
Arianna Huffington (Founder-Huffington Post), Michael Brune (Executive Director-Rainforest Action Network), Josh Tickell (award-winning filmmaker "Fuel"), Shallom Berkman (Founder-Urth Caffe), Blake Mycoskie (Founder, Tom's Shoes), Eco-designer Linda Loudermilk, Tom Szaky (Co-Founder TerraCycle), Susan Olsen, aka Cindy Brady on the Children's stage. John Marshall Roberts ("Igniting Inspiration, A Persuasion Manual for Visionaries"). Mallika Chopra "The Power of Intent to Affect Global Wellness" plus more.

WHERE: Santa Monica Civic Auditorium - 1855 Main Street, Santa Monica 90401

WHEN: Friday December 12 & Saturday, December 13 - 10:00am-8:00p,
Sunday, December 14 - 11am-8pm.

* 10% of the profits from the show will be donated to select Los Angeles charities, including GLOBAL GREEN USA.

B.K.S. Iyengar turns 90 on Sunday, December 14. Come to the new and improved Iyengar Institute and celebrate 90 glorious years with 108 Sun Salutations and chanting too.

"The sun-salutation is a part of daily religious prayer, which comes from time immemorial. Every one, along with offerings and prayers, saluted the sun, since Surya, the Sun God has a tremendous solar energy, which is a vital need for mankind." - Geeta Iyengar

What: 108 Sun salutations for Guruji led by Jim Benvenuto and chanting led by Eric Small

When: Sunday, December 14 at dawn - 6:30AM

Where: IYILA

Who: all who wish to honor Guruji -- any level of student, any yoga tradition -- practice one or all the sun salutations, chant and be part of the community.

FREE & Open to all - Chai & sweets follow!

Taking the time to develop a home asana practice is hard enough. Add a restorative element and you've got another challenge. But for me, restorative yoga is essential, especially during the holidays when designated chill-time keeps me sane and grounded.

Thanks to yogitoes and one of Los Angeles' favorite teachers, Annie Carpenter, the new relaxDeeply CD ($24.95) is a no-brainer path to relaxation. With three options -- the full 73 minutes, a 32 minute moonCYCLE sequence or the sleepWELL 41 minute choice -- Carpenter takes you on a soothing journey that allows you to sink comfortably into poses like Viparita Karani, Supta Baddha Konasana and Balasana accompanied by a mellow soundtrack of Michael Perricone's Tibetan bowl music.

You'll need props to get the full benefit (a bolster, a couple blankets, a block and a strap should suffice). Carpenter's expert direction and the accompanying booklet that gives detailed photographs helps you to transition from pose to pose to pose.

But if you want to get the full yogitoes rKit, you can purchase all the props plus the CD for $225 (gift idea, anyone?). And I have to say, I think the yogitoes prop line is one of the chicest and sleekest out there, thanks to the vision of yogitoes founder Susan Nichols.

So take some relaxation time this holiday season and let us know how you unwind.

Mani Niall is known in L.A. as the namesake of Mani's Bakery -- the wholesome cafe that uses natural ingredients and specializes in pastry that is gluten-free, low-fat, and sugar-free. While he no longer owns the bakery, his cookbook from that time Sweet & Natural Baking: Sugar-Free, Flavorfull Desserts from Mani's Bakery is a staple in my library and highly coveted since it's out print. Lucky for us, Mani hasn't abandoned his mission to develop healthful, satisfying desserts and continues to bake and publish.

His latest book Sweet! could not have come at a better time, especially for bakers looking for something a little different (and more mindful) for the holiday table. I was lucky enough to get a copy of the cookbook this week at Niall's L.A. book signing, where samples of his sweet treats were served. Did I mention the Melt-in-Your-Mouth Chocolate Cake with Dulce de Leche was not too shabby and unbelievably rich and moist?

Sweet! is a great primer for anyone interested in baking with specialty sugars that offer a lot more than just sweetness. And Niall does a really good job of breaking down the flavors and characteristics of different sugars including ethnic varieties like Jaggery (from India), Panela (from Mexico and South America) as well as raw sugars like evaporated cane juice and sucanat. Then there are my favorites: the moist brown sugars like muscovado and demerara.

If you thought there was only one kind of white and brown sugar in the world (and generally the brown sugar you buy in the market is just white sugar with food coloring) and if you didn't know that most conventional white sugars aren't vegetarian-friendly because they are processed using bovine bones, then this is the book for you. It will definitely make everything a bit more sweet.

Any favorite sugars or recipes you love? Share the wealth, please.

Last weekend I signed up to join 478 Kundalini yogis for a one day White Tantric meditation workshop. It was a leap of faith for me and the other White Tantric virgins who, wore all white, covered our heads and gathered in the Ackerman Grand Ballroom on the UCLA campus. Sure there were many who had been there and done that, but for us novices, we had a case of the unknown jitters. (Yes that's me on the right with my lovely partner Regina Gelfo).

The White Trantric tradition was initiated in Los Angeles by Yogi Bhajan in 1970 and ever since, it's taught annually all over the world. Since Yogi Bhajan died in 2004, the wisdom (and the kriyas) are passed via a video-taped series of six to eight meditations lasting anywhere from 11 to 62 minutes. We were lucky enough to have Satsimran Kaur as our facilitator who worked with Yogi Bhajan for many years and helped him prepare the White Trantric tradition for dissemination after his passing.

The purpose: balance the chakras, create an energy force (of 478 chanting, doing asana, meditating and mudra making yogis) to cut through the blocks of the subconscious and release the burdens that plague the mind. Satsimran put it another way. "Kundalini yoga is like liquid plummer. You pour it down the drain and eventually it works. White Tantric is like the roto-rooter guy. He's able to get the job done right away and go were no one else can go."

I was also relieved that Satsimran set an important ground rule, "Don't take it so seriously," she said, "Enjoy and have some fun."

White Tantric requires participants to work in pairs and while some arrived with partners, others, like me, had to find someone (a stranger) to share this intimate experience. Lucky for me, the minute I walked in the room the lovely Regina Gelfo asked me to be her partner.

Gelfo and a group of her friends came from San Francisco to attend the workshop, as did folks from New York, Spain, England, Colorado, Germany and Hawaii. It was the biggest White Tantric gathering in Los Angeles history and the results were sweet. The day's course was called "Renew to be New" and when it was all done, we did feel renewed. Not because we were all serious and yogi-like but because we shared an awesome experience that shifted our minds and calmed our spirits.

It also inspired tech-saavy Gelfo to make this impromptu Kundalini comic featuring her friend Jiwan Shakti. Are we having fun yet? Definitely. Sat Nam.

Lately, I've been drinking lots of GT's Kombucha tea, without knowing too much about it except that it's fermented, it quenches my thirst and it tastes good (gingerade and guava goddess are my favorites). It's also supposed to have probiotic and immune-boosting properties. But it's not cheap (about $3.50 a bottle) so it's a yoga indulgence.

With the expense in mind, I considered fermenting my own at home but was a little scared because growing bacteria isn't really my forte. When I picked up the L.A. Times this morning, a very informative article about Kombucha confirmed my concerns. When good bacteria goes bad, home-brewed kombucha can, indeed, make you very sick.

The article also explained that the drink is originally a 2,000 year-old Chinese tonic and even though it's revered in many cultures to have healing properties, there are no human studies to back up the claims. But some lab studies suggest it can kill harmful bacteria, increase immune cell activity and help prevent liver toxicity.

Any Kombucha drinkers out there? Or any one with home-fermenting experience?

Hopefully most of you have had a chance to join Yoga Journal's new Community feature and see what your fellow yogis are thinking, watching and reading. You can even start your own blog or join groups with those who have like-minded interests. Oh yeah, you can befriend me too. User name = sstukin.

Of course, the first group I joined was Yoga and Food, mostly because cooking has become a solace for me, on a par with my practice, but also something more tangible I can share with friends and family. Often, when I serve my culinary creations I also like to drink wine with my guests.

Imbibing can be a source of guilt for us yogis because some purists frown upon anything that may cloud awareness, but I was happy to see YJ community member Ms. Maui bring up the issue and inspire a string of comments to follow, including one from sironasky that said it all for me: In Vino Veritas.

Over 10 years ago Los Angeles yoga teacher Hillary Rubin was diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis. At around the same time she started practicing Anusara yoga. It was a hectic time in her life -- she was living in New York, working at Prada, living a hard-core urban lifestyle and as a result her health began to suffer.

"I was a hard-ass New Yorker," she once told me. "But yoga softened me. It was like a training school and the M.S. was an invitation that was asking me to participate more fully in my life, in my healing and embrace the disease as a teacher."

In 2002, she moved to Los Angeles and became a certified Anusara teacher at City Yoga. For the most part, she's been able to control her disease through yoga, diet, meditation and she says, "paying attention and taking good care of myself."

Now, she's taken her personal experience and developed a practice for those facing the challenge of autoimmune disease. Her first DVD is called Yoga Foundations and you can learn more about it at I Am Not a
Mess.

I'm always searching for yoga music and while my itunes yoga folder continues to grow, I'm pretty picky about what I add. Sometimes I find sacred music can either be too earnest, too hip (hop) or not that inspiring. Thanks to a recent NPR story (and my husband who sent me the link), I discovered Niyaz, a trio whose musical and cultural roots have taken them from Iran, to India to Los Angeles.

Their blend of Sufi mysticism (and Rumi poetry too) with trance electronica is sophisticated, meaningful and groovy in all the right ways. Check out their My Space page and hear for yourself. And if you have any yoga tunes that you'd like to share, go ahead and post them here. Playlists are welcome too.