I have a new Zen teacher and its name is Verizon.net. As I speed along in an Amtrak train Miami bound, Verizon chooses to time me out of an internet session randomly and at quite inopportune times (i.e. I’ve just written a lengthy email to Reebok detailing a lot of information, am hitting send, and it times me out).

This has happened so much on this trip that I now hit send a few minutes into typing any email, just in case, even if its not finished. Then I just follow up with the email sequel.

Pre yoga this would have driven me nuts. I would’ve gotten angry, frustrated, irritable. Now I smile and take a deep breath and begin again. I now know that I have a choice. I can get angry and then magnetize that energy into my aura, or I can let it slide and begin again, magnetizing good energy to me instead.

I did my practice when I awoke this AM as the train moved at 100 MPH, and found much gratitude for practicing while on a hard wood floor that isn’t moving. Granted, I get to see the Florida sites while practicing atop my sleeper bed, but I’ll take a stable hard wood floor at Prana Cambridge, Newton, NYC, or Winchester any day.

Any situation/ any challenge can teach us gratitude, if we’re open.

And now, if I feel the train slowing down and stopping, I hop on my mat (on top of my sleeper bed) and do a few Asanas while the train has stopped.

Pre yoga, I would have been annoyed (“Why are we stopped? What’s going on? Now we’re going to be late.”) Because of yoga, I find joy in the fact that the train has stopped and I can do a few Sun Salutations without a high probability of wiping out.

Can a yoga practice really help you to move with grace in every moment of your life—no matter what the situation?

Yes, it can and it will, if you give it a chance.

Have you practiced today?

*Please not that I wrote this article before I lost my baby.  I’ve chosen to post it anyhow.  Namaste,  Taylor

I’m traveling South on an Amtrak train destined for Miami.  I have my own little sleeper cabin and it is worth every penny.  It’s like a perfect little private world, speeding toward the sun and sea.

I chose to travel by train to Miami because when I was pregnant with my first child, Madison (now 11), my dear friend and acupuncturist hooked me up with the information about radiation while flying, and strongly suggested I not fly first trimester.  I listened to her suggestion, for all four of my pregnancies.

It’s just me on the train—our three kids are flying to Miami with Philippe—and as I watch the Southern American landscape out the window for 36 hours, I am reminded of traveling through Europe by train in 1987.  There is something so special about traveling by train.  The world stops somehow and relaxation and quieting the mind is easy.

When you reserve a sleeper on the train you also reserve breakfast, lunch, and dinner reservations in the dining car.  A sweet attendant named Ron asked me last night when I’d like to dine, and at my reserved time I showed up to what reminded me of something from the 1950s—the dining car.  Tables set elegantly, waiters there to serve you whatever you wished—it was out of a movie I rented in college.

Until a couple was seated across from me whose energy was anything but open and friendly, and I explained to our waiter that I was “raw vegan.”

He said he had cheese ravioli for me.  I said no can do.  In that moment, as I scanned the menu for anything somewhat resembling a living food, I asked the Universe how to most easily travel downstream in this moment.  My answer came in an instant and I stood up from the table and walked back to the “kitchen area” and had a private chat with my waiter and the kitchen helpers.  

I explained what raw vegan was and that I was in my first trimester of pregnancy and so actually, I would rather dine in my sleeper since the smell of food was sort of getting to me.  

Hearing this, they totally got it and offered to make me “the meanest, biggest, raw vegan salad you’ve ever seen.”  Smiling in appreciation, I thanked them and said I might take them up on that later but for now, I was going to return to my cabin and munch on some of the food I had on ice there.

Back in my sleeper, happily eating raw vanilla mint chip, almond butter cup, and chocolate raw ice cream and gingerbread, chocolate chip, chocolate cherry macadamia, and raspberry shortbread raw cookies (I had 1 hour and 20 minutes between trains in Manhattan and made a Pure Food and Wine run to stock up on raw goodies for the trip, which Thank the Universe looked appealing to me even with my myriad of first trimester food aversions), I heard a knock on my door.  It was the kitchen crew and they wanted to make sure I knew they’d make me a “mean raw vegan salad” at any time—day or night.  I thanked them with love and decided not to tell them that the thought of vegetables during week eight of my pregnancy was not a pleasant one.

The Universe always delivers.  Exactly what we need in every moment.  If we are open and present enough to see it.  

“How is it possible to eat raw vegan on a 36 hour Amtrak journey to Miami?” you ask.  

Anything is possible—if you believe.