It’s been a blast speaking and signing books in Santa Barbara. My former neighbors Louise Moore and Maria Gaspar got their friends together and I signed books on Sunday. This will be my last signing in Santa Barbara until the Tecolote Book Shop event on March 6, from 3-5 p.m. Hope to see you there!
Thank you again, Louise and Maria. You’re the best. Love and Om Shanti, Nancy
Thank you Meg and Derek Thiele for hosting a wine & sign at the D’Alfonso-Curran Winery in Solvang. It was a sophisticated and very well read and very, very well traveled crowd whose stories made my travels pale in comparison.
After my talk and signing, Derek and Meg took me to dinner to the gorgeous Root 246. We had a good time. Thank you so much everyone for your support and for caring about sex slaves and reading my novel!
When I was a kid we all knew Ventura from the Beach Boys. It was surfing, and woodies. Ventura is still a cool city, laid back, historic, and charmingly sophisticated. CiCie and Dan Frederickson who have built the first new office building in downtown Ventura in over fifty years, interrupted construction to hold a big bash for Karma and me, attended by well over 200 people.
CiCie turned the entire fourth floor into an elegant, cozy living room with sofas, coffee tables, overstuffed chairs, lamps, a wine bar, music, and lots of food. Once again the crowd was receptive and open to hearing about the plight of sex slaves across the world.
Thank you CiCie and Dan for the weeks of hard work and effort putting this event together and for helping me realize my big dream.
Om Shanti, Love, Nancy
Scroll down for more pics!
In European airports, above security is a flat screen monitor with a computer animated short running repetitively to help travelers understand what is required of them so that security can proceed as efficiently as possible. In the short, a computer animated mini‑skirted, pencil-thin woman takes off her calve-hugging boots and fashionable jacket and puts them into a bin for screening while the athletic man next in line pulls out his laptop from his briefcase to put into a bin.
In the Boston Logan International Airport, where I travel through frequently, the short that plays on the monitor above security is live action. Here the actor who is demonstrating how to take your laptop out of your bag to put in a bin for individual screening is wearing a rumpled short sleeved shirt that is coming untucked from his huge slouchy gut.
Is that a realistic representation of Americans?
Increasingly overweight adults and children are being cast in roles for advertisements, TV shows and movies as Americans become more accepting and identified with being fat. And so apparently the authorities who design airport security felt that travelers would best relate to a fat, unkempt guy when they cast the role.
Foreigners are not likely to be surprised by the actor in the security short as Americans are generally thought of as rich and fat by the rest of the world. But what does it mean to be rich? That you can afford to buy anything you want?
When it comes to food there seems to be no line of demarcation between rich and poor. In Santa Barbara, which was my home for 18 years, it’s common to see illegal aliens who have come there to work as field laborers, gardeners, construction workers and housekeepers. These poor people can only afford to eat cheap factory products. Santa Barbara is also home to some of the wealthiest people in our country, multi millionaires with private jet aircraft and numerous homes, who can afford to drop several hundred dollars in a restaurant. But they also eat the same factory junk as the beleaguered laborers: pizza, diet drinks, chips, fast food and so on.
So really the choice to eat real food, which is organically produced meat, fish, poultry, dairy, vegetables, fruits, grains, legumes, seeds and nuts that could (in theory) be picked, gathered, milked, hunted or fished, is not entirely about money. And if people who can afford real food do not make the hard effort to shun factory food they will suffer exactly the same health consequences as poor people who do not have a choice.
In fact in the next twenty-five years, the span of an average generation, we are going to see a division of the classes that has less to do with money but more to do with the food choices people make. Because we are what we eat. What you see today in the mirror is an amalgamation of trillions of cells that are made up of what you have been putting in your mouth.
And so the overweight man in the security video could be a multimillionaire just as easy as he could be a blue-collar worker.
Some argue that factory food is cheap and assessable and that real food costs money and is hard to track down. Such is true, but all I can say is, “So what?”
Even if you are not rich, you can still avoid packages, bottles, jars and cans. You can put some effort into finding more affordable sources of organically grown produce and humanely raised animal products like fish, meat, poultry, eggs and dairy.
The division of the classes is occurring rapidly in the U.S. with rising rates of obesity and the degenerative diseases of aging afflicting both rich and poor. The division of the classes is not about money but about choice. Which character do you want to relate to when you go through the security line, the healthy fit traveler or the slouchy fat guy?
MY YOGA TEACHERS – SCOTT BLOSSOM
This will be the first in a series on my yoga teachers, significant masters of yoga who formed my practice and my attitudes about yoga.
My very first yoga teacher in April 1997 was Scott Blossom. At that time, Scott had only been practicing for seven years but since he was only 27 and happened to have a graceful, lithe, strong body, he was already a master. Doing party tricks, if you know what I mean.
I was 47 and had decided three years earlier, at age 44 to give up jogging—which I’d done almost daily for 20 years. Six miles a day. My knees were just about wrecked and I’d made the conscious decision to stop before things got worse, as I couldn’t bear the thought of giving up my athletic lifestyle. A drastic measure—like forsaking a sport I was passionate about—was necessary. I grappled around for three years to find something else that could take the place of running.
As it turned out yoga could not only take the place of running but ended up being my passion to the point where I regretted not finding it much earlier. Like running, yoga is slightly injurious. When the body suffers injury, endorphins are released, which accounts for the famous “runner high.” Yoga does the same thing. And you’re flying when you’re done with a practice—even if you’re a beginner.
At least I found this to be true from the very first class even though I was really inflexible and had absolutely no idea what I was doing. Scott guided me through the first painful six months. My muscles, ligaments, and tendons were tight. I could barely touch my toes—actually I don’t think I could touch my toes. The idea of doing a foreword fold seemed like an impossible dream.
Scott basically started me out with Hatha Yoga, which is the basic foundation of yoga. Hatha is from Sanskrit. Ha meaning “sun” and Tha, meaning “moon.” Hatha is a yoga variation that was introduced in the 15th century in India by Yogi Swatmarama.
Yoga, a Sanskrit word from “yuj” meaning “to control,” “to yoke,” or to “unite” is a combination of physical and meditative disciplines. Those who practice yoga are called yogi’s or yogini’s (but most American women go by yogi). Yoga was introduced as a way to purify (prepare) the body for the higher state of consciousness in meditation (which is one reason I became interested in Buddhist meditation, but that is another blog).
Scott lives in Berkeley now and I live in Boston, so we don’t practice together very often. He invited me to spend a day this spring at Kripalu when he’s there teaching and it will be fantastic to practice with him. I will always consider Scott one of my teacher and feel grateful to him for guiding me through the early stages of my practice.
Om Shanti.