The Tower Brass Quintet, now in the midst of its 32nd season, has played in 25 states across the country and has traveled overseas, spreading its music.
The group’s work will be shared in “Holiday Wishes” with “Carol of the Bells,” which it performed for its 2008 album “Snowed In … Again.”

Tower Brass Quintet

“That’s a nice piece,” said tubist David Saygers. “That’s a piece that I arranged for that particular group and we performed a lot over several years.”
Joining Saygers in the quintet are trumpeters Brian Bushong and Larry Herman, horn player Bernice Schwartz and David’s brother Daniel Saygers on the trombone.
“It’s great,” David said of playing music with his brother. “We have played in music groups together over the years. It is pretty fun.”
The Tower Brass Quintet has released seven recordings and has been honored as Most Popular Instrument Ensemble by the Lake Erie West People’s Choice Awards. The group has also collaborated with other brass ensembles around the world, including the London, Budapest, Annapolis and American brass quintets. Now the group will collaborate with 24 others to benefit the local Make-A-Wish Foundation.
“It’s always been important for the group to feel like we can give back when we can,” David said. “It’s cool to be a part of that larger community of artists that are lending that support to an important cause.”

“I love the holidays,” Jamie Farr said in an interview with Toledo Free Press. “Starting with Halloween. I do not dress up in costumes anymore. Of course, as I grow older each year I probably look differently anyway. Thanksgiving and Christmas are two favorites. Christmas, I believe, being the most popular for me. New Year’s Eve is not a favorite of mine. Everyone tries too hard to make it super-special and it usually falls short of even being average.”
No one celebrity embodies “Toledo” as much as Farr. The actor has long since carved out an indelible legacy as one of the stars of the legendary sitcom “M*A*S*H,” bringing the Glass City along for the ride by incorporating many local institutions into his character. Thanks to Farr, when you say “Mud Hens” or “Tony Packo’s,” a good chunk of the American populace knows what you’re talking about.

Jamie Farr (AP)

And Farr has always been ready to give back to the city.
“I am so honored and proud to be able to do positive things for my hometown,” Farr said. “Having the local businesses support our LPGA tournament is a testimony to how much they want to do for the city and the charities involved. They are more than generous.”
So when the Make-A-Wish Foundation benefit CD “Holiday Wishes” was first conceived, it seemed natural that Farr be asked to participate.
“I believe it was Rita Mansour [senior managing director at Thomas McDonald partners] who got me involved with the CD. She put me in touch with Michael [Miller] and asked me to do the reading. I have done other things for Make-A-Wish in the past,” Farr said.
Farr was asked to read a classic piece of holiday literature — Clement Moore’s “A Visit from St. Nicholas,” better known by its classic opening line, “’Twas the Night Before Christmas.” He said he wanted his performance to sound natural in the recording.
“I did not want to read it in a meter. I wanted to appear as if I were telling the story to my children for the first time. I did the piece in one take,” Farr said. “I recorded this in a studio and there was no one present except the engineer. I imagined I was talking to an audience of my children.”
The track was produced at Marc Graue Voice Over Studios in Burbank, Calif.
The piece listeners will hear on the CD is rife with atmosphere; back in Toledo, producer Mighty Wyte placed a fireplace crackling sound behind Farr’s voice.
Miller said the original plan was to have a number of celebrities share the reading, but, “when we received Jamie’s recording and heard how much heart he put into it, there was no way we were going to edit out a single line. It’s a piece of Toledo history to hear Jamie read this poem; I believe families will share this track for many generations.”
“I have not heard the piece,” Farr said. “I did not listen to it when I completed the reading. It just felt good and I was afraid if I listened to it I may criticize it and try to make it better. I decided it was OK by my gut feeling.
“I hope listeners feel they are sitting down in front of a fire and enjoying a classic story with their family.”

An affinity for freshly fallen snow and her upcoming nuptials led Toledo singer-songwriter Kyle White to choose “Winter Wonderland” as her contribution to “Holiday Wishes.”
“It’s one of my favorite Christmas songs from being a kid,” White said. “I love the snow. I especially like when it’s fresh-fallen snow before the traffic hits it, so this kind of reminds me of that.”

Kyle White

The Toledo native said she also enjoys the part of the song where the children pretend the snowman is Parson Brown.
“I like the storyline of pretending the snowman is going to marry you,” White said. “I’m getting married in June, so I found
it appropriate.”
White said her version of “Winter Wonderland” consists of her singing and playing acoustic guitar.
“I don’t really like to mess with the classics too much,” White said.
White said she was happy to support Make-A-Wish Foundation.
“I think it’s a wonderful organization. I love kids and I think it’s important to have special childhood memories,” White said. “I really like that all the proceeds are going to Make-A-Wish and will help the kids who are actually in our community in Northwest Ohio. Hopefully that will be a really good selling point for people to buy the CD. I hope people get a good feeling out of it for helping. I’m really excited to get my copy and hear everybody else’s songs. I’m glad I could be a part of it.”

A staple in Toledo music for the past 42 years, Pat Lewandowski is bringing a blues theme to “Holiday Wishes.”

Pat Lewandowski

Lewandowski, a blues guitarist, contributed the original track “Frosty’s Wild Year.” With a nod to Tom Waits’ original song “Frank’s Wild Years,” Lewandowski wrote the track on the spot while performing at a benefit concert.
“It was for one of our Homeless Winters project’s Christmas CDs and it was something I made up on the spot, just having some fun,”  Lewandowski said. “Whenever we did these Christmas CDs I would try to come up with some sort of original take on them. I basically played the 12-bar blues and just made up all the words.”
Lewandowski has spent his career playing both solo and with groups, including time with the Blue Front Persuaders out of Ann Arbor and the Snooz Blues Band alongside his brother.
Since 1990, Lewandowski has been instrumental in raising awareness of homelessness in Toledo through Tent City and 1Matters and he is happy to bring Make-A-Wish Foundation into the fold this year.
“I like the work that they do,” Lewandowski said. “I have always been able to play music with people I like and people I admire. To be able to do that for 42 years, my life is pretty easy, so if Make-A-Wish can get a bonus out of this then that’s great by me.”

(Warning:  Considerable sarcasm was used in the writing of this column.)

Having at last had my consciousness raised through the tireless efforts of the OWS movement in recent weeks, I have come to believe that it may be time that the US calls an end to the observance of the Thanksgiving holiday.

After all, what is this holiday but a celebration of a group of people who left Plymouth, spent nine weeks sailing across an ocean, and still ended up in Plymouth (a fact which can hardly be considered a coincidence)?  Being typical White Europeans of their time, they then appropriated territory to which they had no claim from the indigenous population, proceeded to cut down the local forest for little but their own comfort (building homes), and raped the land by farming it for no better reason than to feed themselves.

Having somehow survived their first year by what can only be considered a misguided bit of divine providence; they chose to celebrate in the following fall of 1621.  Inviting some of the local Waupanoag tribe to share this celebration (and bring a good bit of the food required for the feast), they forced them to participate in what was a patently Christian religious celebration that disavowed their own beliefs (and this from the same people who were to give us the Salem Witch Trials only 70 years later).  The party was such a grand success that it was never repeated and the local tribes invited later had the rest of their lands stolen from them as these Europeans expanded their hold in this country.

Fast forward a little over 140 years, and we find this date revived, and declared a national holiday by President Abraham Lincoln in 1863.  Of course, we might question what Lincoln found to be thankful for while half of the nation was still suffering under the tyranny of slavery and all of it was locked in the bloodiest war in its history; but we can certainly say that neither adds anything to the esteem in which this holiday is for some reason held.

Jump forward again to the current day, and what has this celebration become?  Certainly it’s responsible for the senseless murder of millions of turkeys; a bird once supported by Benjamin Franklin to become the symbol of our country (the eagle was considered little more than a glorified vulture at the time).  Turkey decimation is not alone in its depredation of the animal kingdom however; as geese, ducks, and pigs (ham) will be sacrificed for no other reason than but to provide already overweight population another excuse to further endanger its health (and annoy Vegetarians and members of PETA alike).

One must further wonder when the government is going to take serious notice of the level of tryptophan the people are exposed to in the eating of turkey on Thanksgiving.  Not only is this a chemical currently unregulated by the EPA, but it’s a drug that the FDA largely ignores in spite of the fact that it has a significant sleep inducing effects in humans (something normally the exclusive province of speaking politicians).

Current celebrations likewise include parades, in which millions of flowers are killed for no other reason than to have their petals glued to floats paraded down city streets while spewing fossil fuel pollutants, brass bands that do little more than symbolize the martial nature of society, and cartoon balloons that illustrate our inability to deal with today’s social injustice.  If that were not enough, we are then showered most of the day with football games that provide perfect examples of the violence inherent in today’s society.  Perhaps the worst part of this holiday rife with racism, gluttony, and cruelty to animals however; might be its use as the kickoff of the most heinous example of rampant consumerism in this nation.  “Black Friday” is aptly named, as the day dedicated to the darkest examples of a nation consumed with obtaining the latest well-advertised toy or gadget.  And in spite of the increasing wealth inequality and tough economic times, many will nevertheless go into even more debt in order to celebrate both this holiday and the next one on the list.

Perhaps it’s time that the US simply gave up a holiday with what can be considered no redeeming social value in a modern society. Perhaps it’s time that we reject a patently prejudiced Pilgrim past that we can now only look back on with horror;   Perhaps in today’s more enlightened society, we must find simply that the holiday known as Thanksgiving is no longer acceptable.

<Sarcasm off>

Happy Thanksgiving!

There’s just something about a singing trio clad in cowboy hats and dusters. The Texas Tenors won a lot of hearts, wrangling classical, country and contemporary music on “America’s Got Talent.”
“That show is all about the everyday person being able to follow their dream and giving them a platform to really do what they love to do and to be seen by more than 100 million people around the world in 60 countries,” said Marcus Collins, the blond tenor.

The Texas Tenors, from left, JC Fisher, Marcus Collins and John Hagen. PHOTO COURTESY TEXAS TENORS

More than 100,000 acts auditioned for the show in 2009, and Collins, JC Fisher and John Hagen finished fourth.
“For us, that was such a dream come true to be on the show and be seen by so many people,” Collins said. “And to get the kind of support we got was just overwhelming for us; we felt very blessed every step of the way during ‘America’s Got Talent.’ ”
Songwriter Dana Lamb liked the singers so much, she sent them a track, “You Should Dream.”
“We listened to [‘You Should Dream’] and right away we knew that this was going to inspire a whole new album for us,” Collins said. “[The song] means a lot to us because we feel like it really does speak to our journey that we had on the show, that we have as friends and as artists.”
During a call from Branson, Mo., where the tenors were playing their second season at the Starlite Theatre, Collins was excited to talk about the follow-up to the group’s first disc, “Country Roots: Classical Sound.”
He said the CD, “You Should Dream,” includes covers of “Somewhere” from “West Side Story,” John Denver’s “Thank God I’m a Country Boy,” Puccini’s “Nessun dorma” from “Turandot” and The Righteous Brothers’ “Unchained Melody.”
“Another original song called ‘What Am I Going to Dream About’ was sent to us by Phillip White, who has written top 10 songs for Reba McEntire and George Strait. And he also wrote ‘I’m Movin’ On’ by Rascal Flatts,” he added.
For the forthcoming CD, the men moseyed out to Los Angeles to Conway Recording Studios.
“Conway Studios has such an energy about it; so many artists from Kiss, who was actually there recording when we were there, to Lady Gaga to Bonnie Raitt, Lil Wayne — this studio has been graced by some of the most amazing artists of our time. And for us to be able to record there with Nigel Wright, who is a world-renowned producer and partner of Andrew Lloyd Webber, musical director for Simon Cowell for ‘X Factor,’ ‘American Idol,’ ‘America’s Got Talent,’ for us that was such a dream come true just to be within that energy and creative buzz,” Collins said.
The guys also dropped some three-part harmonies at Henson Recording Studios in LA.
“It was Charlie Chaplin’s studio originally, and then Jim Henson took it over for his recording studio and for his soundstages with all his Muppet movies and show. So the history there was just as rich,” Collins said. “Justin Bieber was next door recording his Christmas CD while we were recording our CD.”
The Texas Tenors will ride into town Nov. 29 to play 2 p.m. and 7 p.m. holiday shows at Stranahan Theater. Tickets range from $16 to $42.

Mike Ness of Social Distortion: “Music can be powerful when you think about it.” PHOTO courtesy Epitaph Records

For guitarist/vocalist Mike Ness of Social Distortion, fitting in was never attractive. Rather than athletes and astronauts, it was the rebellious figures of his childhood — people like John Dillinger, Bonnie and Clyde, Keith Richards and Bruce Lee — who attracted his attention.
“I didn’t know really at the time what it was,” Ness said. “Now I look [back] in retrospect, they were just people doing it their way.”
That desire to do it his way combined with his passion for music are crucial components of Social Distortion. The band that many consider one of the forefathers of punk is in its fourth decade of touring and making music. Comprised of Ness, Jonny Wickersham (guitar), Brent Harding (bass) and Dave Hidalgo, Jr. (drums), Social Distortion will perform at the Omni on Nov. 26 in Toledo.
“It was quite a struggle for a punk band in the late ’70s, early ’80s,” Ness said. “The other 99 percent of the side of you really [was] discouraging you, flat out chasing you down the street wanting to kick your ass, so you didn’t have a whole lot of support. It was a small network. It was very underground. I’m grateful for that.
“It made me kind of have to work harder to realize that and it makes me appreciate it more.”
To say that Ness has taken the road less traveled would be a big understatement. He was kicked out of his house at age 15 and years of heroin addiction nearly derailed Social Distortion in the 1980s. After the band’s 1983 debut “Mommy’s Little Monster,” Social Distortion took five years before releasing the 1988 follow-up “Prison Bound.” Ness, who has been clean for 26 years, credited music for pulling him through.
“Music did, really, save my life,” Ness said. “It gave me almost some sort of optimism or some sort of hope that if I can quit sticking a needle in my arm and stay out of jail and [live] long enough, maybe I can put a band together and keep it together to do this if I don’t die first.”
Though it has had different lineups over the years, Social Distortion went on to release three more studio albums between 1990 and 1996, as well as a live record — “Live at the Roxy” — in 1998. Ness, meanwhile, put out two solo albums in 1999, “Cheating at Solitaire” and “Under the Influences.” Hard times would hit Ness and Social Distortion again, however, when his longtime friend and guitarist Dennis Danell died on Feb. 29, 2000, at just 38 years old.
“An ongoing thing that’s been very steady is always just people coming up and telling me that, ‘Your music got me through some hard times,’” Ness said. “And I just respond to it, ‘Me, too.’ I write the songs, I guess, to kind of get myself through [hard times]. You never really think that it’s going to be beneficial for anyone else. Music can be powerful when you think about it.”
Social Distortion regrouped with new guitarist Wickersham and released “Sex, Love and Rock ’N’ Roll” in 2004, which cracked the top 35 of the Billboard 200 chart. The band’s latest release—“Hard Times and Nursery Rhymes”—came out this year and debuted at No. 4 on the Billboard 200 chart, also placing in the top five on six other Billboard charts, including No. 1 on the Independent Albums chart.
Ness served as the producer on “Hard Times and Nursery Rhymes” and said that producing younger artists is something he’d be interested in doing in the future. More than 30 years after forming Social Distortion, Ness is just as happy touring now as he was in the beginning and is grateful for the continued fan support.
“It’s kind of a phenomenon for us because most bands who have been around 30 years were peaking 30 years ago and now they’re kind of riding the coattails of that,” Ness said on the longevity of Social Distortion. “For us, our level of accomplishments have been a very gradual, upward climb for 30 years. In other words, we’re more popular now than we were 15 or 20 years ago. We’re more popular now than we were two years ago.
“It’s been just a gradual climb and it’s very natural and very organic.”

On Nov. 26, Social Distortion and special guest Chuck Ragan will perform at the Omni, located at 2567 W. Bancroft St. in Toledo. Tickets are $27.50 in advance, $32 at the door and available at all Ticketmaster outlets, as well as locally at Culture Clash (419-536-LOVE) and RamaLama Records (419-531-ROCK). Parking is $5. Doors are at 7 p.m. and all ages are welcome. For more information, visit www.omnimidwest.com.

Russell Brand starred in ‘Forgetting Sarah Marshall’ and ‘Get Him to the Greek.’ ASSOCIATED PRESS PHOTO

Russell Brand came on the phone, his voice filled with excitement and enthusiasm. It was a remarkable level of fire from a man who, by all rights, should have been exhausted.
It was Nov. 16, and Brand had just arrived in Michigan after a 5:45 a.m. flight out of California. It was the middle of the afternoon, and he was doing the traditional round of media interviews before his stand-up performance at Eastern Michigan University in just a few hours time. Then? No rest for the wicked — it would be off to the airport again, for a stop in Virginia the next day.
And yet, in his interview with Toledo Free Press Star, Brand sounded full of joy. “Yeah! I’ve never been to Detroit before, and I like it. I’m an Eminem fan, I like D12, the whole place is making me so very, very optimistic, and as an Englishman, I’m right in the rhythm of [this] magnificent city.”
The appearance at Eastern Michigan was the first in a mini-tour of four Midwest colleges in four days, an idea that Brand said he embraced the first time it was presented to him.
“I’m really interested in the American college life, I only really know it from films,” Brand said. “I never went to university in my country. And it just seems kinda exciting when you see it in films and stuff like that, particularly films like ‘Girls Gone Wild.’ And ‘Girls Gone Wild 2.’”
This garnered Brand a laugh, one of many during the course of the interview. It’s the kind of reaction he loves to get — it’s one of the main reasons why the veteran comic still loves to perform, even as his star rises in Hollywood.
“It’s like nothing else,” Brand said. “It’s like you’re directly in communication with an audience. It’s really nice to directly talk to people, and hopefully get them laughing and to create chaos. I love that.”
Of course, there are challenges now that his name and face are becoming more and more known outside his native Britain. Brand noted the challenges in performing for an American audience as opposed to those across the pond.
“Well, there is some difference. In England, you forget that as a kid growing up, we’ve got all the same TV programs and the rest, and you understand the culture inherently.
“Here, I have to learn about things. But that process of learning about things can be pretty funny, as well — the audience has to inform me of what’s going on, let me know if I’m making capital mistakes,” Brand said.
Of course, Brand doesn’t have to look far for help on those cultural differences, considering his famous marriage to pop star Katy Perry. And he continuously is raising his profile with American fans via a string of movies, books and other appearances — though Brand insists the main goal of all his other work is to draw attention to his stand-up performances.
“Stand-up, I think it’s always stand-up, because it’s very direct. When you write a book, it’s ages until anyone reads it and you get anything back. Same with making a movie. Stand-up, you’re there with people. And all you really wanna do is make people laugh and make people happy. That’s the best way of doing that,” Brand said.
This isn’t to say that Brand isn’t proud of his other work though — his two “Booky Wook”s have been best-sellers, he’s had starring roles in films such as “Forgetting Sarah Marshall,”  “Get Him to the Greek” and the recent remake of “Arthur,” and next summer he’ll be part of an all-star ensemble with the release of the film version of the musical “Rock of Ages.”
“Being in your own vehicle is fun, because you sort of get, like, the power,” Brand said. “And working along with people is good, because it’s really interesting to sort of work with Tom Cruise and Alec Baldwin and those kind of people — people I’ve watched in movies my whole life. So there’s different advantages to different things, if you’re in the right mood.”
Brand has also maintained steady contact with his fanbase through the Internet — his website, RussellBrand.tv, features a wide variety of tour updates and journal entries, and he has almost 3.5 million followers on Twitter.
“Well, you’ve got direct contact with people, wherever you are in the world. It’s like we’re only just now beginning to understand the possibilities for social media.
“Particularly when you think that the role that the media plays in sculpting and controlling the way that people think, it’s kind of a unique opportunity we have now to be really honest with each other. It’s pretty exciting,” Brand said.
Brand added that his act deliberately carries a genuine sense of rebelliousness — one he hopes his audience will, in some way, emulate after the show is over.
“I think I want people to know that they can get away with being really crazy and stupid, and having fun without consequence. And that it’s really possible to be really defiant and mischievous, and that you don’t have to do what you’re told.
“As long as you’ve got goodness in your heart, you can create all kinds of mayhem
and craziness.”

The Village Idiot is hosting the Johnny Cash–themed “Raise Some Cash Vol. 3” concert Dec. 4 to raise money for the Feed Your Neighbor pantry at Augsburg Lutheran Church.
“This is the third time we’ve done this, and our economy certainly hasn’t gotten any better,” said Larry Meyer, local attorney and publicist for Feed Your Neighbor. “The need is so obvious. Our pantry feeds the 43612 ZIP code, and all it takes is one drive down old Sylvania Avenue to know that the area has been hit particularly hard. It’s been identified as one of the city’s ‘tipping point’ neighborhoods, something that could go either way. It’s an area with a specific need.”
This is the third event in a series of fundraisers, with each band choosing at least one Johnny Cash song to perform.
“I’m a big Johnny Cash fan,” Meyer said. “It was a neat hook. The event is consistent with the man, the myth, the legend. Although Cash had a wild streak, he also was a Christian. He did a lot and gave a lot to underprivileged people.”
The participating bands are Blowing Grains, Old State Line, Voodoo Libido, Kentucky Chrome, Locoweed, The Bridges and Jeff Stewart & the 25’S.
“It’s a great, community-based event,” Jeff Stewart said. “It’s good to give back to your hometown. A lot of people come out to support a really great cause. All I have to do is go up there and entertain. It’s what I do every day, but doing it for this situation is what it’s all about.”
“I’m really touched at everyone’s willingness to participate for this cause,” Meyer said. “We try to deliver some acts that are a little more country-rock based to take advantage of the Johnny Cash tie-ins, but there’s certainly a nice alternative of music for everybody.”
The Augsburg Lutheran Church is located at 1342 W. Sylvania Ave. The pantry provides approximately 9,000 packages of groceries per year and serves 650 people per month in the 43612 ZIP code.
Feed Your Neighbor has 13 distribution centers and distributes more than 70,000 packages per year.
“This is being put on by our specific pantry, but if we lessen the burden there we lessen the burden across the entire Feed Your Neighbor program,” Meyer said. “We like to think we’re helping the program citywide.”
Music will run from 3-10 p.m. at The Village Idiot, located at 309 Conant St. in Maumee. A donation of $5 is suggested, and all ages are welcome.

It is traditional to utter “namaste” at the beginning and end of a yoga class, yet it’s probably the most misunderstood ritual. Some students think this word has religious connotations and refuse to say it. Others mumble it, unsure of what they’re really speaking.
Yogis, like many others, believe that there is more to us than our physical bodies and that this elusive part of ourselves has unlimited potential. Call it what you will— soul, essence, spirit, divine — the meaning is the same. There is an important part of a human being that makes each individual person special and indefinable. It is this intangible piece of ourselves that we honor and acknowledge when we say “namaste,” which is Sanskrit for “I bow to you.”
Thanksgiving is one of the most wonderful celebrations of the year. People from all walks of life and belief systems can share this day. Its meaning is universal for Americans — taking time to be thankful for what you have. Believing that you can be anything that you want to be is almost as American as apple pie. Yet that doesn’t mean our circumstances don’t hinder us.
Life’s obstacles get in the way of actualizing who we really are and who we have the ability to be. Yoga helps us get back in touch with this deeper self and hidden potential.
For instance, when I wake up groggy and choose to hop on my yoga mat for 30 minutes rather than lounge around, I often realize that I just needed to get moving. I hop off my mat energized and ready for my day. Sometimes, though, my physical practice helps me get in touch with my fatigue. I am a sleep-deprived mom and often I am just honest-to-goodness tired. I use my mat to slow down and take a moment to nurture myself with restorative yoga poses and breath. I step off of my mat tired, but in touch with myself in a deeper way that brings freshness to my day.
Still, yoga is not solely a physical practice. Just as I use my mat to understand my fatigue, yogis use their physical practices to know and accept themselves on a very deep level — easier said than done.
When I snap at my wonderful husband because I’m exhausted, I feel disappointed in myself. I apologize, he accepts and we move on. Yet I’m determined to not snap at him in the first place. Again, easier said than done, but as a yogi I know that I can be who I want to be — and my physical practice helps me understand this.
I can physically do poses that I thought I would never be able to do. Now I believe that I can do any pose with enough practice, and why not? If these other poses are accessible to my body with practice, then why not that one as well? Feeling this unlimited potential is extremely liberating and invigorating, and this physical sense of empowerment leads to mental and emotional empowerment too.
Case in point: I’m the most impatient person you will meet. I sincerely want to be more patient. Will it happen overnight? Not likely. However, I can work toward this inner goal just as I work into poses on my mat. That irritating person I encountered the other day might make my life difficult, but this person can also test me and help me become more patient. I can honestly say that it’s easier for me to pop up into a headstand than to live my yoga in this manner off of my mat. Fortunately, I have an entire lifetime to make myself a better person.
I firmly believe that we’re here to grow and to help each other grow as well. Though this isn’t always easy, we share our journey through life with other people whether we like it or not. This connectedness to others forms the foundation for both yoga and the word “namaste.”
Yoga means yoke or unite, and this less tangible soul, spirit, essence — whatever you choose to say — is what connects or unites us to everything and everyone around us. Feeling this union to something much deeper than what we physically see is the entire purpose of yoga, and “namaste” is the word that yogis use to recognize it.
Saying “namaste” to another person simply acknowledges this divinity and potential within them. Saying it to yourself is acknowledging it within you. Whatever your beliefs, saying “namaste” is a genuine show of respect — and you don’t even have to say the actual word.
The mudra, or hand gesture, associated with “namaste” is palms touching in prayer position over the heart center. Closing your eyes and bowing your forehead towards your hands symbolizes “namaste” without any verbalization.
This Thanksgiving, as you sit down at your table filled with loved ones, pause and momentarily reflect on everything in your life that you have to be thankful for. Things might not be perfect. You might be touched with loss or struggles, but this is not your permanent state. There is always hope because inside of you is the foundation for all that you need in order to become the person that you really want to be and to have the life that you really want to live. Acknowledge your inner light and potential, and say thanks to yourself for being who you already are. namaste.

Jennifer White is a certified yoga instructor. Email her at yenniwhite@hotmail.com.