Blossoms Around Town


It appears from my long silence here (but not on other social media, where I am regularly posting photos), whatever I might have to say about yoga has been eclipsed by the fact that when I think to write about anything else, I think about calls for peace and justice and, and, and…
I say this then to those, like me, who are not struggling to have enough food and a safe place to sleep and have either never known or long forgotten what that is like, I use what I have learned from my practice of asana to keep my bones and muscles in alignment and I meditate to keep perspective. I make sure to be contributing in someway to share the safety and abundance I am privileged to enjoy, and I question myself regularly about whether I have the capability and capacity to do more.
And —a key teaching of yoga from my perspective— I let myself have hits of joy from encounters with beauty. Every day.
How are you holding up?

Thanks to my friend Dan Harper for sharing this quote from Alice Walker, along with his own cogent thoughts This morning, when I was thinking about how to address some of my current challenges, I decided it was important for me to remember that one of the reasons I keep my job is to be able to cultivate generosity. I went on-line and became a monthly, rather than an occasional donor, to “So Others Might Eat.” I stayed with the emotion of how it feels as a small, middle-aged woman to walk, as I do a few times a week, past a homeless shelter on the way out of the office towards home. I thought about what it would be like to be homeless and food insecure, especially in the unseasonable months. I thought about how hard it is to be so many humans so crowded together.
I thought about how helpful the yoga and meditation practices have been for me to be present in the tangle of society. Though after tonight’s class at Willow Street Yoga, I will be teaching only one public class (the William Penn House class on Tuesday nights), I will be writing and practicing and studying and exploring. One of the many intertwined threads leading me to limit my public teaching is to give me more time and space to pursue other creative outlets, even as I continue to deepen my explorations of the yoga and other practices and teachings.
There are some really beautiful ones. Have you supported the USPS in recent weeks? In addition to making clear to your elected representatives how important it is?
