The Columbia City Yoga on-line Moving into Meditation class met this morning. We considered how we shape the world and are, in turn, shaped by the world. We cultivated attention. Attention is one of our most precious inner resources. Attention makes love and connection possible. Like flowers opening we can open our hearts to what we pay attention to. Attention can help us feel all of life and move us to care for the world.
Attention can help us consider what our hearts are made for.
We drew inspiration and guidance from Oren Jay Sofer’s new book: Your Heart Was Made for This: Contemplative Practices for Meeting a World in Crisis with Courage, Integrity, and Love. The book is a wonderful collection of twenty six precious human qualities we can cultivate over the weeks to come. We began with attention because we make the world with our attention. You can find more about the book, including a number of short guided meditations, at Oren’s web-site.
We heard Miriam Teichner’s beautiful prayer-poem, Awareness. Miriam was a journalist and poet. In 1915, she served as a a correspondent on the peace ship Oscar II that took Henry Ford to Europe on his ill-fated peace mission before World War I. I deeply appreciate the poem’s fierceness and humility.