The March Hare: Winter 2008 Issue 55

Cover Page • DR In My Luggage • Crating Change • Thank You Donors! • Nature Corner • Yoga Offsets • Under Your Sink

Yoga Offsets and Little Jars

by Tamar Friedner

Carbon offsetting has grown into quite an industry in the past few years. You calculate your carbon output for the year, pay an organization or company accordingly, and theoretically they plant an appropriate number of trees or do something else to neutralize the carbon you release. Karma fluffed, you go about your life feeling better, and with any luck consider making some changes in your life to reduce your carbon load, or at least reduce the cost of offsetting it.

Having recently returned from yoga teacher training and seen the increased interest in a regular yoga practice by community members here, I realized that there is definitely a need for yoga offset credits in this world. Here is how it works: you go into your back closet where you shoved your once-well-intentioned yoga mat and blocks and strap. Dig out this yoga paraphernalia, dust it off, and send it to Dancing Rabbit c/o Tamar Friedner, 1 Dancing Rabbit Lane, Rutledge, MO 63563. In return someone will do lots of yoga on your mat and some of the focus, relaxation, and balance they gain while using your mat will be attributed to you. On top of this, you will also know that a new mat was not created and bought while your mat sat languishing in your closet.

In all seriousness, I am loving being able to contribute to the emotional and physical sustainability of the people living here by offering yoga classes twice a week. We live an intensely physical life here and remembering to nurture ourselves can sometimes take a backseat to the Dancing Rabbit mission. I am looking to obtain mats for the students to use and find myself in a dilemma: there are some more ecological choices for mats out there but they cost way more than I can afford at this point and I am not convinced that they are really that much more ecological than the standard mats available. I could afford lots of standard mats but I hate to put cost over ecological choices. I definitely encourage you to practice yoga as you intended when you bought or received your mat; but if you have yoga props that you are not using and do not think you will use again, I could put them to good use here, so please consider passing them along.

In the same line of health and ecological choices at Dancing Rabbit, Ironweed subcommunity likes to make healing salves and lip balm from the herbs we grow. We prefer to put them in containers that were not brought into being just for this purpose, to be thrown away once they are finished. If you have any old lip blam containers (even the kind that screw up and down) or small lidded jars (the tiny condiment containers that come with room service and the like are great, baby food jars are not great because they don't have easy lids), please pass them along and we will reuse them. Thanks!

Cover Page • DR In My Luggage • Crating Change • Thank You Donors! • Nature Corner • Yoga Offsets • Under Your Sink

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