The Yogabliss, Two Rivers/River Tree Yoga on-line Moving into Meditation classes met this morning. Thank you for coming to practice today. It’s so easy to get swept away by the dramatic events unfolding in our world. The pull of events doesn’t stop – and we can easily exhaust ourselves trying to cope with one fear after the next. We are creaturely beings and our instincts are humming under the noise – our instincts toward wellness brings us to stillness.
We explored our animal nature through our senses – especially the sense of touch. Hands can be a place to anchor and ground your awareness at any time. You can hold your own hand in the midst of life’s turbulence. In his book, My Grandmother’s Hands, author and trauma therapist, Resmaa Menakem describes the importance of having a settled body in our relations.
We drew on the work of David Abram, Director of the Alliance for Wild Ethics. David is a cultural ecologist and geo-philosopher whose books include Becoming Animal: An Earthly Cosmology and The Spell of the Sensuous: Perception and Language in a More-than-Human World. His point of view inspired our exploration of the ways our animal nature and sensory perception exist in a “field of relationship” between the human body and the breathing earth. If you want to explore David’s work I highly recommend this audio essay, Creaturely Migrations on a Breathing Planet. It’s is an awe inspiring account of the magical migrations of salmon, sandhill cranes and monarch butterflies that takes you deep into mystery.
Finally poet Mary Oliver gifted us her very human, down to earth poem, Begin With, The Sweetgrass.
