Yoga, the outwardly active, inner-directed frugal choice

For the frugal poet or any person in pursuit of a simple, yet elegant, intelligent and active lifestyle, yoga is one of the frugal choices. Yoga can be performed virtually anywhere, at most anytime, indoors or out, with little to no equipment. It’s also easier on your joints and other body parts than running, for example. Yoga is therapeutic not only to the body, but also, ultimately, to the mind and emotions.

I consider yoga the “superfood” of physical practices. My definition of a “superfood” in the edible world is a food that offers the most nutrition for the least amount of calories.  I consider yoga a “superfood” or “super-practice” because even small amounts can bear much reward for so many of our human aspects. Yoga can for many become a lifelong learning experience.

It certainly has for me. As a poet with a background in dance, yoga attracted me about 15 years ago. It attracted me not only for its nature of being physically outer-directed and ballet-like in its attention to alignment and form, but also because yoga is inner-directed with its focus on breathing and meditation. And being a poet who’s already inner-directed, I felt practicing yoga bears a “sympatico” similarity to the process of writing poetry, as each assists in the unfolding of inner authenticity and self-knowing, if you let them.

As time went on and the more hours I spent at my desk writing, the more I felt the need to balance my life with yoga, walking and hiking, and occasional drop-ins to Zumba and weight-training classes. Today, “sitting is the new smoking.” Our contemporary lives spent sitting behind a computer or at our tablet/cellphone is now considered even more dangerous to our health than smoking. I didn’t want to envision a future life ensnared by doctors’ bills, pharmaceutical medications or my time shortened by being sedentary. As the years progressed and I found myself in career transition, I actually took the plunge and spent 10 months training to be a yoga instructor.

Since my graduation and certification last year, I now about spend a third of my time writing in my home office, a third of my time teaching yoga at various Chicago-area studios, and a third of my time (not counting sleeping, which is important to me!) living my life involved in other activities and among family and friends. I know I am quite fortunate and even blessed to be at a time in my life to able to experience this great balance. And yoga itself offers even more inner balance, as does my spiritual faith. I look forward to uncovering more secrets about yoga as my practice deepens. I yearn to connect more dots between human anatomy and how yoga can enhance every part of the body. The more I learn, the more I understand how much I don’t yet know and have yet to explore.

Teaching yoga and getting paid for it is a great way for me to keep in shape, contribute to my cash flow and avoid the cost of a pricey yoga studio membership at the same time. Also, I am invited to use some of the larger facilities’ weight rooms at no extra charge, and can take additional classes either for free or based on my hours of participation as a teacher or substitute teacher.

There is a quote on the wall of one of the local yoga studios: “When one teaches, two learn.” ~ Robert A. Heinlein. It’s so true. When I teach yoga, my students each teach me something, whether it’s about another way of getting into a pose, a question about yoga I may have never questioned before, a new way of using a yoga prop, or simply teaching me more patience and compassion.

We all don’t want to become yoga instructors, or need to. So how can anyone simply interested in yoga or looking for a new place to practice do so frugally? Most yoga studios offer a drop-in rate to try out their facility for one class so you don’t have to be caught up in a membership you may not want. Groupons are often available for one-month or two-month memberships on a seasonal basis, as they are at McFetridge Sports Center, where I regularly teach. Many studios promote other deals such as bring-a-friend-for-free, one free week, three-class packages and the like. And if you don’t own a mat or any props, most studios provide them.

As much as I appreciate yoga, I don’t believe it should stand alone as your solitary physical practice. A good walk (which can also be mindful as well as inspirational for your writing!) and some regular, and not necessarily strenuous, weight training can round out what your body needs to maintain strength, flexibility and endurance. 

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Yoga, the outwardly active, inner-directed frugal choice

Omnivore Odes: Poems About Food, Herbs and Spices

Cynthia Gallaher’s chapbook Omnivore Odes: Poems About Food, Herbs and Spices brings together poetry, foodie fantasy and herbal healing into one collection.

After some glorious hours of kitchen testing at the Culinary Suite of the Writers Colony at Dairy Hollow in Eureka Springs, Arkansas, a workshop at the Culinary Institute of New England in Vermont, and time spent cultivating organic fruits and vegetables at Lisa Fishman’s Poetry Farm in Wisconsin, I wrote Omnivore Odes to celebrate superfoods and wonder herbs in our era of otherwise fast food and depleted nutrients.

The poems span foods from carrots to tempeh, herbs from black cohosh to turmeric, and spices from cayenne to cinnamon.

Cinnamon: The First Shall Be Last, and Last First

Cinnamon radiates like sun-warmed brick
in Sri Lankan woods,
where bark curls into little scrolls
where the world writes childhood memories.

Its beguiling fragrance
beckons grown-up customers into shops,
quickly sells market-listed houses
as heated ovens exude its allure.

Cinnamon, once the spice
that launched a thousand ships,
its coppery payload, darling hostage
of world trade and exploration.

To those from India, cinnamon
tastes like curry,
to Cincinnatians, chili,
to Mexicans, café canela,

But to most western tongues
its dozens of dessert appearances
seem to form their own
12 days of cinnamon Christmas.

Between sweet homemade apple pie,
crock-pot mulled cider and
oversized rolls sold in airports,
it’s the all things nice part about

This spice,
an insulin stand-in
to lower
blood sugar levels.

Did we not notice until now
its covert worth behind kitchen cabinets,
when it dropped its rolled-up-in-a-rug disguise,
to reveal its power to metabolize.

~ Cynthia Gallaher

Omnivore Odes: Poems About Food, Herbs and Spicescan be ordered through Finishing Line Press. It also makes a unique gift for your poetry-loving, foodie or natural healer friends.

Order Omnivore Odes

Here are a few comments on Omnivore Odes from authors I admire:

“What fun! In Omnivore Odes, Cynthia Gallaher uses wit and deft language to sing the music of the kitchen larder. Gallaher’s whimsy wanders from Popeye landlocked in the Texas spinach capital of the world to peanuts, ‘like the elephant, what many of us work for.’ In her gifted hands, the foods and spices of everyday life undergo transformation into fairy tales and new mythologies.”
~ Linda Rodriguez, author of Every Last Secret (St. Martin’s Press), Heart’s Migration (Tia Chucha Press) and The “I Don’t Know How to Cook” Book – Mexican (Adams Media)

“Cynthia Gallaher weaves threads of science with seeds of the sacred. The result – a walk along a path that informs with delight. Certainly the best herbal poetry since Shakespeare.”
~Steven Foster, senior author of National Geographic’s A Desk Reference of Nature’s Medicine and Peterson’s A Field Guide to Medicinal Plants and Herbs

“Omnivore Odes by Cynthia Gallaher is now one of my favorite books of poetry -- giving voice to food, herbs and spices. The poems are so well-crafted she succeeds in making them simple, and in that simplicity lies richness. She paints with words -- and the paintings she leaves are vivid and bright. Especially inspired by the line in the poem ‘Black Cohosh Cool’ – ‘That a certain age can’t be played in a minor note.’ Her poems make me hungry for such wisdom.”
~ David Hernandez, the “unofficial” poet laureate of Chicago and founder of “Street Sounds” poetry musical performance ensemble

Cynthia Gallaher, a Chicago-based poet and writer, is author of three full poetry collections and a writing workshop leader. She is on the Chicago Public Library’s list of “Top Ten Requested Chicago Poets” and named one of “100 Women Making a Difference” by Today’s Chicago Woman Magazine. She tweets about food and poetry at http://twitter.com/swimmerpoet. ◦

Omnivore Odes: Poems About Food, Herbs and Spices