I managed to insert a small site tweak over there on the red sidebar. I saw this module for the current moon phase on another blog. It seemed to be just the thing to put in a site like this. If you click on the link within the module, it will take you to a site has a set of free HTML codes for modules that you can just insert in your web page. I thought it would be a simple cut and paste of the code into the template, but html is not meant for simple minds like mine. After initially finding only a small empty black box, I had to go back into the template and set the code up into patterns that resembled the surrounding baseline code for my site. That's what passes for coding for me. After a few trials and errors, it somehow popped up into its current glory. If it's still working tomorrow, I'll consider it a successful coding session. Sometimes when I open the web page, the moon phase window does not fully open. If I hit the refresh button a time or two it will eventually come up. Must be some problem with Blogger. I sometimes have the same problem with the picture in the upper left corner.


We went to a Krishna Das workshop yesterday. This was held in our yoga studio. It was set up to be a smaller, more personal type performance than usual, in that it was limited to 108 people. He has no problem filling venues that are larger. The time I had seen him before, it was in a larger venue. While I very much enjoyed that performance, I was looking forward to being closer to the performers. Satsang sessions like this are very much an interactive type experience. It's much easier to become directly involved in the energy when you're sitting a few feet away from the performers than it is to be watching from thirty or fourty rows back in some auditorium. I invited a few people from work. There's only a few that would be inclined to try something like that. Of those, only one wanted to come. But, she brought her partner and her 70 year old mom as well. I hope they enjoyed it. For me, I guess I had expectations that shaded my enjoyment a bit. I wanted there to be mostly chanting with some interspersed breaks for discussion, story telling, etc. Instead, we chanted a few songs, then he talked for close to an hour. We did another song or two, then he mostly talked the rest of the time. My friends left after two hours. Since we were all sitting on the floor, I can't blame them. But, I wish they could have had a few more chants of differing rhythms to experience before they left. I would have preferred to hear him talk about the chants themselves, what they were about, some of the history behind them. Instead, he mostly went over his life, his experiences when he was in India with his guru, some of his perspectives on life in general. All good stuff, just not in the balance that I had been wanting or expecting.

My wife finally got her wish and was given a new posture. As is often the case, she said it was anti-climactic. It can be frustrating to stay in one spot if you think you are doing things okay, or if you're not sure what you need to do to move further. She stayed the course and waited to be told when it was time. Her daily practice used to consist of all of the first series and as much of the second series as she had been given, She's moved far enough into the second series now that she no longer does the first series poses, except for Fridays, when it is traditional to only do the first series poses.

I got a pose as well. I've been working on Dwi Pada Sirsasana since last Thanksgiving. Working on it as best I can anyway. It's a hard one to get facile at when it is only practiced intermittently. Obtaining and maintaining the needed flexibility in the hip is one thing, but learning to get the balance part is equally difficult and maybe harder to develop with only occasional attempts. While I still have a hard time getting that second foot behind my head on my own in Dwi Pada, I am able to do Yoga Nidrasana reasonably well. When Tim was adjusting me in the pose the day he gave it to me, I was trying to assess how it felt and what muscles I needed to let go, etc. I must have closed my eyes while doing this because while he was stooped over me he asked, "Are you feeling relaxed?" I looked up at him and, after thinking about it, I had to say that I was. It was fairly non-exertional. I was working mostly on how I was positioned. My wife had told me that the feet are supposed to be on the floor in Yoga Nidrasana. Mine tend to be a few inches up in the air. So I was thinking about what shifts of weight to try that might get my feet closer to the floor. I guess this is my "rest" pose before I get into the serious stuff that follows.