| | | | | |

Still There Were

Whatever might
have happened
or didn’t happen,
whomever I might
have encountered
or didn’t encounter,
whatever might
have worked
or did not work,
whatever I might
have completed
or left unfinished,
whatever I might
have stirred up
or might have
begun to heal,
whatever might
have been, or was–
still there were
the blossoms,
still the moon.

Peace and light, E — Posted with WordPress for BlackBerry.

Similar Posts

  • |

    What Do You Do?

    I found myself thinking about the blessing of being able to ask this question and have a multiple answers: what do you do when your healing place/activity is temporarily or permanently no longer healthy?

    I asked this question of myself today because the poor air quality from the wildfires is not good for me, and it is not feeling good to be at the Youth Garden for the full morning. I’ve been grateful before for the panoply of practices—study, meditation (sitting and walking), breath work, asana and other movement, etc., when I have been sick or injured.

  • |

    Jupiter and Venus at Dawn

    It’s a lovely meditation on perspective–seeing two planets so far apart seem so close to each other and also so much closer to us than usual.

    I think some of the sense of surprise is because most of our two-dimensional depictions for explaining the planets show Earth between Venus (the near planet allegorically associated with love and connection) and distant Jupiter (the weighty one, the guru planet).

    How could I be facing, the two together, as if they are far closer to each other than each to me, and nothing else visible but clouds at the eastern horizon and a setting half moon to the west?

  • |

    What I’ll Be Reading This Session

    You may have noticed that I do not say what I will be teaching.  In my blogs and classes, when referring to the philosophy that inspires me, I speak of what I will be reading, what I will be contemplating, and what I will be exploring.  It is not false humility.  It is a recognition that reading and contemplating a work even several times over a few years is not enough to be “teaching” it.  My teaching can, however, authentically be inspired by that level of exploration.  I make offerings of what sparks me to think, to practice, and to want to continue to delve ever more deeply into the yoga practices.

    This session, I will be reading, contemplating, and inspiring my own practices and my class plans from the Pratyabhijnahrdayam.

    Pratyabhijnahrdayam:  The Secret of Self-Recognition, J. Singh (Motalal Banarsidass Publishers, Reprinted 2008)

    The Splendor of Recognition:  An Exploration of the Pratyabhijna-hrdayam, Swami Shantananda with Peggy Bendet (SYDA Foundation, 2003)

  • | | | |

    Call and Response

    I went to a Lenten service for ceasefire that was led in front of the White House today. First there was a Catholic Mass and then an ecumenical service.

    I sometimes participate in religious rituals outside of my own, as a way of honoring our shared and diverse experience of being.

    This is the first time I have gone to a Christian service on Ash Wednesday. No ashes for me. I was willing to, however, to participate in the invitation to participate in a call and response. The speaker listed the heinous atrocities that our tax dollars are funding, and the response was the acknowledgment that “I have blood on my hands.”

    I’m still complicit even if I am letting those with power know that I do not agree, although that is better than being silent. One of the religious speakers suggested that repentance does not mean regret. It means acknowledgement and a change of behavior.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.