Ouray Yoga™

Samhain Meditation {Find a seated or lying meditation}  Feel the earth beneath you. Perhaps the earth is cold against your body, notice how your body’s warmth is absorbed and slowly the chill is no longer noticeable. You have given to the earth your warmth and in turn the earth gives you a place of respite. For Samhain, the time of autumn, it is a time to invite rest. A time to nest against the elements, a time to nurture your roots, a time to feed your basic necessities of life.  At this time of year, the veil between our world and the spirit world is thin, as our hemisphere is discarding the green of summer, as our plants seek shelter from the cold and grow deep into the protection of earth, so too, is our spiritual realm needing to find deeper growth, to rid ourselves of the residue of life past. At this time, leaves turn to autumn glory then dry and crack and eventually become a skeleton of what it once was, finally absorbed into the earth for future nourishment. And for

Our final countdown began very similar to our beginning with pillow talk. Curled up next to my husband in a bed only partly strange to our existence, but foreign enough, we discussed how we wanted to proceed. Our feet had finally decompressed after a restful night of sleep, previously swollen from four days of walking and tubing through London. We love our friends in London, graciously letting us descend upon their home, at our will. This East London brownstone served as a home base for us, a refuge for wayward travelers, a familiar residence to feel grounded. When we had arrived, four days ago, they were not home, but told us to knock on the neighbors door to gain locked access. We originally meant to arrive around 9pm but the foreign passport line at Stansted took longer than our flight from Italy. It was a complete bollox and one begins to wonder about the merits of Brexit. We arrived at 11pm. They not only helped us in, they bbq'd us some sausages and served up a green salad; s

NYC maybe an inverted ant hill, with vertical comings and goings, and Rome may be an expansive, historical winding Grand Canyon. So what, then, is London? London is like a massive coral reef, with swaying algae, flashy fish and a rainbow of activity; probably mostly akin to the Great Barrier.            The foundation of Londontown has it's start wth the Roman's; but like the coral reef, with a hard, bony foundation, very little of this can be seen, covered by years of expansive growth. By the turn of the first millennium, London flourishes under the tidal forces of a Kingdom. Today, the Big Smoke is an atoll of history and modernity; underground are the eels tubing themselves through the matrix of tunnels, monuments pepper themselves throughout the town like sea anemones ever with their souvenir clown fish enticing you in. Angelfish cathedrals, sea urchin homeless, starfish theaters and schools and schools of fish darting in and out of non-stop doorways, crosswalks and

On our second day in Venice we bought a 24-hour ACTV vapretto pass with a positive eye towards a bit more exploration. After a little bickering, we figured out the best plan of attack to ride their "metro". Jump on, jump off, alley, alley, bridge, calles, bridge, dock and off to Murano. (Light bickering, instead of bottling-up, is our key to 19 years of marriage!)           The city of Venice is made up of 118 islands linked by bridges, the further outlying islands are also linked like Venice. Murano is made up of 4 such islands. We get off the vapretto and immediately are pounced-on by barkers willing to sell us tickets to a factory tour. Of course, if you do your research, factory tours are free (with the obligatory tour through their showroom). So we ignore them and start walking. Apparently away from the shops but we did find the suburban area of Murano. It was actually quite pleasant to see real life activities, gardens, parks, grass, geckos, etc. Soon enough we wand