The Yogabliss, Two Rivers/RiverTree Yoga on-line Moving into Meditation classes met this morning.  Today we explored stepping out of time.  We practiced remaining present with the ever changing moments of life.  Placing attention on breathing or sensation helps and mindfulness really involves another ingredient:  love.  Transforming bare attention to loving awareness changes one’s experience of life and of self.   As I discover every time I sit to meditate, this transformation happens with intention, kindness and support.  These are qualities we bring to ourselves and offer to each other.

We drew inspiration from Joy Harjo’s Eagle Poem. This poem is a prayer.  It calls on us to bring our wholes selves to the world with the utmost kindness and care.  Joy is serving her second term as the 23rd U.S. Poet Laureate.  You can find resources on Native news and culture as well as poetry and educational resources on her web-site.  Her signature project, Living Nations, Living Words, samples the work of 47 Native Nations poets through an interactive ArcGIS Story Map and a newly developed Library of Congress audio collection.

Poet Mary Oliver’s memorable words affirm the powerful ways our Body enables us to experience the world. Her poetry explores how we relate to nature, self, the limits of knowing and the vastness of being.

Robin Wall Kimmerer ‘is a mother, scientist, decorated professor, and enrolled member of the Citizen Potawatomi Nation.’ We drew inspiration from her book, Braiding Sweetgrass. Robin calls us to a wider ecological consciousness in which we can honor the reciprocal relationship we hold with the living world.

We also heard meditation teacher and writer Jack Kornfield’s encouragement to keep our hearts open.  He believes we are capable of feeling and abiding with difficult emotions  by holding them in our loving awareness.

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The Yogabliss, Two Rivers/RiverTree Yoga on-line Moving into Meditation classes met this morning. We’re each held here through relationships of care, tenderness and meaning.   Imagine all of the acts of generosity, patience, and compassion that have made your life possible and continue to offer you meaning.  Today we took some time to remember the people who have made a difference in our lives.  We then considered spiritual friendship – those trusted friends with whom we can entrust our truths.

We heard poet Maya Angelou’s poem, Alone.  Her few words evoke the aloneness that pervades our lives.

We practiced a guided meditation inspired by Oren Jay Sofer. We imagined our mentors, teachers, family members and friends sitting in a circle of care.

In his On Being interview, Be a Blessing, Rabbi Ariel Burger, shares his thoughts about how our friends help us to keep our hearts and minds open.  They help us find the questions worthy of our hearts’ devotion.

We ended with poet John O’Donohue’s beautiful Friendship Blessing.

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The Yogabliss, Two Rivers/RiverTree Yoga on-line Moving into Meditation classes met this morning.  Valentine’s Day is when we traditionally gift each other affection.  Affection springs from empathy.   Empathy makes so much possible:  acceptance, forgiveness, kindness, patience and understanding.  We start by sitting still.  Jon Kabat Zinn describes “sitting still and being quiet for a time as a radical act of love.”  When thinking about why this is loving, I was reminded of trying to meet the sometimes inexhaustible needs of a baby.  I can bring so much willingness to a baby in my arms – especially when there is another set of arms when I get tired.  One doesn’t control a baby.  One doesn’t control the mind.  Paradoxically we can become intimate with the nature of our minds.  The loving awareness of our hearts can hold distraction, strong emotion, fatigue and even pain.

Sitting still this week I connected with that part of myself that spends so much energy trying to avoid feeling vulnerable.  This is like trying to hide from the sun.  Meditation is not about trying to stop thinking.  It’s a practice that embraces our wholeness.  Gradually we develop an inner stability to recognize the many mind-states we try to hide from – vulnerability, self-judgment, anger, fear among so many others.  Slowly we learn to relax, tolerate and finally feel compassion for our difficult emotions.  You can do it.  You can be it.  It starts with sitting still, relaxing and trusting.

We drew inspiration from poet Galway Kinnell’s poem, St. Francis and the Sow.  Kinnell’s work was informed by his experience as a field worker in the Congress of Racial Equality and activist in the civil rights movement.  He was a passionate follower of Walt Whitman.

In his essay, Healing the Cracks, Buddhist monk and meditation teacher Ajahn Sucitto describes ways of expanding the field of “loving awareness.”  He teaches about empathy and “inter-subjectivity.”  When we can offer ourselves empathy we can expand to include others.  We can refrain from imprisoning ourselves and others in judgment.  We can learn to accept our feeling, thinking selves as a constellation of experiences that are ever-changing.  We are all subject to conditioning. We can learn to cultivate loving conditions, emotions and thoughts.

Finally we heard David Whyte’s poem Second Sight.  David’s poem touches on our basic human needs to be seen, heard and touched.

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The Yogabliss, Two Rivers/RiverTree Yogaon-line Moving into Meditation classes met this morning.  We practiced with the theme of inter-being today.  Our very composition is a form of Life expressing itself.  We contemplated how the world sustains us and naturally we turned to gratitude and reverence.

Teacher and poet, Thich Nhat Hanh, has dedicated his life to raising our awareness so that we can walk more lightly on the earth.  He offers many artful ways of bringing mindfulness into every day life.  We explored his “gatha” practice of reciting a verse acknowledging our relationship with whatever we are doing.  If you have time, why not write one of your own to try during the week?

Mary Oliver’s words reminded us of the soft animalness of our being.  Her invitation to allow ourselves to love what we love informed our ways of moving and sitting with more relaxation  and relish.

We drew inspiration from Betsey Crawford’s essay, The Power of Allurement.   Betsey is an environmental activist and photographer whose work centers around her appreciation for the natural world.  Her writing explores our place as humans in the more than human world.  We closed with Linda France’s breath taking poem Murmuration.   If you have time, I highly recommend following the poem’s link to its beautiful animation. Linda stitched together parts of 500 poems submitted in answer to her request for work inspired by love of the natural world.  It is utterly magical.

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