The San Francisco Examiner wrote a great piece about my weekly donation based yoga class on the Labyrinth inside Grace Cathedral.   Check it out here!

Visit the new Yoga on the Labyrinth Website for more details.

Rachael Evens is the founder of Quantum Martial Arts. Being a female martial arts master, she brings a unique perspective to the practice. In this podcast she discusses her groundbreaking work and how it is empowering men and woman alike. By taking a decidedly spiritual approach to martial arts, she is helping students to strengthen their bodies, minds and souls.

Listen Online • Sync with iPod

I became a vegetarian back in high school.  At the time, the first Bush was still President, Casey Kasem was still on the radio, MTV actually played music videos and finding a vegetarian friendly restaurant was about as easy as talking to my parents without yelling.

Times have changed, however.  My parents and I get along great, Young people now have YouTube to waste their time and Casey Kasem retired with the cassette tape.  More important than any of that, many resturants have started to cater to vegetarians.

Many restaurants have started offering dishes other than pasta and iceberg lettuce calling itself a salad. Some have even dedicated there entire menus to vegetarian or vegan dishes!    Still, finding places to go is not always easy. . . especially when I’m on the road.  So the new iPhone App called VegOut is like mana from heaven.

The app uses GPS to show you all the vegetarian, vegan and veg-friendly restaurants in your area along with reviews, maps and contact information.  Within minutes I found a few great places in San Francisco that I didn’t even know existed.

Whether you are a vegetarian, vegan or just trying to reduce the amount of meat in your diet, I suggest you download this app.  It is well worth the $2.99  price  which is so much less expensive than coronary bypass surgery.  It won’t bring back the old MTV, but it just might prevent another Bush administration.

Download From iTunes

On Tuesday night renown musician Sam Jackson played the singing bowls for my yoga class on the Grace Cathedral Labyrinth. The turnout for the event was enormous  and feedback from the yogis who got to practice in such a majestic space with such hauntingly beautiful music was very hart-warming for both Sam and me.

Sam has agreed to play on a regular basis and is currently slated for the first Tuesday of every month.

Photographer Jasper Trout was on hand and posted a number of beautiful photos of the event which you can view HERE. You can contact Jasper about his photography and graphic design HERE.

I don’t agree with Michael Moore on everything, but he does make some good points about our so-called Christian country.

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I’d like to have a word with those of you who call yourselves Christians (Muslims, Jews, Buddhists, Bill Maherists, etc. can read along, too, as much of what I have to say, I’m sure, can be applied to your own spiritual/ethical values).

In my new film I speak for the first time in one of my movies about my own spiritual beliefs. I have always believed that one’s religious leanings are deeply personal and should be kept private. After all, we’ve heard enough yammerin’ in the past three decades about how one should “behave,” and I have to say I’m pretty burned out on pieties and platitudes considering we are a violent nation who invades other countries and punishes our own for having the audacity to fall on hard times.

I’m also against any proselytizing; I certainly don’t want you to join anything I belong to. Also, as a Catholic, I have much to say about the Church as an institution, but I’ll leave that for another day (or movie).

Amidst all the Wall Street bad guys and corrupt members of Congress exposed in “Capitalism: A Love Story,” I pose a simple question in the movie: “Is capitalism a sin?” I go on to ask, “Would Jesus be a capitalist?” Would he belong to a hedge fund? Would he sell short? Would he approve of a system that has allowed the richest 1% to have more financial wealth than the 95% under them combined?

I have come to believe that there is no getting around the fact that capitalism is opposite everything that Jesus (and Moses and Mohammed and Buddha) taught. All the great religions are clear about one thing: It is evil to take the majority of the pie and leave what’s left for everyone to fight over. Jesus said that the rich man would have a very hard time getting into heaven. He told us that we had to be our brother’s and sister’s keepers and that the riches that did exist were to be divided fairly. He said that if you failed to house the homeless and feed the hungry, you’d have a hard time finding the pin code to the pearly gates.

I guess that’s bad news for us Americans. Here’s how we define “Blessed Are the Poor”: We now have the highest unemployment rate since 1983. There’s a foreclosure filing once every 7.5 seconds. 14,000 people every day lose their health insurance.

At the same time, Wall Street bankers (“Blessed Are the Wealthy”?) are amassing more and more loot – and they do their best to pay little or no income tax (last year Goldman Sachs’ tax rate was a mere 1%!). Would Jesus approve of this? If not, why do we let such an evil system continue? It doesn’t seem you can call yourself a Capitalist AND a Christian — because you cannot love your money AND love your neighbor when you are denying your neighbor the ability to see a doctor just so you can have a better bottom line.  That’s called “immoral” — and you are committing a sin when you benefit at the expense of others.

When you are in church this morning, please think about this. I am asking you to allow your “better angels” to come forward. And if you are among the millions of Americans who are struggling to make it from week to week, please know that I promise to do what I can to stop this evil — and I hope you’ll join me in not giving up until everyone has a seat at the table.

Thanks for listening. I’m off to Mass in a few hours. I’ll be sure to ask the priest if he thinks J.C. deals in derivatives or credit default swaps. I mean, after all, he must’ve been good at math. How else did he divide up two loaves of bread and five pieces of fish equally amongst 5,000 people? Either he was the first socialist or his disciples were really bad at packing lunch. Or both.

by Michael Moore

Please come join renown musician Sam Jackson and yoga teacher Darren Main for a night of signing bowls and gentle yoga on the Labyrinth of Grace Cathedral.

Take a listen to a sample of Sam’s Music here

When:  October 6, 2009 at 6:15 PM

Where: Grace Cathedral
1100 California Street
San Francisco CA

Cost: Donations

Please bring a yoga mat, yoga attire and an open heart and mind.

Visit Darren’s Yoga on the Labyrinth Page
Join the Yoga on the Labyrinth Facebook Group

You may remember the huge Ted Haggard scandal.  He was one of the leading Evangelical preachers who railed against homosexuality only to be outed by a male escort.  He later admitted to both having gay sex and buying Crystal Meth.

Well, Ted is back and has given a fascinating interview.  After being run out of  Colorado by the mega church he started, he went on to sell insurance in Arizona.  Although he won’t call himself gay or bisexual, he doesn’t try to hide his sexual impulses.  And although he acknowledges those impulses, he still believes they are sinful and plans to stay with his wife. He has now moved back to Colorado and is starting a new ministry.

What was most interesting to me about the interview was that I felt compassion for him.  He appears to a a tortured soul who could have used spiritual community at the peak of his scandal but instead he was run out of his church and his state by the New Life Church.

Life for Haggard has not been easy for the past few years and while most of that suffering was of his own making and rooted in his own hypocrisy, one would think that when you are a member of a religion that is based on forgiveness and not ‘casting the first stone’, people would be there to help you when you fall.

Perhaps Haggard’s greatest lesson for his former church is the one he is teaching them right now.  If they want to know what kind of Christians they are, all they need to do is look at  how they treated him when he needed them most. . .

READ THE INTERVIEW BETWEEN HAGGARD AND BILL FORMAN

Over the next few days I will be teaching a series of workshops in Chicago.  If you are in the area, I would love to see you there.  Here is my schedule.

Yoga for Flexibility
CorePower Yoga • Friday Oct 2nd 7:30-9:30pm

All of us have areas of our bodies that resist various yoga poses. Perhaps you have tight hamstrings or the upper back is locked. Maybe your shoulders or hips won’t seem to move. In this workshop we will learn techniques for deep stretching in ways that are both safe and effective in dramatically increasing flexibility.



Kundalini Rising: Yoga and the Energy Anatomy

CorePower Yoga •Oct 3rd 9:30-11:30am

Yoga poses (asana) and breathing techniques (pranayama) are the core of a hatha yoga practice. They help keep the physical body strong and healthy, but they do much more. The effect these practices have on the physical body pales in comparison to the effect they have on the energy body. In the East, the energy or subtle body is given even more importance than the physical body in the quest for healing and wholeness. It is for this reason that understanding the ‘anatomy’ of the subtle body is very helpful in cultivating a rich and rewarding yoga practice. In this workshop, topics such as the ida, pingala, sushumna, prana and kundalini are covered, as well as an overview of the seven chakras and their importance in finding balance and wholeness. In addition, participants are guided through an energy (prana) balancing that involves vigorous and flowing poses and breathing.

Pranic Breathing: Advanced Breathwork for the Modern Yogi
CorePower Yoga •Sunday Oct 4th 9:30-11:30am 
Most forms of hatha yoga emphasize the third limb of yoga, Asana (yoga poses) and only the most basic yogic breathing techniques are employed. Paranayama, the fourth limb of yoga, is the practice of regulating the breath in order to affect deep physical and psychological changes. Thus, by working more consciously with the breath, yoga students can take their practice to the next level. During this workshop, we will learn ancient breathing techniques known in our modern culture by names such as Pranic Breathing, rebirthing and Holotropic breathing. In the context of a safe and supported environment, this simple yet powerful technique invites us to release mental, emotional blocks and to reconnect with the foundation of any yoga practice— the breath. As you practice this yogic breathing technique, you will have access to very deep levels of the mind and energy body allowing for a deep release.

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Naked Yoga for Men
Sunday, October 4 2:00 PM • “I Feel Better Already” Studio
RESERVATIONS  REQUIRED
There are very few venues where men can come together and connect spiritually, mentally and physically in the absence of sexual tension. Join yoga teacher and author Darren Main in this playful and fun yoga class for men who want to bond in a unique way. This is a great opportunity to experience nonsexual male intimacy.

Men of all shapes, sizes, colors, ages and physical abilities are welcome to attend. All you need is yourself, a bottle of water and a towel.

Space is Limited, so reserve your space as soon as possible.