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The longest day of the year, the summer solstice, occurs this Friday, June 21 2013 at 1:04 am.  In the Yoga tradition it is one more opportunity to cultivate the light within.

Last year I reported on the collective OM of thousands of yoga enthusiasts in NYC and it will happen again this Friday on Broadway between 43rd and 48th Streets.

Locally BYS Yoga will have a Thursday asana and the mantra session at 6:30 focusing on the Om Mani Padme Hum mantra that works to balance all realms of existence through sound.

Another traditional yoga way to honor the day is to complete 108 Sun Salutations. The Sun Salutation contains a wide range of movements: forward and back bend, lengthening the spine, grounding the feet, strengthening the upper body, stretching the lower body, and expanding the lungs; all while following the breathe and holding the gaze.

Why do all of this? A yoga practice binds the breath to movement to center us and quiet our wandering minds. Another opportunity for us to Be Here Now.

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Pennsylvania farming communities are being turned into huge, open-air laboratories by energy companies eager to make North America a twenty-first-century Saudi Arabia, with ordinary people serving as its guinea pigs. And those people are paying a heavy price: mystery illnesses, dead animals, polluted water, land made worthless, and the loss of a way of life. Nick Turse

Join me in the screening of Gasland 2 this Thursday at 7:00 at Soldiers and Sailors Memorial on Fifth Ave. The filmmaker, Josh Fox will answer questions after the film.

I knew too much about hydrofracking to want to see the first Gasland movie (nominated for an academy award) but with this second movie, I’m hopeful that leaders of the anti-fracking movement will give us some good news about their progress to stop the millions of gallons of toxic chemical-laced water injected into wells leaving communities fractured with destroyed land, poor air quality and emissions that only add onto the greenhouse effect.

Let’s show our support!

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Jennie Runk is the lead model for this year’s H&M swimwear ad campaign. She is 24, 5 feet, 10 inches tall, and wears size 12 or 14.

Robyn Lawley, 6'2" and size 12, is Ralph Lauren’s newest model. 

And who cares what size Burberry Adele wears as long as it doesn’t affect her magnificent voice.

Last year, Israel became the first country to pass a law prohibiting the use of underweight models in advertisements.

While more realistic images of women are coming into view, it’s going to be a continual battle. In 2010, Germany 's most popular women's magazine opted for ordinary women models but today claims it didn’t work.

Listen to Ellen talking about the small sizes sold at Abercrombie & Fitch and heed her last line, “As long as you're healthy and you're happy, that's the most important thing."

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Americans drink nearly 10 billion servings of green tea each year mostly fueled by research linking the antioxidant EGCG, one of a group of catechins, to benefits of weight loss and cancer prevention.

ConsumerLab.com looked at brewed and bottled green tea products. Green tea brewed from loose tealeaves was the best potent source of antioxidants with simple tea bags by companies like Lipton and Bigelow being both the most cost-efficient source.

They are also the safest because of concerns about lead content. Green tea plants absorb lead that builds up on the surface of the leaves when grown in places like China with high lead pollution. Tea bags are effective for filtering out most of the lead. Another way to remove the lead is by decaffeinating the tea.

For bottled teas, Diet Snapple Green Tea, contains almost no EGCG and Honest Tea’s Green Tea With Honey which claims to carry 190 milligrams of catechins, only shows about 60 percent of that. It also contains 70 milligrams of caffeine, about two-thirds the amount in a regular cup of coffee, as well as 18 grams of sugar, about half the amount found in a can of Sprite.

Drink a cup of freshly brewed green tea a few times a day. Allow tea to steep for three to five minutes to bring out its catechins.

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I’m off to the Big Apple to see daughter, Sarah, perform in Stop the Tempo at Arlene’s Grocery and friend, Ginger’s installation, An Army of Lovers Cannot Fail at the Brooklyn Museum’s Elizabeth A. Sackler Center for Feminist Art.

Sarah’s play is by a young female Romanian playwright, Gianina Carbunariu, who is bringing attention to the actions and questioning the politics of a post communist world.

Ginger’s installation appears with a backdrop of "Workt by Hand": Hidden Labor and Historical Quilts” examining the impact of feminist scholarship on the history of traditional women’s work in the form of quilting.

Young women exploring, questioning, challenging- makes me proud to be in attendance.

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The person I respect the most in the book art world is Arthur Jaffe. So when he put out a call to support his new venture, Stories on the Skin: Tattoo Culture at FAU, I donated to his kickstarter project to support the cause.

Today, fourteen percent of all Americans have a tattoo with thirty-six percent of them being between the ages 30 to 45. Here on the SouthSide where we have almost as many tattoo parlors as bars, I see all kinds of people streaming in and out of them for more and more tattoos. 

But seeing these people, watching the resulting FAU film and listened to the stories, try as I may, I can’t seem to make any sense of telling a story in permanent ink directly on your skin. What chutzpah!

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She’s always where she is.  Norman Lear

I’ll always be a fan. For more about Jean and All in the Family go to my It’s All In The Family Post on Friday, September 16th, 2011.

Jane Haskell

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Rivers of Light

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When we protect ourselves so we won’t feel pain, that protection becomes like armor, like armor that imprisons the softness of the heart. Pema Chodron

The loving-kindness metta meditation reduces anger, stress, and grief by removing invisible barriers between ourselves and others. Practice it in all aspects of your daily living and watch how it creates openings in all kinds of surprising ways.

Begin by accepting yourself as the epicenter of peace and happiness.  Take a moment to truly love yourself, as you exist right at this moment.

Move to people familiar and dear to you that you love and respect. Imagine them smiling, happy and in good health.

Next, visualize the masses of strangers who have no personal connection to you. Imagine them interacting peacefully and harmoniously as one to create a perfected world.

End by visualizing individuals you find difficult, someone that has hurt you or has committed great wrongs. Wish each of them good will and great happiness.

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We have returned from Portland with an amazing adventure under our belts.

Beauty abounds in Washington Park with its arboretum, rose garden and Japanese garden; innovative nourishing foods found from food truck villages to the most unusual ice cream from Salt and Straw, and talented people coming together to show us the means of working for a new social order.

We put 886 miles on our car checking out the Pacific coast, the John Day Fossil Beds National Monument and one of the many Oregon Hot Springs.

Steve was totally enamored with the accommodations at the Oregon Hotel but I preferred the biscuit breakfast with the Wilsons at their ranch and we were in total agreement that Hotel Lucia was the perfect downtown Portland spot.

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One day when my son was around sixteen (He’s in his thirties now), while working in my studio side-by-side as was our custom back then asked, “So, what is Watergate anyway?” Where to begin?

Here we are at the fortieth anniversary of the May 1973 public hearings of the Senate Select Committee on Presidential Campaign Activities that engrossed the country and convulsed Washington with its unwavering characters, cliff-hanging moments, and the inevitable resignation of President Nixon.

Four decades later, I wonder how the youth of today would spin a bungled break-in to Democratic National Headquarters in the now infamous Watergate?