Mulberry Jam

On Saturday, Mark and I finally managed to get out to Mount Vernon for the first time in more than a year. We were excited to see the new museum that opened on site late last year. It has an amazing collection of paintings, household items, clothes and other objects that relate to Washington’s family, life and times. Basically, it’s a museum all about how great George Washington was. And what a worthy topic that is!

Mark and I are donors to the Mount Vernon Ladies Association, the non-profit organization that owns and administers George Washington’s former home. We try to go out to visit the site at least a couple of times a year. Both of us are fascinated by Washington and his role in American history. He’s one of those remarkable public figures that stands up to close scrutiny. In fact the more I read about him, the more admirable he comes across. Managing to win the Revolutionary War despite all odds against one the world’s great military powers. Serving as the nation’s first president and the only one ever to be elected unanimously. Twice. Then stepping down to private life despite widespread sentiment that would have made him president for life. What new nation ever had such a figure as its founding father?

In addition to the very enjoyable museum, there are many new exhibits at Mount Vernon that relate to the life of the slaves who lived there in Washington’s time. The multiple farms owned by Washington relied upon the labor of more than 300 slaves during his lifetime. Some 100 of them lived on the Mansion Farm, where George and Martha lived. There’s a newly built slave cabin down the hill from the mansion on the bluff, a simple one-room wooden structure with a loft for sleeping, situated beside the fields. It’s very similar to the kind of simple houses early settlers of all kinds lived in. I thought the topic of slavery was well handled, though I’d be interested to know what African American visitors think.

The day we went was sunny and clear, with low humidity. The kind of day we often dream of during a Washington D.C. summer but almost never get. We spent part of the afternoon happily just sitting on the grass in front of the big house, watching sailboats passing up and down on the Potomac below. A glorious day, and one I hope to repeat at least once more before the summer is over.

Mmmm. Still haven’t come down from a week of yoga with a teacher I admire immensely. Last Sunday I returned from the Omega Institute in Rhinebeck, New York, where Kofi Busia was teaching. We had yoga classes twice a day for a week.

This came along at just the right time for me. I was feeling kind of burned out after a six-month stint of teaching five classes a week. Because I was pouring so much energy into my classes, I was really neglecting my own personal practice. To have the luxury of a full week where I had nothing else to do but work on my own form and strength was heavenly. My great friends Fritz and Donna joined me to carpool up together and we had a ball, hanging together like the three musketeers the whole week.

The teacher was Kofi Busia, a yogi I admire tremendously. I wrote about him with enthusiasm last year after meeting him for the first time. Fritz and I had planned ever since that time to try to go to one of his longer workshops as soon as we could.  I love his teaching because he’s not only extremely knowledgeable about yoga asana and a million other topics (music, sports, physiology, you name it). He’s also a really warm human being. Sadly, that can’t be said about all well-known yogis. They tend to be intense, serious people and not always the kindest or most approachable. Kofi believes that yoga should make us better people, not just bendier people. It’s so typical that his website has no photos of himself, only of his teacher, BKS Iyengar.

The Omega Institute is like summer camp for grownups. It’s a little slice of new age heaven, with locally grown vegetarian food. It’s in the upper Hudson River valley just east of the Catskill Mountains. While forty of us were there for the yoga workshop, other visitors there for topics like Buddhist meditation, watercolor painting, songwriting, shamanism and “past life regression”. One afternoon the whole yoga class burst out laughing as we heard the most bloodcurdling screams coming from the past life workshop. (I don’t know if I’d want to know about my past lives!)

My practice has been tremendously influenced by that one week. It may be some time before all the ways it has affected me become clear.