The Yogabliss on-line Moving into Meditation class met this morning.  Today we explored awareness as relationship with ourselves and the world around us.  In mindfulness we train the mind to stay with present moment experience whether it expresses as sensation, emotion or thought.  We also notice how we respond to pleasant or unpleasant experiences can reveal so much about the nature of mind and personality.

We drew inspiration from Jennifer Williamson’s poem I Am Enough.  Jennifer is a writer and suicide loss survivor.  Her web-site, HealingBrave.com, offers a wonderful sampling of her writing and healing resources.  These words from Jennifer’s bio spoke to my heart:

Some wounds are meant to hurt. If you let it, the pain wedges you open, so that new things can get in and something else can come forth.
In the hollowed out place where your life used to be, starting again is part of the medicine. And part of the revolution.
The way you heal can be its own healing.
You can make change, connections, things, beauty. You can take what you’ve been given and give back differently. You can love people better, even the people you don’t like… including yourself: because deep healing is brave work. And important. And, well, WORK.

Meditation instructor, hospice director and writer, Frank Ostaseski, describes how mindfulness practice can help us develop the capacity to “be with” difficult experiences.  In his book, The Five Invitations, he discusses the nature of our “wild” mind and our impulse to control life experiences that cannot be controlled.  Of course our super powers are loving kindness and compassion.

These capacities are two of the four inner resources that traditional Buddhist meditation teaches:  loving kindness, compassion, appreciative joy and equanimity.

We ended with Taoist philosopher and poet, Lao-Tzu’s poem We Are a River.  This interpretation is drawn from The Sage’s Tao Te Ching: Ancient Advice for the Second Half of Life.

In our post- meditation discussion we discussed our relationship to time.  I mentioned David Farrier’s fascinating essay, We’re Going to Carry That Weight a Long Time, in the current issue of Emergence Magazine.

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The Yogabliss, Two Rivers/RiverTree Yoga on-line Moving into Meditation classes met this morning.  Today we focused on the experiences of being held and belonging.  As we reenter more “real life” activities our inner resources of kindness, compassion and caring are so very important.  Drawing on loving awareness can help bring compassion to the moments of fear, stress and vulnerability that we may be experiencing through this transition.  Loving awareness can also help us extend kindness to others who are likely contending with difficult change.

We heard Bhavya’s poem, A Sense of Belonging.  You can find more of Bhavya’s poems at AllPoetry.com an online poetry writing group.  All are welcome to contribute and explore.

We drew inspiration from Frank Ostaseski’s book, The Five Invitations.  Frank is a longtime meditation teacher and hospice program training director.  His Five Invitation’s website has a series of freely offered courses including:  I Want to Live My Life More Fully, I Want to Be a Compassionate Companion and I Want Help Facing Loss, or Living With Illness.

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The Yogabliss, Two Rivers/RiverTree Yoga on-line Moving into Meditation classes met this morning.  On this beautiful Spring morning I witnessed two crows chasing an eagle down river.  It happened in an instant – wonder so fleeting.  Today we explored the vital beauty in our lives.

We considered how we are expressions and stewards of Earth’s beauty.  We inherit and bequeath precious life in a long river of time.

We drew inspiration from poet laureate, Joy Harjo’s writings in the anthology, When the Light of the World Was Subdued, Our Songs Came Through and her poem, The Life of Beauty.  Joy edited the anthology of native nations’ poetry.  The collection is a beautiful compilation of traditional oral prose and the gifts of today’s emerging poets.

We also considered The Natural History of Our Senses,  Diane Ackerman’s writing about the way our senses emerge from genetic inheritance and express themselves in relationship to our human and more than human world.

We drew on the work of environmental activist and Buddhist Scholar, Joanna Macy.  You can learn more about the work by going to the Work That Reconnects Network.

We raised our voices in chant while in stillness and movement.  Here is our chanted appreciation of Earth, her incredible beauty:

May we breathe in beauty.
May we feel in beauty.
May we walk in beauty.
Maw we touch the world in beauty.

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The Yogabliss, Two Rivers/RiverTree Yoga on-line Moving into Meditation classes met this morning. Today many of us come together to honor and to remember the people who have mothered us – those dear ones who have given themselves to us in love. We explored the many ways mothering happens between humans and more than humans.  We considered mothering memories that travel from being to being and across time.  We also reflected on our experience of mothering, nurturing, guiding and mentoring others.

Poet Joy Harjo’s beautiful poem, Remember, called upon all our relations, reminding us of the broader kinship we hold with life.

We drew on Dr. Suzanne Simard’s new book, Finding the Mother Tree.  Her work reminds us of the more than human mothers that nourish and sustain world around us.  Suzanne is best known for her groundbreaking research that demonstrated how trees communicate and exchange resources through networks of mycorrhizal fungi in the soil.  She continues to explore the ways trees recognize and support their kin.  You can hear a fascinating discussion, Finding the Mother Tree, hosted by Emergence Magazine.

Finally, we heard Anne Haven McDonnell’s poem, She Told Me the Earth Loves us.  Anne is author of the poetry book, Living With Wolves.  For a real treat you can hear Anne read four of her poems at Terrain on-line journal.  My favorite is How to Sit With a Wolf.

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The Yogabliss, Two Rivers/RiverTree Yoga on-line Moving into Meditation classes met this morning. Today we contemplated the ways we see – always through the lens of our conditioning.

We humans don’t see a direct representation of external reality.  We see a translation formed by our eyes and minds. We explored seeing with our hearts.

Mary Oliver’s poem, Luna, invited us into a tender meeting with a Luna moth.  She describes her open-mindedness and the freedom of “not knowing enough about anything.”  Sometimes our “knowing” gets in the way of clear seeing.

In her book, The Fruitful Darkness, Roshi Joan Halifax describes the many creaturely voices that require a certain humility to be heard and understood.  Can we see clearly without knowing we are part of a greater living web?

In her poem, Seeing Ourselves Cleary, Lauren Bowmen reminds us how we need many perspectives to see clearly.

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