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Making Your Practice an Offering to Yourself
This morning, when I was walking to work, a young mother stood on the sidewalk talking with a friend. Her daughter, who was perhaps a little over a year and new to walking, lit up with a huge smile when I came within range. She dropped her mother’s hand and ran over to me, holding out a flower petal. That her hand was slightly grubby and the petal crumpled only made it more adorable.
Nearly eleven hours later, as I get ready to leave the office and head up to Takoma to teach a restorative yoga class, I find myself recalling the offering, with such innocence and joy, of the flower petal.
What we want to do with our practice and teaching is to have it be, at least on one level, such a spontaneous, delighted, and innocent offering that any perceived obstructions or interference with a sense of grace (such as a long hard work-day and attendant fatigue) dissolve. We can melt into the knowledge that practicing and making offering is just the right thing to bring us back to our own fullness (purna).
What we choose as the particulars of the practice, of course, will be tempered by our physical and mental condition.
Peace and light, E — Posted with WordPress for BlackBerry.
Snow on Trees
It was really quite beautiful when I took a break from my work computer to go outside and shovel.
My nearly 90-year old neighbor, Mrs. G., was also out shoveling, though no one else on our side of the street had made any effort either this snow or the last to clear their sidewalk.
When I was mostly finished, I went to say hello and to tell her, though we have never really socialized, how much I love and appreciate having her as a neighbor. She thanked me for saying so and said she has always tried to be a good neighbor.
I asked if I could give her a hug. She hugged me and then asked rhetorically when that had last happened. Her doctor. Before Christmas. Gave her a hug. “It’s always good to hear,” she said, “that you are appreciated.”
I offer my appreciation to you for reading and for how much so many of you enrich my life.






