Welcome to Week #3 of the Next Chapter Book Blogging Group – http://tnc-thejoydiet.blogspot.com. Truth was the subject of Chapter 2 in Martha Beck’s wonderful book, The Joy Diet. I am still marinating on the practice of truth. Yoga has been a big help. So has mantra chanting satya (Sanskrit word for truth) and collage making. I may come back to this post next week and share more reflections. In the meantime, check out the video I made about my Chapter 2 adventures in the land of truth.
Enjoy your day and weekend! Thanks for stopping by!
October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month. For more information, visit the National Breast Cancer Awareness web site: http://www.nbcam.org.
Click on the video below to learn about my Pink October Yoga free online classes on October 6. 13. 20, and 27 from 8:15 p.m. to 8:30 p.m.You can take the classes online at www.stickam.com/anandaleeke.
On October 24 and 25, I will teach yoga classes from 11:00 a.m. to 11:30 a.m. The classes are offered as a part of the second annual Frederica Leeke and Dorothy Gartin Breast Cancer Awareness Yoga Weekend. These events honor the breast cancer journey of my grandmothers Frederica Stanley Roberts Leeke (1915-1996) and Dorothy Mae Johnson Gartin (1912-current).
The classes will meet by the waterfall that faces the reflecting pool located at the 16th Street and Florida Avenue, NW entrance. Participants should dress comfortably, refrain from eating and drinking two hours before the class, and bring their own mats. Yoga mats will NOT be provided. If it rains, the class will not be held. Click here for more information: http://yoga.meetup.com/584.
My new D.C. Social Media Examiner article celebrates the success of social media savvy yoga teachers in the D.C. area. Faith Hunter of Faith Hunter Yoga and Shakti MindBody Studio, Ieshia Ali of Shakti MindBody Studio, and Kimberly Wilson of Tranquil Space Yoga are featured in the article. Click here to read the article: http://shar.es/15oCN. Please leave a comment.
I am launching Pink October Yoga, an online yoga class series for computer users, on October 6, 13, 20, and 27 from 8:15 p.m. to 8:30 p.m. on Stickam.com to honor Breast Cancer Awareness Month and my grandmothers Frederica Stanley Roberts Leeke (1915 – 1996) and Dorothy Mae Johnson Gartin (1912 – present). Click here to take the class with a live stream and web chat discussions: www.stickam.com/anandaleeke. If you miss the live class, don’t panic. You will be able to watch a recording of the show. To learn more about breast cancer, visit The National Women’s Health Center’s Breast Cancer web site: http://www.womenshealth.gov/breastcancer.
My grandmother Frederica died of breast cancer in June 1996. My grandmother Dorothy learned she had breast cancer at the age of 95 in 2008. The news of my grandmother Dorothy’s her breast cancer made me want to do something for people impacted by breast cancer in my local community.
So I started the first annual Frederica Stanley Roberts Leeke and Dorothy Mae Johnson Gartin Breast Cancer Awareness Yoga Weekend in Malcolm X – Meridian Hill Park in Washington, D.C. This year I am teaching two classes on October 24 and 25 from 11:00 a.m. to 11:30 a.m. for the Breast Cancer Awareness Weekend. Click here for more information: http://yoga.meetup.com/584. If you are in the D.C. area, please join me for a kind and gentle yoga class dedicated to individuals impacted by breast cancer.
I have included a webisode from Ananda Leeke TV that discusses Pink October Yoga as a form of Karma Yoga, the yoga of action in service to others. Enjoy!
On Saturday, October 3, I will share my insights on how authors can use social media to market their books and build a reader audience during a panel discussion on “Everything You Wanted to Know about Getting Published” from 12:20 p.m. to 1:20 p.m. at the fifth annual Capital BookFest in Largo, Maryland. Authors Kevin Johnson, Donna Hill, and Charisse Carney Nunes will also participate in the panel discussion held inside of Borders Bookstore, 931A Capital Centre Boulevard, Largo, MD 20774. For more information, visit www.captialbookfest.org.
I have prepared a social media bio for the event. See below. What do you think about it?
SOCIAL MEDIA BIO
Ananda Kiamsha Madelyn Leeke (www.anandaleeke.com) is a lawyer turned blogger, online community manager, radio host, social media strategist, author, artist, creativity coach, and yoga teacher. She currently serves as the D.C. Social Media Examiner for Examiner.com: www.examiner.com/x-24564-DC-Social-Media-Examiner.
Leeke’s first Internet encounter occurred when she heard AOL’s “you’ve got mail” in 1995. It was love at first click! A year later, she began working for The Hamilton Securities Group, Inc., an investment bank and financial software firm, where she established an intellectual property protection program for the firm’s Internet products and services. Leeke served as an online content contributor for NetNoir.com’s Gospel and Women’s Channels from 2001 to 2002. She launched her first blog in 2005 and used social media tools to market her books, Love’s Troubadours – Karma: Book One (2007) and That Which Awakens Me: A Creative Woman’s Poetic Memoir of Self-Discovery(2009). She enjoys attending blogging conferences such as Blogging While Brown, Fem 2.0, BlogHer, and Blogalicious.
Chapter 1 deals with nothing. It’s exactly what I have been thinking about as I wind down with some latin jazz music playing on WPFW. The music reminds me of time spent in Cuba five years ago. I miss Habana (yes Havana with a b instead of a v!). While I was there, I spent a lot of time doing nothing in the early morning hours. Doing nothing consisted of me laying still on my bed and allowing my mind to travel all over the place without any agenda, expectations, resistance, or judgment. It was complete surrender to the morning chit chatter. After approximately 15 minutes, the speed of the inner chit chatter slowed down. It eventually settled down and made room for stillness.
Yesterday I experienced a similar stillness while attending All Souls Unitarian Church’s annual Autumn Soul-stice Retreat (my 3rd experience!). The theme of this year’s retreat was “Discovering Soulful Support.” The first session I attended was entitled “Exploration Through the Narrative Room.” It was held in the Church’s library filled with comfy chairs and a long board table. Seven other people kept me company as we listened to two readings and used stem sentence writing exercises to explore our need for soulful support. I wrote without an agenda and expectations. The words that showed up in my journal surprised me. See the excerpt below.
The soulful support I yearn for would allow me to be, do, say, think, and expect no-thing. Is this possible? Am I just playing with myself on paper? Can it really happen? I’m not at all certain, but I do know I am willing to try. So I return to the stem sentence and write it out again. The soulful support I yearn for would be wrapped in my willingness to allow myself to be, think, do, say and expect no-thing. This support takes the form of space where I can let go, release, sit with, observe, explore, and understand all the things that pop up inside of me that create expectations, judgments, and time zappers. The soulful support I yearn for would be more compassion and mitra, a Sanksrit word, that means unconditional friendship for oneself.
I circled the word mitra and reflected on its meaning. I wrote my own definition: mitra is my authenticity of imperfection smiling back at me.
The second workshop focused on sound meditation and the Tao Te Ching. This was a transformative experience for me. I embraced a passage from the Tao Te Ching as my own: The Tao does nothing, but leaves nothing undone. It helped me see that my do no-thing intention to allow the experience to unfold without an agenda and expectations had guided me throughout the day. I ended up getting so much from the experience. Click on the video below to hear more about the session’s impact on my spiritual practice.
I am grateful that I had these moments of insight because they will help me as I gear up to launch my new book, That Which Awakens Me: A Creative Woman’s Poetic Memoir of Self-Discovery in late October.
Leslie Kersha, founder of Creative Space Yoga (and one of my favorite yoga bloggers!), will join me for a discussion about yoga and creativity tonite on Go Green Sangha Radio at 7:00 p.m. EST on Talkshoe.com – http://www.talkshoe.com/tc/21325. For more information about Leslie, visit http://creativespaceyoga.blogspot.com.
Today I am talking to Las Manas Tres about “Healing Community Through Revolutionary Artistry” on Sisterhood, the Blog Radio at 4:00 p.m. EST Click here to listen to the show: http://www.talkshoe.com/tc/42015. Las Manas Tres is a group of Latina storytellers that includes members Maya Chinchilla, Cruz Grimaldo, and Milta Ortiz. Visit http://lasmanastres.com. If you miss the show, don’t panic. You can download a free recording from the web site.
It’s the second day of Autumn. The weather in DC is still warm. They call it Indian summer! I hope it lasts a long time. I am not ready for the cool temperatures.
Yesterday, I created an audio blog update about my Autumn activities. Click on the button below to listen to my update.
Ananda Leeke 