Phoenix area video for THE WORLDWIDE DISTINGUISHED GENTLEMAN’S RIDE 2020

#dprdapperchallenge 2020 – Phoenix riders for men’s health

See our Phoenix area video under my IGTV tab and watch for clips of yoga for health and riders We’re asking all our friends to share this video and share widely by liking, and promoting it with this hashtag: #dprdapperchallenge Putting the fun in fundraising for a good cause, classic and vintage motorcyclists from around the world have ridden on the last Sunday in September since 2012 to raise funds and awareness for prostate cancer research and men’s mental health.”

In the US alone, DGR has raised 24.5 million dollars over the last 8 years. Men’s Health Issues addressed by the DGR are:

*MENTAL HEALTH*   *SUICIDE PREVENTION*

*PROSTATE CANCER*  *TESTICULAR CANCER*

One of DGR’s primary concerns this year, due to COVID-19, is the effect of social isolation on mental health. Studies show those who are socially connected in a positive way share a better outlook for well-being and mental health. Because of COVID-19, the worldwide 2020 DGR ride – on September 27 – will be different this year. Everyone will ride alone but share it virtually as a way of riding alone but together.

To promote this, the DGR challenged riders from around the world to submit a video highlighting the 2020 theme: “Riding Solo Together.” Randy Anagnostis and I put together a team of riders and produced this video as part of the DGR 2020 challenge contest. Our Phoenix area video is now submitted (thanks to Randy for his filming, editing, organizing, and original music score). Thanks also to the riders, to Kyle (Eyes Across the Sky) for the drone photography, to Chris and his partners at Eleven 10 Moto Garage, and to Paul and partners at Phoenix Triumph.

Please help us help others by Sharing this cause widely on any site you have and make sure to tag #dgrdapperchallenge. Finally, my fundraising page sponsored by the DGR is up at this link. Contributing a few dollars to help in the causes listed above is my invitation to you. My goal is a modest $500. Help me meet it and go beyond. Thank you. (at Phoenix, Arizona)

#dgrdapperchallenge

Getting to Know You–er, Me

Fine blog by Shelley Sackier.

Shelley Sackier

Today I’m offering up an interview I did with author/blogger/human extraordinaire, Jan Wissmar.  I had a marvelous time with Jan and I do hope you’ll check out her work. She’s just released her third book, Willful Avoidance and continues to impress me with being someone whose work on this earth is beyond inspirational.

I hope you enjoy.

~Shelley

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Meet Shelley Sackier, author, blogger, pilot, and whisky drinker

Today I’m delighted to welcome Shelley Sackier, creator of the always entertaining blog – Peak Perspective – and author of the upcoming teen novel DEAR OPL.

Shelley Sackier headshots 3 (1704x2272)JTT: Hey Shelley – thanks for being here!  First of all, how did you come up with the title Peak Perspective?

SS: The blog title and tagline (Peak Perspective: trying to climb out of the fog.) was born of both sight and wordplay. I live in the Blue Ridge Mountains. I’m surrounded by…

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24th Installment Yoga Inspirationals

24th Installment Yoga Inspirationals

 http://www.yogitimes.com/article/peace-just-pause-present-now-accepting-practice-yoga

Articles and links below with thanks to:

TheYogaBlog.com, elephant journal.com, DoYouYoga.com, and YogiTimes.com


June 26, 2015 elephant journal http://www.elephantjournal.com/2015/06/relinquishent-how-a-trip-to-india-can-redefine-our-lives

June 12, 2015 elephant journal http://www.elephantjournal.com/2015/06/why-bad-prayers-are-good-prayers/


June 5, 2015 elephant journalhttp://www.elephantjournal.com/2015/06/yoga-and-the-place-of-soul/


April 12, 2015 Yogi Times http://www.yogitimes.com/article/yoga-covenant-agreement-vow-commitment
March 11, 2015 elephant journal http://www.elephantjournal.com/2015/03/how-yoga-makes-us-kinder/

February 21, 2015 DoYouYoga.com http://www.doyouyoga.com/why-yoga-should-bring-us-to-social-action/

February 15, 2015 Yogi Times http://www.yogitimes.com/article/who-moved-the-yoga-mat-practice

January 6, 2014 DoYouYoga.com http://www.doyouyoga.com/4-reasons-teachers-should-use-touch-in-yoga/

December 27, 2014 elephant journal http://www.elephantjournal.com/2014/12/the-yoga-pose-that-healed-my-lower-back-injuries/

December 11, 2014 Yogi Times http://www.yogitimes.com/article/story-of-yoga-poem-parable/

November 24, 2014 The Yoga Blog http://www.theyogablog.com/favorite-quote-practice/

November 21, 2014 DoYouYoga.com http://www.doyouyoga.com/mantra-the-power-of-word/

October 22, 2014 The Yoga Blog http://www.theyogablog.com/doing-yoga-30-years-now/

October 16, 2014  elephant journal http://www.elephantjournal.com/2014/10/ego-injury-10-questions-for-yoginis/
October 2, 2014 The Yoga Blog http://www.theyogablog.com/find-silence-yoga-practice/

Sept. 21, 2014 DoYouYoga.com http://www.doyouyoga.com/how-yoga-moves-from-it-to-it/

Sept. 17, 2014  elephant journal http://www.elephantjournal.com/2014/09/mapping-yogas-breathcentric-diamond-body-gregory-ormson/

Aug. 15, 2014 The Yoga Blog http://www.theyogablog.com/take-inventory-yoga-yoga-like-aa/

Aug. 2, 2014 elephant journal http://www.elephantjournal.com/2014/08/the-savasana-cloud-gregory-ormson/

July1, 2014 elephant journal  http://www.elephantjournal.com/2014/07/the-importance-of-living-in-alignment-gregory-ormson/
April 5, 2014 The Yoga Blog http://www.theyogablog.com/reality-check-yoga-teachers/

March 12, 2014 The Yoga Blog http://www.theyogablog.com/yogas-hidden-benefit-unconscious-mind/

Feb. 3, 2014 The Yoga Blog http://www.theyogablog.com/365-days-yoga-completely-changed-life/

YOGA 22nd Installment YOGA INSPIRATIONALS “Why Bad Prayers are Good Prayers”

Why Bad Prayers are Good Prayers, in elephant journal June 12, 2015

Links below to articles #1 – 21

With thanks to: TheYogaBlog.com, elephant journal.com, DoYouYoga.com, and YogiTimes.com


June 12, 2015 elephant journal http://www.elephantjournal.com/2015/06/why-bad-prayers-are-good-prayers/


June 5, 2015 elephant journal http://www.elephantjournal.com/2015/06/yoga-and-the-place-of-soul

2015 Yogi Timeshttp://www.yogitimes.com/article/yoga-covenant-agreement-vow-commitment

Marach 2015 elephant journalhttp://www.elephantjournal.com/2015/03/how-yoga-makes-us-kinder/


February 21, 2015 DoYouYoga.comhttp://www.doyouyoga.com/why-yoga-should-bring-us-to-social-action/


February 15, 2015 Yogi Timeshttp://www.yogitimes.com/article/who-moved-the-yoga-mat-practice


January 6, 2014 DoYouYoga.comhttp://www.doyouyoga.com/4-reasons-teachers-should-use-touch-in-yoga/
December 27, 2014 elephant journalhttp://www.elephantjournal.com/2014/12/the-yoga-pose-that-healed-my-lower-back-injuries/

December 11, 2014 Yogi Times http://www.yogitimes.com/article/story-of-yoga-poem-parable/


November 24, 2014 The Yoga Blog http://www.theyogablog.com/favorite-quote-practice/


November 21, 2014 DoYouYoga.com http://www.doyouyoga.com/mantra-the-power-of-word/October 22, 2014

The Yoga Blog http://www.theyogablog.com/doing-yoga-30-years-now/

October 16, 2014  elephant journal http://www.elephantjournal.com/2014/10/ego-injury-10-questions-for-yoginis/

October 2, 2014 The Yoga Blog http://www.theyogablog.com/find-silence-yoga-practice/

Sept. 21, 2014 DoYouYoga.com http://www.doyouyoga.com/how-yoga-moves-from-it-to-it/

Sept. 17, 2014  elephant journal http://www.elephantjournal.com/2014/09/mapping-yogas-breathcentric-diamond-body-gregory-ormson/

Aug. 15, 2014 The Yoga Blog http://www.theyogablog.com/take-inventory-yoga-yoga-like-aa/

Aug. 2, 2014 elephant journal http://www.elephantjournal.com/2014/08/the-savasana-cloud-gregory-ormson/

July1, 2014 elephant journal http://www.elephantjournal.com/2014/07/the-importance-of-living-in-alignment-gregory-ormson/

April 5, 2014 The Yoga Blog http://www.theyogablog.com/reality-check-yoga-teachers/

March 12, 2014 The Yoga Blog http://www.theyogablog.com/yogas-hidden-benefit-unconscious-mind/

Feb. 3, 2014 The Yoga Blog http://www.theyogablog.com/365-days-yoga-completely-changed-life/

Yoga and the Place of Soul. Yoga Inspirationals #21

Published June 5, elephant journal. Link below.

http://www.elephantjournal.com/2015/06/yoga-and-the-place-of-soul/

Yoga and the Place of Soul.
Via Gregory Ormson Jun 5, 2015

On a recent trip out of state, I attended yoga class seven days in a row with no duplicate sessions. Some featured music, some included chanting near the end and some used scented oil.

I was surprised that being in an unfamiliar place and experiencing new forms of practice created an opening within me that I hadn’t previously experienced. In one situation, during a slow-moving class, I was connecting in a new way. Afterward, I realized that is what yoga was made for: to tune into a deeper and more authentic self.

I think I briefly touched what I can only describe as my soul. The music, scented oils, meditations, slow movements, breath work, chanting and bell-ringing were new vehicles that helped me find previously untraveled roads. In those few moments, a fresh mantra came to me, which I now use in meditation. It’s a spiritual mantra, helping me focus on being a better person and presence in the world, both to myself and others.

B.K.S. Iyengar also wrote about how yoga goes beyond mere physical practice: “My own body was the laboratory in which I saw the health benefits of yoga, but I could already see that yoga would have as many benefits for my head and heart as it did for my body.”

I’ve had more than my share of spiritual experiences, including spiritually focused sweat lodges, Andean mountainside pyramid building and centering rituals, Indian prayers and meditations at the Gandhi Center in New Delhi, Gestalt doctoral-level group practicums centering on spirituality and psychodrama, spiritual retreats, peace center events, drum circles, church choral gatherings, 14 years working as clergy developing and leading a variety of rituals, and even an encounter with a shapeshifter in India.

I’m not fooled by shallowness or convinced by zealots of the source for moving spiritual moments. I’m in it for the long haul, and I’m convinced yoga is a spiritual practice.

Carl Jung once wrote that unless a person has a deep spiritual community to which they belong and one that allows for presence of the holy, a person will fall victim to the lower denominators of outrageous base instincts or even evil.

That leads me to ask how a yoga community incorporates the presence of the holy. The answer can be confusing, because during yoga inspiration, one experiences the paradoxical reality of being with other people while at the same time being most completely with one’s own soul. But in cases, the tools are present for individuals to experience private moments of honesty.

I think yoga classes are one of those powerful spiritual communities Jung wrote about. Unlike in many communities, they create space and lay down a platform for the most honest human encounter with oneself while in the company of others. In my experience of yoga, attending a variety of classes, I’ve found complete respect for the individual and the integrity of their journey. This kind of positive regard creates conditions for change, transformation and even the most profound self-revelation.

It’s not a perfect community, but it doesn’t have to be, for even in its imperfection, it opens up a place of the soul, where honesty and healing take place.

Author: Gregory Ormson

Editor: Evan Yerburgh

No Stinkin’ Electric Starters Here

My arm was sore, but over and over I pulled the rope. The Evinrude sputtered and  coughed. After a few minutes, it kicked into idle and spewed out blue clouds of exhaust near the water. The old boat motor had an ornery sound, like the voice of someone when their car doesn’t start in winter.

Finally, I rested and caught my breath while the engine warmed. I carefully cut back the motor’s choke, hoping it wouldn’t stall. After a minute, I reached down and pulled forward and into gear a small lever sticking out from the upper left portion of the propeller stem. I motored around the the 3.2 miles of shoreline on Big Casey Lake turning the rubber handle clockwise with my left hand on the steering lever, then cut the engine near the lily pads on the south shore not far from the Bald Eagles nesting in a tall jack pine.

I’m starting an old motor and riding around the lake in a metal boat in order to engage with the concrete and physical, to balance my life of academic work: teaching, grading, writing and going to meetings. That’s why a manual-start motor is the perfect remedy. It starts not with a button, but only by work of arm and hand, shoulder and elbow, and it reminds me of a time when life had more physical work and less mental clutter.

I go to the Old Style Place for exactly that… less clutter.  In the cabin’s main room, there are three chairs, one kitchen table, one small metal stand for a toaster, one wooden seating bench, a few magazines and a radio — radio with a cassette player —  and a small box near the wood stove filled with kindling.

Appliances include a small Dixie stove, a Gibson refrigerator and a sink with no running water. The Dixie and Gibson appliances truly are Old Style, circa 1950. There are two small bedrooms and one deck. On the deck are one sofa, one small wooden table and two chairs. These elements scream of self-sufficiency and I hear the remnants of hard work that carved out a middle class existence in parental talk, “Why should we buy a new chair or table if the old one works just fine.”

dixie stovegibson refrig 1950

Their answer in a question was born of a classical conservatism that truly was fiscally conservative in deed not just talk. It didn’t matter if the furniture was as hard as the rocks on the beach, it didn’t matter if the beds were uncomfortable, it didn’t matter that a bath meant a dip in the cold lake. For a shower, forget it. The main thing is that it was not costing anybody anything and that made these elements precious.

“We’re lucky to have the cabin,” they said, and when I was younger I guessed it was true. But now sleep calls me. I know the beds are worn out; either too soft or too hard, and I think Goldilocks would have rejected all of them.

Before turning out the lights, I glance at a small, funny, poorly cushioned green parlor chair in the cabin’s boxy main room. The chair, parked in a corner under the Old Style light, had a special nickname among my brothers and I.tick chair

We called it “the tick chair,” because nearly every time someone sat there they immediately felt a wood tick crawling on their leg, arm or neck. We always watched that chair, and if a visiting city-girl sat in it, we’d eagerly await her screams.

Midwest BLOOD TRACKS

I’ve been traveling for two days and I’m tired of being treated like a number. I’m finally at my destination, a cabin in northern Wisconsin. I’ve come a long way to be here, and I know my journey from Hawaii was worth it.

Opening the door, I grope to find a light switch. In a few moments, I’m listening to the crackle of a wood fire in the stove. A sustained loon wail rises from the lake. Mystical and high-pitched, it’s a sound that could be interpreted as pain.

The loon speaks in four calls: wail, yodel, tremolo and hoot. Tonight they wail. But the loon’s elegy is music to me. They’ve recently flown back from the Gulf of Mexico, a nearly 3,000 mile journey. Their call in the dark is half mariachi. It’s an eerie sound over water, something like mourning and something like a high note from a Mexican trumpet.

The Ojibwa of this area once spoke of the loon as mang, which meant, “the most handsome of birds.” It’s also the most ancient of birds, existing long before humans. North American field guides list the loon first.

The wail keeps echoing over Big Casey Lake and it’s loud, much louder than summer calls when leafy trees mute the decibels and their haunting. The loon sound abates; I step outside to see new snow. I haven’t formed a snowball in years, so I make one about the size of a baseball and fire it at a tree.

I miss wide right, and it surprises me. My right arm has grown stubborn, like everything here. I take a short walk in the woods, looking down to see my boot sole making tracks. Snow keeps falling and the woods are silent. I look down again, certain I’ll see blood tracks.