Free Community Yoga Class with Paul King on Christmas Day

If you can, join Paul King at his free community yoga class on Christmas Day at the Grange at 11:00 am. If you haven't been to one of his classes, he is a generous, honest and funny yoga teacher who loves bringing yoga to everyone.

Happy Holidays!

Free Solstice Yoga Practice with Christy Dorman December 21

Come out for a candlelit Solstice Practice Wednesday December 21..5:30-7:00 PM with our friend and yoga teacher Christy Dorman at her studio Art of Movement, Yoga and Pilates in Eagledale. Dynamic vinyasa, pranayama and meditation to help 'bring back the light'! Class is free with a non-perishable food item for Helpline House!
Class size limited to 12...please RSVP to Christy at spiralchristy@gmail.com.

Good Lunch and a Good Cause December 16 at BI BBQ

If you grew up on Bainbridge, and even if you didn't, you may know Greg Epstein, owner of Bainbridge Island BBQ in Winslow. Greg's wife Carmen was recently diagnosed with a treatable form of breast cancer. This has been a tough year for their business and although they have health insurance, the cost of treatment will be high. They are holding a benefit on Friday, December 16 from noon until 7:00 pm. You can eat all you want until the food runs out and all donations will go toward Carmen's treatment. You can read more about it here: http://www.bainbridgereview.com/opinion/135700003.html?fb_comment_id=fbc_10150452996153881_20197789_10150453509813881#f2d0ed74b

So - call some friends and head to Winslow for some delicious BBQ on Friday and help one of our neighbors!

Meditation Flash Mob December 22, 5:45 pm at the Bainbridge Island Ferry Terminal

Please join us on the Winter Solstice, December 22, for Bainbridge Island's first meditation flash mob at the Bainbridge Island ferry terminal from 5:45 - 7:00 pm. Our intention is simply to spread peace. One hour of peaceful meditation inside the ferry terminal followed by an 11-minute soundbath of music and chanting. Our friend Ann Strickland (and possibly other members of Comfort Station)will be there with her instrument. All are welcome. Over 250 cities worldwide will participate. Wear blue or white clothing to signify the season, unity and peace.

For more information visit http://www.facebook.com/events/283692471674571/ or e-mail hburke8@gmail.com.

A Girls' Night Out for a Good Cause

Join us next Tuesday, December 13 from 7 - 9:00 pm at the Fireside Room at Vineyard Lane for cocktails and treats provided by our friend and chef extraordinaire Cherie Levan. We'll get into the holiday spirit decorating gingerbread men with good company. The event is $50 per lady and all proceeds will benefit Hope by Twelve (http://www.hopebytwelve.org/) started by our own Molly Pitts. Space is limited to 50 people so please RSVP to https://www.facebook.com/events/260103800706934/ or e-mail hburke8@gmail.com of you are not on facebook. Hope to see you there!

Come to Kirtan Jam on December 1 at 7:30, Grace Church

This Thursday at 7:30 Comfort Station will again perform Kirtan at Grace Church. They are inviting everyone to bring acoustic instruments if they wish to make it a "Kirtan Jam" - so bring them if you've got them - even if it's just your voice!

This picture is from last month's Celebration of Light.

November Karma Yoga Meeting

Being a part of the Karma Yoga project has helped me to see the “karma yoga” that happens naturally pretty much everywhere. This last month, especially around Halloween, I noticed so many people doing things to make the connections within our community stronger – here are a few:

• Ann, Clay, Jon and Misty performing Kirtan at Grace Church and donating all the proceeds to Island families in need;

• My friend Deb’s pumpkin party resulting in all those beautiful pumpkins on the corner of New Sweden and Eagle Harbor Drive;

• Receiving $100 from a woman in Chicago who heard about the November Kirtan to benefit the Island family struggling with illness;

• Families in the Fort Ward neighborhood who put so much time and energy into giving trick-or-treaters a real scare – think chain-saws, strobe lights and the Gimp from Pulp Fiction;

• Seeing a friendship blossom between my daughter and a student new to the Island;

• Witnessing the amazing community support surrounding our friends Steve and Martha and the way they have so beautifully shared their experiences with us all.

These ways that we support each other keep us all connected. Perhaps our needs are big or perhaps they are small. Maybe we just need a good scare or a fence-full of beautiful lit-up pumpkins. Maybe we need to know that our friends and our community are there to help us when we face incredible challenges. I am noticing that karma yoga is all around me if I just open my eyes and pay attention.

We have a few things coming up that you may want to be part of – more specifics will follow soon:

• We will collect gifts (homemade or store-bought) and monetary donations for families in need over the holidays. You will see specific needs in the studio.

• Write a note to one of Jen’s high school yoga students about what yoga means to you – she will share them at their last session before winter break on December 12. Look for the note-paper in the studio.

• On December 22 at 5:30 pm we will hold a MedMob (think Flashmob with meditation instead of dancing) at the ferry terminal. Check out this link for more information about MedMobs http://www.medmob.org/

• After the holidays we will have a Mala Making Party with help from Amy Margaret Kapphan. Join us if you’d like to learn what malas are and how you can make them.

Karma Yoga Meeting Thursday

A friendly reminder that our next Karma Yoga meeting is this Thursday, November 17 at BYH after yoga. If you can't be at yoga but are coming to the meeting, we usually start between 10:45 and 11:00. Hope to see you there!

This is a picture from Mt. Zion out near Quilcene taken today.

A Neighbor to Neighbor Thanksgiving

Most of you likely know that Helpline House collects Thanksgiving meals and distributes them to Island families through Project Wishbone each year. Last year Helpline served over 750 families. For me, the deadline for getting the donations to Helpline always sneaks up sooner than I expect. This year Helpline House is accepting donations on Friday, November 18 (10 - 4) and Saturday, November 19 (10 - 2).

If you would like to donate to Project Wishbone but can't get to Helpline on Friday or Saturday, you can bring donations to BYH and we will get them to Helpline. Here is a link to let you know what they need for donations - http://helplinehouse.org/thanksgiving.shtml . There is a basket in the studio where you can put donations - there are also printed lists of the items they need. Neighbor to neighbor we can all make a difference.

Bring on the Balloons!

Our own Molly Pitts founded a non-profit called Hope by Twelve http://www.hopebytwelve.org/mudula-water/ with the goal of empowering adolescent girls in situations of poverty. One of their main projects right now is to raise money to bring clean water to the village Mudula so that young girls will not have to miss school and other opportunities to fetch water.

Molly is going to Ethiopia next Friday, November 11. She will be visiting AHOPE for Children, a non-profit organization whose mission is to serve the children of Ethiopia, with a primary emphasis on caring for orphans infected with HIV. In Addis Ababa, AHOPE's two pleasant, well-staffed Children's Homes care exclusively for orphans who are HIV+ and have no extended family to care for them. Many of these children are now finding their forever families through adoption. AHOPE's Community Outreach Program enables orphaned children to remain within their extended families and culture, while receiving medical care, education, food, and other services. For information on how you can help, contact them at http://www.ahopeforchildren.org/

Molly plans to bring something "uplifting" for the kids. They gave her a list of items needed for donation and one of those items is balloons. She is bringing a little pump that blows up simple balloons - water balloons would also work.

So - if you'd like to donate a pack or two of balloons, bring them to the studio and leave them in the basket on the bench. She says she'll be able to fit A LOT into her bag!

Beads of Love

Thank you to everyone who donated beads for Martha and Steve. We had so many beads that we were able to make one full mala of 108 beads as well as 4 wrist malas - one for each member of their family. Although they were all very different, the beads came together beautifully. It wouldn't have have happened without Amy Margaret Kapphan at Beads of Bainbridge - I am so grateful for her expertise and her company - she even made me lunch!

It worked out that the beads, holy water from the Ganges and the card everyone signed in the studio were delivered on Monday which was also Martha's birthday. I am including the link to Steve's Community on Lotsa Helping Hands again so you can follow their progress. Martha is a wonderful writer and reading her posts is a pleasure. https://www.lotsahelpinghands.com/c/648543/

Stay tuned to hear more about how we can support Martha and Steve in the coming months.

Friends in Faraway Places

So a really great thing happened and I want to share it because it wouldn't have happened without this Karma Yoga group. Last Sunday when I checked my e-mail I found a message from a woman named Nancy who lives near Chicago. She had seen our blog (thank you Ann) and asked if she could still donate to the family we collected donations for at the October Kirtan. She said she had some family here on Bainbridge and had done yoga with Jen whom she considers one of her most influential teachers (of course!).

Then I saw Jen's October newsletter about spider webs and making connections - my favorite part was this: "What I'm learning from my spider friends and the web in the corner windows and what I learn on my yoga mat everyday is simple and sweet and true. Create magical strands of glistening connection in whatever corners you go in, be resilient and steadfast, sit for awhile in calm intention, then let go and move on." The e-mail from Nancy felt like proof of just those kinds of "glistening connection."

But the story goes on - today I received an e-mail from Nancy asking me to put a note in the card for Martha and Steve on her behalf. She met Martha at BYH years ago and then got to know her a bit better at the yoga retreat in Mexico last year. Then I got my mail - and there was a check from Nancy for $100.

October Meeting Summary

At Thursday's meeting we had Joyce, Helen, Susan Anderson, Susan Loftus, and Tijen. We talked about how we can continue to support Martha and Steve, especially when they return to the island. We put information on the Karma Yoga board about the Lotsa Helping Hands site so community members can follow their progress and send messages to them.

We talked about finding a holiday project for the Karma Yoga group and thought Helpline's Project Wishbone would be a helpful and simple place to start. We can put a basket in the studio for donations and a list from Helpline of the items they need for family Thanksgiving meals. Food donations can be delivered to Helpline on November 18 and 19. We also discussed the possibility of adopting a family or families for the winter holidays so that people could bring in items to share with them.

This month's Yoga Journal has an article about "medmobs" which are like flash mobs but with meditation instead of dancing. There is a medmob website people can check out at http://www.medmob.org/ . We thought it would be fun to hold one of these on Bainbridge, possibly at the ferry terminal during commuter times. The events usually consist of one hour of meditation followed by a 10 minute "soundbath" of chanting "om" - how cool would that be? Then we started to get really crazy and thought it would be fun to have a "yogamob" event during school hours on the high school campus.

Lastly, we talked about our hope to do something together as a group. One idea was to bake cookies together (Joyce offered her kitchen) and to share the cookies with the community - perhaps having them available to passersby at the medmob. We'd love to hear more ideas for ways we can work together as a group to help people in our community.

Our next meeting will be November 17 after yoga class at BYH.

Getting Support to Steve and Martha

You may have heard that Steve Prentice, a long-time member of our BYH community, had a serious fall over the weekend and is at Harborview. Since Saturday, he has had two surgeries on his back to repair damaged vertebra.

We want to let everyone know there is a card at the studio for all to sign and send their wishes and positive thoughts to Martha and Steve. We are also collecting beads to make malas for them both so if you have a bead or beads you’d like to donate, bring them in to the studio Wednesday, Thursday, Friday or Saturday this week. If you can't get to the studio but would like to donate some beads, comment here or e-mail Helen at hburke8@gmail.com. We'd like to deliver the card and malas to them later this week.

A Lotsa Helping Hands site has been created for friends and family to receive updates about how things are progressing. The site will eventually include a list so people can bring meals to the family and help them in other ways. The link to the site is https://www.lotsahelpinghands.com/c/648543/.

Martha – if you see this post I hope you know that we are all thinking of your family and sending you our love, positive thoughts and prayers. If there is anything we can do to help please don’t hesitate to ask.

October Update

If you were able to come to Kirtan last week then you know it was amazing - beautiful music, happy faces, kids, somersaults and footsteps in the hallways. If you couldn't be there, hopefully you can make it on November 3 for a Celebration of Light.

Thanks to a wonderful display of generosity that night, we collected over $350 in donations for the island family struggling with illness. Thanks to you all!

Our next meeting will be next Thursday, October 20 at 10:30 at BYH. Please come if you can - if you can't be there but have some ideas or questions, leave a comment here or e-mail hburke8@gmail.com.

Come to Kirtan on October 6 at 7:30, Grace Episcopal

Look at these glowing faces! For the last few weeks, on Thursday nights, I have been going to hear Jon Crane, Clay Hotchkiss, Ann Strickland and Misty Fasig practice Kirtan at Grace Church. When I arrive, I look around the circle and see familiar faces from yoga class along with many new faces. Some sit in chairs, some on the ground, all in the beautiful candle-lit sanctuary of the church. The sounds and vibrations created by the tablas, guitar, harmonium and voices are amazing. They weave Om Shanti, Om together with Amazing Grace. During the silence between the chants our circle seems to contain a whirling of wonderful energy. Toward the end of one evening the nearly full moon rose in the windows high above us. I leave feeling happy and peaceful and filled up - this feeling seems to last into the next day and the chants are the background music in my head. I am so grateful that these soulful musicians are sharing their talents with us!

So come if you can on October 6 to the First Thursday Kirtan - whatever arrangements you have to make to be there will be well worth it! Pay what you can - all proceeds will be donated to an Island family struggling with illness.

What is Karma Yoga?

As a group we have been discussing this question - "What is Karma Yoga?" We were searching for a brief explanation to put on our new bulletin board at BYH but had a hard time narrowing it down to a sentence or two. Katie Zonoff teaches at Bainbridge High School and is a member of the BYH community. She is well versed in yoga philosophy so I asked her for her thoughts on this and she very kindly took the time to write the following - I thought people wanting some background about this Karma Yoga thing would appreciate her response - I sure did:

So all the yogas (Hindus talk about 4 main paths of yoga) are a path to unify with God. God for hindus means an ultimate, infinite reality that we can become completely absorbed in. This reality exists around us and in us at all times, but trapped in this human form we are separated from it. We are finite, limited. Our goal through these many, many cycles of reincarnation is to actually become free from this cycle, to re-unify with God.

The biggest obstacle to our re-unification with God is our ego. We focus constantly on improving ourselves, getting things for ourself - this human body that we occupy for a relatively short time. If we could perceive the true reality, we would see that there is in fact no separation from other people, other animals, plants, whatever. A great Buddhist metaphor to describe this is of waves on the ocean. A wave is made of the same substance as the rest of the ocean, is completely connected to the ocean, and is moving based on the activity in the rest of the ocean, and will soon be completely absorbed back into the ocean. To think of it as separate doesn't really make sense. When we feed our egos, we are like waves trying to be separate from the ocean. Its meaningless. Its a trap we are stuck in. Like believing the world is flat.

So...you can meditate to lessen the grip of ego, or stand on your head, or sing songs about God, or pray - or you could do Karma Yoga. The yoga of work. Since all humans have to work, we can find ways to harness this activity for spiritual growth. So when I teach, I shouldn't teach to get the Teacher of the Year award or to be popular, but to focus all my thoughts and energies on my students. What do they need, even if it makes me unpopular. I just do it and don't worry about the results to me. When I cook for my family, I change my mindset from feeling that its unfair that I'm doing all the work, or making unhealthy things to be popular, and I selflessly take lots of time to cook something healthy for others.

So you can do Karma Yoga with the regular work that you do every day. But doing service work, like cooking for a family in need, is a really clear way to practice lessening ego. I'm clearly taking my time that I could use to seek pleasure or success, and giving it to another. I matter less, they matter more. The more that I forget myself, the closer I am to God. Which is really what I want in the end.

Here's a couple of quotes:

"Everything I do for my private wellbeing adds another layer to my ego, and in thickening it insulates me more from God. Conversely, every act done without thought for myself diminishes my self-centeredness until finally no barrier remains to separate me from the Divine."
Huston Smith, The World's Religions

"Strive constantly to serve the welfare of the world; by devotion to selfless work one attains the supreme goal of life. Do your work with the welfare of others always in mind. It was by such work that Janaka attained perfection; others too have followed this path.

What the outstanding person does, others will try to do. The standards such people create will be followed by the whole world."
Bhagavad Gita, Ch. 3 v. 19-21, transl. Eknath Easwaran

Thank you Katie.

A Beautiful Picture

This picture was taken by Joyce Cooley - I just thought it was so beautiful it should be on our blog.

Support a Bainbridge Family

A Bainbridge family is dealing with the recent diagnosis of their husband and father with cancer. As a community, we have an opportunity to help them. One of the family’s neighbors set up a Meal Train site so that people can nourish for the family with homemade meals. You can use the following link to access the meal train site.

http://www.mealtrain.com?id=mump4x2aveot

There will be a donation basket for this family at the Kirtan on October 6 at 7:30

Grace Church.

August 20 Meeting Summary

A small meeting with Jen, Ann, Katie Zonoff and Helen. We discussed how to try to connect the needs of our BYH community members with the support and resources we can provide for each other. It can be hard to discuss much of anything significant in the short time before and after class. Specifically, we discussed how to get the childcare "Yoga Nannies" project going. The logical first step will be to collect names of those interested in being involved in the project, either on the giving or receiving end. Jen will send out a newsletter soon and will let people know about the project and ask people who are interested in either giving or receiving childcare to contact Helen. If you or someone you know needs help with childcare or is interested in providing childcare, contact Helen (hburke8@gmail.com).

We also discussed the Kirtan nights starting up in the fall as a way to allow for more conversation and connection with each other. Ways to do this might include incorporating meditation, scripture readings and discussion into the Kirtan sessions. We would also like to invite and welcome the teen yoga community to the sessions.

As a way to communicate what is happening with the Karma Yoga Project, we plan to have a bulletin board in the studio beginning in September. There will be sign ups for the Yoga Nannies as well as information about the Kirtan nights and other relevant information. Please feel free to send us your ideas and suggestions.

Next Meeting Monday, August 22

Our next meeting will be held at BYH on Monday, August 22 right after yoga class - about 11:00.

Hope to see you there. If you can't make it but have ideas you'd like to share, please post a comment here or e-mail Helen at hburke8@gmail.com.

July 21 Meeting Summary

Present at the meeting were Jen, Ann, Joyce, Denise and Helen. If you are interested in receiving e-mail updates from the blog but did not receive the meeting notice be sure you have signed up by inputting your e-mail address at the very bottom of the blog. Please feel free to send us your ideas and suggestions via comment or e-mail - we know there are many of you out there who can't make the meetings but who are a part of the Karma Yoga Project.

Unfortunately the Karma Yoga Car Wash won't happen this year because the Chevron is completely booked for the rest of the car wash season. We discussed a few other ideas in a similar vein:

1. Community Yoga in the Park August 5: Jen was planning to lead a free yoga class at Battlepoint Park August 5 from 9:00 - 10:15 so we decided to open the event to the community. Ann will create a flyer and Joyce will post it around town. We hope people from the BYH community who come might bring some brunch-type food items to share after class - fruit, muffins, hot drinks, etc. Please let Helen know via comment or e-mail (hburke8@gmail.com) if you are interested in bringing some goodies to share after the yoga class.

2. Karma Yoga Nannies: We discussed setting up a way for BYH members to care for children of parents who need childcare to attend yoga classes. Ideas included watching children at Jen's house or watching them at their own house. If you are interested in helping watch kids or if you need help with your kids so you can come to yoga please let us know.

3. Creating personal altars: We talked about creating and delivering personal altars for BYH community members and family members who might need extra love, support and healing during difficult times.

Happy Summer to everyone and we will meet again in August.

Next Karma Yoga Meeting July 21

Wanted to remind everyone about our next gathering to talk about the BYH Karma Yoga Project. We will meet Thursday July 21 right after yoga class at BYH. If you can't make it but have ideas you'd like to share please post a comment or e-mail Helen or Jen - we'd love to hear from you!

Karma Yoga in a Labyrinth

My family and I are slowly making our way north to Jasper, Alberta and spent last night at a campground on Lake Okanogan in gale force winds - we literally tied our tent to our car - just in case . . . . Needless to say, our kids were less than cheerful in the morning despite our best attempts to cajole them to the top of the trail to see a waterfall. So much whining. On our way back down, my youngest daughter and I took a side trail and ended up at a labyrinth tucked between the campsite areas. There were some young kids having fun there so my daughter wanted to go check it out - I almost said no worried the rest of our family would get annoyed waiting for us but said yes instead. A sign in front explained the labyrinth was a replica from a cathedral in France and although it occupied only 60 feet in diameter, walking it without cheating covered one half of a mile. We walked it and as we did I noticed a man carrying watering cans from the lake up to the labyrinth to water recently planted flowers around the fringe of the labyrinth. I asked if he had planted them and what they were and thought how nice it was for someone to take such good care of an area so out of the way. When we reached the middle of the labyrinth and sat down we saw a memorial for the woman who had created the labyrinth, Cathryne, who had been a wife, mother and sister and had passed away in 2004. The man watering the flowers said to us that kids just loved this labyrinth and that his wife would have been so happy to see them meandering its paths. I asked if Cathryne had been his wife and he said yes. He went on to tell me about her and that she had died only one month after the labyrinth had been completed and two weeks before they were to move from Vancouver to a house on the shore of Lake Okanogan. He told me about his children in Vancouver and his continuing indecision whether to move to the house he and his wife had purchased. He said taking care of the labyrinth was really the only thing that kept him driving the nearly 4 hours from Vancouver. My daughter decided to retrace her steps to get out of the labyrinth - meaning she walked an extra mile despite complaining of the heat and her tired feet just 20 minutes earlier. I guess you just need to feel inspired. I was so grateful that we happened upon that labyrinth. What a gift to meet that man and get to share that moment and recognize its beauty.

Summary of June 16 Karma Yoga Meeting

Present were Jen Breen, Joyce Cooley, Denise Laveson, Susan Loftus, Ann Strickland, Jon Crane, Karen Richter and Helen Burke. Several others expressed interest but were unable to attend. E-mail Helen if you want to get involved and receive information about the project.

Initial ideas for a mission statement include:

• Seeking union with Self and others through selfless service;
• Bringing joy and light to people and places in need;
• Building relationships through service with and for one another;
• Involving family in a community of service and love

We discussed a common desire to give back to those in need in a way that feels genuine and manageable and that will build meaningful relationships.

Possible structure:

• Monthly meetings to discuss interests/passions and plan events
• Two annual events providing some sort of community service as a group; involving families
• Recognizing different levels of service; individual vs. group service
• Creating an ongoing relationship with one organization over time
• Offering yoga, music and/or chanting as part of community services provided
• Allowing for spontaneous service as the need arises with friends/family in the community; tapping into resources of the group to help those in need; possibly using website/blog to make connections
• Kickoff event such as “Karma Yoga Kar Wash” for the community; no money accepted – pay it forward

We left with the intention to think about and bring to the next meeting specific passions/interests each of us would like to contribute to this project – external vs. internal, areas of expertise/experience, etc., ideas for projects/events

Next Meeting Date: Thursday July 21, 10:30 at BYH

Posted by Helen Burke

Karma Yoga

Union through action.
Let's try that!