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.