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.

Relaxed Reflection

Relax.  Take a breath.  As you let yourself be . . . See if you can let the breath just come to you . . . Sometimes when thinking about the breath it feels like you’re doing . . . It takes a little time to let the doing sense settle down too . . . Every now and then, relax whatever you can . . . Maybe even savor the feeling of ease as you become aware of it in an area of your body . . . Your legs and feet . . . around and within the pelvis . . . your upper back . . . shoulders . . . arms and hands . . . the area around your heart . . . your neck and head . . .

Let yourself be . . . with ease and presence. . . . in timeless loving awareness and let yourself become the witness to all things. . . . Just be . . . relaxing and sensing yourself . . . at the still point of the turning world. . . . Allowing experience and sensation, thought and sound appear in your awareness. Perhaps poignant memories . . . joys and pains spontaneously appear and dissolve . . . . arise and subside . . . as continuous waves of experience. Right now you can notice when something surfaces . . . and ask yourself ‘How am I with this?’ or “How am I relating to this?” There’s no need to struggle for an answer . . . allow the question to be . . . as you continue to breathe . . . to observe . . .

Experience is always now, the ever present. Even as children playing . . . we knew how to step outside of time. . . . In moments of awe . . . as music moves through the heart . . . when aware of life’s poignancy . . . we are tenderly carried away from time . . . on a journey of feeling . . . surprise . . . The unknown arises and we see life revealing itself . . . and we begin to entrust ourselves to the ever present . . . to the mystery . . . Our hearts open like an eagle’s wings . . . we are carried effortlessly by warm currents of timeless loving awareness. Poet Joy Harjo writes:

To pray you open your whole self
To sky, to earth, to sun, to moon
To one whole voice that is you.
And know there is more
That you can’t see, can’t hear,
Can’t know except in moments
Steadily growing, and in languages that aren’t
always sound but other Circles of motion.
Like eagle that Sunday morning
Over Salt River. Circled in blue sky
In wind, swept our hearts clean
With sacred wings.
We see you, see ourselves and know
That we must take the utmost care
And kindness in all things.
Breathe in, knowing we are made of
All this, and breathe, knowing
We are truly blessed because we
Were born, and die soon within a
True circle of motion,
Like eagle rounding out the morning
Inside us.
We pray that it will be done
In beauty.
In beauty.

What is it like to “open your whole self to sky, to earth, to sun, to moon
To one whole voice that is you?” When we see ourselves clearly, we “know that we must take the utmost care and kindness in all things. . . .” What care and kindness can we bring to the world? Knowing as we breathe in . . we are made of All this . . . the eagle . . . the river . . . the sky . . . the earth . . . Breathe in beauty . . . Breathe in blessing . . .

Let’s come back to that feeling of letting go . . . as Mary Oliver says so beautifully:“. . . you only have to let the soft animal of your body love what it loves.” Enjoy this rest. Perhaps you might discover how really tired you are underneath all the doing. We are living with ongoing stress and many difficulties beyond our control. What is it like now to really allow yourself to stop and rest? To let go if just for a little while?

Body tells us the truth . . . and then another truth . . . and then another one. We feel our way through the ever-changing world. Mind can travel back and forward through time only to come home again. In her collection, Why I Wake Early, Mary wrote:

Though I play at the edges of knowing,
truly I know
our part is not knowing,
but looking, and touching, and loving . . .

Our practice seems to bear this out. We bring loving awareness to everything we know and everything we don’t know. When we lose ourselves – in anger, in fear, in grief, in joy, we can always come home: Body feeling . . . looking . . . touching . . . loving. Right now you can gently curl and uncurl your fingers . . . how precious these hands! Or moisten your lips with the tip of your tongue . . . sensual softness! Slowly roll your head to one side . . . and then another . . .

In her book, Braiding Sweetgrass, botanist, ecologist Robin Wall Kimmerer writes:

Paying attention is a form of reciprocity with the living world, receiving the gifts with open eyes and open heart. . . .

Even a wounded world is feeding us. Even a wounded world holds us, giving us moments of wonder and joy. I choose joy over despair. Not because I have my head in the sand, but because joy is what the earth gives me daily and I must return the gift.

Perhaps you are similarly drawn to give and receive – to experience the reciprocity that animates all of nature. We are not separate. We are not alone. In our mindfulness practice – we can realize this truth – we inter-connect, we inter-depend – we are life unfolding. We are naturally drawn to nurture and tend all our relations.

Meditation teacher and writer, Jack Kornfield reminds us that life sings through us all . . . with mindfulness we can be fully present to great beauty and tragedy that marks every human life. We can embrace the blessings of the life we’ve been given. Jack writes:

. . . Living in the present is the ground of liberation. But it is difficult; living in the present opens you to the full measure of life. . . . Mindfulness and loving awareness are the antidotes, the gateways to freedom. When you recognize exactly what is present, even if it’s pain, anxiety, anger or grief, you can acknowledge it gently, as if bowing to it. As you do, you will feel love grow and the space of ever present loving awareness, which can hold it all, now. . . . . . Become centered, still. Step out of time. You can do this. Wherever you are, with loving awareness, you can meet the full measure of human life, and trust that your heart is big enough to open to it.

We can do this. We center. We step out of time. We pry our hearts open every time they close. Like one breath follows another in and out of our Body home. Perhaps this is why we are here.