The Columbia City Yoga on-line Moving into Meditation class met this morning. In today’s class we explored the felt sense of being.  Slowing time we can touch the Sacred and realize ourselves as inseparable from the universe.   In realizing our selves as mystery, we open the door to awe and wonder.

We drew inspiration from  the end of  Frank Ostaseski’s wonderful book the Five Invitations.

The 5th invitation to cultivate “don’t know mind” explores the mystery being and the Sacred.

We heard Anne Hillman’s poem, We Look with Uncertainty. The poem, from her collection Awakening the Energies of Love: Discovering Fire for the Second Time.  The poem is a “dare” to be human in our vulnerability and openness.

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The Columbia City Yoga on-line Moving into Meditation class met this morning. We explored what it is like to be a grieving body.  Bringing loving awareness can help us attune to grief’s suffering. Consistent loving attention can help us to integrate our body’s response to loss.  We slowly develop new experience while navigating the myriad changes of life after loss.

We drew from Dr. Mary-Frances O’Connor’s latest book:  The Grieving Body: How the Stress of Loss Can Be an Opportunity for Healing.  The book explores the toll that loss takes on our bodies.  Caring for our bodies can help us to resources ourselves.  Feeling both the protest and despair of loss can make grief a learning process.  We can find meaning through  loving awareness and kindness.  You an hear Tricycle Magazine’s helpful discussion with Mary-Frances at:  The Slow Upward Spiral Through Grief.

We heard Rosemerry Whatola Trommer’s poem, Safety Net.  The poem affirms the collective safety net we weave through acts of kindness and support.  While it feels like the world is falling apart, practicing loving awareness can help us to cultivate the inner resources that help us engage the world with kindness.

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The Columbia City Yoga on-line Moving into Meditation class met this morning.  We contemplated our inner strengths:  clarity of mind, openness of heart, being peace.  We can respond to the troubles of our time by not giving up.  We persevere with acts of loving kindness.  We remember we are not alone.

Ellen, one of our group members, shared a practice she has adopted to get through the night.  In Ellen’s “blessing bathing” practice she recalls the blessings she receives that day.   And to get through a rainy day:  tromping through forest puddles in her rubber boots!  Beautiful ways to savor the goodness in life!

We drew inspiration from Right Reverend Mariann Edgar Budde. In her book, How We Learn to Be Brave, Reverend Budde reminds us that “When we choose love as our response to what we wish we could change but can’t, when we choose love as our response to the world as it is, not as what we wish it were; the we choose love over denial, or anger, or cynicism and withdrawal we share in God’s redeeming of our world.”

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The Columbia City Yoga on-line Moving into Meditation class met this morning.  We reflected on the heart breaking times we are living through. In our advocacy for social justice we can appeal to the light in others. When our own light falters may we seek out the lights of friends, gardeners, potters, politicians, marchers and faith leaders.  May we remember the many caring hands that continue to shape the world in healing and loving ways.

We drew inspiration from the many hands that brought the Portland Japanese Garden into being.  You can check the cherry blossom status with their 2025 Cherry Blossom Tracker.  Learn more about it through Celebrate the Garden’s History.

We heard Czech poet Miroslav Holub’s poem Wings.  American poet Jane Hirshfield cited the poem in her recent essay Two “Minor Planets”: A Post for Stand Up for Science Day.

We heard Bishop William Barber’s reflections on the 60th anniversary of the Bloody Sunday march across the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Alabama.  You can hear about last week’s gathering in which hundreds of faith leaders gathered to protest the proposed Medicaid cuts affecting millions of people.  You can hear more about the findings of a new report Wednesday called “The High Moral Stake: Our Budget, Our Future,”In Friday’s interview with Democracy Now.

James Baldwin’s book, Nothing Personal, inspired us with the invitation to know the “inner light within oneself.”   Cultural curator, essayist and poet Maria Popova followed his words with her own encouragement to magnify each other’s light in times of darkness.

We heard Thich Nhat Hanh’s answer to the question:  How to Fight Justice Without Being Consumed by Anger?

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