In this sunny issue: • Writing News • Yoga News • Teaching • Review Me
As Nat King Cole sang back in 1963, "Here come those lazy-hazy-crazy days of summer.” Though I try to stay balanced in all seasons and appreciate every moment, I have to admit, summer is my favorite time of year! For some wack cultural flashback, check Cole on a BBC special in 1963 (garden party couture with double-entendre rhyming of wienies with bikinis!).
I’ve got some summer travel planned. Wendy and I are teaching ISHTA yoga in Finland and Sweden, so I can see how social democrats live (;-). Details are below, in case you have friends in either place, or are planning to be there yourself!
There’s also a lot of editing going on at our house (which happens to be located very close to the beautiful Atlantic Ocean, where I took the picture, above). Pick up some summer reading from my catalog on Amazon, Apple, or wherever you get your e-reads. The paperbacks are available exclusively on Amazon.com.
Best Summer Read
My latest novel is just out, and I’m asking people to hurry up and write me up some reviews on Amazon and Goodreads. In the meantime, you’ll have to take my word for it — it’s the book to read this summer. “Couldn’t put it down,” factors into people’s comments to me so far (including in a note from early reader Rebecca Soule, who interviewed me here). So you might want to bring a second book to the beach if you’re a fast reader!
Available at Amazon, iTunes, Nook, Kobo, or wherever ebooks are sold. For the paperback version, use this link to Amazon.com. (If you buy the paperback, you get the Kindle version free, so you can keep reading at home and on the go!)
I'm a sweepstakes!
Here's a chance to get a free copy of Incarnation from Goodreads.
Don’t look! Okay, look.
Since I started Incarnation, I have been going back and forth about how much of the puzzle to reveal. While some readers haven’t blinked at the structure, others have asked me for some help. I think it boils down to whether you linger with books until the details gets fuzzy, or you’re the kind of person who reads the last page of a book first, or if you like having the solution to a crossword puzzle handy. In case that's you, I produced a brief annotation that lays out the relationships and pivotal moments of the novel more explicitly. That key is going to live on my web site, linked here. Don’t look! Well, unless you want to.
Talk to me, audiobook Peter
Students are always commenting on my voice: it’s so relaxing, it’s so warm, I zone out listening to you, you sound like Dick Cavett (really, they say that — here he is on YouTube, so you can decide — it's a fantastic, funny interview with George Harrison where he talks about TV, meditation, and his life since the Beatles as another incarnation!). I'm putting my voice to work by making an audiobook of Incarnation. I’m going to try to fit in the recording between day trips to Jones Beach in August.
What’s next?
I’m in love with my work-in-progress, Love Song. It taps into lots of reflections from my long affair with the music business and tells a love story about two talented singer-songwriters who fall out of rhythm. Stay posted!
Yoga!
It all boils down to this …
We tend to get very complicated. We live in the era of specialization. We think in terms of expertise. This kind of thinking tempts us to hope that there’s a special, expert, complicated magic bullet that will bring us what we want. And there are a lot of people who offer to sell us such a magic bullet. Almost always, the sales job emphasizes impossible things: eternal youth, great success, unheard-of prosperity, flawless health, better looks, waif-like weight, control.
Yoga proposes an alternative to all that. It claims that you need to be less complicated. In fact, it proposes a unity in place of the complex. That we take the emphasis on thinking up solutions, and replace it with concentrating on one thing. That concentration, on a movement, then a breath, then a sound, then a concept, then an experience of light, then nothing, steeps you in who and what you really are. When you have that experience, your perspective shifts, and the myriad things that appeared to matter are “put in perspective,” where you can see their true value — or lack thereof.
I could say what you will know then, that it all boils down to “this _______.” But until you practice having your mind make the journey to unity — yoga — it’s just poetry, meme, or another promise. Instead, follow the advice of Pattabi Jois, spoken with his quaint Indian-English grammar: “Practice yoga, and all is coming.”
Peter’s Teaching Schedule
June 28, Master Class, Joogakoulu Shanti, Helsinki, Finland
July 1 & 11-12 Master Classes, Nirvana Yoga Studio, Stockholm, Sweden
Wendy and I are teaching ISHTA Yoga classes and workshops at the Yoga Polarity Center in Malverne, Long Island, until we leave for Scandinavia. Check the link for times.
My awesome classes at ISHTA in Manhattan continue every Tues., Thurs., Fri. and Sat.
Privates. If you've never had a marma treatment, or you've got a couple of questions about asana or meditation, consider booking a private session. The investment in your well-being is priceless.
Yoga for Artists
Coming this Fall
I’m finishing up a book written for people in the arts about how yoga can help their creative practice. I’ve included quotes from conversations I had with some pretty awesome performing, film, and visual artists. Look for a September release!
Review Me!
If a book falls in an empty woods, does it make a sound? Help me spread the word!
In the digital age, books – like bistros and bakeware – find readers based on reviews. Please give Incarnation, The Black Hole of the Heart, or Wally and Kali a review on Amazon, Goodreads, or wherever you buy or download books. You can comment on my books' pages on Amazon even if don't buy the book there. I would appreciate it, and so will readers who find my books based on your reviews!
For some wack cultural flashback, check 
We tend to get very complicated. We live in the era of specialization. We think in terms of expertise. This kind of thinking tempts us to hope that there’s a special, expert, complicated magic bullet that will bring us what we want. And there are a lot of people who offer to sell us such a magic bullet. Almost always, the sales job emphasizes impossible things: eternal youth, great success, unheard-of prosperity, flawless health, better looks, waif-like weight, control.
That we take the emphasis on thinking up solutions, and replace it with concentrating on one thing. That concentration, on a movement, then a breath, then a sound, then a concept, then an experience of light, then nothing, steeps you in who and what you really are. When you have that experience, your perspective shifts, and the myriad things that appeared to matter are “put in perspective,” where you can see their true value — or lack thereof.
Yoga for Artists
If a book falls in an empty woods, does it make a sound? Help me spread the word!