Thursday, October 12, 2006


heaven arrives on wings of coffee & conversation

woo-hoo! what arrives today but andrew b's ecco idido "misty valley" dry-process yrg, an ethiopian coffee from the gedeo zone. this coffee's widely said to cup above a 90 (for example, here), so you know i've been dying to find it -- long-time readers know i am a complete convert to these natural yrgs.

like the finch wa, the kello, the hama. . .ah! beautiful, beautiful coffees all. this coffee's roast-dated the 9th.

because i'm a hopeless yrg junkie, powerless before andrew's coffees, i immediately tore open the bag and stuck my nose deep inside. these beans smell like a blueberry shortbread cookie -- intense blue, baked honey/vanilla, and a light toasty aroma just like what fills your kitchen from a plate of fresh-baked cookies.

can you imagine what marvels will be released when this coffee's actually ground and brewed? be still my beating heart.

must calm down. . .which takes us to my recent yoga correspondence with eddie stern.

devoted readers may recall that i've recommended eddie's article on krishnamacharya in the most recent namarupa.

so after i read it a couple of times, i wrote eddie and we had a little discussion about it. in his article, eddie discusses how krishnamacharya's personal devotive practice changed the way he saw his students.

the upshot of eddie's point is simply that because this master yoga teacher believed that each of his students were embodiments of the lila, he looked at each one individually and taught each whatever would allow them to manifest more fully as themselves -- as he understood them from his devotion to lakshmi.

unspoken in eddie's piece i think is the idea that the vinyasa we do in our yoga is like the lila itself. we start in a certain place, at a certain time, with an almost ritual idea, and then we lift our own curtain to perform our individual "play."

eddie and i also talked about what he means when he calls out for external authorities on yoga. he sees a constant reference to yoga traditions and texts as a helpful influence to erect a bright dividing line between an authentic practice and, well, the unnameable lovecraftian horror that is disco yoga.

for eddie, reference to traditional practices is a helpful reminder that commercialism and capitalism have no place in a good practice. your yoga should help you reclaim your authentic self, not be another marketing consumer distraction that destroys it.

it's an interesting and provocative idea. . .

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