The Columbia City Yoga on-line Moving into Meditation class met this morning.  We explored how our practice can help us to see and think clearly.

We can recognize and experience our intimacy with our human and more-than-human relations.  We can become intimate with life.  This intimacy can free our imaginations and open our hearts to include the more-than-human world.

We heard from nature writer Robert Macfarlane’s new book, Is a River Alive?  Robert invites readers on a journey to three rivers across the world. In Ecuador, India and Canada, local people introduced Robert to their endangered rivers and the work they are doing to protect them.  Their efforts center around a recognition of rivers as living beings worthy of our respect and even reverence.

We also heard some of Robert’s conversation with Emergence Magazine editor Emanuel Vaughan-Lee.  Together they explore humans’ relationship with rivers and more-than-human earthlings.  Robert’s living questions reveal how “our fate flows with that of rivers—and always has.”

We heard William Martin’s poem, We Are a River, drawn from Martin’s book, The Sage’s Tao Te Ching:  Ancient Advice for the Second Half of Life.

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The Columbia City Yoga on-line Moving into Meditation class met this morning.  We were inspired by naturalists, scientists, Zen teachers and poets all pointing to our embodied creatureliness.  It is through our bodies, hearts and minds we perceive ourselves and the world around us; time and life’s unfolding mystery.

We drew on the wondrous work of David George Haskell:   Sounds Wild and Broken.  We head from the Emergence Magazine interview:  Listening and the Crisis of Inattention.    This is a conversation that  “touches on the legacies of kinship that are present when we listen, and how deep experiences of beauty can serve as a moral guide for the future. ”

We heard cognitive neuroscientist Irena Arslanova’s descriptions of how   our brain perceives time and how our body shapes how we experience it. She shares how our heartbeat influences whether we experience time moving fast or slow.  Slowing down, moving mindfully, meditating are all ways we can access the insights Irena describes.  This was from part 3 of a 4 part series How We Experience Time.  You can hear the full show and journey through the senses.

We heard from Jane Hirshfield’s Emergence Magazine interview, On Time, Mystery, and Kinship. In this endlessly fascinating discussion Jane and host Emanuel Vaughan-Lee explore time, attention, human need and kinship.  Jane shares her personal experience of monastic life, householder practice, relational life and art making.

We heard Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer’s poem, In a Dangerous Time.

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The Columbia City Yoga on-line Moving into Meditation class met this morning.  We explored what it means to take Refuge: we are drawn into relationship, we offer our presence, care and support. We reflected on the many ways life becomes pilgrimage: a spiritual journey of transformation.

We considered how conflict can be an opportunity to restore relationships and build community building.

We drew on Kazu Haga’s book, Healing Resistance:  A Radically Different Response to Harm. Kazu is a longtime practitioner and trainer in nonviolence and restorative justice.  He described his very troubled adolescence and the profound experience of joining the 1998 Interfaith Pilgrimage of the Middle Passage.  This pilgrimage lead to his commitment  to nonviolence through restoring relationships and building Beloved Community.

You can view the PBS Documentary: This Far by Faith (Segment: Rise Up and Call Their Names) and hear the pilgrims share their transformational journey.  It shows the hard work of community building and healing.

We heard Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer’s poem, Sacred Ground.  This poem is a reminder that we are pilgrims on life’s journey and every step we take is holy.

We heard Bhavya’s poem, A Sense of Belonging.

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