Thoughtful Thursday

There is a saying: Once the student is ready, the teacher will present themself.

So while I continue to meander endlessly down a myriad of paths - to seek out those teachers that will start me on my ways - I am certain that I have found one.

An integral one; a foundational one.

My Yoga Teacher.

She is local phenomenon, and I knew from the very moment that I was in her class, she was the shizznit. Her method of teaching speaks to me, and taps into and lets flow an enthusiasm in me that I thought was gone forever.

Here is a woman who does not rest on her laurels. She's been at this a very long time. She teaches 4 days a week, to a variety of groups that her son refers to as "her people". She could very easily phone it in; just stick with what has worked in the past, keep everything routine.

But she doesn't. And she won't.

Every single class, without exception, she brings something new. Every class is fresh and shiny and exciting, and like the first one ever. She is constantly reading. Constantly learning. And she is always - ALWAYS - ready to take us along with her on her journey. For, she has told us, it is for us that she does all of this. It is we who inform her soul to keep going, to keep growing.

I can say, with certainty, it is she whom I was meant to learn from. She is grace, she is wisdom, she is perseverance; she is a cherished treasure.

On Monday, before one of our more challenging poses, she cited a poem about the pose from a book she brought along, "Yoga Poses: Lines to Unfold By".

And, although it was indeed inspirational at the time, it is something that is equally soothing to share 'off the mat'.

Padangustha Dhanurasana - The Bow Pose

For woman
bow is both
noun and verb.

How to bend
without breaking?

How to tie a ribbon
around a life
without constriction?

How to stretch
and not snap

How to love?

How to live?

Leza Lowitz

May you have a happy Thursday, my lovelies, unfolding, bending, stretching, being ...

Thoughtful Thursday

As I was poking around one of my favorite bookstores recently, I wandered into an little recess that I hadn't ever been to before.

The archway through to this nook was quite different from the others, and I immediately knew that this space was somehow sacred.

Sure enough, on one of the walls was a small plaque dedicated to one of the founders of the book store and, to quote the writer, his "co-heart".

Don't you just love that phrase? It speaks so much more than the mere "spouse" or "partner"; it truly gets to the core of things.

Sadly, it would appear that dedication was in fact a monument; the honoree passed on in 2001.

Below the plaque with the story of the bookstore and of Jane Hooper was an offering; a take-away version of a poem that she had written.

While it exudes a beautiful timeless quality, it also seems to resonate with the upcoming holiday season and that anxious, anticipated, cherished, sometimes tenous reuniting of souls where intention doesn't always mesh with execution.

So, on this cold Thursday, when we wish for warmth and love and companionship - and all that is 'home' - enjoy this piece. It's as much a benediction as it is poetry.

PLEASE COME HOME by Jane Hooper

Please come home. Please come home.
Find the place where your feet know where to walk
And follow your own trail home.

Please come home. Please come home into your own body,
Your own vessel, your own earth.
Please come home into each and every cell,
And fully into the space that surrounds you.

Please come home. Please come home to trusting yourself,
and your instincts and your ways and your knowings,
and even the particular quirks of your personality.

Please come home. Please come home and once you are firmly there,
please stay home awhile and come to a deep rest within.
Please treasure your home. Please love and embrace your home.
Please get a deep, deep sense of what it's like to be truly home.

Please come home. Please come home, and when you're really, really ready,
and there's a detectable urge on the outbreath, then please come out.
Please come home and please come forward.
Please express who you are to us, and please trust us
to see you and hear you and touch you
and recognize you as best we can.

Please come home. Please come home and let us know
all the nooks and crannies that are calling to be seen.
Please come home, and let us know the More
that is there that wants to come out.

Please come home, Please come home,
for you belong here now. You belong among us.
Please inhabit your place fully so we can learn from you,
from your voice and your ways and your presence.

Please come home, Please come home,
and when you feel yourself home, please welcome us too,
for we too forget that we belong and are welcome,
and that we are called to express and fully be who we are.

Please come home, Please come home,
you and you and you and me.

Thank you Earth for welcoming us,
and thank you touch of eyes and ears and skin,
touch of love for welcoming us.

May we wake up and remember who we truly are.

Please come home. Please come home. Please come home. Ho.

Thoughtful Thursday

Apologies all around.

For the last week or so , I have been simultaneously maddeningly uninspired and happily distracted .

In the interest of finding today's entry, libraries have been visited, scouring and poring has been dutifully done; mostly to no avail.

The pressure is always there to find something unique, to present something as yet unheard of, to place in your hands a rough gem that will soon glisten as you turn it over and over in your pocket throughout the day.

These morsels usually present themselves; I do not seek them. But it is starting to appear that my increasing desperation only makes way for their exponential elusiveness.

So instead of today's TT tapping me gently on the shoulder, I have plucked one unceremoniously from the book "Abounding Grace" by M. Scott Peck.

In the section of "Strength", a quote comes from Joseph Joubert.

Monsieur Joubert, a blogger way before his time, was only ever published posthumously. Mostly, he wrote a copious amount of letters and filled sheets of paper and small notebooks with thoughts about the nature of human existence, literature and other topics.

So, in a time where many in our Western world cannot avoid the daily, the hourly, the minute-to-minute onslaught of bad news about our economic climate and its subsequent ill-effects, I encourage you to take a moment of stillness and a deep breath, and focus only on the beauty carried within each and every one of you:

"You will not find poetry anywhere unless you bring some of it with you"

Joseph Joubert (1754-1824)