Yoga and Baking

I started my Christmas baking today, which you would not thing is yoga but really - it's all yoga. If the yoga traditions and postures have been handed down to us over centuries by the great yogis and sages then isn't Christmas baking also a teaching. If we look at our mothers and grandmothers as our teachers who in most cases, teach us about traditions then could they not be considered "yogis" or sages. Will my daughter who helped me dip my chocolate snowballs in icing sugar consider me her "teacher" if she does this same activity with her children - if she has them?

The Christmas baking started out by my husband asking to make chocolate mice and "5 star bars" that his mother makes. She had given me the recipe when we got married, and for him these treats have become a tradition that he likes to have. In addition to the other treats that I make, that my mother made, that my grandmother made and that her mother made and I am going to go out on a limb and assume that her mother made and so on. Again these postures and breath exercises and teachings that we use in yoga are "treats" that we give to our body, just as is the Christmas teachings or baking that I love.

I bake not necessarily for myself, although I do enjoy it, but mostly for my family and friends. Really who doesn't love it when you show up at their house with a plate full of treats. I use my baking as gifts, and again I have never had anyone say - geeze those cookies you sent - sucked!

I really try to find the yoga in every day activities. With baking or cooking for my family I feel at ease and calm and in a way I guess am practicing karma yoga (selfless yoga). I look for nothing in return as it is just what I like to do. It's all good and it's all yoga.

Om Shanti
Jenni