Yoga and Freestyle Dance

Yoga and Freestyle Dance class on Fridays at the Antigua Centre! Every Friday at 5 pm. Starting May 7th. Come and join!

Like a Painting

I know I haven't written in a long, long time. I have so much to tell, but now let me restart with this photo that I took this morning when I got to Panza Verde, my favorite place in Antigua, where I practice Yoga. So I arrived and saw this girl sitting there and i was mesmerized for a few minutes, I was just taking in this unreal-looking scene that was present, right in front of me. And then I realized that i had my camera with me and the mother gave me permission to take a picture and here it is, this is what it looked like.

Moving to the Callejon del Burrito

The past few weeks past by so fast that they felt like a few days ... as I was moving in to a beautiful big house on El Callejon del Burrito (alley of the little donkey ; ), running around Antigua and Guatemala city to buy furniture, preparing for the orientation that we have planned for the Ixtatan Foundation, hosting two of their future teachers in our house, celebrating Christmas and the New Year's Eve then welcoming Greg and his family who are going to live in the house, in the upstairs room for a month (that may last for six rather than one) - meanwhile getting ready for the yoga teacher's training.
Here are a few photos from these days ...


El callejon del Burrito

The garden and the "bucaro"

With Annie and Chris and Rae after a yoga class

New Year's Eve

New Year

Dear All,
I wish you a very Happy New Year! I also wish we have a decade where we'll find more peace, more sharing and more love!
I celebrated the new year in Antigua, where one my favorite things to do is watching the formations of the smoke that Volcan Fugeo continuously puffs out from somewhere deep inside of the Earth.
Love, Lilla

Merry Christmas!

These are the first days when the Sun is starting to regain its strength on the Northern Hemisphere. And these are the days when we celebrate the birth of Christ, the birth of The Son. Christmas is one of the most beautiful symbols that show how humans have been living in harmony with nature. It shows how we have recognized the important dates of the cycles of the Sun and the Earth and we have been celebrating them to honor their power, their influence on our lives. This is what Christmas means to me, the honor, the recognition, the celebration of the connection between our lives on Earth and the Sun. It reminds me of how fragile and at the same time how strong and meaningful our presence is in this world.

Sometimes You Just Need to Trust!

I traveled to Xela (Quetzaltenango) last Saturday. I had to catch a bus from Antigua to Chimaltenango and then to Xela, that second part of the trip should have lasted about three hours, but as soon as the driver took off from the bus stop I knew it, I knew that I got it again... here I was again, on a real-time, real-life roller coaster ... as the decorated shiny cickenbus whizzed down the Pan American Highway I was holding on to the rail of the seat in front of me, half-sitting on a seat, holding the two ladies next to me in the right curves, keeping my weight off of them on the left curves and sharing smiles and laughter with other passengers as we were doing our funky balancing exercises and I was thinking why? Why is that, that I get these born-to-be Formula1 drivers that race with buses packed with travelers? And I recalled some of the memorable bus rides I’ve taken the past few years traveling...
I remembered the night when I was lying on a bus – yes, it had convertible seats! (welcome to India!) - rushing down from Mumbai to Goa, wrapping my head and my body with all the new scarfs and shawls I had bought earlier that day, to keep myself warm from the cold draft that was coming onto me for fourteen hours and having to hold myself from falling out on the window that was unable to close. And when - on the same trip - stopping for a bathroom break, we found ourselves in a huge fight that was spreading among men for a reason that nobody really knew. Then I recalled the chinatown bus that made it from Boston to New York City in three hours - sitting in the front seat, watching the snowflakes hitting the window for an hour, we looked at each other with my friend and the first thing that we said was “We are flying!”, and looking behind, seeing the other passengers sitting up straight with their eyes wide open, holding onto their seats as the driver was rushing at full speed on the snowy highway. And the small bus in Chiapas, Mexico that almost turned over on the road as the driver stepped on the brakes in a “curva peligrosa". And then the first trip to San Mateo Ixtatán when I was watching the driver talking on his phone, holding his cell in one hand and turning the stirring wheel with the other on the windy road on the cliffs of the Cuchumatanes, and passing by a group of crosses that stand by the road to commemorate those who have died there in an accident, I looked at Beth, who was sitting next to me when she looked back at me, smiled, and said: “Lilla, sometimes you just need to trust!”
... so I got off the bus in Xela, we made it there in two hours and fifteen minutes. I was grateful that we were alive. And I was wondering about the things I get from these trips - other than the adrenaline-rush, the sore and achy muscles and the flees - I also get friendly smiles, nice chats, the feeling that I'm part of the local life and a message that I’m still needed here in this world alive... and that I should have trust, because my angels are around ... taking good care of me.

Thanks for the Dance!

We had a wonderful time today at our first "Freestyle yoga and dance class". It was playful, creative and free and we laughed a lot. We had a great time!
I would like to thank my wonderful teacher, Keith Urban and the “Joy of Movement” group for all those hours that we’ve danced together in Mountain View. During Keith’s classes I felt that I could reach deep into a part of myself, where I found my creative, honest and free ways. Keith has developed this ability to an art, to hold a space during these dance sessions that is so safe that we could discover these deep layers of our own selves, and connect with each other as well. This experience is what made me want to share this way of dancing together. So again, I would like to thank Keith and the JOM group for all those nurturing sessions we’ve danced together. I also give my thanks to Rae for leading the yoga part of the class and for designing the class together and for trusting in our work, and also I would like to thank all of you, who came to the class! The next session is after Christmas, on the 27th!
And just in case you were wondering… we did dance in a circle and the blue dove was flying right in the middle of the circle ; )

About Keith: http://www.urbanchi.com/keithurban_dance_mountainview.html

Can You Open Your Mind and Your Heart and Embrace?

"Each year, some two million women and children, many younger than 10 years old, are bought and sold around the globe. Impassioned by the silence surrounding the sex-trafficking epidemic, Sunitha Krishnan co-founded Prajwala, or "eternal flame," a group in Hyderabad that rescues women from brothels and educates their children to prevent second-generation prostitution. Prajwala runs 17 schools throughout Hyderabad for 5,000 children and has rescued more than 2,500 women from prostitution, 1,500 of whom Krishnan personally liberated. At its Asha Niketan center, Prajwala helps young victims prepare for a self-sufficient future."
http://www.ted.com/speakers/sunitha_krishnan.html

"Can you open your mind, can you open your heart and embrace them because they are part of us and they are part of this World?"

Sunitha Krishnan's fight against sex slavery | Video on TED.com

"A Lost European Culture, Pulled From Obscurity"

I find these images and artifacts astounding…


http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/01/science/01arch.html

Check out the slideshow:
http://www.nytimes.com/slideshow/2009/11/25/science/112409_ARCH_index.html

Meet the Monster!

http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/IOTD/view.php?id=41385

“The Lake“ or “El Lago”, the famous Lago Atitlan, the bottomless lake that was formed 1,8 million years ago among volcanoes, the one that has given home to colorful Maya villages on its shores and has attracted visitors from all over the world, has a brand new sensation: Its Monster is out! It has come up to the surface, it is apparent even from space, it is showing its large, greenish stinky body to the world. It feeds on sewage, industrial waste and agricultural run off. And we have fed it well! In fact so well that it will be able to live off on the food we’ve given it for years. It is growing into all parts of the lake to express its gratitude for all the wonderful feeding and caring we have provided it with. Please come and visit, meet the Monster!

I visited Lago Atitlan the fourth time in November and saw that the lake is now experiencing a large bloom of a toxic cyanobacteria. The bacteria overgrowth is most likely caused by a combination of dumping of sewage, industrial and agricultural waste, deforestation and an unusually dry year. We were there right around the third week after the overgrowth of the bacteria had become apparent all over the lake. What we could see was large areas covered by the greenish, brownish algae-looking thing that smelled like sewage. On the shores women were no longer were washing clothes, but were trying to collect bacteria with big nets to “clean” the lake. By talking to many people, all we could hear was people blaming each other for causing the problem, one village blaming the other, locals blaming tourists for not caring about the lake, tourism industry holding the farmers responsible and vice versa, others blaming the government for not constructing sewage treatment systems, government officials blaming each other for stealing the aid money they received from other countries after 2006, when Hurricane Stan seriously hit the area and caused massive landslides and destroyed all existing waste water treatment systems and others blaming the aiding countries for giving out the money without establishing reconstruction programs. The traditional believes are different: people say that this is God punishing us for our sins for not praying enough, at least that’s what they are being told at the church and others say that the Monster of the Lake has woken up.
There is one thing they would all agree on, and that is that we are in big trouble! We have woken up the Monster and it will take decades to calm it down again, and we can only do that if we all get together and start working on it now by creating a water cleaning system, by not damping more organic and inorganic waste into the water, by paying extra tourism taxes, by using harmless fertilizers on the fields, by not stealing the aid money and by creating programs that educate people about environmental issues. I think that God would like that too and would change his ways and would stop punishing us.

Women washing clothes, themselves and their kids in the lake - March, 2009.

crossing the lake - April, 2009

crossing the lake - October, 2009

Cyanobacteria - October, 2009