The Deepak Chopra Center publishes monthly an inspirational newsletter called “Agni”. Today’s tome contains “The 5 Keys to Stress Release”, something people in Maui (read: hippies, trust fund hippies or just old-fashioned doubters of authority, depending on the neighborhood) know quite a lot about. Many of us are fans of Deepak. So here’s a Maui-fied version of his article:

The 10-Ton Thought — More like the 10-Ton Bong

(Moving down)

Choices that Relieve Stress — I think it’s called moving to Hawaii or maybe eating more fiber. Anyway, let’s continue.

1. Connect to your body — Very important, almost first thing after 10-ton bong. Donate all heavy winter clothes and show off skin, every day. Seriously consider buying a Brazilian bikini and laser hair removal. Get at least one sarong/pareo. Doubles as drapes, too.

2. Meditate — Easy after emptying the 10-ton bong. No need pay somebody for help you.

3. Understand your unique stress response — Try, understand every single little detail about yourself, your world, your body, your relationships, your astrology, your numerology, your baggage, and why you still get wrinkles even though you spend lots of money at the health food store and cleanse regularly.

4. Practice yoga — With lots of other stinky people living in the jungle. Anywhere is good, even if it’s your rooftop and the neighbors can see your okole. Or better, do the hot kine yoga in Paia during summer. No AC, no deodorant. Da killah wiffahs. But watch out. I’ve seen yoga turn regular kine hippies on the lamb from religion into hairy zealots. It’s ugly.

5. Learn the skills of conscious communication — Whatever that means, but we like to talk while awake or baked or waked-n-baked. Anyway, we still let people make left turns in traffic and wave at strangers.