POETRY | Nan Witcomb

There was a time
when I was so restless,
I could not remain still
long enough
to realize
I was searching
for peace. . . .

PLAYLIST | Yo Flow! Monday, June 10

MUSIC | Mr Rogers Remixed : Sing Together

POETRY | James Broughton : Shaman Psalm

an excerpt from Shaman Psalm

-James Broughton

Arouse a new era

Disarm the Cutthroats

Sever the loggerheads

Offset the history

of torment and curse

Man is the species

endangered by man

Quick while there's time

Abandon your rivalries

or mourn

Deflate pugnacity

Magnify friendliness

Off with your mask

Off with your face

Dump the false guides

who travel the warpaths

Uncover your loving

Discover surrender

Rise in your essence to

the tender occasion

Unwrap your radiance

and brighten your crew

Value one another

or fall

Come forth unabashed

Come out unbuttoned

Bury belligerence

Resurrect frolic

Only through the body can

you clasp the divine

Only through the body can

you dance with god

In every man's hand

the gift of compassion

In every man's hand

the beloved connection

Trust one another

or drown

Banish animosity

Summon endearment

you are kindred to

each one you greet

each one you deal with

Hold nothing back

Hold nothing in

Romp and commingle

POETRY | Danna Faulds : Let It Go

Let It Go
--Danna Faulds

Let go of the ways you thought life would unfold:
the holding of plans or dreams or expectations – Let it all go.
Save your strength to swim with the tide.
The choice to fight what is here before you now will
only result in struggle, fear, and desperate attempts
to flee from the very energy you long for. Let go.

Let it all go and flow with the grace that washes
through your days whether you received it gently
or with all your quills raised to defend against invaders.
Take this on faith; the mind may never find the
explanations that it seeks, but you will move forward
nonetheless. Let go, and the wave’s crest will carry
you to unknown shores, beyond your wildest dreams
or destinations. Let it all go and find the place of
rest and peace, and certain transformation.

RETREAT | The Call to Adventure : Yoga & Hiking in the Colorado Rockies

The Call to Adventure
Yoga & Hiking in The Colorado Rockies
w/ Roger McKeever & Shari Feldman

September 21 - 25, 2013

Rocky Mountain National Park is beloved for its wildlife and majestic mountain views, and is now home-base for this retreat in September! In the arms of nature, we will practice yoga and meditation, journey into the mountains on guided hikes, and dive into philosophical discussions 'round the evening fire to bring about profound and lasting transformation.

No previous experience is necessary.  Beginner yogis and hikers of all levels are welcome. Just bring an open mind and an open heart, and leave with a fully nourished spirit. Come frolic with us!

• Guided hikes in Rocky Mountain National Park

• Morning yoga and meditation

• Healthy meals (vegetarian, vegan and gluten-free options available)

• Cooking demonstrations

• Hot tub

• Evening talks around the fire

• Thai Yoga massage (available)

For more info, detailed pricing and the fine print Click Here

PLAYLIST | YTT Sadhana Thurs

INTERVIEW | Mary Oliver : A Thousand Mornings

I Happened To Be Standing
-Mary Oliver

I don’t know where prayers go,
or what they do.
Do cats pray, while they sleep
half-asleep in the sun?
Does the opossum pray as it
crosses the street?
The sunflowers? The old black oak
growing older every year?
I know I can walk through the world,
along the shore or under the trees,
with my mind filled with things
of little importance, in full
self-attendance.  A condition I can’t really
call being alive.
Is a prayer a gift, or a petition,
or does it matter?
The sunflowers blaze, maybe that’s their way.
Maybe the cats are sound asleep.  Maybe not.

While I was thinking this I happened to be standing
just outside my door, with my notebook open,
which is the way I begin every morning.
Then a wren in the privet began to sing.
He was positively drenched in enthusiasm,
I don’t know why.  And yet, why not.
I wouldn’t pursuade you from whatever you believe
or whatever you don’t.  That’s your business.
But I t hought, of the wren’s singing, what could this be
if it isn’t a prayer?
So I just listened, my pen in the air.

POETRY | Mary Oliver : Spring

Spring
-Mary Oliver

Somewhere
   a black bear
     has just risen from sleep
        and is staring

down the mountain.
   All night
     in the brisk and shallow restlessness
        of early spring

I think of her,
   her four black fists
     flicking the gravel,
        her tongue

like a red fire
   touching the grass,
     the cold water.
        There is only one question:

how to love this world.
   I think of her
     rising
        like a black and leafy ledge

to sharpen her claws against
   the silence
     of the trees.
        Whatever else

my life is
   with its poems
     and its music
        and its glass cities,

it is also this dazzling darkness
   coming
     down the mountain,
        breathing and tasting;

all day I think of her—
   her white teeth,
     her wordlessness,
        her perfect love.

PLAYLISTS | YTT Monday Ahimsa Sadhana

POETRY | Mark Nepo : Where is God?

Where Is God?
-Mark Nepo

It’s as if what is unbreakable—


the very pulse of life—waits for


everything else to be torn away,


and then in the bareness that


only silence and suffering and


great love can expose, it dares


to speak through us and to us.

It seems to say, if you want to last,


hold on to nothing. If you want


to know love, let in everything.


If you want to feel the presence


of everything, stop counting the


things that break along the way.

POETRY | Mark Nepo : Accepting This

Accepting This

-Mark Nepo

Yes, it is true. I confess,

I have thought great thoughts,

and sung great songs-all of it

rehearsal for the majesty

of being held.

The dream is awakened

when thinking I love you

and life begins

when saying I love you

and joy moves like blood

when embracing others with love.

My efforts now turn

from trying to outrun suffering

to accepting love wherever

I can find it.

Stripped of causes and plans

and things to strive for,

I have discovered everything

I could need or ask for

is right here-

in flawed abundance.

We cannot elminiate hunger

but we can feed each other.

We cannot eliminate loneliness,

but we can hold each other.

We cannot eliminate pain,

but we can live a life

Of compassion.

Ultimately,

we are small living things

awakened in the stream,

not gods who carve out rivers.

Like human fish,

we are asked to experience

meaning in the life that moves

through the gill of our heart.

There is nothing to do

and nowhere to go.

Accepting this,

we can do everything

and go anywhere.

PLAYLIST | Funk Yoga : 29 May 2013

POETRY | Mary Oliver : The Sun

The Sun
-Mary Oliver

Have you ever seen
anything
in your life
more wonderful

than the way the sun,
every evening,
relaxed and easy,
floats toward the horizon

and into the clouds or the hills,
or the rumpled sea,
and is gone--
and how it slides again

out of the blackness,
every morning,
on the other side of the world,
like a red flower

streaming upward on its heavenly oils,
say, on a morning in early summer,
at its perfect imperial distance--
and have you ever felt for anything
such wild love--
do you think there is anywhere, in any language,
a word billowing enough
for the pleasure

that fills you,
as the sun
reaches out,
as it warms you

as you stand there,
empty-handed--
or have you too
turned from this world--

or have you too
gone crazy
for power,
for things?

~ Mary Oliver ~

POETRY | Mary Oliver : The Turtle

The Turtle
-Mary Oliver

breaks from the blue-black
skin of the water...
to dig with her ungainly feet
a nest...
and you think
of her patience, her fortitude,
her determination to complete
what she was born to do-
and then you realize a greater thing-
she doesn't consider
what she was born to do.
She's only filled
with an old blind wish.
It isn't even hers but came to her
in the rain or the soft wind,
which is a gate through which her life keeps walking.
she can't see
herself apart from the rest of the world
or the world from what she must do
every spring.
Crawling up the high hill,
luminous under the sand that has packed against her skin.
she doesn't dream
she knows
she is a part of the pond she lives in,
the tall trees are her children,
the birds that swim above her
are tied to her by an unbreakable string.

PLAYLIST | Yo Flow! Monday, 21 May 2013

POETRY | James Broughton : The Bliss of With

The Bliss of With
-James Broughton

You have come to me out of antiquities
We have loved one another for generations
We have loved one another for centuries

You teach me to trust the voice of my voices
You teach me to believe my own believings
You touch the palpability of my possibilities

Together we reflect what our mirrors conceal
Together we upgrade the sun in our meridians
We remain open night and day to transcendence

You are incompletely disguised as a mortal
You are the eternal stranger I have always known
I saw your wings this morning
I saw your wings this morning 

ROGER WRITES | Gay Bashing

Today is National End Homophobia Day.  This is my story of being gay bashed twice since moving to Portland.  Yes, homophobia exists everywhere even here in this liberal, gay-friendly city.

I went into a coffeeshop today, and everyone working there had on bright spring colors.  It was obviously intentional.  I said something about it to the guy ringing me up.  He didn't really respond to my comment.  Then I asked him if it was some kind of special day. He quietly and awkwardly said to me, "I guess it's National End Homophobia Day."  It struck me that he was a little hesitant to say it out loud like someone might be offended or that a customer might then know that he was gay.  I exclaimed how wonderful and necessary it is to bring homophobia to the light.

Sometimes, it's easy for me to forget that homophobia still exists because of the friends I have, the people who I have surrounded myself with, and because I live gay friendly city.  But since being in Portland I have had two very disturbing experiences with intense homophobia.

I was riding my bike home late one night on 21st St. in the NW district of Portland where I live.  About 4 blocks from my apartment there were 3 young jock-type men standing on the corner.  The second I  saw them my intuition told me that something was about to happen, and sure enough, as soon as I started to pass them, one of them jumped at me swinging his fist and just missed hitting me in the face.  The 3 of them then started screaming "Faggot.  You fucking faggot!!"  I continued on.  I was a bit rattled and distrubed.  How could this happen in Portland?

The very next week I was riding my bike to Muu Muu's, a funky neighbor restaurant and bar, to visit with Doug who waits tables there.  I was walking my bike to lock it up on the bike rack.  Again, three guys (not the same guys) straddled the sidewalk.  It became obvious that they were creating a barricade, and they weren't going to budge.  I gathered my courage, and I barreled through their barricade determined not to back down.  Again, I was immediately met with them yelling, "Faggot!"

Homophobia real.  People get verbally and physcially abused daily just for being gay. We must rally together embracing, acknowledging and loving each other for our diversity.  We must stand up with courage and with wholeheartedness.

MUSIC | John Denver : Peace

PLAYLIST | Yo Flow! Monday, 13 May 2013

INSPIRATION | "I am not a bum, I am a human being."

POETRY | Mark Nepo : A Thousand Pools

A Thousand Pools
-Mark Nepo

I am awake. It wasn’t always so.
It may not last for long. So let me
say this while my heart is beating like
a river. This life is more than one can
bear. It’s taken years to learn this, to
feel this, to know this in my bones.
I am not talking about giving up or
persevering. I mean we’re not designed
to bear it in the first place. Anymore
than the sun bears the sky or the wind
bears the thousands of leaves it moves
through. I am awake. This time I stum-
bled to it. I was productive. Some said
on fire. Then I tripped on something
ordinary. Like a pebble in your shoe.
And I fell out of the dance I had
created. The one by which I knew
my worth. I couldn’t get it back. It
depressed me for months. But like a
whale I kept diving down and coming
up. Despite the parting of my dream.
Now I’m awake as I never imagined.
This doesn’t preclude pain or weather
or disappointment. These as well as joy
land in some lake I have carried since
birth. It stills whatever enters without
silencing our heart. Like an endless
pool that clears after a violent rain,
you can see through me. Come.
Look. I am awake.

ROGER WRITES | Expressing Appreciation

The other night I went over to a friend's house to have dinner.  Simple enough, right?  Little did I know that I would have an experience that would change my life.

While we were cooking, his neighbor from across the street happened to pop in.  She's 83.  She said right away, "I haven't seen you in a while, George, and I just stopped by to tell you that I've missed you and that I love you."  It was a sweet moment to witness.

They spent some time catching up.  At 83, Jeanne is a woman who laughs easily and is full of vim and vigor!  After some light-hearted and jovial interactions, George finally inquired if everything was alright.  She said that her brother had died a few months back, and she had not been out and about as much.

She told the story of her brother who had MS, and how she had watched him slowly deteriorate.  By the end of his life he only had use of his hands and his head.  One of the last times they were together he said, "It could be worse."

It could be worse.  I repeated that in my head a few times.  Then I thought, "Oh my God, what could possibly be worse?"  I felt a quake all the way to my bones.  In that moment I experienced a tsunami of gratitude flood through me.  I felt an instantaneous appreciation for my body, for my friends, for my family, for the ability to experience the world around me so fully.  In fact, since that moment I have been walking around in a stupor of appreciation.  I've made it a point to tell people that I appreciate them.  When I notice something that catches my eye I say to myself, "I appreciate that."

The thing that has struck me the most, however, is that I feel appreciation for my challenges and for the difficult parts of my life.  I have found myself saying thank you to the uncomfortable moments.  I'm grateful that I have the ability to choose to stand back up after falling down and to make amends.

I have started a list of the things I am grateful for-- a list that will never end as long as I have my hands and my head.  

POETRY | Mary Oliver : Reckless Poem

Reckless Poem
-Mary Oliver

Today again I am hardly myself.
It happens over and over.
It is heaven-sent.

It flows through me
like the blue wave.
Green leaves – you may believe this or not –
have once or twice
emerged from the tips of my fingers

somewhere
deep in the woods,
in the reckless seizure of spring.

Though, of course, I also know that other song,
the sweet passion of one-ness.

Just yesterday I watched an ant crossing a path, through the
      tumbled pine needles she toiled.
And I thought: she will never live another life but this one.
And I thought: if she lives her life with all her strength
      is she not wonderful and wise?
And I continued this up the miraculous pyramid of everything
      until I came to myself.

And still, even in these northern woods, on these hills of sand,
I have flown from the other window of myself
to become white heron, blue whale,
      red fox, hedgehog.
Oh, sometimes already my body has felt like the body of a flower!
Sometimes already my heart is a red parrot, perched
among strange, dark trees, flapping and screaming.

TED | Expressing Appreciation

MUSIC | Ragani : Akhanda Prayer

PLAYLIST | Yo! Flow : Thursday, April 25

PLAYLIST | Workshop : Prana-in-Motion

POETRY | Mark Nepo : Walk North

Walk North

Mark Nepo

No matter how I turn
the magnificent light follows.
Background to my sadness.

No matter how I lift my heart
my shadow creeps in wait behind.
Background to my joy.

No matter how fast I run
a stillness without thought is where I end.

No matter how long I sit
there is a river of motion I must rejoin.

And when I can’t hold my head up
it always falls in the lap of one
who has just opened.

When I finally free myself of burden
there is always someone’s heavy head
landing in my arms.

The reasons of the heart
are leaves in wind.
Stand up tall and everything
will nest in you.

We all lose and we all gain.
Dark crowds the light.
Light fills the pain.

It is a conversation with no end

a dance with no steps

a song with no words

a reason too big for any mind.

No matter how I turn
the magnificence follows.

MUSIC : Laura Mvula : That's Alright

POETRY | Ellen Bass : Pray for Peace

Pray for Peace
-Ellen Bass 

Pray to whomever you kneel down to: 
Jesus nailed to his wooden or plastic cross, 
his suffering face bent to kiss you, 
Buddha still under the bo tree in scorching heat, 
Adonai, Allah. Raise your arms to Mary 
that she may lay her palm on our brows, 
to Shekhina, Queen of Heaven and Earth, 
to Inanna in her stripped descent.

Then pray to the bus driver who takes you to work.
On the bus, pray for everyone riding that bus,
for everyone riding buses all over the world.
Drop some silver and pray.

Waiting in line for the movies, for the ATM,
for your latte and croissant, offer your plea.
Make your eating and drinking a supplication.
Make your slicing of carrots a holy act,
each translucent layer of the onion, a deeper prayer.

To Hawk or Wolf, or the Great Whale, pray.
Bow down to terriers and shepherds and Siamese cats.
Fields of artichokes and elegant strawberries.

Make the brushing of your hair
a prayer, every strand its own voice,
singing in the choir on your head.
As you wash your face, the water slipping
through your fingers, a prayer: Water,
softest thing on earth, gentleness
that wears away rock.

Making love, of course, is already prayer.
Skin, and open mouths worshipping that skin,
the fragile cases we are poured into.

If you're hungry, pray. If you're tired.
Pray to Gandhi and Dorothy Day.
Shakespeare. Sappho. Sojourner Truth.

When you walk to your car, to the mailbox,
to the video store, let each step
be a prayer that we all keep our legs,
that we do not blow off anyone else's legs.
Or crush their skulls.
And if you are riding on a bicycle
or a skateboard, in a wheelchair, each revolution
of the wheels a prayer as the earth revolves:
less harm, less harm, less harm.

And as you work, typing with a new manicure,
a tiny palm tree painted on one pearlescent nail
or delivering soda or drawing good blood
into rubber-capped vials, writing on a blackboard
with yellow chalk, twirling pizzas--

With each breath in, take in the faith of those
who have believed when belief seemed foolish,
who persevered. With each breath out, cherish.

Pull weeds for peace, turn over in your sleep for peace,
feed the birds, each shiny seed
that spills onto the earth, another second of peace.
Wash your dishes, call your mother, drink wine.

Shovel leaves or snow or trash from your sidewalk.
Make a path. Fold a photo of a dead child
around your VISA card. Scoop your holy water
from the gutter. Gnaw your crust.
Mumble along like a crazy person, stumbling
your prayer through the streets.

ROGER WRITES | Including Suffering

My mother called me yesterday to find out if I was okay.  3,500 miles from Boston and she calls to make sure I'm okay.  I comforted her as much as one can comfort someone who loves and cares as deeply as only, perhaps, a mother can.  What she didn't know, and what I didn't tell her, is that the reason I didn't pick up the phone the first time she called was because I was in the middle of sobbing my heart out after reading the news about the Boston Marathon Bombing.  What I couldn't say is, "Mom, I'm not okay.  I've touched a sorrow so deep that I feel like I may never return from it.  No, mom, I'm not okay.  How can any one be okay with such reckless and unnecessary tragedies in the world?"

I hung up the phone loving my mother more than I ever thought possible.  In that moment, I felt the little shards and shrapnel of anger and hurt, that lay in the bottom of my heart, come pouring out in a flood of tears.  It was here in this spontaneous act of forgiveness and letting go that I realized the power that suffering can bring.  True happiness and contentment only arrive at our doorstop when we're willing to walk down the stairs into the basement of our raw, unfiltered, unmasked  hurt, sorrow, and loneliness.

Recently, I had a day of feeling stuck, uninspired and hopeless.  I texted with a dear friend of mine about my boredom and disdain for everything and everyone.  She wrote to me, "Before you spend too much time wallowing in self-pity and self-destruction, remember how many sources of inspiration exist... including suffering." Needless to say, it blew the doors off of my self-constructed woe-is-me story.

I don't know exactly how to process or what to make of these tragedies that happen daily all over the world.  What I do know is that I can not avoid or turn my back on the reality of this complex world.  I know that I must face it squarely, and that I must also turn to the people that I love for touch, for comfort, and for that silence that holds the depths of my human experience without the need to control it or take it away or fix it.

I send a million invisible threads of love from my heart out into the world. Peace to the world. Peace to all who suffer.  Peace. Peace. Peace. Shanti. Om.

TED | Jill Bolte Taylor : How it feels to have a stroke

TED | Thandie Newton : Embracing otherness, embracing myself

MUSIC | Snatam Kaur : People of Love

MUSIC | Krishna Das : God is Real/Hare Ram

PLAYLIST | Yo! Flow : Monday, April 15

Tonight's class was dedicated to prayer, to peace in the world, and to the Boston Marathon Bombing tragedy.   May there be peace in our hearts, peace in our community, peace in our nation, and peace in the world.

PLAYLIST | Yo Flow! 4/8

VIDEO | Green Porno : Earthworms

MUSIC | Loop Guru : Hope

MUSIC | Phosphorescent : Wolves

READING | Daniel Odier : excerpt from the Yoga Spandakarika

Anger, fear, hate, and jealousy are great gifts.  Finally we leave spiritual mirage behind.  We are no longer this sanitized being smelling sweetly of lotus flower perfume.  We smell like hate.  We stink of it.  This is reality.  This is unity, at last!  Transforming hate into love and compassion is a like putting saran wrap over a container of rotting food; it does not resolve anything.  We must go to the raw and direct feeling.  There is nothing to transform.  To transform is to lose the chance that we have been given to look at reality.  The solution is in the problem and not in its negation.  The problem is a marvelous gift.  -Daniel Odier, excerpt from the Yoga Spandakarika

POETRY | Danna Faulds : Willingness

Willingness
-Danna Faulds

In the willingness to feel, there is healing.
In the choice not to closet, cast aside of deny experience,
energy is freed, and I dive deeper into life.

There may be maturity in choosing not to act,
but there are no rewards for suppression and denial.

To fully alive is saying yes to the wide array of human feelings.

When I soften, release and breathe,
I discover that I am more than
what I think, feel, reason or believe.

PLAYLIST | Yo! Flow : 3/25

MUSIC | Macklemore & Ryan Lewis : Same Love

EVENT | Yoga Boogie : Worms Ritual

Worms! Worms! Worms! The Spring Equinox has long been celebrated as a time of rebirth, fertility, and creation. In this spirit, we dance, we breathe, we give our intentions to the w.o.r.m.s. Yup, that's right, worms! As part of the ritual for this upcoming Yoga Boogie; Resurrect Frolic, there will be an installed aquarium with worms to chow down on our intentions, transforming them into luscious, nutrient rich soil.

Come to Yoga Boogie this Friday. Be part of the movement.

Get More Info