The Columbia City Yoga on-line Moving into Meditation class met this morning. In today’s class we explored the ways our inter-being can help us to respond to the world.  Dancing joyfully under the cherry trees and demonstrating our truth on city streets are expressions of deep caring and aliveness.  They are both ways of bringing our practice alive in the world.

We drew inspiration from Annaka Harris’ new audio documentary, Lights On. In Lights On, neuroscience writer Annaka Harris draws on conversations with neuroscientists, physicists and meditators to explore consciousness.  These fascinating conversations explore the nature of consciousness.  How do we perceive ourselves and the world?  How do these queries relate to human flourishing?  As a listener, I came away with a deeper appreciation of the miracle of awareness and the mystery of consciousness.

We heard Maria Popova’s poem inspired by the Field Bunting drawn from her exquisite Almanac of Birds:  Divinations from Uncertain Days. She introduces this work with these affirming words:

As we enter each other’s worlds in love — whatever its shape or species — we double our way of seeing, broaden our way of being, magnify our sense of wonder, and wonder is our best means of loving the world more deeply.

Guided Reflection

Welcome.  In last week’s class we explored the felt sense of being.  We slowed time and connected with the Sacred.  The Sacred is in both the ordinary and the mystery.  In realizing our selves as mystery, we open the door to awe and wonder.  This week I continued exploring the Sacred.  Twenty nine long standing Yoshino Cherry Trees seemed to hold up the sky last Sunday.  Blossoms erupted from the craggy bark of their aging branches.  They surrounded the Traditional Chinese dancers who celebrated Spring with grace and joy.  The dancers and trees shared a mysterious beauty.  They expressed fragility and impermanence while being deeply rooted through time.  

A sense of collective joy invited us to slow down and gaze at the human and more than human faces.  I think of the observations about consciousness that Annaka Harris makes in her new documentary book, Lights On:

I noticed the passing faces. It struck me… the simple and profound acknowledgement that everyone around me is having a full, rich, deep conscious experience — unique, private, and all-encompassing for each mind. With every passing person, there exists an inner world as undeniable, textured, and layered as I know mine to be. It’s strange that this obvious fact seems to take effort to recognize and requires a reminder. 

Yes!  This is what I experienced under the cherry blossoms as everyone offered each other their smiling faces.  

Yesterday I was surrounded by hundreds of people gathering on the streets. Signs and banners let the world know we protest the destruction of our government and economy.  Countless cars honking, passengers waving and cheering.  We protest the human rights violations and the reversal of green climate policies.  We protest the attacks on education and healthcare.  All these people gathered to express their caring.  I sensed each of us as an integral part of the great web of being.

In her poem inspired by the Field Bunting, Maria Popova asserts:

the radical move
is to enter each day
as a constant now
free from the claws
of then and next
so you may take
the open hand
of the moment
nerved by pure being

I want to take the open hands to dance under the cherry trees and to demonstrate on the city streets.  In both events people join together to express their love of life.

I want to take the open hand of practice inviting us to this moment.  In our practice we are showing up for ourselves, for each other, for the world. Take a moment to consider what drew you here today. Each of our hearts form this circle of caring.  Can you sense this quiet connection as each of us takes time to be present?  We slow down to enter the truth of our moment to moment experience.  What is it like to feel the energy of this deeper intention of showing up?  What is it like to  strengthen the willingness to be present?  What is it like to respond to life in this moment with what’s needed?  Keeping this question alive brings our practice into the world.  We can share this question together.  Perhaps we can answer this question together. 

I invite you to gather your awareness to this moment of being. There is so much unseen and yet embodied.  Together we experience the ordinary miracle of feeling.  I invite you to feel the weightiness of your bones meeting Earth.  You might sense the quiet aliveness of bone and Earth; how they inter-are. Bone is living, growing tissue, collagen protein, calcium phosphate. Earth is living, growing tissue.  Her soil a mix of minerals, living organisms, air and water. 

We can stretch time and wonder in the continuous stream of changes in our bodies.  How does your body make itself known to you? I invite you to move awareness through your body.  I invite you to feel your feet. Explore sensation in your legs and thighs. Sense the pelvic bowl and what it holds. Travel the riverbed of your spine. Enter the deep liveliness of your belly. Feel life pulsing in your chest, the subtle movements of heart and lungs. Move awareness through shoulders along arms. Sense the intelligence of your hands.  Explore how you sense your brain. Know how it interrelates and orchestrates your whole body.  Sense your whole body.

Know how precious life is.  How it arises from endless, miraculous conditions.  How it is sustained by this magical inter-being of countless bodies – sentient and non-sentient. We become who we are in relation to the world around us.  The first thing we do is entrain with the eyes of our mothers.  We entrain with the caregivers who interpret the world for us and teach us how to speak.  We can recall the many eyes that have held our gaze.  

We read each other’s faces with lightning speed.  Hold gazes in acknowledgment and recognition.  Share stories and songs.  Write books.  Make music.  Build.  Grow.  Care and touch.  Hold and let go. Our being is enriched by countless relationships.  Our bodies, hearts and minds develop in relationship with them. We can be because we inter-are.  We are nested in an elegant web of inter-relationships.

We sit together in the love of life.  We are nourished and sustained as we practice mindfulness.  In the light of awareness we can see all life has value. What is it like to feel the energy of inter-being? What is it like to  strengthen the willingness to be present?  

What is it like to respond to life in this moment with what’s needed?  Perhaps nothing comes to mind. Perhaps there is fear, pain or sorrow.  Perhaps there is confusion, heaviness or numbness.  If there is, see if you can receive the sound of my voice or feel the sensations of Earth supporting your body.  It is enough that you are here. Sense the presence of others in this practice. You can know you are not alone.

How to respond with what is needed?  Keeping this question alive brings our practice into the world.  Perhaps we can answer this question together. Together we can take this open hand of the moment.