The Columbia City Yoga on-line Moving into Meditation class met this morning.  We reflected on our inter-being and inter-breathing with the great web of life.  We imagined ourselves as trees generating life sustaining energy for the world around us.  We contemplated who and what we love and will protect.

We heard from Joanna Macy’s recent Lion’s Roar interview on The Great Awakening the Planet Needs. Joanna Macy has spent over sixty years organizing environmental and social action groups.  Joanna is a national treasure. You can hear more about her remarkable life and work by listening to A Wild Love for the World on On Being with Krista Tippett.  Her work describes the process by which we can develop interbeing.  In essence when we realize our interbeing caring for our world is simply and profoundly a way of caring for ourselves

We heard writer Deena Metzger’s poem, Inflammation. Deena is “a writer, a teacher, a healer and Earth advocate. [She] lives at the end of the road at the border of Topanga State Park with a variety of neighbors including mountain lions, bobcats, raccoons, coyotes, squirrels, rabbits, moles, gophers, rattlers, and a variety of birds who come to the bird feeder every day or to drink at the Buddha fountain.”

We heard eco-philosopher, David Abram’s, thoughts about inter-breathing as interbeing.

We closed with Yahia Lababidi’s poem, Breath.  Underneath the busyness of our lives, nature pulses  – ready to be felt, heard and seen.  Life waits quietly for our attention and care.

Continue reading →

The Columbia City Yoga on-line Moving into Meditation class met this morning. The heartbreaking events of the past week’s catastrophic fires have shown that our survival depends on how we help one another.  We also reflected on the inner resources of balance and equanimity.   Cultivating inner balance can help to see and think clearly.  It can help us to sustain our support and service efforts.

We heard Terry Tempest Williams‘ powerful essay after the 2020 Utah fire season.  Over 330,000 acres burned in Terry’s homeland.  The essay is called A Burning Testament.  I think it speaks to our current western wildfire season.

We heard  from Oren Jay Sofer’s  book: Your Heart Was Made for This: Contemplative Practices for Meeting a World in Crisis with Courage, Integrity, and Love. Oren writes about equanimity as a centering stabilizing resource in our lives.  It enables us to stay right on the edge of reactivity.  We stay long enough to gain perspective and consider an appropriate response.

Our guided mediation was inspired by mediation teacher Kelly Boys‘ teachings on non-sleep deep rest (NSDR).  You can find more of Kelly’s practices on the Alembic YouTube channel Kelly Boys Playlist.

Continue reading →

The Columbia City Yoga on-line Moving into Meditation class met this morning. We contemplated our human need for help.  We give and receive help during the course of our lives.  With mindfulness we can call on our heart’s wisdom to hear and answer calls for help with compassion and wisdom.

We heard from poet and writer David Whyte’s essay, Help.  This essay is drawn from the collection, Consolations:  The Solace, Nourishment and Underlying Meaning of Everyday Words.

We heard poet Tracy Shaw’s Blessing for the Inward Way.

Continue reading →

The Columbia City Yoga on-line Moving into Meditation class met this morning.  We contemplated our relationship with Earth as giver.  Our body is a gift, given by Earth.  We are Earth’s dream and she is our dream.  Our natural response is gratitude.  Gratitude arises in a field of abundance among inter-related beings.  We can sense this in our bodies, feel it in our hearts and imagine it into being with our minds.

We heard from Robin Wall Kimmerer’s writing, The Serviceberry.   You can read her Emergence Magazine interview, Practical Reverence. Robin describes her imaginative model for embodying a “practical reverence: an ethic of care, reciprocity, and gratitude for the Earth and Her abundance.”  It might change your ideas about the possibilities of economy.

We heard Valerie Hope Cherrin’s poem EarthDreamBody.  The poem is from an on-line journal, The Work That Reconnects.  The poems are contributed by members who are doing this work of grieving for and advocating on behalf of our beleaguered and beautiful world.

Continue reading →

The Columbia City Yoga on-line Moving into Meditation class met this morning.   We reflected on the nature of stories that lead to change.  We explored how mindfulness can help us to recognize the heart-stories that we are shaped by and those that we bring to life through our compassionate choices.

We heard the story of Bolivian human rights defender, Amparo Carvajal.  This week Amparo was honored with the U.S. State Department’s annual Human Rights Defenders Award.  At 85 years old, she is still creating the stories that the world needs to hear.  You can learn more about her and the other honorees by viewing the Human Rights Award Ceremony.  It is a joy to learn about the dedicated work that happens throughout the world.  (I wanted to bring this forward as it wasn’t mentioned in the New York Times.)

We heard journalist and writer Rebecca Solnit’s comments about the kind of stories that lead to change.  Her comments were drawn from What If We’re Telling the Wrong Stories About the Climate Crisis.

We heard activist and theologian, Dr. Vincent Harding’s encouragement to create the “just country” we want to live in.  You can read more at Dr. Vincent Harding’s Call to Make America America.

We heard David Whyte’s poem, In the Beginning.  You can hear more of David’s mindful insights in his interview with On Being’s Krista Tippett, Seeking Language Large Enough.

Continue reading →

The Columbia City Yoga on-line Moving into Meditation class met this morning.  We reflected on what it means to have “wise hope” in these challenging times of global strife and environmental decline.  We practiced being with what is true.  We considered our willingness to bring caring actions to the world despite the uncertainty of success.  Each of us can bring our light to this “beautiful broken world.”

We heard readings from Valerie Brown’s book Hope Leans Forward:  Braving Your Way Toward Simplicity, Awakening and Peace.  Valerie is a practitioner and teacher in the lineage of Zen Master Thich Nhat Hanh.  Valerie’s teachings and writings encourage students to make life affirming choices in conditions of challenge and uncertainty.  These choices help us to align our actions with the values that enliven meaning and purpose.  Today we touched on what it is to have “wise hope” for the future of our world.

We heard a few lines of affirmation from Andjelka Jankovic Andjelka  is a seeker and writer of stories, travel guides and life perspectives.  She is inspired by living questions like:  What does it mean to flourish?

We heard David Wagoner’s poem, Lost.  David was a poet of the Pacific Northwest who died in 2021 at the age of 95.  He was a conservationist and a hiker.  He experienced awe in our Northwest lands and also lamented humanity’s treatment of nature. David taught at the University of Washington for many years.  He once said: “Those who do without poetry should imagine their lives without music — they are missing that much by missing poetry.”

Continue reading →

The Columbia City Yoga on-line Moving into Meditation class met this morning.  We reflected on our inter-dependence and how the choices we make locally affect others globally.  We attuned to our compassionate and wise “grandmother’s heart.”  May this wisdom enable us to live our lives with conscientiousness and care.

We heard the story of the Quechua people as told in the New York Times article, Where Rivers Run Red.  Their story is one of adaptation, collaboration and mutual support.  It is also story of an indigenous people living as they close to the land as they have for centuries.  Their land and life ways are at risk as glaciers continue to melt and their water is poisoned.  They have little influence over the global choices that are melting the glacial source of living water.  This insight might inspire us to consider how we consume water and other resources.  Perhaps we can live more simply so others may simply live.

We read from the Roshi Joan Halifax essay, Grandmother’s Heart.  She observes that “life is in need of balance and life is in the balance.” Roshi urges us “to find that immoveable center, that plumb line that aims toward gravity, the wise elder within us. Let’s find that strong back that supports our soft front, and let’s find or call out our grandmother’s heart.”

Continue reading →

The Columbia City Yoga on-line Moving into Meditation class met this morning. We explored how “to attend to what is while stretching to what can be.”  How we attend is vital to responding to with compassionate action.  We can come alongside each other in courage and en-couragement. We begin with this moment: a pause to breathe and feel.

We heard from John Paul Lederach’s recent Upaya Dharma talk:  A Call to Hearten:  Let Tender Tenacity Walk with Fierce Compassion.  John Paul is professor emeritus of International Peacebuilding at the University of Notre Dame. He is a pioneer in conflict transformation.  He’s been involved in conciliation work in Columbia, the Philippines, Nepal and various African countries.

We drew from Oren Jay Sofer’s  book: Your Heart Was Made for This: Contemplative Practices for Meeting a World in Crisis with Courage, Integrity, and Love.

Continue reading →

The Columbia City Yoga on-line Moving into Meditation class met this morning. We practiced sitting with the truth of our experience.  We contemplated what it is to expand our view in space and time.  We can practice hope by keeping our hearts open.  We can offer ourselves compassion when they close.  We are, each of us, part of the fabric of being.  Each thread makes the whole.

We heard from Jane Hirshfield’s Emergence Magazine interview, On Time, Mystery, and Kinship.

We heard from Jane Goodall’s Book of Hope: A Survival Guide for Trying Times,

We heard J. Drew Lanham’s word of hope:  To Walk in a Mad World. You can learn more about poet, professor and writer J. Drew Lantham by listening to his On Being interview with Krista Tippett:  Pathfinding Through the Improbable.  Check out his memoir The Home Place: Memoirs of a Colored Man’s Love Affair with Nature at the library.

Once again we drew insights from  Thich Nhat Hanh’s book, Zen and the Art of Saving the Planet.  This beautiful book will help readers to bring compassion and mindfulness to their response to the many environmental and social crises we are witnessing today.

Continue reading →