Archives

Do you love to attend community kirtan, or listen to the devotional music that crops up at festivals from Wanderlust to Tadanasa to even Omega’s Ecstatic Chant? Do you own a harmonium, sitar, guitar, or any kind of synthesizer? Are you guilty of joining at least one drum circle?

If you’ve answered yes to any of the above—even one—you’re in for a treat. Brooklyn-based singer Nina Rao just released a debut, double-album mix of devotional kirtan, bhajan, and Hanuman Chalisa chants called Antarayaami.

If you’re unfamiliar with Rao or the New York-area outlets she regularly performs at (like the donation-based Brooklyn outpost of many Dharma Yoga-trained teachers, the Brooklyn Yoga School), it’s time you got well acquainted. Since 1996, she’s worked as the assistant of chant master Krishna Das, also frequently assisting him with cymbals and vocals on tour.

That kind of dedication has long been mutual: notably, Krishna Das’s unmistakable, deep baritone-voice appears on the album in a duet entitled “Ocean of Ram Hanuman Chalisa.” But that isn’t the only story worth telling.

The album is also a much deeper reflection for Rao, who was initially introduced to devotional music at the age of 9. It was then she first learned traditional chants from her grandfather, in a village in South India. She was re-introduced to chanting and the yoga of devotion, bhakti, through Krishna Das—and currently bands together with seasoned artists like Ambika Cooper, Devadas Labrecque (equal parts kirtan artist, part producer of Antaryaami), and the founders of the Brooklyn Yoga School themselves, as part of the New York-based collective chant community, Vanaras.

Check out some of our favorite tracks, get info on future performances and more here. The album is also available for purchase at the Krisha Das online store, Amazon, and iTunes.

Year-end lists, spontaneous resolutions, and 30-day yoga or meditation challenges are all common ways to test your willpower on—or even weeks after—the New Year. But what now? How can you sustain this mindful resolve the rest of the year?

Cut yourself some slack and really listen to yourself. That’s the first step to cultivating what the yoga tradition calls a sankalpa, or resolve. More than just a desire made public, “a sankalpa practice starts from the radical premise that you already are who you need to be to fulfill your life’s dharma,” says Kelly McGonigal, author of The Willpower Instinct.

If this is your first experience with a sankalpa, try this. Close your eyes and settle in for a few moments. And then ask yourself, “what do you I really want?” The answer to that could be anything: to become a yoga teacher, to stop feeling so angry all the time, to quit smoking, or even just to wake up earlier.

You can also build willpower over time by practicing yoga, according to senior Iyengar yoga teacher Patricia Walden, who says willpower exists in our bodies as well as our minds. She recommends choosing a challenging yoga pose and holding it for 30 seconds; do that every day for at least a week. A practice like this can build your reserves and help you follow through on difficult decisions in the future.

Or make it habit to regularly explore a short, restorative practice like yoga nidra.

No matter what you choose to do, by all means be compassionate. Back off from a challenge if necessary. That might sound like a sign of weakness or even counterintuitive, but according to McGonigal, “If you think that the key to greater willpower is being harder on yourself, you are not alone.” You’re just wrong, she says. According to a growing wealth of research, self-criticism is “consistently associated with less motivation and worse self-control.”

Building your willpower muscle and remaining true-blue to challenging goals—according to the (scientific) writing on the wall—isn’t about taking the high road. It’s actually a lot more about compassion and even, it seems, self-confidence.

Check out the full scoop on the science behind willpower, and explore 5 poses that cultivate resolve from Senior Iyengar teacher Patricia Walden, here.

SHARE YOUR WILLPOWER SECRETS AND WIN!

Tell us in the comments how you keep your resolve and we’ll register you to win a HOME PRACTICE yoga kit from Manduka. Now if that isn’t motivating!

In the December issue of Time magazine, Dr. Mehmet Oz recommended we all give frozen food a chance—even those forlorn glommed-together chunks of spinach that come out of your freezer in one big hunk. In his in-favor-of-it-all feature, he was quick to note, “The rise of foodie culture over the past decade has venerated all things small-batch, local-farm and organic—all with premium price tags. But let’s be clear: you don’t need to eat like the 1% to eat healthily.”

If that isn’t a statement. He criticizes the ‘foodie culture’ not only for the price tags that regular adorn its fancy produce at boutique organic bodegas and large-scale chains, but also for its insistence that organic is healthier. He cites a recent review by Stanford University of 237 previous scientific studies that finds “little evidence” exists that suggests going organic is a healthier choice.

Harsh. Should we really end all our homegrown, locavore dreams and start buying everything in non-organic, frozen bulk because of findings like these? It’s a personal decision that warrants your own list of pros and cons—but here are some to, ahem, chew on.

Freezing or repeatedly reheating food fundamentally alters its vitality—the actual nutritional benefits you get from eating it, according to ayurvedic physicians. Exceptions to this are pretty rare—like bringing non-organic, homogenized turmeric milk to a boil three times to make the milk easier to digest.

Still skeptical? Notice the difference between eating homemade pesto from fresh basil and the store-bought variety made with the frozen herb. Or how about fresh, handmade pasta vs the dried, packaged variety? Or even marinara sauce made from ripe tomatoes?

‘Organic’ doesn’t always mean expensive. An intrepid, budget-squeezed comrade at food blog The Kitchn recently tested a claim from Whole Foods that you can stock an organic pantry for $99. For a chain of grocery stores once lampooned by the movie Baby Mama and much better known to the 99% as Whole Paycheck, it was a challenge worth looking into.

By choosing goods almost exclusively from bulk bins and the store’s private label 365 Everyday Value brand, The Kitchn succeeded. They bagged 38 different items for the low price of $93.52.

It’s not just about us. Buying all the groceries you can between a grocery store like Whole Foods and your local farmer’s market (or by joining a CSA) can be a way to both support your diet and put compassion into action. Dr. Oz seems to have forgotten that we buy organic not only for our own health, but for the health of the farm workers and the planet. In just one small example of the damage non-organic farming can do, New York Times columnist Mark Bittman reminds us that “The genetically modified soybeans grown in 91 percent of U.S. soybean fields have repeatedly been linked with reproductive and birth defects in animals.”

So if we can find ways to support our own lifestyle with all the small-batch, local-farm, organic goods we can afford, we not only avoid pesticides, we also support the lifestyles (and livelihoods) of other like-minded, mindful individuals. This is the kind of community-building I think yoga practitioners and teachers aspire to and believe in.

So wake up early. Kiss an organic farmer. Take on an organic food challenge of your own. Then tell us about it. Or just share any tips you have for living mindfully, on a budget.