Jan Toorop (1896)
"I'm going to try to pay attention to the spring.
I'm going to look around at all the flowers,
and look up at the hectic trees.
I'm going to close my eyes and listen."
-Anne Lamott
All this rising prana coming up
through the earth, manifesting
in color and shape and form
is the best of contagions.
I'm learning (okay, trying)
to get quiet enough to notice
this all around me and invite
these energies into my own system.
Sitting next to a plant sir or madam
who is happy to share with me
if I only take the time to connect.
Plants are the most generous
things in the world it seems.
It's just a matter of me dialing
down my epic speed to that
of a wafting dandelion spore.
A valiant effort methinks.
Find your own slowing down
this week, friend.
See you on the yoga mat.
A Woman Clothed with a Sun, Odile Redon (1899)
Eternity isn't some later time.
Eternity isn't a long time.
Eternity has nothing to do
with time.
Eternity is that dimension of
here and now which thinking
and time cuts out.
This is it.
And if you don't get it here,
you won't get it anywhere.
And the experience of eternity
right here and now is the
function of life.
Heaven is not the place to have
the experience; here is the
place to have the
experience.
-Joseph Campbell
Gosh.
Talk about living
in the present moment.
Eternity as the here and now
which thinking and time cut out.
How to find this for myself?
A focused yoga practice
can take me to this place.
Where mind thinking and
concern over time fall away.
I can feel my body move
instinctively with my spirit.
Campbell prompts me to
think of this as a type of
dance inside eternity.
A lofty aim we may aspire to
this week on the yoga mat.
Maybe you're cleverer than I am.
But I found this little graphic
so helpful in understanding
what's growing in my happily
weedy, richly diverse yard.
After no-mow-month in April,
I had fleabane up to my waist.
It was kind of glorious!
If you have any of the persistent
beauties you see above, now
you can know their identity.
You could look up what they
might be wanting to offer you.
Purple violet petals to fancy up
a salad with vitamins A & C?
Calcium rich chickweed as a
poultice for skin irritation?
These ideas barely scratch
the surface of possibilities.
Maybe something growing
around you catches your eye.
Learn about it!
And make a new friend.
Hope to see you
at yoga this week!
illustration from The Gokhale Method
When learning the proportions of a
human head for drawing purposes,
we find the eyes hallway down the
head in line with the middle ear.
This is true when the skull is
nicely stacked upon the spine.
You know how I often instruct
"imagine a high ponytail being
pulled upwards" in order to align
the chin and lengthen the neck?
Or just make a fist and tug your
hair upwards from your crown.
This is a good idea not only when
you're on a yoga mat, but when
you're standing or sitting
or moving around the world.
Or at a computer! Ahem.
People who do this look awake,
aware, like they've got it going on.
Stack it up, dears.
You'll avoid compressing your
cranial vertebrae thus averting
spinal compression & degeneration.
Phew. Well done, yogi.
Come to yoga
to practice this!
excerpted from Rosemary Gladstar's new book The Generosity of Plants
I just like this poem.
It's spare
but offers me sparks
of subtle feeling.
Kind of like yoga.
Thought I might offer it to you.
I'll happily share a yoga practice too
if you wish to join me.
Groovy Bubble Mama at Nashville's Earth Day Festival
We've just marked another Earth Day.
I did so at the festival here in Nashville
where I heard Leah Larabell of High
Garden Tea offer an antidote to feelings
of loneliness and isolation. Put your feet
on the earth and look at what's growing
all around you. Then recognize that
the earth provides what you need.
There's hardly a weed or wildflower
that doesn't want to nurture you somehow.
Get in relationship, yogi.
Leah thinks we can feel safer and more
connected if we realize we are part
of this lush functioning ecosystem.
Don't douse a dandelion with Roundup.
Dig up its roots for a liver tonic tea.
Eat its leaves for potassium, iron, calcium,
and a rich assortment of trace minerals.
Use the stalk's interior milky latex
to cure warts. You get the idea.
The earth is for us.
Talk about feeling part of a community!
You are also part of a yoga tribe.
Come practice this week!
Behold a bit of wisdom from Roald Dahl
in his inimitable The Twits.
Just in case you're spending too much
time pondering the fate of the world,
finding your nervous system caught up
in political and financial turmoil like a
tumbleweed careening down the avenue.
Take heed, yogi!
Sure, we live in this wonky world
but we do have some control of
our immediate environment.
May we keep space & time
for some good thoughts,
so we might shine like sunbeams
and cast a little light on our fellows.
Find me on the yoga mat this week!
One of my favorite childhood memories
involves making mud pies one summer
afternoon with a hose and aluminum
pie plates at my disposal. I got so dirty.
It was fantastic.
David Bates of Bates Nursery here in
Nashville offers a little science as to why
digging in the dirt feels so good to us humans.
"Gardening is a methodical practice,
a way to disconnect from the noise of daily life
and reconnect with the earth beneath our feet.
Our modern world is complicated, our minds
constantly engaged. Yet, just minutes spent
with hands in the soil can break the cycle of
overthinking, offering a moment of clarity.
This isn’t just sentiment—it’s science.
Soil is teeming with life, including saprophytic
bacteria that have co-evolved with us.
These beneficial microbes stimulate
serotonin production, offering natural
anti-depressive, anti-inflammatory, and
immune-boosting benefits. The 'Prozac effect'
of gardening is real, and it’s one more
reason to dig in."
If gardening is not your thing, I highly
recommend an afternoon of mud pies.
Goodness knows there's
plenty of mud around at present.
Yoga is always a good idea.
See you this week?
Spring (Again)
Michael Ryan
The birds were louder this morning,
raucous, oblivious, tweeting their teensy bird-brains out.
It scared me, until I remembered it’s Spring.
How do they know it? A stupid question.
Thank you, birdies. I had forgotten how promise feels.
Lately, I don't need an alarm clock.
The frenzy of birdsong wakes me
pouring through my bedroom windows
well before the light does.
I've taken to imagining the sound
winding its way over my body
like the sparkles of sun on water
as though prana is entering me
here, then there, encircling my heart,
entering my feet, crowning my head.
It's a splendid way to begin a day.
So, thank you, spring.
Thank you, birds.
Take in the prana of spring
however you can, wherever
it appears and accosts you.
Maybe on a yoga mat?
We're not the kind of person
we think we are,
we're the kind of person
our habits are making us into.
Notre Dame philosophy prof
Meghan Sullivan reminds us of
this warning from Aristotle.
It stopped me for a moment.
I have all sorts of ideas about the type
of person I think I am, or hope to be.
But what would an outsider posit
were she simply observing my habits?
It reminded me of the axiom
If you want to know what's
important to someone, see
where they expend their
resources.
No judgments here, but rather
the opportunity to do a little
reverse engineering if we wish.
Am I spending my time and
treasure on the kind of things
that I most value, that have the
propensity to form me into
the sort of creature I aspire to be?
I think I'll ask myself this
every now and then.
Staying true to my yoga practice
is definitely a tick in the
YES, KEEP IT UP column.
I hope for you too.