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.