The Yogabliss, Your Heart Life on-line Moving into Meditation classes met this morning. We practiced mindfulness, forgetfulness and remembering.  We practiced coming back to ourselves, each other and the world again and again.  We explored sounding and finding our heart’s song.

We heard David Budbill’s poem, Apple Blossoms, from his collection Happy Life.  David’s work is inspired by his life in rural Vermont:  “cutting wood, putting a vegetable garden to bed and bird song.  Check out his web-site to survey his writings including: poems, plays, novels, stories, essays and a libretto for opera.  Much of his work reflected his deep caring about social justice.  He lived fully, mindfully, simply.

We heard Mary Oliver’s poem, Mysteries, Yes from her collection, Evidence. (You can also find it in the beautiful collection, Devotions.)  In this poem Mary insists on living with the beauty of mystery and the uncertainty of not-knowing.  And like so much of her work, she remains present and alive to the surprises of life’s full expression.

We drew inspiration from Maria Popova’s essay, Philosopher Martin Buber on What Trees Teach Us about Being More Human and Mastering the Difficult Art of Seeing Others as They Truly Are.  This is a beautiful writing about how we meet each other with love and presence.

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The Yogabliss, Your Heart Life on-line Moving into Meditation classes met this morning.   We cultivated Self compassion. In the safe space of loving kindness it may be possible to relax harsh judgments and fixed views. There is much to be discovered in that space. Creating breathing room around our pain and suffering can help to recognize what is truly needed.

We drew on Dr. Kristen Neff’s work which establishes the healing benefits of self-compassion practice.  You can find guided practices and compassion exercises at her web-site.

We heard Julia Fehrenbacher’s poem The Most Important Thing.  Julia is a poet, teacher, coach and sometimes painter.

We heard  Zen Master and teacher Thich Nhat Hanh’s teachings. He dedicated much of his life to the practice and teaching of compassion and loving kindness.  You can find resources for the practice of mindfulness and articles and videos at the Thich Nhat Hanh Foundation web-site.

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The Yogabliss, Your Heart Life on-line Moving into Meditation classes met this morning. We explored themes of intimacy and mystery.  We tuned awareness to experience of breathing within the body and in relationship to the world around us.  We ventured into mystery by letting go of the reflexive reliance on knowing.  We oriented moment to moment experience with curiosity, feeling and compassion.

We drew on the teachings of Frank Ostaseski as set forth by his wonderful book, The Five Invitations.  Frank is a mediation teacher hospice care trainer and writer.  Adopting a “don’t know mind” is one of the tenets of meditation and hospice care.  He encourages students and readers to cultivate  “undefended openness.”

Meditation teacher and writer, Tara Brach, echoes this counsel. She encourages us to feel the vulnerability that arises from living with life’s uncertainty.  Feeling is a path to authenticity and aliveness.  You can find her helpful books and audio programs at her web-site.

We heard  an excerpt from Ken Keyes’ poem Hokusai Says. You can find the complete poem at this Gratefulness.org web-page.  He calls on our caring and the willingness to let life live through us. Ken wrote fifteen books on personal growth and social consciousness issues.  You can read about his inspiring life at his Wikipedia entry.

We heard Sophie Strand’s invitation to lend our bodies to Earth’s healing. Sophie’s writing focuses on the intersection of spirituality, storytelling, and ecology.  We heard an excerpt from her essay, The Body Is an Ecodelic.  I found the excerpt posted on Sophie’s Instagram page.  (An “ecodelic” refers to an entheogenic or consciousness expanding plant.)

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The Yogabliss on-line Moving into Meditation classes met this morning.  We explored how our senses guide us into kinship.  In our “inter-relationships” we allow the world inside us. We also offer ourselves up to the world.  We bring intimate attention to this experience of being alive.  Deep listening can sustain us in the present as the past continues to live and our futures are formed.

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 from Mary Oliver’s poem, At the River Clarion, from her Devotions collection. Mary hears the river speaking to her.  “Said the river I am part of holiness.”  Like David, Mary calls for our intimate attention and deep caring.  Both writers encourage embracing our senses as a way of engaging the world.

Social activist Valarie Kaur reminds us that: “Deep listening is an act of surrender. We risk being changed by what we hear.”  You can “hear” Valarie’s vibrant voice in her film, Divided We Fall.  You can read her memoir, See No Stranger.

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The Yogabliss, Your Heart Life on-line Moving into Meditation classes met this morning. Today we explored two precious gifts of mindfulness:  the experience of wholeness and the ability to hold grief and joy at the same time.  On this Juneteenth day we listened to poet J. Drew Lantham’s beautiful poem,

Joy Is the Justice We Give Ourselves.  May his spirit of generosity touch every heart.

We heard from hospice carer, teacher and author Frank Ostaseski’s book The Five Invitations.  The passage encourages us to let go of our striving and to embrace our full humanity.

We heard Jennifer Williamson’s  beautiful poem, I Am Enough. Jennifer, a suicide loss survivor, offers grief support through her website, Healing Brave.

We heard from philosopher writer Terry Patten’s essay, A New Republic of the Heart.  You can learn more about Terry and his book of the same name at his web-site.

You can learn more about poet, professor and writer J. Drew Lantham by listening to his On Being interview with Krista Tippett:  Pathfinding Through the Improbable.  Check out his memoir The Home Place: Memoirs of a Colored Man’s Love Affair with Nature at your local library.

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The Yogabliss, Your Heart Life on-line Moving into Meditation classes met this morning. We explored mindful embodiment and listening for the “baseline symphony” of our inter-being:  the body’s landscape of ease.  In this landscape we can use our “companion calls” to keep track of each other and “to affirm and reaffirm the wellness of the world.” Like the birds, we can call out:

Where are you?
I’m here . . . You there?
I’m here . . . You there? 

We oriented by meditation teacher, Tara Brach’s, definition of “radical compassion.”  Her book, Radical Compassion, offers many practices for times when we are facing life’s difficulties.

Poet and author, David Whyte, describes “embodiment” in his book, Consolations: The Solace, Nourishment and Underlying Meaning of Everyday Words. David reminds us of the fleeting nature of our embodiment.

We heard poet, Marilyn Peretti’s poem, Still Living.  Marilyn reminds us of the enduring nature of our aliveness.  We are born of Earth, we return to her and new life emerges.

We were inspired by Seattle poet, Lisa Well’s wonderful Orion Magazine essay, The Sounds of Silence.  She describes  her experience of being intimate with nature.  She uses magical terms like “baseline symphony” and “companion calls” to affirm our inter-relatedness.  She lives in Seattle and is an editor for The Volta and Letter Machine Editions. She is the author of Believers: Making a Life at the End of the World.

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The Yogabliss, Your Heart Life on-line Moving into Meditation classes met this morning.  We contemplated the importance of remembering the lives of humans and more-than-humans, places and experiences and histories that have helped to make us who we are. We considered how emotions and values inform our memories.
What we carry from the past influences our personal and collective present and future.  May we continue the practice of mindful loving awareness on our journeys.

We heard from  Fabiana Fondelvila’s  Gratefulness.org essay, The Renewing Power of Ritual.  This insightful essay explores how our transcendent emotions and essential human values can inform our practice of ritual.  She offers examples and suggestions that help bring meaning to our personal and collective lives.

We heard Tibetan monk and teacher, Tsoknyi Rinpoche’s teachings on love.

Sophie Strand’s poem on love, The Final Lesson.

We heard from spiritual teacher, Ram Dass’ teachings on loving awareness.

We drew from Turning to Face the Dark, a Global Oneness Project conversation between Rabbi Ariel Burger and Parker Palmer.

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The Yogabliss, Your Heart Life on-line Moving into Meditation classes met this morning. We practiced a number of ways to cultivate empathy for the more-than-human world.  Our amazing faculties of mind enabled us to imagine, feel, sense and move as if we were an other being.

Zen poet and teacher, Thich Nhat Hanh, invited us to imagine our bodies as rivers.

Poet Laura Grace Heldon described a Riverbank Ceremony in which we could whisper our secrets to the water.  She has a remarkable collection of writings from her experience  which “includes teaching nonviolence, writing collaborative poetry with nursing home residents [and] facilitating support groups for abuse survivors.”

We drew inspiration from Sophie Strand’s essay Kaleidoscopic Empathy.  She describes how we can imagine ourselves to be more-than-human beings.  In this way we might deepen care for our earthly kin.  Sophie’s publications “focus on the intersection of spirituality, storytelling, and ecology. But it would probably be more authentic to call her a neo-troubadour animist with a propensity to spin yarns that inevitably turn into love stories.”

Lisa Couturier’s poem, Inheritance, invites us to imagine ourselves as birds.  She asks what it would be like to inherit the inner knowing of how and where to migrate.  Lisa’s writings draw our hearts and minds to care for the natural world.

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