The Columbia City Yoga on-line Moving into Meditation class met this morning. We explored our inter-relationship with world and considered the sentience of the more than human world. We reflected on how our bodies are part of the greater Body of our biosphere. We thought about what it is to live with loving awareness so that we might listen to what Earth is telling us and respond with compassion.
Our guided reflection was inspired by Ruth King’s book, Mindful of Race. Ruth is founder of the Mindful of Race Institute. As a long time meditation teacher Ruth brings mindfulness teaches to help us to cultivate a culture of care. Her book offers very creative and practical guidance for bringing wisdom teachings to life. She encourages readers to explore our interdependence with care and compassion. In this reading she invites us to reflect on Mother Earth’s nervous system as being sensitive to our own beating hearts and minds.
We also drew from David Abram’s Emergence Magazine essay, Creaturely Migrations on a Breathing Planet. David is a naturalist trained in magic. His eloquence helps to bring awareness to Earth’s aliveness and concern to the more-than human world. David invites us to consider our bodies entangled with the larger Body of our biosphere. He suggests our intelligence is similar to the sentience of forests, mountains, clouds and waters. We are part of it all and what we do truly matters.
We heard Anne Hillman’s poem, Awakening the Energies of Love. The poem, from her collection The Dancing of Animal Woman, is about nurturing a more inclusive kind of love: a love that empowers, transforms and creates new possibilities. It affirms Ruth’s encouragement for us to relinquish our habits of harm and open ourselves to new ways of being.
