I decided on a scarf

I began a complicated lace work pattern with a pretty mohair yarn, but I just could not stay concentrated on the pattern. So I abandoned it in favor of this simple champagne colored scarf that has a cute decorative knitted trim at the ends.
I worked in my favorite spot, directly in front of the fire!

Suzanne COMPLETES her Knitting project!

I was VERY impressed! Stockings are challenging for beginner knitters. I did not write much yesterday, but she was really having a hard time figuring out how to make the heel flap and the front arch of the stocking. It was also the very first time she ever knitted on 3 kneedles in a round. She made a little detour reversing the knit/perl and created an unintentional but really great looking trim detail.
In only four days (wihout food, I might add!) she completed this christmas stocking she will give as a gift, filled with more gifts! Suzanne's the GREATEST!

oh just one more!

...and birds and stones and snow and grasses! LOVE!

Another sunset bay photo

So beautiful. I was "one" with this picture. In LOVE with the colors and sky and....

Day Four of Five Day Fast and Knitting: sunset winter walk

The weather was gorgeous today! Snow still on the ground, and just perfect temperature. We took a long walk to the bay this evening to watch the sunset and it was breathtaking. The movement and the stillness and the colors and transparency of light and water and colors. Glassy water, all colored with the sun!
Ekhart Tolle said that there's a moment when one recognises something or someone as "beautiful" and at that moment of recognition of beauty, we enter a state of enlightened oneness. He said to see beauty in someone or something is to see oneself, and that is a moment of true love. That is what love is. To recognise oneself in another. I must have recognised myself in this sunset, because I was transfixed by how beautiful it was. I LOVED it, and it Loved me back! Just look!

Suzanne figures out how to make a "heel flap"

Suzanne, who is juice fasting for the first time ever is a beginner at knitting but she is doing amazingly! She's a natural. We went to a beautiful knitting shop in Greenport called Now and Zen where we purchased pretty yarns and decided on projects. She decided on a Christmas stocking she will give as a gift. Looks like she will be finished by Friday for sure. We walked on the beach yesterday and she found beautiful shells and flotsom that she wants to attach as a tassel for a friend who loves to fish.

Our first snow during our juice fast and knitting week

This is about as perfect as it gets! We are enjoying a five day raw juice fast following the Thanksgiving feasting extravaganza, but not just any juice fast, this one is coupled with a knitting. So we have had knitting lessons, and chosen our simple beginner and intermediate knitting projects and begun. Every morning we start out with a walk and we have enjoyed the most gorgeous early winter weather. That means perfect fluffy snow and not too cold weather! We walk for miles!
This is the flowering pear tree in front of American Yogini as it appeared on the morning of our first fluffy snow!

For a Thanksgiving without the Turkey, this is our main event!

Thanksgiving Menu

Today is Thanksgiving and I started cooking yesterday! I have guests and family memebers who are vegan, carnivores, raw foodies and lacto-ovo vegetarians. So I created a menu that had enough bounty for all! LOTS of fun in the kitchen.
My daughter Harrie who is enrolled at the French Culinary Institute is on hand to help. Music is playing in the kitchen and we are having fun. Stay tuned for photos and news of how it all works out.

Thanksgiving Menu 2005


Pomegranate Apple Aperitif

Root Vegetable Soup garnished with Pignoli Cream, flax seed oil and Ezekiel Croutons

Grand Cheese Pumpkin stuffed with Apple Walnut Wild rice stuffing

Mushroom Ezekiel stuffing with Sage and Rosemary

Organic Cranberry Sauce

Cobb Salad

Mashed Molasses Sweet Potato’s studded with Pomegranate

Purple Cauliflower with lemon tahini dressing

Potato Leek Gratin

Organic and Sulfate Free Red Wine: Frey Vinyards California
Pomegranite and Lemon Infused Water from our Nikken Water Filer and Optimizer!



Green Black Organic Free Trade Chocolate and crystallized ginger

Organic Apple Cranberry Pie

Raw Apple Pie

Pumpkin Pie (sweetened with agave, maple, and molasses)

Yogi Tea or Groovy Mind Coffee

(I have a carnivore friend who I love very much who is bringing an organic turkey! I just couldn't cook one. But will be happy for them to have this. The tables here are really turned: usually it is I brining the dishes to peoples parties just so I will have something to eat that is nourishing and good).


Feel Free to post a request here for any recipes!

Have a wonderful Thanksgiving Day

Announcing new Art & Yoga Workshop URL YOGINIAPPROVED.COM

Come paint with us in an impressionist setting! For information CLICK HERE!

Come back and "eat" next time!

Come back and continue your learning with a cooking and eating retreat, with three delicious meals of food that has not one ingredient that does not offer your body and soul nourishment of the highest order. We take out the trash in our fasts, then we only put in the finsest quality fuel thereafter.

Break-Fast consisted of Roased spagetti squash, fresh tossed salad (Lois said Romaine with no dressing never tasted so good), and steamed kale. We experimented with lemon/olive oil emulsion, flax seed oil, macadamia nut oil, braggs liquid aminos and himalian sea salt after experienceing food undressed first.
And because most of this group was previously coffee addicted, the tecchino tasting offered an at home support option to keep our bodies "alkaline!".

Break Fast Table

We were all too busy (and emotional) to stop and photograph the gorgeous table for break fast. Here is a similar setting from a previous fast! Can you see my toes at the bottom! Haha!Master Photographer I am not! But Loving Guide I am! Loraine and I love doing these tables for all our guests!

Viveca practices partner yoga with Rugby

Awwwwww. Everyone's favorite yoga partner :)

"Lets Twist Again! Like we did last....."

Lauren smiles and twists. Is she smiling because class is nearly over or because it made her feel so good?

Our Hips never had it so good!

Photos from our Raw Juice Fast with Mary and Jill

I found a few yoga class moments in my camera! Here is Lois, just a bit sweaty rolling up her mat after Peter's class!

Day Six of Seven day Juice Fast

Its been a great day.First we all enjoyed yoga with Peter Ames. Following yoga class all the girls were allowed to enter the kitchen for the first time today. Here they saw how to set up their countertops to feature the juicer prominently and the easy to juice fruits and vegetables. We juiced pinapples and oranges for our first juice.
Trish is super sensitive to this and doing extreemly well on mono juice so first we prepared apple juice for her.
The afternoon was spent with umbrellas touring the art and craft show in Westhampton Beach where everyone found some little trinket they loved. Lauren, who is getting married in the spring thinks she may have found a pretty necklace that will be perfect for her wedding day. She is thinking about it.We also got to meet Charles Wildbank who was doing a brisk business in giclees of his original oil paintings. Charles is the artist who will co-lead the art and painting workshop in France this spring (stay tuned on that one!)Tonight we will plan out what and how to eat after all return home. And watch a movie, of course! Tomorow is the big day (solid food)!
Everyone is looking fantastic, all have lost a lot of weight, and Viveca, who's hands had an involuntary tremor or shaking for years, is holding her hands out as still as can be. She is astonished that her fast and yoga and pilates week was powerful enough to end the shaking. Everyone is smiling constantly.

Viveca tries Ear Candling

Jill is great at Ear Candling. We lit the main room up with candles (this camera has a powerful flash: I was sure it was too dark!), and played beautiful piano music for Viveca. Her friend Lois went first. Maybe she will post her feedback? Hey Lois, hey Viveca, how was it?
Love
Mary

Lauren, Debra and Rebecca: new friends in fasting

How gorgeous are these three?

Jill is delighted to find big rocks on Long Island Sound

We used the navigator on the AmericanYogini mobile to wonder and discover this Long Island Sound Beach that looks oddly like something you would see in Europe. Big huge boulders and the cleanest clearest water. Even with the cloudy sky today the water was pristinely showing us the pretty rocks and fishes it contained.

Tricia wants spinach juice so teams up with Popeye

Tricia was talking all morning about switching from green apple juice to adding spinach to her juice. She met an alley at the farm stand!

Our Seven Day Raw Juice Fast

Here's a photo of the pool that Jill took when she got here. This pool really is like a dream. Sometimes I think I am at the Villa D'ests in Italy. Actually this pool is much prettier. They should have it so good!

Raw Juice Fast at our Hamptons Retreat

I wish I remembered to blog this whole thing! It is now day 4 of a 7 day raw juice fast. I absolutly love everyone who has come to retreat with me this week. I am co-leading this with Jill Schneider who leads juice fasts privately in Florida. It is the first time I have co-led a raw juice fast, since I normally lead these all on my own with my wonderful in-house support team of Helen, Lynette and Loraine.
All the juice fasts here have been women only.
All of the 7 ladies who are gathering here have never met before except two who are coming together as friends.
Everyone is feeling great today, yesterday (day 3) we had a few detox headaches going on that we soothed with body work, candlighted rooms, soft music and ice packs.
Juices so far: pinapple/orange, kale green apple, lemon, ginger, cucumber green apple lemon ginger, beet carrot apple lemon ginger, spinach romaine green apple lemon ginger. Delicous colorful elixers presented in beautiful glasses topped by personal wishes and intentions to infuse the juices that then infuse us!
So right now Vibeka is cozied up in our pretty water view yoga room in blankets and with soft pillows, listenting to piano music as Jill performs ear candling.
Every morning we all do dry skin brushing, tongue and mouth cleansing, pedicure cleansing, that all recieved instructions for on day one. Someone is in the steam private steam bath now too. We are going to watch "House of Flying Daggers" tonight.
Last night it was "Amelie".
I am going to post some pictures soon of our day trip to the North Fork, where I like to buy produce for the juices. Everything at the farms is so ripe and wonderful. Just look at the colors!
Morning bell is at 7AM, social silence until morning yoga at 9. Most of us go for walks to the bay beach ( 2 mile walk) or write Morning Pages (brain download is part of the detox!)in silence.
Off to the movies!
Love
Mary

Join us today in our yoga and art adventures! If you could not make it on this trip with Rebecca and I to Tuscany September 4-11, 2005, please consider signing up for some of our local daily retreats and workshops with our expert staff: fasting, pilates, yoga, meditation, uncooking, etc. Please contact us in the links on the right column and we'll help create a program expressly for you! Please ask about private classes if you are located in the Hamptons or Manhattan. Stay tuned for our next posting for viewing our new forthcoming photo album diary! Namaste!
Mary McGuire Wien

As you can see...

As you can see everyone had fun! Alan

More reminiscing...

Ebbio was great! Enjoyed meeting you and thanks for taking the enclosed pic of us. I'll send some more.
Regards, Alan

Reminiscences...

Hi Everyone!
While some of you brave world voyagers might still be
hopping around selected corners of my native Europe, I
just flew back into the US, and am now decompressing
into the New York mode of fast existence...

...Anyway, thank you all for sharing with me the wonderful
experience of Ebbio!

It was great meeting you all, I
am looking forward to keeping in touch with you, and
hopefully our paths will cross again in the near
future!

Love,
Angelika

Our Too Fast Farewell

Everyone returned last night from either shopping at Prada and discount outlet malls (returned with bounty that made all those who chose to stay behind wondering if they made a mistake!) or from San Gimignano. This group also returned with not only drawings, but shopping treasures as well: Alison and Stephanie found the perfect artsy boutique where Stephanie's outfit for Alison's upcoming wedding was found as well as these incredible sweater shrugs. I plan on borrowing one of these and copying the pattern that is brilliant but simple enough for me to achieve this winter at one of our Yoga and Knitting retreats (expect 2 or 3 of these three day knitting and hiking fests).

The yoga trance dance and dinner was amazing! With all the women, of every age, all dancing together for well over an hour. We were able to get great film footage and photos which we will post in addition to this word blog when I get back to my home office on the 15th. All were beyond words and some even stunned by how joyful and grounded and light all at once they grew as they danced practically inside the floor, and into the air and upon each other and around each other and with each other.

Such a sharing! The smiles and shimmering meditation that spontaneously emerged at the end of this dance was testimony to the joy all were feeling, the YOGA and union with one another and the respect for one another, old and young.
I was beyond grateful that I had the honor of facilitating this dance for all. Just WAIT till you see the video clips! Make sure you are on the mailing list and we will send you a nice one minute clip in the coming weeks!
So now I am in Rome and plan to enjoy visiting the coloseum, the museum of Roman Empire and the new excavations that have emerged since my last visit here with my family nearly 10 years ago.


Today is my birthday! Compleanno Oggi! And before I part Italy, I will spend some time in search of our next Yoga and Art in Italy destination, in Venice or perhaps somewhere in Amalfi Coast.


Out next Yoga and Art adventure this spring will be in Paris/Giverny when we will be based in the Normand village of Vernon in France.

Ciao! Arriverderci! Be home soon!
Much much love
Mary

Some Rain, Some Prada, Some Painting and Some laughs

We had two nights in a row of intense thunder and lightning storms that seem to have swept across much of europe. It knocked out the power and phones, but not the beauty and fun. gave this 800 year old house a real authentic feel, candle lit at times, and the painting and laughing and of course the eating went on as usual. We did postpone our trip to Volterra and San Gigminano however, and opted to stay here and paint interiors, practice yoga and later in the afternoon, take a nice long hike to Monteriggioni.
ioni.

This is, according to the tour books, the most perfectly preserved medieval city in Tuscany.

It's charming, high on a hill with glorious views from the gates, and gardens behind walls revealed peach trees, apple trees and persimmon trees.

Rebecca and I along with Linda, Stephanie and Alison enjoyed cafe machiato and gelatos when we got there.

Rebecca drew a beautiful charcoal of the vista.
I gathered an amazing bouquet of acorn clusters, candy apples, lavender, rosemary, pennyroyal, yellow salvia, purple berries, red berries, and grapes.

The girls stayed up late, all piled together in Carol's big bed laughing thier heads of with jokes and tales till the wee hours as Anjelika, Steph, and Alison returned to paint late into the night to the sounds of Bach piano concertos.

Who is the mystery photographer?

Somehow everyone was up even before the morning wakeup knocks at 7:30.

Tonight we have our celebratory farewell dinner (how is it possible a week has already passed?). Right now we have half our crowd at the Prada outlets shopping for gifts to take home and the other half drawing architecture in San Gigminano.

The sun is out again!

No one wants to leave. Ciao for Now!
Mary

Sienna, Yoga and Painting

We woke up to rain today, soft and so beautiful. The sights of the tuscan vinyards and hills and Monterigioni in the distance were sweetly surouunded by mist. The sounds of the farm were the same--donkeys braying, horses too, and ducks quacking, rooster crowing.

And added to that a nearly silent but fairly heavy and steady rain.
After morning yoga and breakfast we decided we would go onto Sienna for thier market day. It is only about 15 minutes away, but Harrie, Lennie and Ginger decided they would enjoy shopping at the Prada outlet rather than paint this morning, so off they went on their own. They returned with such fashion bounty and everyone was excited to see the bargains they found. Shoes, a coat, little gifts.

Angelika decided to stay home alone at Ebbio to paint some more in the rainy silent day ( I was secretly jealous as I imagined a stroll to the vinyard in soft rain), but all the rest of us piled into three cars and enjoyed a morning of duomos, piazzas, art studios, and of course gelatarias.

We came home to find another abundant vegetarian lunch prepared by our beautiful hostess, NirDosh.

A lesson in abstract art followed with Rebecca in the main room which we turned into a huge art studio as Madam Butterfly played on the CD player.


I retreated myself to the brick vaulted yoga studio (800 years ago it was the barn where the cows stayed)and self practiced yoga and dance. Then all arrived for afternoon yoga with me, then dinner outside again as the rain ceased and the stars appeared. Ahhhhh life is soooo goood! Even now, at midnight many are in the big room with great windows overlooking the tuscan hills, painting with intensity!
Tomorow we spend the day in Florence.

Florence Today: Feast on Food & Art!

Speed Bump on the Highway and then Dinner in the Garden

We picked up our guests in two groups: one morning arrivals and one afternoon. The poor girls on the afternoon pickup from Florence airport had to endure a speed bump on the way to ebbio as the van ran out of gas due to a broken gas meter! Ah well, a rescue van met us and we finally arrived at Ebbio where everyone was, as I knew they would be; enchanted.

So after some nice hot showers dinner was spread out upon the outdoor buffet, where we eat all our Vegetarian Italian meals.

Dinner tonight was spagetti frittata made with mint and basil, roasted zuchinni in olive oils made from thier own olives, wine from these vines around us, tomatoe salad made from these tomatoes and just picked incredibly red today, and gorgeous roasted eggplants stuffed with the porcini found (by people who KNOW--not us!) in the surounding forest.

We are eating so close to the earth and the source of our food, so vibrant and so infused also with the hands of the family who own and operate this farm called Ebbio.

Here are some nice photos of a family member in Harrie's loving hands.

I go off to join my students in sleep now as in the morning we eagerly begin our week of yoga and art. With eyes and hearts and bodies opened up with yoga this house will soon fill with paintings and drawings and many many discoveries!
Buona Notte!
Mary (er....Maria!)