 Dear Friends,
This time last week a wonderful group of people and I were in Northern Iceland, based out of a small city called Akureyri, enjoying the magic and beauty of this country on the top of the world with our wonderful host. It was truly an amazing, just an absolutely amazing week, full of majestic landscapes and nature buzzing with life, gorgeous fall foliage, delicious food, rest and movement, fantastic connection with our retreat mates and, one of the most important things for this girl…adventure. Our last full day, as we looked out over a majestic ravine to the river below in silence, I was struck by one of the aspects that made the country magical to me…it was the beauty and quiet that surrounded us. Practically everywhere we went there was this deep calm, beauty and quiet that enveloped us as we moved through the countryside. I likened it to being in a perpetual state of backpacking, where I was surrounded by the beauty of nature coupled with a quiet from all fronts. It’s hard, where we live, to find that quiet, that calm, that peace. It’s complicated, with the people, the traffic, the sirens, planes and helicopters. It’s hard to find that quiet in the place we live…our lives are not quiet. But, I wonder how it might feel if we make a little more of an effort to cultivate that quiet, that calm in our minds, and in our hearts. I wonder how life might feel if we were able to quiet ourselves a little more in our everyday lives. Certainly, we won’t ever get to the quiet of Iceland, but if we’re willing to slow down, to quiet our minds and our hearts, we might find a little more calm, a little more peace throughout our day. I hope you have an amazing week, my friends. Love Krista
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 Adventure is not a thing exclusively found on the other end of a plane ride. It can be glimpsed around an unfamiliar corner, chased beneath a sunset sky, wished for under a blanket of shimmering starlight. If the familiar is approached with a sense of wonder-adventure can be found just about anywhere. -B. Diaz
Dear Friends, I was on a walk in my neighborhood a couple of months ago when I came across this adorable group of mushrooms…lined up in formation, lifting their stalks up from the grass below them. I paused, smiled, and took a picture, with no plan of using said picture for anything other than my own pleasure. I’m on retreat this week, off in Iceland this week with a group of folks for movement and adventure. I’ve been excited about this for a long time, this week of travel and adventure that is finally here. I am positive this week will hold amazing adventures and connections, and I am excited to experience it. I stumbled across the above quote a few weeks ago, and it gave me pause. I’m not going to diminish travel, adventure and connection, and the fun and excitement we can have going to new and interesting places, and the privilege…what an amazing privilege to be able to wander and experience life in ways that are different from our normal, everyday ways. But, my friends, how would it feel to notice the familiar, and approach it with a sense of wonder. How might it feel to see the everyday experiences and notice the majestic held in the everyday. How might it feel to live a more aware life so we can really see the beauty, the wonder that can be found just about anywhere. I hope, this week, we can garner a bigger sense of wonder, even in our everyday lives. Have an amazing week, my friends. Love Krista  Dear Friends,
My dear friend and I were talking a while ago about rest, personality, and the sometimes inability to take the rest our bodies and minds might need. I was thinking more about that after last week’s blog post, and this heat wave that has been inundating the DC area…the importance of movement, the importance of change, and the importance of rest. I was thinking about how to move our bodies in new and different ways…and how that manifests itself in my own body and mind….and the importance of rest, always, but especially in times when the weather is hard on our bodies and our minds. I told you all a while ago that I got myself a fitbit, and it’s been a great tool for informing me about my own movement practices…and yet, I find myself, with that information at hand, less willing to take days of pure, unadulterated rest. While that tool has been helpful in many areas of my life, it has been detrimental in that particular area. I wonder how that permission to rest might manifest in each of our lives. I wonder how it might feel to cultivate a willingness to take days and times of rest…for many of us I think it will have to be a cultivation, and will not come naturally in our culture. Perhaps that rest manifests itself in taking days off of movement, perhaps it manifests itself in taking days off of work and putting work fully to the side for a time. Perhaps it’s taking intentional time away from those around us, even if we love them dearly. Perhaps it’s a mixture of all three. My dear friends, I hope you are able to see the ways you can integrate rest more fully in your lives this week, and you are able to cultivate that practice. Have an amazing week, my friends. Love Krista  Dear Friends,
My son, a friend and I were walking through the woods a couple of weeks ago…scampering over rocks and boulders, enjoying a beautiful and cooler day. This particular trail is one of our favorites, with massive boulders and rocks lining the path as you enter the trailhead. The first part of our trek we didn’t stay on the path much, instead choosing to do a little rock scampering, climbing up and down to follow along the path in a more interesting way…being mindful that we stayed on the rocks so we wouldn’t cause erosion, but finding new and interesting paths to take over said rocks. It certainly wasn’t the easiest route we could have taken that day, our rock scampering…we moved our bodies in new and interesting ways, we worked a bit harder than if we had just stayed on the trail. Let’s be honest, I had to use my hands quite a bit to stay upright and safe…but it was interesting and fun. There are times when it is easiest to just stay on the same path in our movement journey…to keep doing the same motion, the same movement over and over again. Movement is good, my friends, it’s good for our bodies and our minds, and I don’t want to diminish our repetitive movement practices, they are important. Even so, moving in new and interesting ways is really good for us, both body and mind. Keeping our muscles strong not only in a front and back motion, but in a side to side motion is essential. Working not only the bigger muscles, but the smaller ones also is an important part of our movement. Working on our balance, our breath in our movement practices and giving ourselves space to slow down and calm our nervous system is so beneficial to our bodies and our minds. I think there are times in life when we only have the bandwidth for our easy, repetitive movement practices…the ones that take little thought…but I think, if we have the bandwidth for something more, it can be of great benefit to us. Have an amazing week, my friends. Love Krista |
Hi, I'm Krista!Krista Mason is a movement instructor based in Washington DC. She founded an online strength, yoga and movement studio, teaches group classes, hosts both local and overseas retreats, hangs out with private clients, and absolutely loves the work she gets to do. Archives
October 2024
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