Peace 1:33 pm

Peace 1:33 pm

Days come and go quickly as we're seeing with the beautiful display of fall colors. It is easy to get caught up in daily responsibilities and let family and friends fall from the fore front of our mind. Shane, Sarah, and Josh were taken on July 31st, 2009 at 1:33 pm and are still being held in Iran. Keeping them on the forefront of our minds is one of the most important actions we can take. Action is created by thought. It is this universal truth that has inspired Peace 1:33. The purpose is to hold the vibration of peace and positive energy for Shane, Sarah, and Josh by focusing on and feeling peace for 1 minute or more each day at 1:33 pm.

Set a daily alarm on your cell phone for 1:33 pm. Spend 1 minute thinking/meditating on peace in honor of Shane, Sarah, and Josh and continue with the daly commitment. If you have access to a bell, ring it 3 times in honor of each hiker.

Spread the word! Join Free the Hikers on Facebook adn invite friends. Ask your church or school to participate by ringing their bell 3 times each day at 1:33 pm.

Free the Hikers official website

Become a fan on facebook

Spiritual Deli Website

Music Nourishes your Soul

Music moves us. It inspires us and reaches our deepest being. Music is a bridge that connects us with our self and others. It can be a catalyst for meditation, creativity, and spiritual expression. If anyone has been so lucky to be in the presence of the talented Kathy McTavish while playing her cello you've witnessed this experience. When Kathy plays her cello, they are one, and if you allow your self to let go and be present with the experience you'll find yourself at one with the experience and universe as well. It truly is a divine expression of the "oneness" we all seek. It's much more than a musical experience, it's an expression of sound... it is an expression of Om.

The Yogi's have used sound since the beginning of time to transcend boundaries. Om (Aum) in Yoga is referred to as the soundless sound. It is called the seed sound of the Universe.

"The universal AUM, put forth by the Supreme, is an infinite Ocean. The individual AUM, chanted by man, is a drop in that Ocean. It cannot be separated from the Ocean but nevertheless even the tiniest drop can claim the Ocean as its very own. Chanting AUM, man touches and calls forth the cosmic vibration of the Supreme Sound. When one can hear the Soundless Sound within oneself, when one can identify oneself with it, when one can live within the AUM, one can be freed from the fetters of ignorance and realise the Supreme within and without." Sri Chimnoy

We invite you to join the Spiritual Deli and Kathy McTavish in some Om experiences, expressing the Soundless Sound within your self.

• Cello Yoga Flow, Tuesdays, 4-6 PM. Kathy plays cello while Nicole Hanger leads the class through a yoga flow in silence.
• Creative Flow, 2nd Fridays of the month, 6-8 PM. Kathy plays cello, Jodi Christensen leads a meditation to get your creative juices flowing, then we engage in some creative activities with guest Artist.

Come swim in the infinite Ocean!
spiritualdeli.com

Free the Hikers: The 59th Day

Free the Hikers: The 59th Day Fundraiser

September 27th 4-6 PM Hiking Meditation
Meet at Enger Tower. By Donation.

6-10 PM Silent Auction and Fundraiser
$10 at the door

Music by James Moors, Dave Mehling, Dan Dress and The Rez. Spin Collective will be performing outside. Food, wine, and Brewhouse Beer! Meet family members of Shane Bauer. A good time for a good cause!

"Be the change you wish to see in the world." Mahatma Gandhi

Shane Bauer, Josh Fattal and Sarah Shourd have been detained in Iran since July 31, 2009, when news reports say they accidentally crossed an unmarked border during a hiking trip in the mountains of Iraqi Kurdistan. They were in a peaceful region of Iraq that is increasingly popular with Western tourists.

The three young Americans, all graduates of the University of California at Berkeley, are believed to be held in the Iranian capital, Tehran. They have had no contact with their families, and have not been granted their right to consular access.

Shane, Josh and Sarah care greatly about the world. They admire and respect different cultures and religions and share a love of travel that has taken them to many countries. That’s why they went to Kurdistan, not because they wanted to enter Iran.

The families and friends of the three hikers created a website to tell the story of Shane, Josh and Sarah and keep the world informed about their situation. Learn more at www.freethehikers.org

Donate online! www.freethehikersdonation.com

Free the Hikers t-shirts available at the Spiritual Deli! All net proceeds go to the efforts to raise awareness and bring the hikers home as soon as possible!

Also available online at www.laughingstockdesign.biz

Fall Open House and Artist Reception

Join us for our Fall Open House and Artist Reception!
September 17th
4:30 PM Ribbon Cutting with the Chamber of Commerce
6-7 PM Open House
7-9 PM Artist Reception with Nate Lindstrom

Our open house will include FREE 20 minutes Yoga classes. Meet staff and teachers. 10% off Punch Cards!

Yoga is good business

When stress and pain are gone, productivity and creativity return. This is the logic of bringing Yoga into your workday! In short what is good for you is good for your business!
Yoga works to alleviate the #1 work related health problem: stress. By practicing Yoga you'll be more productive and increase your blood flow to the brain, which makes it easier to concentrate and think clearer!
Repetitive stress injuries such as Carpal Tunnel Syndrome can be avoided by staying alert to what the body needs in order to stay healthy!
Our current schedule is available online~ www.spiritualdeli.com

What's better than Yoga?

Yoga with Childcare!!!

We're so excited offer a Yoga class with childcare! Join us Thursdays from 4-5 pm for Hatha Yoga in our downstairs studio. Childcare will be provided by our fun loving staff member Nicole Hanger in our upstairs studio. Kids will be entertained with Yoga poses, art projects, and other fun and inspiring activities. Our plan is to expand our Yoga with Childcare classes in the fall.

Thursdays 4-5 pm
$15 drop in
or use a punch card + $2.50

Namaste

Dear Lake Superior

Gitchigumee-

You are my mother and one of my greatest spiritual teachers. Your waves have taught me to move with the ebb and flow of life and to welcome the changes that each wave brings to the surface of the lakeshore.

Your water has taught me to be cool and fluid. The wind that pools above your surface has taught me to move through and around obstacles and to be flexible.

I am thankful for all of the messages you have sent a long on the breeze during my meditations. Your water, vibration, and spirit, refresh, repelenish and restore my soul. You are an invaluable entity to me on my spiritual path.

You are neutral.
You are unpredictable.
You are so powerful that you create your own weather.
You are the grand metaphor for God and for life itself.

The gratitude I have for you is immeasurable and almost beyone my poetic capabilities. The grace with which you accept me, nurture me and guide me is something that I hold close to my heart.

Your combined simplicity and complexity have taught me: love, patience, compassion, tolerance and most importantly, that I interconnected inherently to that which is greater than myself.

I know when I look into your waves that I am simply one of them as I am also simply a single grain of sand on your shore.

I appreciate all of you and have experienced the width and breadth of your being. I have been the fog, the sideways rain, the wind rattling the windows, the sky high snow drifts and your calm mirrorlike surface in its entirety.

I am so thankful for you, what you have given and what you will continue to offer.

With the deepest gratitude...

Staying Established

In our crazy, driven, fast paced culture how can we stay firmly established in our selves? Do you feel like you are easily knocked off of your center, do you hold tension in your neck and shoulders, use coping mechanisms such as alcohol or food to distract yourself from the messages your body is sending to you?

Developing a relationship with yourself can be one of the greatest spiritual challenges that any seeker faces. We all need alone time; time to nurture our minds, bodies and spirits. We receive an infinite number of messages from our body every day that signal to us where we are at any given moment; shallow breathing, chest pain, hunger, anxiety, a yawn, an adrenaline rush, a smile. How often do we really listen to what our body is telling us about our selves?

Finding your "center" or place of being established is at the root of most spiritual practices a long with various breathing techniques that help bring mind and body into balance. That center, or place of stillness and peace, is always within you and is most often only one long deep breath away. From that centered place of being, stress and tension melt away, evaporating right out of your body. Anxieties, fears and worries seem less intense, less important, easier to deal with from an objective perspective.

We all have choices about cultivating that place of centeredness within our selves. What are you doing in your life to nurture and cultivate the roots of being established in yourself?

Wandering in the Wild World

"The wanderer crosses and recrosses borders in order to find something whose location is unknown and unknowable. She will conclude she has found it not by its location in a certain place, or by its confirming a prior belief, but by how it feels, how it resonates within her upon her discovery. She doesn't know where or how or when clues will appear so she wanders incessantly, both inwardly and outwardly, always looking, imagining and feeling. The wanderer cultivates an openness to mystery and offers her attention to the edges of thoughts, dreams, feelings and to the borders between place and between events. She's aware that anything can happen at anytime, and that every moment is charged with the numinous. In her wandering, she makes her own path." -Bill Plotkin Nature and the Human Soul

A handful of fresh dirt and pine needles in my hand, I inhale a deep cleansing breath. Beach. Waves. Light rain. Driftwood and Che by my side. Smiles. Deep breaths. Minnesota Point; for 12 seasons I have loved her, and with every barefoot summer and frigid winter I welcome her changes as I welcome my own. Two Canadian geese honk in the bay, 100 sea gulls circle overhead, squealing and spinning in a dizzying fashion, ascending and descending over my head. I release two wood ticks from my pants back into the grass, 5 crows fly by low to the ground sharing in a loud cacophony. We may get rained on. Thunder rolls in the distance. Right now I am alive. Waves tap gently against the shore of an overcast sky, ants navigate the driftwood circumference of the medicine wheel, Che catches flies with his mouth; his jaws closing intermittently with a resounding snap. We share trail mix laying in the late May sun, my hammock hangs in the distance between two birch trees. No cell phone. No Facebook. No talking. No one can reach me. My feet are dirty, my hair in a bandanna. The only thing to do here is be.

What is Yoga?

Yoga literally means yoke or union; union with mind, body and spirit. We yoke ourselves to our practice, exploring the width and breadth of ourselves with compassion, curiosity and self love. The goal of yoga is to become comfortable in your own skin, to gather all of your scattered pieces, and to remain established in your center; no matter what life throws in your direction.

In the West yoga is commonly seen as simply a physical practice in which pushing, sweating and contorting are happy companions to our fast, driven, stressful lifestyles. The physical benefits of yoga are many, however, one need not twist themselves into a pretzel shape in order to receive them. The most benefits come from first unraveling any tension and stress in the mind and body; then body awareness and core stability follow creating a symbiotic dance of breath, balance, strength and relaxation. When you learn to relax deeply you interact differently in the world from a place of stillness, ease and direct experience.

The goal of yoga is simply, yoga. Yoga brings the body and mind into balance with spirit creating a safe and nourishing space for a meditative practice and a deeper understanding of one's relationship to the whole. Yoga can be done by anyone, with any body shape, at any age, in any stage of life. Why not start a yoga practice today?