Monthly Archives: August 2016

our space | how we heal

3jewels.ourspacepractice

Behold the radiance that filled up “Our Space” at All of the Above in REO Town on Wednesday!

It was a beautiful night to share an embodied meditation for restoration and self-compassion with beautiful souls who are invested in self-care, equity, and healing justice. Afterward, the space was blessed with laughter, connection, dance and poetry during the open mic/open floor segment.

I was honored to be invited to help plant and water the seeds of this inaugural community healing event, which was dreamed up by a small group of friends who felt bereft at the lack of safe space to unpack and process the brutalities against Asian, Black, Indigenous, Latinx, Muslim and LGBTQ communities that wrenched our hearts, ratcheting vice grip-tight in quick succession without pause after every vicious assault this summer. Charged with the call to fill this void, they recognized the power that sharing our arts — the multitude of creative and embodied expressions — has to burn off rage and despair, to soothe aching hearts and wounded minds, to inspire new ways of hearing-seeing-understanding, to illuminate the unfathomable, and to transform all manner of things.

How do we heal? We make space for sorrows to be shared not silenced. We make space for joy to move through our bodies and be released in song, smiles, word, embraces, applause, call, response, dance, muscles melting into the earth and a deep-slow sigh of relief.

I’m excited to keep planting, watering, and nourishing this community with (my three jewels) the energy of compassion, skillful understanding and connection so that we can harvest love.

woman horizontal | the sound of him

he wakes whistling, thrilled by the zipping wind
he conjures and reshapes into sharps and flats

snaps a crisp unpatterned rhythm
with supple-skinned thumb and middle finger
(wiped dry between refrains)
flickering his wrist for triumphant emphasis

3jewels.allmannerofsound

mutters a play-by-play commentary
to an imagined audience of rapt gamers
punctuated with shrieks, chides, wails and groans

jigs an exuberant popiscle-sugared dance
wagging his pineapple-cherry coated tongue
shuffling feet,
flexing knees,
scuttling erratically to a giggle-inflected beat
oh! mustn’t leave out the slapping bum finale and encore

drills up and down 14 stairs,
thunderous heel-stomping laps
and cushioned drop-and-rolls,
parkouring over and around the furniture
a streak of joy unleashed

bumps and bangs precede whimpers and squealed tears
beckoning empathetic triage,
strokes of comfort and mild caution to remember,
in all this play, that his body is growing and does not yet know
the new dimensions marking where it ends and external objects begin

hides, hushed and stockstill in a closet
awkwardly wedged behind the vacuum and laundry basket
clamping back unruly titters, lodged between throat and strained cheeks
crackling with anticipation to jumpscare an absent parent now returned

tucks into the curve of torso reserved
for bedtime storytelling and goodnight prayer songs
mommy-kissed lids and curled lashes
shelter sleep-craved eyes,
burning from the effort to see through
one minute more of the darkening day
a puff of minted air,
humming ‘love you too’
before sliding into blessed dreams

gathered + rooted: a new season of sangha

The 2016 Fall session of  the 3 Jewels Yoga Sangha will open on Sunday, October 9 with a deep focus on my oft-referenced endearment (and zen-trendy hashtag), The Suchness of Sangha.

In the Buddhist vernacular “suchness” is the translation of the Pali world Tathātā and seeks to describe the essence of our perceived reality — and all the conditions that make our experience of reality possible — in the moment. It points to impermanence and interdependence. Reminding us that all the elements (people, places, objects, etc.) and our perceptions and responses to said elements in any given moment create a quality of “thusness” or “thatness” which cannot be replicated. Because these very things at this very point in time uniquely converge to form a fleeting experience. It is the vibe, the stuff, all matter seen and unseen, that is gathered and drawn together and felt so deeply. It becomes a knowing, a rooted cellular memory…a dream, an inspiration, the aspiration we seek to nourish.

So we’ll sit in these queries, turn them over, and test them in our daily living:

  • What is sangha?
  • How is it formed, nurtured and sustained?
  • What do we seek in our connection(s) within spiritual community?
  • What do we contribute?
  • How are we transformed?
  • And any number of questions that will emerge from our collective effort to learn and practice cultivating mindfulness together as good spiritual friends.

3jewels.pgulleyquote

Fall Schedule

October 9, 16, 23

    • 10/16 ~ Monthly Mindfulness Immersion
      A half-day retreat including our regular #wholyhappyhour practice, food + fellowship, and an Orientation to Foundational Practices — walking meditation, sitting meditation, and the criteria for skillful communication.

November 6, 13, 20

    • 11/13 ~ Special Workshop | Inviting Mindfulness: The Heart at Rest
      Following our regular #wholyhappyhour practice, this restorative workshop will introduce an embodied meditation in mindfulness to awaken self-compassion and skillful understanding of the relationship between body, breath, mind and environment.

December 4, 11, 18

    • 12/18 ~ Monthly Mindfulness Immersion*
      A half-day retreat including our regular #wholyhappyhour practice, food + fellowship, and an Orientation to Foundational Practices — walking meditation, sitting meditation, and the criteria skillful communication. [*updated on 12/4/2016: new date posted.]

monthly sit-together [8/14]: the stickiness of attachment

Relaxing our grip. Cultivating steadiness in the face of challenge and change. A timeless and always relevant topic was proposed for this Sunday’s monthly contemplation and discussion: Non-Attachment!

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3 Jewels Yoga Sangha will explore the sticky dimensions of attachment — including in our exploration the relationship of Non-Attachment to Equanimity (steadiness or evenness of mind); the subtle differences we might experience between Non-Attachment and Detachment; and, what the 4 Noble Truths remind us, that suffering arises from clinging or craving.

The Second Mindfulness Training | Non-Attachment to Views

Aware of the suffering created by attachment to views and wrong perceptions, we are determined to avoid being narrow-minded and bound to present views. We are committed to learning and practicing non-attachment from views and being open to other’s insights and experiences in order to benefit from the collective wisdom. Insight is revealed through the practice of compassionate listening, deep looking, and letting go of notions rather than through the accumulation of intellectual knowledge. We are aware that the knowledge we presently possess is not changeless, absolute truth. Truth is found in life, and we will observe life within and around us in every moment, ready to learn throughout our lives.

______________
RESOURCES:

On Equanimity

On The Four Noble Truths

On The Four Parameters of Clinging + Co-Dependent Arising of Clinging/Craving

On Non-Attachment

On The Mindfulness Trainings (Plum Village)

on ground sacred and fertile

I treasure our Sunday practices and our time together on August 7th was all the more special because, for the second year in a row, I was able to spend my new year in the full embrace of Sangha.

After a week full of celebrations with loved ones (and a few more to come!), I am feeling deeply ALIGNED, AFFIRMED and INSPIRED to honor and lift up WHAT I VALUE, WHAT I WISH TO PROTECT, and WHAT I WISH TO LEAD WITH:

fostering compassion, skillful understanding, and connection through this sacred and fertile ground we cultivate in the form of a like-spirited, open-hearted, wise-minded community of practitioners who revel in silent contemplation, take delight in nature, and find refuge in communion with #‎GoodSpiritualFriends‬.
See upcoming dates below!

gentle yoga with ann lapo
view from my mat
warriors
view from my mat too
warriors exalted
seva crew tends to the labyrinth
tools
blade to blades
seva crew + the tool trailer
woman + a saw
sweat equity
wrapping up
feast
quickles

 

 

3 Jewels Yoga Sangha’s Practice Schedule

August 14 ~ 11 am – 12:30 pm | Monthly Sit-Together

August 28 ~ 11 am – 12:00 pm | Walking The Labyrinth

September 11 ~ 10 am – 1:00 pm | Walking The Labyrinth + Gentle Yoga with Ann Lapo

September 18 ~ 11 am – 12:30 pm | Monthly Sit-Together

September 25 ~ 11 am – 1 pm | Walking The Labyrinth (end of season)

manifestoes on love

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i’m celebrating my 40th year today — reflecting on the journey of the past decade and more recent season of discernment that have beckoned me to live into the deep and urgent call to be an instrument of love and reconciliation.

as many of you land on my site today, i invite you to amplify the good and spread love wherever you see/feel its lack in your circle of connections.

birthday wish: for those near and far — support my efforts to cultivate and abide in the energy of compassion, skillful understanding, and connection by following, sharing, and joining the 3 Jewels Yoga community.

woman horizontal | unburdening

y’all finished or y’all done?

his guttery trill, gum-soled and sticky with wizened contempt
is instantly corroded by the viral ozone of tropospheric memes
earwormed into polyphonic cackles
relentlessly pursuing you — tubing through folded gray matter —
until the voice of God, remixed as a call for intercession,
beseeches:

is you finished or is you done?

you pitch a prayer for completion
petition mightily for all ordained wonders to be finished
from spark generated to diligence sustained

make a way out of no way,
leaving behind tattered limp-tired tropes
overused and out-of-season ideas
scratch-deep grooves committed to sameness, repeating the repeats

a good and proper farewell to stuck and fused people
prolapsed yet yanked back by histories tangled and cursed

But [then] the Lord says,
“Forget the things that happened in the past.
Do not keep on thinking about them.
I am about to do something new.
It is beginning to happen even now.
Don’t you see it coming?
I am going to make a way for you to go through the desert.
I will make streams of water in the dry and empty land.”*

in the etheric gap you become unapologetically i and make…
a (re)formation
fueled on and centered by love, the emboldened claim to lift up:

what i value
what i wish to protect
what i wish to lead with

this way ’round, loudly and assuredly
a discerning heart supple-strong, free, open and clear

*Isaiah 43:18-19 NIVR

woman horizontal | how naked the heart

how naked the heart3jewels.hownakedtheheart.jpg
when anointed for communion

transparent as skeleton leaf

veins quaking sepia-tinged curiosity
flexed impulse relaxing between Whys and Whats and Who Do Yous

where it embraces all and becomes tethered by the long gaze,
unwavering and tender

held there, ambient love soaks through gossamer-laced capillaries
and this aesthete,
quickening with meaty delight,
is transmuted into a vaporous contagion

oxgenated, metabolized,
pumped outward then upward,
to be inhaled anew

now sipped in and seeping
stripping bare the armor
to the raw once more

infecting it with the blood wet
murmuring of the proud and unafraid