Photos by Kathy, age 46

Photos by Sabian York, 8 years old

Recipes from Saturday October 23

Peanut Butter Cookies

(gluten and dairy-free)

Ingredients

1 ½ cups peanut butter

½ cup packed brown sugar

1 large egg white

 

Directions

Preheat oven to 350º and line cookie sheets with parchment paper. Combine all three ingredients. Roll dough into 1-inch balls and place on sheets, spacing them about 1 inch apart. Using a fork, make a criss-cross pattern on each cookie.

Bake 12-15 minutes until pale golden and set around the edges. Cool completely on wire racks.

Yields about 2 dozen cookies.

Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Cookies

Ingredients

Cookies

2 ¼ cups unbleached all-purpose flour

1 tsp. baking powder

½ tsp. baking soda

½ tsp. salt

1 ½ tsp. cinnamon

½ teaspoon ground ginger

1 cup unsalted butter, softened

½ cup brown sugar

½ cup granulated sugar

1 (15 ounce) can pumpkin

2 large eggs

1 tsp. vanilla extract

grated zest of 1 orange, optional

2 cups semi-sweet chocolate chips

1 cup chopped walnuts, optional

 

Glaze

1 ½ cups confectioner’s sugar

2 ½ Tbsp. Milk

½ tsp. vanilla extract

Directions

Preheat the oven to 375º F. Spray baking sheets with cooking spray or line with parchment paper, set aside.

Whisk together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, cinnamon and ginger in medium bowl. Set aside.

Cream together the butter, brown sugar and granulated sugar. Scrape the sides of the bowl.

Add the pumpkin, eggs, vanilla and orange zest, beating well to blend.

Slowly add the dry ingredients, blend well. Stir in the chocolate chips and walnuts.

Using a tablespoon scoop, drop the dough on the baking sheets. Bake on the middle oven rack for 13-18 minutes, until edges are lightly browned. Let cool on the baking sheets 5 minutes before transferring to racks to cool.

 For the glaze: Stir together the sugar, milk and vanilla until smooth. Dip the tops of the cookies in the glaze and put back on the racks to set, or drizzle in a pattern.

Mount Major

Radiant Child Yoga

From the presentation that Kristin and I gave a few weeks ago.

I am happy, I am good

I am happy, I am good

Satnam, satnam, satnam ji

Wahe guru, wahe guru, wahe guru ji.

Satnam, satnam, satnam ji

Wahe guru, wahe guru, wahe guru ji.

Satnam = true name, true self

Wahe guru = wonderful teacher, supreme being, god...

We also played 2 games:

- The Intuition Game - The group sits in a circle, and one person leaves the room. While that person is gone, someone in the group hides an object under their seat (a coin, a feather, whatever you have). When the person comes back, he/she stands in the center of the circle, and the people on the outside send them "you can do it" vibes. The person on the inside of the circle uses his/her intuition to guess who is sitting on the object.

- Yoga Counting - The group works together to count to 10. There is no set order to tell you who counts when - you just use your intuition! If two people talk at once, you start again at 1.

These games are fun with adults and kids...have fun playing!

Moon Days

Traditionally in Ashtanga you don't practice on "moon days" which are the full moon and new moon.

I always just accepted this as a fact and didn't really care why.
However the "why" is kind of interesting. Here is a link if you would like to learn more~ http://www.ashtangayogacenter.com/moon.html

upcoming moon days are as follows:
Oct 23, 2010 ~ Saturday ~ Full Moon
Nov 6, 2010 ~ Saturday ~ New Moon
Nov 22, 2010 ~ Monday ~ Full Moon
Dec 6, 2010 ~ Monday ~ New Moon
Dec 21, 2010 ~ Tuesday ~ Full Moon ~ Total Lunar Eclipse and Winter Solstice


Namaste!

Supta Kurmasana

Prajanaparamita (The Heart Sutra)

In today's class Kathy offered us a new chant to learn: Prajanaparamita translated as "Heart of the Perfection of Transcendent Wisdom." Although the full sutra is much longer, the last line is the most important one, and the chant we learned today. Invoking this chant is for the eradication of attachments, or opening the heart.

gate gate para gate
para samgate
bodhisvaha

There seems to be many translations of the chant, but from what I gather, it is basically emphasizing that "beyond all that I know, beyond and all that exists, I accept to be fully awakened."

Check out Wikipedia for more details. Listen to the full sutra on YouTube...and try to keep up with the cadence!

(jaycie)