The Yogabliss, Two Rivers/RiverTree Yoga on-line Moving into Meditation classes met this morning. Today we shared guided meditation and somatic practices to explore how we experience and relate to our bodies when they are in pain.  Pain calls for our attention, right now.  Our experience of pain is strongly influenced by how we respond to that call.

We shared meditation teacher Oren Jay Sofer’s reflections on the role compassion plays in our experience of pain.  You can find his very helpful essay, Five Mindfulness Tools for Pain, and his guided Meditation Resources for Pain on his web-site.

We heard Jane Hirshfield’s poem My Skeleton.  The poem describes the body as a silent partner with whom we walk through life – alternately holding and being held. We also heard reflections from her Tricycle Magazine interview, Felt in Its Fullness.  She describes how intimate somatic awareness in meditation offers us deeper understanding of ourselves and our place in the world.

We explored poet David Whyte’s reflections On Pain.  He describes how our world becomes smaller when we are living with pain.  It also grows larger as we reach for help and as we are able to understand we aren’t alone in pain.

In his essay, Guide to Finding Courage in Difficult Times, David explores how we find solace.  He encourages us to draw on the innate wisdom of the body which can guide us in choosing whether to investigate closely or to shift our awareness away from painful sensations.

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The Yogabliss, Two Rivers/RiverTree Yoga on-line Moving into Meditation classes met this morning.  Today we dedicated our hearts and minds to compassion.  We explored ways to cultivate it within ourselves so that we are prepared to offer it to others.  The practice goes deep – touching our fear and vulnerability and our caring and courage.

We drew inspiration from the poet Naomi Shihab Nye’s Kindness and Mary Oliver’s To Begin With:  The Sweetgrass.  They paint pictures in words that land in our heart, flesh and bones.  They move us beyond the edges of our skin into the “gravity of kindness” and to “becom[ing] a child of the clouds.”

Our guided meditation was inspired by meditation teacher and writer, Oren Jay Sofer.  He offers many ways to contemplate and cultivate compassion.  His teaching outlines the dimensions of compassion to include equanimity and wisdom.  He offers ways of “resourcing ourselves” so that we can bring caring action to others without becoming overwhelmed.

Teacher and writer Parker Palmer’s short essay, We Deserve the Compassion We Give, reminds us of the “inner mending” we all need to do in order to be there for others.

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The Yogabliss, Two Rivers/RiverTree Yoga on-line Moving into Meditation classes met this morning.  We explored different ways of sustaining attention:  in meditation, movement and contemplation.  Training our hearts and minds to stay with personal experience is a way of strengthening the ability to “be with” another person.  We need to see and touch another person in order to flourish and grow.  Sadly, being with another is something that social distancing has made painfully difficult.

I am so grateful that we are able to create a safe space in which to communicate and care.

We drew on a podcast discussion, How to Meet Your Needs for Connection: Attunement,  between psychologists, Forrest and Rick Hanson. They explore our fundamental need for connection and the qualities that are essential to meaningful relationship. They also share about their personal experiences with the emotional risks of attunement.

We heard Oregon poet laureate, Kim Stafford’s poem Believe in Song.  In down to earth language, the poet asks us to trust the exchange of deep listening and singing our song.  Kim offers a series of Pandemic Poems at his web-site. Writing poetry is an inspiring way to bring heart and creativity to metabolizing the difficult experiences of the past year.

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The Yogabliss, Two Rivers/RiverTree Yoga on-line Moving into Meditation classes met this morning.  We explored empathy by cultivating a sense of tenderness.  We evoked tenderness through imagination, memory and poetry.  Tenderness is intimately connected to the experience of attunement:  sensing another’s emotions.  We are such sensitive, relational creatures. These qualities are often buried by the busyness, noise and stress of modern culture.

We were moved by Teddy Macker’s poem, The Otters and the Seaweed.  Otters are such beautiful playful beings. Teddy’s poem offers powerful imagery showing their vulnerability to the harshness of life.

We drew on the work of Polish writer Olga Tokarczuk.  Her 2018 Nobel Prize acceptance speech, The Tender Narrator, describes tenderness as an essential quality to our human relations as well as her writing.  In her speech and her magical book, Drive Your Plough Over the Bones of the Dead, she writes about our capacity to see all living beings as worthy of our tender concern.

We also reflected on meditation teacher Ajahn Sucitto’s essay, The Good Friend.  A good friend is someone who is willing to stay with us.  This willing acceptance leads us to compassion.  We sense our shared fate – we see ourselves in one another – and our hearts open. Continue reading →

The Yogabliss, Two Rivers/RiverTree Yoga on-line Moving into Meditation classes met this morning. We practiced investigating our experience of being – body, heart and mind.  We allowed whatever surfaced in awareness just to be – without having to change it in any way. We can experience ourselves as nature and encounter all our creatureliness without judgment.  Like all living things, we are conditioned by experience.  We form beliefs and views which shape the way we grow and learn.  Mindfulness/Heartfulness practice allows us to recognize how beliefs and views operate for better or worse.

We drew inspiration from Jane Hirshfield’s beautiful poem, Metempsychosis.  This term refers to the supposed transmigration at death of the soul of a human being or animal into a new body of the same or a different species.  Jane’s poem explores the realization of our inter-being.

We also heard teachings about how views operate in our lives from Insight Meditation teacher, Andrea Fella.  In her recent interview with Dan Harris, Uprooting Your Delusions,
she describes how mindfulness practice gives us a chance to reveal the many unknown beliefs that inform who we think we are and how we behave in the world.

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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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