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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The Yogabliss, Two Rivers/RiverTree Yoga on-line Moving into Meditation classes met this morning. We’re each held here through relationships of care, tenderness and meaning.   Imagine all of the acts of generosity, patience, and compassion that have made your life possible and continue to offer you meaning.  Today we took some time to remember the people who have made a difference in our lives.  We then considered spiritual friendship – those trusted friends with whom we can entrust our truths.

We heard poet Maya Angelou’s poem, Alone.  Her few words evoke the aloneness that pervades our lives.

We practiced a guided meditation inspired by Oren Jay Sofer. We imagined our mentors, teachers, family members and friends sitting in a circle of care.

In his On Being interview, Be a Blessing, Rabbi Ariel Burger, shares his thoughts about how our friends help us to keep our hearts and minds open.  They help us find the questions worthy of our hearts’ devotion.

We ended with poet John O’Donohue’s beautiful Friendship Blessing.

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The Yogabliss, Two Rivers/RiverTree Yoga on-line Moving into Meditation classes met this morning.  Valentine’s Day is when we traditionally gift each other affection.  Affection springs from empathy.   Empathy makes so much possible:  acceptance, forgiveness, kindness, patience and understanding.  We start by sitting still.  Jon Kabat Zinn describes “sitting still and being quiet for a time as a radical act of love.”  When thinking about why this is loving, I was reminded of trying to meet the sometimes inexhaustible needs of a baby.  I can bring so much willingness to a baby in my arms – especially when there is another set of arms when I get tired.  One doesn’t control a baby.  One doesn’t control the mind.  Paradoxically we can become intimate with the nature of our minds.  The loving awareness of our hearts can hold distraction, strong emotion, fatigue and even pain.

Sitting still this week I connected with that part of myself that spends so much energy trying to avoid feeling vulnerable.  This is like trying to hide from the sun.  Meditation is not about trying to stop thinking.  It’s a practice that embraces our wholeness.  Gradually we develop an inner stability to recognize the many mind-states we try to hide from – vulnerability, self-judgment, anger, fear among so many others.  Slowly we learn to relax, tolerate and finally feel compassion for our difficult emotions.  You can do it.  You can be it.  It starts with sitting still, relaxing and trusting.

We drew inspiration from poet Galway Kinnell’s poem, St. Francis and the Sow.  Kinnell’s work was informed by his experience as a field worker in the Congress of Racial Equality and activist in the civil rights movement.  He was a passionate follower of Walt Whitman.

In his essay, Healing the Cracks, Buddhist monk and meditation teacher Ajahn Sucitto describes ways of expanding the field of “loving awareness.”  He teaches about empathy and “inter-subjectivity.”  When we can offer ourselves empathy we can expand to include others.  We can refrain from imprisoning ourselves and others in judgment.  We can learn to accept our feeling, thinking selves as a constellation of experiences that are ever-changing.  We are all subject to conditioning. We can learn to cultivate loving conditions, emotions and thoughts.

Finally we heard David Whyte’s poem Second Sight.  David’s poem touches on our basic human needs to be seen, heard and touched.

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The Yogabliss, Two Rivers/RiverTree Yogaon-line Moving into Meditation classes met this morning.  We practiced with the theme of inter-being today.  Our very composition is a form of Life expressing itself.  We contemplated how the world sustains us and naturally we turned to gratitude and reverence.

Teacher and poet, Thich Nhat Hanh, has dedicated his life to raising our awareness so that we can walk more lightly on the earth.  He offers many artful ways of bringing mindfulness into every day life.  We explored his “gatha” practice of reciting a verse acknowledging our relationship with whatever we are doing.  If you have time, why not write one of your own to try during the week?

Mary Oliver’s words reminded us of the soft animalness of our being.  Her invitation to allow ourselves to love what we love informed our ways of moving and sitting with more relaxation  and relish.

We drew inspiration from Betsey Crawford’s essay, The Power of Allurement.   Betsey is an environmental activist and photographer whose work centers around her appreciation for the natural world.  Her writing explores our place as humans in the more than human world.  We closed with Linda France’s breath taking poem Murmuration.   If you have time, I highly recommend following the poem’s link to its beautiful animation. Linda stitched together parts of 500 poems submitted in answer to her request for work inspired by love of the natural world.  It is utterly magical.

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The Yogabliss, Two Rivers/RiverTree Yoga on-line Moving into Meditation classes met this morning. We used qualities of earth to explore qualities of mind.  The slow steadiness of grounding helps to bring our heart’s wisdom to what we are attending.  Earth’s regenerative capacity metabolizes what has died and nourishes what is being born.  We too can integrate our experience in ways that help us to include ourselves and future generations in our circle of caring.

We contemplated Pablo Neruda’s poem Keeping Quiet.  The poem, written in the 1950s, speaks to our time.  He imagines the healing a Great Pause could bring. The Earth gets a chance to regenerate, the skies clear and we can hear the birds sing.

We drew inspiration from Jay Griffiths’ brilliant essay, Dwelling on Earth.  She takes us on a journey through living Soil by highlighting its inhabitants and their role in the circle of life.  She takes us back in time describing Darwin’s last work centered on the “mindedness” of earth worms. You can read or listen to Jay read her work and learn about Water Bears aka Moss Piglets aka Slow Steppers!

Vietnamese monk and beloved meditation master Thich Nhat Hanh reminded us of the reverence we embody in mindful walking.

We reflected on Theravadan monk and teacher Ajahn Sucitto’s essay Mindfulness Its Friends and Relatives.  He explains how, like fingers and palm, attention and loving awareness come together in mindfulness.  We investigate experience and let it rest in our “heart/mind.”  We inquire:  “How am I with this?”

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The Yogabliss, Two Rivers/RiverTree Yoga on-line Moving into Meditation classes met this morning. For me, this week’s moving series of inaugural events began with the 400 lights around the Lincoln Memorial Reflection Pool.  We carry the past year’s losses of so many into the days ahead.  Amanda Gorman’s lyrical recitation of The Hill We Climb lifted my spirits.  Her yellow coat seemed to glow with her dancing hands and singing voice.  She made me so happy.  She inspired our practice today.

We also drew on the Alnoor Ladha’s powerful essay, What is Solidarity? Alnoor rights regularly for the Kosmos Journal for global transformation.  He is part of a global network of activists, organizers, researchers and writers focusing on changing the rules that create inequality, poverty and climate change.

We also heard Richard Wehrman’s poem, We Are Still Living. Richard is a designer, illustrator poet and long time Dharma student.

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The Yogabliss, Two Rivers/RiverTree Yoga on-line Moving into Meditation classes met this morning.  We are living in a country divided.  Our meditation explored the many offerings of circle – especially its potential for inclusivity. We attuned to the intelligence of the body, wisdom of the heart and song of the soul.

Body, heart and mind enable us to envision a future world in which all are welcome in “communitas”.

We explored creativity in the poetic works of Naomi Shihab Nye and John Paul Lederach.  Naomi’s  poem, Two Countries, doesn’t require many lines to convey our visceral need for belonging.  John Paul Lederach’s many, many years as an international peace builder lead him to Haiku.  The shortest of poems arise in the moment of intense presence.  You might discover in his Unfolding Poem for the Moment We Are In, how Imagination’s short leap can reach your heart.  You can listen to a wonderful interview, The Art of Peace, about his life’s work as a peace builder.

We drew on New Dimensions interview, Looking for the Deeper and Greater Unities, with mythologist Michael Meade.  Michael sifts wisdom from myths and stories from around the world.  He speaks to our division and the unifying forces we can build through both individual and collective practice.

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The Yogabliss, Two Rivers/RiverTree Yoga on-line Moving into Meditation classes met this morning. On our first meeting of the new year we return to our circle of care.  Together we make our way through these troubled times with inspiration and practice.  We ground ourselves with earth stillness.  We feel and move with presence.  We let go of our waiting and greet each moment with awareness.  Again and again we return to our body wisdom to know what is true.  

We drew on our imagination and heart wisdom to reflect on what matters most to us.  We considered what we wish to bring forth in caring for what we hold most dear.  We explored what we might be ready to let go of in service of what we love.

We drew inspiration from Barry Lopez  who died on Christmas day.  Barry was a remarkable human being.  He wrote about his travels to wild places to learn what the land and its inhabitants have to teach us.  Nearly all his writings affirm how precious life on earth is and our responsibility to care for it. Barry Lopez was and still is a gift to the world. His recent book Horizon gives so much insight into his very humble awareness of how inextricably involved we are with what happens to nature and at-risk cultures. He spoke in defense of the life whose voice speaks in languages other than words. He was so very generous in spirit. From an NPR interview:

It’s so difficult to be a human being. There are so many reasons to give up. To retreat into cynicism or despair. I hate to see that and I want to do something that makes people feel safe and loved and capable.

We heard Jane Hirshfield’s poem On Optimism affirm the resilience we share with nature.

We considered the work of naturalist Robin Wall Kimmerer.  In her article, The Serviceberry:  An Economy of Abundance, she describes the profound power of the gift economy as evidenced in nature and traditional cultures.  She describes the natural impulses of gratitude and reciprocity and the wisdom of living in a ways in which we can  flourish together.

In her essay, Skywoman Falling, she describes the deep time of forests arising, dominating and then falling back to earth to renew and sustain new growth.  We can learn a lot from forest ways of inter-dependence, mutual support and a sacrifice to sustain new life.

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