Design Highlights

This week’s Design Highlight is a first for us, in that it’s our first overtly religious design (though some might consider our earlier Buddha design religious as well). As for myself, I was raised in the mild Minnesota Lutheran tradition but have found that I’m spiritual and believe that something is out there, but I’m not yet sure what. We welcome all religious points of view here at Big Raven, and we’ve found ideas of value in every major religion we’ve come across. Regardless of what you may personally believe, for example, I think we can all agree that the...

Well, folks, we’re running a little behind. We’re trying to get this week’s Design Highlight out the door tonight because we’re highlighting our Libra yoga mat, and the Libra sign dominates the Zodiac calendar from September 23–October 22, a period which ends today. No real excuses, except to say that we’ve been busy! (We’d do the next Zodiac sign, Scorpio, but yesterday’s blog post was the Top 10 Poses for Libras, which is part of our nascent Top 10 Lists series, and we want to keep running with that, so we’ll save Scorpio for next month. Whew!) No fear, though,...

This week we’re highlighting a design that’s extremely special to us, because it’s both a memorial and a fundraiser for a local children’s hospital. The design Devon’s Heart was inspired by conversations with Kristine Jenson, who also happens to be this week’s yogi highlight. Devon was Kristine’s niece, and she was born with a rare heart defect called hypoplastic left heart syndrome (HLHS). As a result of this defect, Devon passed away soon after she turned 3. Kristine has been a champion and fundraiser for the cardiovascular program at the Children’s Hospitals of Minnesota ever since. Because this beautiful and...

Everyone who knows just enough about yoga to be dangerous assumes that we’re all young tall slender white limber vegan Buddhists. And no wonder — that seems to be what’s on the cover of every single yoga magazine, ad and website. But as we all know, the truth is much more complex. I’m white, sort of, but I’m not exactly THE paragon of young, tall, slender, limber or vegan (though I was for a while). Nor am I Buddhist, though I find a lot to admire about the Buddha himself, and Buddhism in general. I respect the tenets of Buddhism, and I subscribe to...

Hello again, my finely feathered friends. It’s already the middle of the month, and in two weeks we’ll have to say goodbye to our September collection and welcome our October collection. (If you’re thinking about buying one of our September mats, you might want to make your move sooner rather than later, so you don’t forget. Hint, hint :-) In the meantime, however, we thought we should highlight one of our favorite designs from this month’s collection: Minnesota Home. This one is clearly special to us based on the description alone: Big Raven is a proudly Minnesota company. We grew...