The Yogabliss, Two Rivers/RiverTree Yoga on-line Moving into Meditation classes met this morning.  On the eve of winter solstice we explored the theme of darkness and light. We’re living through dark times that challenge us to keep our inner lights shining.  We explored ways of feeling nature’s rhythm in our bodies with the yoga practices of Prana Vidya, imagination, and Pranayama, yogic breathing.  We also used mythic teaching and poetry to inspire us to use our innate caring and creativity to bring healing and repair into the world.

We begin with U.S. Poet Laureate Joy Harjo’s poem, Remember.  You can listen to Joy read Remember.   As poet laureate Joy has created some wonderful tools and resources to make poetry education more accessible.  You can check out the interactive Map of First Peoples Poetry she co-careated for the Library of Congress.

We drew on mythologist and teacher Michael Meade’s essay Light in the Darkness.  Michael’s teachings spring from ancestral sources of wisdom.  His way of storytelling makes them speak to our contemporary hearts.  His essay urges us to awaken our soul’s light in order to help bring healing and repair into the world.

Contemporary Sufi teacher, Llewellyn Vaughan-Lee invites us to listen more deeply to the world around us in his essay, A Ghost’s Life.  His writing moved me to tears over the ghost-like place we’ve found ourselves in today.  He counsels the solace of nature and a deep sense of caring about the world.  He urges us to leave our screens and enter direct experience of wild places.

We ended with part Sufi poet Rumi’s poem A Great Wagon.  You can listen to Houman Pourmehdi’s reading of the whole poem.

Relaxed Reflection

Here we are together on solstice eve – the darkness lifts later and falls earlier until there is a turning – the spinning earth tilts and the light begins returning.  Darkness calls us inside toward our inner light.  Our deeper senses of heart and soul . . . mind and imagination illuminate the dark.  The edges of separation dim until it’s so much easier to join the earth, the stars, the sun, the moon . . . Poet laureate Joy Harjo’s poem reminds us to remember:

Remember

Remember the sky that you were born under,
know each of the star’s stories.
Remember the moon, know who she is.
Remember the sun’s birth at dawn, that is the
strongest point of time. Remember sundown
and the giving away to night.
Remember your birth, how your mother struggled
to give you form and breath. You are evidence of
her life, and her mother’s, and hers.
Remember your father. He is your life, also.
Remember the earth whose skin you are:
red earth, black earth, yellow earth, white earth
brown earth, we are earth.
Remember the plants, trees, animal life who all have their
tribes, their families, their histories, too. Talk to them,
listen to them. They are alive poems.
Remember the wind. Remember her voice. She knows the
origin of this universe.
Remember you are all people and all people
are you.
Remember you are this universe and this
universe is you.
Remember all is in motion, is growing, is you.
Remember language comes from this.
Remember the dance language is, that life is.
Remember.

Right now we can remember our experience of sunrise . . . of sundown . . . We can remember those who gave us life . . . whose lives have become part of us . . . mothers and grandmothers . . . father and grandfathers . . . We can remember the plants, trees and animals with whom we share breath . . . 

We are living through dark times . . . the dark of winter . . . and the dark struggles over our collective health and the health of the earth . . . over the rights to flourish and share in earth’s resources . . .  Each of our lives have been touched by story upon story of illness and loss . . . fear and loneliness . . . Sitting in warm kitchens the world reaches in to remind us that he bitter cold of winter touches each life differently . . . Mythologist and storyteller Michael Meade writes:

In every crisis the issue becomes whether we become a bigger soul or a smaller person. . . . When the inner light of soul awakens us from within, something also comes alive in the world around us. . . .

When the whole world turns upside down, it is the soul at the bottom of everything that is trying to become known again. The depths of soul contain the vitality of life, the core powers of imagination, and the ancient inheritance of humanity that includes both the instincts to survive and the capacity to create.  If there is no change at the level of soul, there can be no meaningful change at the level of the world. Each human soul has an innate connection to nature, an intrinsic concern for the entire planet, and unique ways of drawing upon the underlying unity and vitality of life.. . . The light that burns within us is also the light that dwells within everything; it is the hidden light at the center of all things. 

Right now we can reflect on the inner light of our souls . . . Tune in to your inner light . . . sense it as vividly as you can . . . find it in your body . . . see it in you mind’s eye . . . is it bright or dim . . . moving or still . . . Now call to mind the humans and more than humans that you care deeply about . . . Can you sense their inner light?  How is our inner light reflected by the world around us?  How does our vitality and imagination touch the world?  The strength of  our survival instincts and our capacity to create help us to care for the humans and more than humans that make life worth living?

And what if our souls lie dormant?  What if the very notion of soul is seems alien?  Could it simply be that part of our aliveness that lives with these questions?  That part of us that speaks the language of imagination and creativity . . . That is willing to touch and be touched by human and more than human life?  That cares enough to act?  

Michael writes:

When the inner light of soul awakens us from within, something also comes alive in the world around us. That is how things change, from the inside out; from the soul to the world as the individual soul helps creation to continue.

Even in these days of darkness we hold the possibility for change and growth . . . from inside out . . . We can listen deeply to our inner songs . . . We can seek inner visions . . . We can keep our astonishment and wonder alive . . . And we can express our reverence for life . . . moving heartfully, mindfully through our days.   

Sufi teacher Llewellyn Vaughan-Lee speaks of a

. . . Cherokee practice that is similar to mindfulness, but different because it is grounded in the earth, called “the sound of the green forest humming”: “…the awareness of the sound of the forest, the sound of the water and our breath. When people are very well attuned they hear a certain sound and are mindful of that sound.  . . . Ordinary, everyday awareness can return us to a place of balance, where we are part of the living community to which we really belong. A community . . .  of the earth and the clouds and the sun on the water. . . . Walking through this gate that is always open, we can return to a quality of consciousness beyond truth and lies, one that is more primal, spontaneous.

We can walk through the gate and listen for the sounds of green forest humming, rushing waters singing, feathered wings whispering, four leggeds breathing . . . 

In his poem A Great Wagon, Sufi poet Rumi writes:

Today, like every other day, we wake up empty
and frightened. Don’t open the door to the study
and begin reading. Take down a musical instrument.
Let the beauty we love be what we do.
There are hundreds of ways to kneel and kiss the ground.

How will our bowing give rise to the healing and repair of the earth and all our relations?   We can sing heart songs and create beauty . . . Our beautiful creations can include joining others who are bowing;  who are bringing healing and repair in the hundreds and hundreds of our souls imaginings.