Giovanna, Kerri and I chose to rent a house in Berkeley for 3 nights. The location was just beyond downtown, in North Berkeley on Sierra St, right off Sonoma, for those of you that know the area. Unbelievable! Gorgeous. So many flowers in bloom. Every breath of air was filled with the scent of roses. Scrumptious.
Berkeley itself was a lovely city. Everywhere you turn, you stumble upon an organic, vegetarian, vegan or local restaurant. Most of the shops were locally owned. I went to YogaKula for a night of Anusara Yoga and it completely relaxed me. I had an exceptionally heavy load of work this week and was fortunate to be in a beautiful place to do it. So lucky.
On to Mountain View, which is only 30 minutes south of Alameda. We left the owners of the house some Kashi bags and picked up the trucks in Oakland. I stopped at a beautiful whole foods in Mountain View and crawled into my hotel. I was just so packed with things happening, I needed a break. So, I uploaded Randal Williams mp3 on meditation, my master teacher from Kripalu, and relaxed for a bit. I find my mind has just been racing - waking up in the morning to the thoughts of who I need to e-mail or call next, or check on this event and the next. I forgot how important it is to relax, take sometime for myself, and that my performance on the job will be that much better. It's so easy to get run down with work that's always on the go. Remember Yoga, remember peace and meditation. And breath. I'm a Libra, and I need that balance in my life. I also tend to lean toward over-doing, over-working, and I need to remind myself that. I still had a great time in Berkeley, but could have done more for myself.
Once we all got to Mountain View and the temperature began to climb, Kerri and I hid out in at Avalon Yoga Studio, where we spent an hour and a half in an awesome Vinyasa Yoga class. The teacher, Annika, gave us a soothing workout, if you can imagine. She chanted for us and brought us through a vigorous vinyasa flow. We did poses I’d never tried before and poses I’ve been working on for years – like the scorpion http://yoga.about.com/od/yogaposes/a/scorpion.htm, hand stand and astavakrasana http://www.yogajournal.com/practice/171 (wowsers!). This class really worked all of my muscles and opened my hips more than ever. When I got back to my hotel room, I literally could feel the fluids in my body providing my muscles the food they needed to continue on with the day. So great. I always seem to stumble upon these awesome Yoga teachers. There are so many in the US. We Americans are so lucky, certainly don’t have to go anywhere but here to get great Yoga. It’s all right here. If you need to know a studio to go to or have any recos for me for my next up coming events, let me know.
The event in Mountain View was excellent. Although it was 100 degrees both days, we kept our cool, and had many an excellent conversation over the weekend. People in Mountain View are wide open to health foods and love Kashi. It was such a thrill to be around happy people that enjoy travel and food, my two favorites. And, of course, it makes my job a lot easier when the consumers realize what an awesome promotion we are a part of. It’s always nice to get a little reminder of what a great tour this is, and how well it affects people.
Having done this tour for 2 years, I’ve definitely noticed a change so far. Many of our daily visitors know what Kashi is now, and want to find more readily available in big shopping centers, like at Wal-Mart and Target. But I’ve also noticed more people willing and able to go to Whole Foods, which is just about everywhere these days. It’s nice to be known and appreciated, as a healthy food choice. It’s no longer these hard-core health enthusiasts who recognize Kashi; it’s becoming the every day Tom, Dick and Jane. Although, sometimes the Jane's are still new to the concept of health, Kashi is making it easier for those folks to take that little step from Captain Crunch to Honey Sunshine, aka. white sugar and processed white flour to 7 whole grains and organic corn with a natural sweetener – honey. I’ve been a hard core health enthusiast for years, and I still eat and enjoy Kashi every day. There are so many varieties nowadays, pleasing everyone’s pallet – sweet chocolate to plain simple grains.
Anyway, enough advertising my company (though I can never praise it enough), and on to Boulder. Can’t wait!
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