Approaching Winter Solstice means that we are deep into weeks of short days and long nights.  Here in the Pacific Northwest, on our shortest day we will have 7 hours and 34 minutes less sunlight than we had on our longest day in June. Add clouds and rain to the mix and you have some very dark days.

Nonetheless, living right here at Green Lake in Seattle offers up some incredible beauty for this time of year.  As often as I can throughout the week, I pop out the door and take a walk around the lake.  If I didn’t take these walks, I think the weather and the darkness would start to get the better of me.  At the lake, the light, the sights, and the overall feeling differs from day to day. This morning, I saw four herons.  And wisps of fog were clinging to the trees. I saw a hint of pink sky poking through the clouds. The puddles were alarmingly beautiful with their reflections of sky and bare trees. And I marveled at the one tree stubbornly hanging on to its bright yellow leaves, defying winter’s approach.

Below, a photo I took on this morning’s lake walk: Puddle Reflections

These shorter days provide a great time to tune in, to do indoor activities like reading novels from the ever-growing list of must-reads, watching films on your must-see list, making crafts,  having dinner gatherings with friends, and, of course, devoting an afternoon to a Restorative Yoga Workshop.

This weekend, I offered two such workshops, one at Seattle Athletic Club yesterday and one today at OmCulture Green Lake Studio.  They were both very dreamy. Three hours goes by quickly and melts away all your tension.

Below is my creative description from yesterday’s workshop:

two sets of sisters, long-time friends, couples, SAC members, guests
all coming together
three hours float by oh-so-quickly
an overly “efficient” housekeeping staff member puts away the early set-up mats, props, and personal belongings
what???
the dismay of “over-efficiency” evaporates as our yoga session begins
a group of yogis tapping into universal consciousness
a treat of regular and gluten-free cookies served with whole milk
three hours of tending to oneself, resetting the internal clock, allowing for stillness
creating our own light and inner warmth
guilt-free indulgence
we are clouds
we are rain
we are the winter light
we are theta brain wave activity
short days and long periods of darkness allow us to become introspective
during this season of giving, we recharge our energy, we rest (some of us snore), we meditate

And today’s workshop featured another restorative yoga workshop accompanied by Borys Kossakowski’s live music (and tea and almond aniseed biscotti afterwards). Magical, purely magical.

I don’t think there is an instrument Borys cannot play! Borys hails from Poland and today I found out that he and his family will return to his homeland for good in six months. He really misses his parents and other family members and his life there.  Oh, I will miss him….

Towering Man: you can see how Borys’ height of 6 foot 5 inches makes Dayna and me look like little kids!

Not much blogging lately on my part?? Oh how my life seems to have been turned upside-down and shaken inside-out since our full time move to Seattle..boxes everywhere near and under my desk…I still find myself doing frantic searches for my written out recipes, shuffling about for important papers, and digging around for certain clothing articles because I haven’t had time to fully organize everything yet!  All will be organized in due time, but for now, not being organized is one potential source of anxiety.

And since it’s been a very long time since my last blog post, I thought I’d include some photos from the November yoga retreat weekend I held in Gig Harbor, Washington last month. This group used to come out annually to Little Renaissance in Ocean Shores for their yoga retreats.  This year, we continued our yoga retreat tradition at a different location: Gig Harbor.  The retreat was perfect in every way.  The delicious meals were lovingly prepared by Jennifer Hembree of The Salted Fig Catering 

The retreat was held at Ceci’s gorgeous home overlooking Gig Harbor:

One of our outings was a walk to the beautiful Kopachuck State Park:

We were drowning in leaves!  The retreat took place at the height of the falling leaves. At one point, it looked like it was raining leaves.  So very magical.

And you get huge driftwood logs that look like prehistorical insects jutting out into the water:

There’s a lot of love in this yoga family of friends (and actual family members). This is an inter-generational retreat at its best!:

Above and below: my photos of Mishel taking photos

Namaste and Happy Holidays to you, my readers!

PS…one more space is available for Costa Rica Yoga Retreat 2020 taking place March 21-28, 2020. Contact me if you are interested!