Tag: postaday2011

inspiration, SXSW

Beginning: Can I Keep It Weird in New York?

Christa Avampato

The city of Austin has a very cool motto: “Keep Austin weird.” I love that. They embrace their quirkiness, their mix of business, creativity, music, wholesome living, and Texas pride. It is an odd mix, and I am so glad that I got to witness the weirdness in all its forms at this year’s SXSW festival. The friendly, open nature of Austin dwellers combined with all of the interested and interesting attendees of SXSW made for a week that exceeded every expectation I had by 10 fold. And I am demanding and full of high expectations.

My friend, Amanda, who was also here in Austin presenting with her husband, Jordan, mentioned to me several times that I appeared to be so light here. And I felt that, too. In New York I sometimes feel like I juggle so many hats that never quite fit together neatly – yoga, writing, technology, business. I always feel like I’m wearing 1 or 2 at a time, with the others safely tucked away until needed. At SXSW, I felt like I could wear them all in a very authentic way. There was some kind of shift that happened within me. Maybe that’s a result of being inspired at every turn by all of the incredible learning that I knew was always waiting for me wherever I went. Maybe this shift was available all of the time and in my daily life in New York I just couldn’t realize it.

In the coming weeks as I sort through my notes and collected business cards, I will be posting on this blog all of the insights and inspirations that I found at SXSW. What’s on my mind at this moment is how to keep this same light feeling that Amanda so eloquently described as I get back to normal life in New York. I’m certain that it’s possible. Now I just need to find the path forward.

apple, blogging, creativity, technology

Some sparks are flying between me and the iPad

Christa Avampato

I am currently at the Apple pop-up store in Austin. The store was late breaking news development that geeks here at SXSW are very happy about. The line for the new iPad is currently extended around the corner.

I have been slightly skeptical about tablets, worried that I would be duplicating my Droid X, which I love, and my MacBook which I love even more. However, I began to covet the glowing machine at SXSW because my laptop is heavy to carry around all day and blogging on my DROID is a less than ideal.

I took myself over here to the Apple store before grabbing some lunch in preparation for my SXSW talk this afternoon. From first touch, I developed an infatuation for little Mac Jr. Successful first date, though I need a little more time before I decide whether or not we’re destined to move in together.

I’m cautiously optimistic, and smitten.

communication, design, learning, nature, science, society, technology

Beginning: A Lesson from Biomimicry – Looking Around and Get Your Knees Dirty

Christa Avampato

From Treehugger.com
I went to an incredible panel yesterday about biomimicry and its implications for the design of technology projects. The talk was put together by several key personalities in this space. If you are curious about bioIogy or design or both, I highly recommend taking a look at Biomimicry.net and Beedance.com. Representatives of both organizations were represented on the panel.

At the end of the panel Holly Harlan of E4S and Michael Dungan of Beedance said two very profound points that have stuck with me since the panel and I think they hold very important pieces of advice for living, particularly for people passionate about technology. Holly said that if we’re really curious about design, really interested in learning from nature then we need to dig around in the dirt. It’s all well and good to read and research and ask questions of others. It’s necessary, though the greatest learning is found through our own personal exploration of the physical world. Michael encouraged us to put down our devices, unplug, and look around. Really see what’s happening in our natural environment. It sounds so simple and yet the world is whizzing by us at a dizzying pace while we remain glued to our glowing screens.

I found these two pieces of info particularly poignant last night at the Foursquare party. I was with some friends from work and we were having a great time dancing and enjoying a really beautiful and balmy Texas evening. As I took a look around, I was blown over by the number of people who were with other people but not present. Every 30 seconds they were on their mobiles, half listening to the people talking to them, lost in some digital experience of some kind. It made me wonder and start to worry about what all of these devices are really doing to our personal awareness. Despite constantly being in the know, constantly being “connected”, flooded with information on every conceivable subject, we seem to be in a fog of our own design. Existing, though not living. We really may be entirely disconnected from our own intuition and from others.

I’ll be the first to say I love technology and its potential for good. I love piles of information. I love design. I also love, in equal if not greater proportion, the trees, the grass, and the sky. I have yet to come across any piece of technology that wows me more than something that the natural world has created from its own immense intelligence and experience. To design as nature designs is the ideal, is the genius we’re all so desperately looking for. To take in its teachings requires dirty knees and a clear mind. I’m making a vow to unplug more often, get out into the world with more compassion than ever before, and live. I hope you’ll join me.

SXSW, yoga

Beginning: I’m on the Road to Austin and SXSW 2011

Christa Avampato

“When you set out on your journey to Ithaca, pray that the road is long, full of adventure, full of knowledge.”
~ C. P. Cavafy

The road to SXSW 2011 begins today for me. I’ll make a quick stop in Florida to leave Phin with the fam, and then I’ll be on my way to Texas on Thursday morning. I found this quote by C. P. Cavafy last week and perfectly summarizes exactly what I hope to find in Austin. A long, beautiful road of adventure and knowledge. Inspiring people doing inspiring things out in the world. I’m planning to squeeze every last ounce of goodness I can possibly get in the 6 days that I’m there. It’s a perfect way to close out my 34th year and welcome the big 3-5.

I’ll be blogging and tweeting along the way so you can share in the fun even if you’re far away. If you’re there, I’d love to meet you! Drop me a line and we’ll plan to get together. I’m also teaching yoga and speaking at SXSW on the tois of yoga and creative focus. Here are the details for the sessions:

3/14 – Monday morning yoga, 9:30am
3/15 – Taming the Monkey Mind: Yoga and Creative Focus. My pal Jennilyn Carson, a.k.a Yogadork, will be joining me for this fun, relaxing session with me as the perfect way to put a big gorgeous bow around the SXSW experience.

Come by and see us!

art, blogging, pictures, writing

Beginning: My Tumblr Blog – Born into Color

Christa Avampato

Becoming a storyboard artist
I’ve been trying to find the right channel to share my love for design and creative living in a visual way. This blog is really meant more for my writing. This blog is a storyteller’s project, and while a picture can be worth a thousand words, pictures need their own space. I went looking for a place online that was easy to update on the go, that I could largely populate from my mobile phone as I’m out in the world, living it up. In short, I needed a channel to document my usual shenanigans and let them really shine.

Tumblr gets my vote
Enter Tumblr, a ridiculously user-friendly microblogging service that lives somewhere between mainstream blogging and Twitter. Post a quote, link, picture, video, audio clip, or some short text (perhaps slightly longer than 140 characters.) The mobile app has all kinds of features that are easy to use and make posting a cinch. I’m giddy just thinking about this new online adventure. I will post whenever I see or experience something really interesting that I want to share but that doesn’t necessarily warrant a full written post on this blog.

Pictures make a better brain
Lately I’ve been reading a lot about how to build a better brain. There’s a lot of evidence for visual learners to try to improve their auditory skills and for auditory learners to try to improve their visual skills. I am part of the latter group – the weird ones. (Seriously – only 10% of people are auditory learners.) We’re the people who never forget a conversation or something we read, through are highly unlikely to remember what shirt we wore yesterday. I think in words, not pictures. Temple Grandin inspired me to try to make pictures a bigger part of my life. And I’d always like to find ways to boost my brainpower.

Born into Color is born
So here we go – the visual storyteller in me finally gets the chance to have her say in pictures. The title of my blog “Born into Color” is inspired by a line from a poem by Rumi entitled “Quietness”. Appropriate for a girl trying to use fewer words and more pictures. This is my attempt to “Become the Sky. Escape. Walk outside like someone suddenly born into color.” Isn’t that image beautiful – to imagine that every time I set foot outside my home I’m suddenly transformed by the world around me, like a black and white film suddenly brought to life by color.

I’ll be updating the Born into Color regularly while I am at SXSW. I’ll be presenting Taming the Monkey Mind: Yoga and Creative Focus and teaching yoga. If you’re going to be in Austin, let me know so we can meet up! Follow Born into Color by clicking here.

fear, free, health, meditation, yoga

Beginning: Meditate on Breath

Christa Avampato

“We all die on the exhale.” ~ Robert Chodo Campbell, HHC

On Sunday I wrote a post the opening meditation session of the Integrative Healthcare Symposium that was run by Robert Chodo Campbell and Koshin Paley Ellison, two Buddhist monks who co-founded and co run the New York Zen Center for Contemplative Care. I learned so much in their hour presentation and am looking forward to taking some classes at the center and learning from them. (Rest assured that I’ll be sharing all of that on this blog!)

Our closing breath practice was very simple, similar to the opening. Chodo asked us to close our eyes and breathe. On the inhale, he asked us to send love to every person around the world who was drawing their very first breathe of life at that very moment. On the exhale, he asked us to send compassion and love to every person letting go of their very last breath. “We all die on the exhale,” he said. And it wasn’t the least bit morbid; it was just a fact. It is one of the things that binds all of us together. The exhale is every life’s very last act.

This caused to wonder what it means then for us to master the exhale. If we gain that mastery, then can we also master the great transition that we’ll all make in our own time. When we learn to master the exhale, have we also learned how to release? And if we can truly release, can we finally free ourselves from any fear?

yoga

Beginning: Compass Yoga Forms a Partnership with the New York Public Library

Christa Avampato

I’ve been enjoying the Sunday night yoga classes that I teach through Compass Yoga, though have recently realized that I need to make some changes. I love the students; the space is a challenge. It doesn’t serve the students as well as it needs to. The dance classes happening in neighboring studios have been noisier than I expected, and they’re very strict on time. If we’re in there at 7:01 on Sunday nights, they knock on the door regardless of whether or not they have a reservation after us. Also, the lighting has been a bit of a problem – it’s either overheard fluorescents or complete darkness, no dimmers. This prompted me to start looking around (again!) for a space.

After weeks of searching, sending countless emails and scheduling visits to potential spaces, I found one that fits the bill. It’s right in my neighborhood, supports a nonprofit that I am devoted to, and has the potential to truly help me fulfill Compass Yoga’s mission!

1.) Regular weekly classes move to Wednesday nights at 6pm. Starting Wednesday, March 23rd, I’ll be teaching every Wednesday night at 6pm at the New York Public Library – Bloomingdale Branch on 100th Street between Amsterdam and Columbus. (We had to move from Sunday nights to Wednesday nights because budget cuts to the NYPL have caused branches to be closed on Sundays.) The library is providing the space for free so this class will be free to everyone who wants to attend. This helps me to further my goal of teaching under-served populations – now the ability to pay for a class is no longer an obstacle to attending a regular, high-quality class. I’m really excited to be supporting the NY Public Library and the community in this way. I hope you’ll come out and join us on Wednesday nights! We’ll be up on the 2nd floor.

Also, if you’re a certified yoga teacher and interested in teaching at the NYPL, please let me know. My goal is to grow this program into other branches of the NYPL with a variety of different class times and for students with specific needs. It’s all part of the Compass Yoga initiative Karmi’s Angels.

2.) The Monday night yoga class that I teach at Columbia Law School at 6:30pm is now open to the general public. Address is 435 W 116th Street, Jerome Greene Hall , Room MB-25. It’s half way down the block on the north side between Amsterdam and Morningside Drive. Just walk through the iron gate and we’ll be the first building ahead on the right-hand side. Suggested donation is $5. That one is a bit less regular because it depends upon the scheduling of the room, which is quite busy this semester. For the remainder of the Spring, I’ll be teaching the class tonight, March 7th, as well as Monday nights on March 28th and April 11th.

Cancellation of my Sunday night class
Because of these developments at NYPL and Columbia, I’m giving up my independent Sunday night class at Pearl Studios. It’s been fun to try out that experiment and in brought me some new students. Despite the challenges with Pearl, I don’t for a second regret the decision to try it out. Most of the students who come to my Sunday night class regularly live further uptown so the classes at Columbia and the NYPL are more convenient for them, too. It’s a win all-around!

Details for all classes can always be found at http://compassyoga.com and at the Compass Yoga Meetup Group – http://www.meetup.com/Weekly-Yoga-Classes/. Thanks for all of your support for Compass – see you on the mat!

calm, care, clarity, commitment, community, healthcare, meditation, silence, simplicity, yoga

Beginning: The Moment We Miss

Christa Avampato

“The moment we most often miss is this one.” ~ Robert Chodo Campbell, HHC

My heart is still singing from the Integrative Healthcare Symposium I attended on Friday. It felt so good, so nourishing to be in the company of so many people who think about health and wellness as a spiritual and a physical journey. I found confirmation in my beliefs that have largely been from my gut as medical doctors from the world-class medical facilities such as Beth Israel and top research universities presented their research and advocated for a more holistic approach to heathcare in the US.

We started Monday morning with a presentation by Robert Chodo Campbell and Koshin Pauley Ellison, two Buddhist Monks who co-founded and co-manage the New York Zen Center for Contemplative Care. We did some meditation exercises that have given me weeks worth of material for this blog and for ideas for my SXSW session that is coming up in Austin next week. They shared stories about their work as the co-directors of Contemplative Care at Beth Israel Medical Center, where I’m hoping to do some type of volunteer / intern work.

One of the lines that really hit me was Chodo’s quote above. We are constantly trying to get somewhere. This is not a new revelation. They actually joked about the idea that nothing they teach is revolutionary – it’s ancient wisdom. And still, as often as we hear it, we don’t always take the idea into our hearts. There is still so much opportunity to improve our awareness, to cultivate more gratitude.

They counseled us to take a breath, a full, conscious, beautiful breath several times throughout the day. When we finish a phone call, take a breath. When we complete a task we’ve been concentrating on, take a breath. And when our thoughts are racing by us, close the eyes and count 1. No complicated mantra needed. Just focus on counting to 1, over and over again until the racing mind, the monkey mind, calms down.

There’s a lot of beauty, a lot of blessing, right now in this moment. In every moment. Take it in; it’s yours.

I love the beauty and simplicity of the image above. It appears on the NY Zen Center’s website.

This blog is also available as a podcast on Cinch and iTunes.

calm, clarity, happiness, harmony, meditation, yoga

Beginning: The Zen in You

Christa Avampato

This image is available at http://tinyurl.com/4scqgge
“The only Zen you find on the tops of mountains is the Zen you bring up.” ~ Robert Persin via @Urban_Zen

During my yoga teacher training, my teacher Tracy would talk a lot about focus. One of my classmates asked her when we would know that we had tamed our “monkey minds”. She replied, “when you can meditate at a bus stop in Delhi.” We laughed. She didn’t; she was quite serious.

In that moment I started to think about different groups of people who could benefit from yoga if only they had access to affordable, conveniently located classes. It became clear to me that I truly wanted to provide yoga to underserved populations.

I came to yoga after a particularly difficult struggle with insomnia and anxiety. It took quite some time to crack the code because I didn’t really have a guide in the process. I had to figure it out on my own. Now that I’m healed, I want to be the guide to others that I wish I had when I started my practice.

I only have one thing to teach, and it’s simple though not easy. Robert Presin captures it beautifully in the quote above. You have everything you need. All the answers. All the abilities. All the knowledge. It lives in your gut. You know what you need to be well and whole. You don’t need to go somewhere else. You don’t need a new job or a new relationship or a new home. You don’t need anything except what sits within you now, at this very moment. Allow it to be.

We desperately seek happiness, peace, and harmony. We scurry around looking for it in every far-reaching corner. Just stop and sit. Close the eyes, draw the breath in, and then release it. You don’t need some fancy techniques or even the vocabulary to describe what’s happening. Just sit, breath, and be. Don’t perform. Don’t try to make an impression. Just watch and feel the breath.

This is the only practice that matters. Once you master it, once you can be fully present, the peace and happiness you want so much is readily and plentifully available whenever you want it, wherever we are. On top of mountains and at over-crowded bus stops. Your peace travels with you.

This blog is also available as a podcast on Cinch and iTunes.

animals, books, film, health, movie, science

Beginning: How Temple Grandin Walked Through the Door to Her Dreams and Why You Should See Her Movie

Christa Avampato

Temple Grandin with one of her cows. From Nature's Corner Magazine
“Temple is different, not less.” ~ Eustacia Cutler, Temple Grandin’s mother to Temple’s science teacher and mentor, Dr. Carlock

“The world is cruel, but we don’t have to be. We owe it to all animals to give them our respect.” ~ Temple Grandin

After having read several of Temple Grandin’s books about animal psychology and animal behavior, I knew what a remarkable person she was. When I saw the movie Temple Grandin recently, I was not prepared for the emotional tug that my heart would feel in learning more about her own personal story. Portrayed brilliantly by actress Claire Danes, Temple Grandin’s determination, passion, and conviction made her one of my heroes.

Autism is a very personal issue for me. My father, a clinical psychologist, studied it which led me to explore the possibility of building my career in development pediatrics while I was a student at Penn and a work-study student at CHOP. My nephew also lives with a specific type of autism that has prevented him from speaking to us since he was about 3 years old; he’ll be 13 in June. I have close friends whose lives have been touched in one form or another by the condition. I’ve known autism to be fascinating and heartbreaking. Temple Grandin’s story made me realize that it can also be triumphant and hopeful.

In this post, I could expound upon the spectrum of autism and how it commonly manifests in both young children and adults. However, Autism Speaks, an organization that has worked tirelessly to fund research and provide education and support services to individuals and families affected by autism, is far more equipped to do that.

What I want you to do is go over to Netflix and put the movie Temple Grandin at the very top of your queue. I want you to take yourself to Amazon or your local bookseller or the public library and check out Temple Grandin’s books. Poke around on her website and be prepared to be inspired.

Her personal passion is the well-being of animals, particularly ones that we raise for our own purposes. What she teaches us through that passion is how to be better human beings. And given all that’s going on in the world, it’s a skill that is desperately needed in huge heaping amounts. For too long we have looked at autism as this hideous disease rather than seeing that the many challenges it presents have so much to teach all of us about compassion, determination, and the universal acceptance of all people as different but not less.