The Yogabliss, Two Rivers/River Tree Yoga on-line Moving into Meditation classes met this morning. I am so grateful to have this light.  Yes – grateful for the screen through which I can see caring faces.  Your faces help me to experience the goodness in human being.  Our faces are blessings we offer each other.  Thank you.

We shared a thanksgiving inspired by Kailea Frederick of Earth is Ohana.  The thanksgiving was expressed by the poem, Remember, gifted by  American poet laureate, Joy Harjo.  If Joy’s work speaks to you check out her recent interview with the Chief Seattle Club at The Joy Harjo Bookclub on YouTube.

We contemplated the inner and outer resources we can draw on in these hard times.  These same resources help us to be present with our difficulties while keeping our hearts open.

We also drew on the meditation teachings on equanimity as interpreted by Roshi Joan Halifax and Sharon Salzberg.

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The Yogabliss, Two Rivers/River Tree Yoga on-line Moving into Meditation classes met this morning. I am so grateful to have the circles of mindfulness to come to every Sunday.  It’s truly a gift to be among caring others who have the courage and generosity of spirt to come together.  We are living through such turmoil.   We can turn to embodied mindfulness practices as a way of getting grounded.  We can find a place of inner peace to rest our minds and connect with our deepest truths.

Today we explored our relationship to our bodies in a variety of ways:

Contemplating the body  – exploring its nature
Developing a sense of wonder and appreciation for the body – considering the body’s many gifts
Examining our relationship to the body – how we care for it, how we listen to it, how we understand it
Befriending the body – accepting whatever we can without judgment
Learning how to meet discomfort and pain with balance and patience – finding a place that doesn’t hurt – a place we can return to when feeling overwhelmed

We have the inner resources that we can nurture and grow to help calm and heal ourselves.

We drew on the work of Oren Jay Sofer.  Oren teaches mindfulness, meditation and Nonviolent Communication.  You can find “Resources for Hard Times” on his web-site along with many excellent articles, audio and video teachings.  Oren’s brings his personal experience and professional training in Somatic Experiencing to helping students on their healing journey.

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The Yogabliss, Two Rivers/River Tree Yoga on-line Moving into Meditation classes met this morning.  I am drawn to our meditation circles like a moth to the light.  We are living through so much darkness even the smallest glimmers of hope mean so much.  We bring our lights together and hope grows stronger.  In the “brave” space we create the long view emerges.  The view which helps us appreciate the change and transformation that continues despite the darkness.  If we know how and where to look it’s easy to find the many, many whole-hearted – brave people working to make the world a better place.

We heard an “Invitation to Brave Space” from poet and justice doula, Mickey Scottbey Jones. 

In her book, The Wisdom of No Escape, meditation teacher and author, Pema Chodron, described how meditation can illuminate our well-being and suffering as two sides of our human condition.  She encourages us to meet our own minds with honesty and wholeheartedly – meeting everything – thoughts, emotions and sensations.  This includes “the smelly, rich, fertile mess of stuff” and the “creative energy of life.”

In his book, Becoming Animal, ecologist and philosopher, David Abram talks about the magic of seeing all beings – humans and more than humans – as having perspectives, feelings and longings just like we do.  This relational awareness is one of the inner resources we can tap into to experience our inter-relatedness and our wholeness.

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The Yogabliss, Two Rivers/River Tree Yoga on-line Moving into Meditation classes met this morning.  Thank you for coming to practice today. It’s so easy to get swept away by the dramatic events unfolding in our world.  The pull of events doesn’t stop – and we can easily exhaust ourselves trying to cope with one fear after the next.  We are creaturely beings and our instincts are humming under the noise – our instincts toward wellness brings us to stillness.  

We explored our animal nature  through our senses – especially the sense of touch.  Hands can be a place to anchor and ground your awareness at any time.  You can hold your own hand  in the midst of life’s turbulence. In his book, My Grandmother’s Hands, author and trauma therapist, Resmaa Menakem describes the importance of having a settled body in our relations.

We drew on the work of David Abram, Director of the Alliance for Wild Ethics.  David is a cultural ecologist and geo-philosopher whose books include Becoming Animal: An Earthly Cosmology and The Spell of the Sensuous: Perception and Language in a More-than-Human World. His point of view inspired our exploration of the ways our animal nature and sensory perception exist in a “field of relationship” between the human body and the breathing earth.  If you want to explore David’s work I highly recommend this audio essay, Creaturely Migrations on a Breathing Planet. It’s is an awe inspiring account of the magical migrations of salmon, sandhill cranes and monarch butterflies that takes you deep into  mystery.

Finally poet Mary Oliver gifted us her very human, down to earth poem, Begin With, The Sweetgrass.

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