(em)body: the thinking, feeling, moving body
sun + breath + good spiritual friends + scratch-made yummies = harvest!
Thank you, loves, for sharing your gifts — hugs, hearts, laughter, presence, silence, curiosities, discoveries, baking/gardening/pickling talents…and so much more!
We’ll take refuge in the full embrace of Sangha on October 8th when our fall series Bearing Witness begins.
a tree in transformation.
some may see it as a premature sign of fall and lament the coming season of harvest.
but this here is actually a sign of distress and, most importantly, of its inherent capacity for self-preservation by inducing its transformation in order to heal! its profound cellular wisdom illuminates the beauty in the process of surrendering to rebirth.
a lesson for those of us who seek, cultivate and advocate/facilitate transformative healing:
the healing of wounds happens in stages and at a pace that is determined by the quality of our attention and care as well as the conditions we create to optimize our healing.
it begins with developing the capacity to discern the source of our suffering and committing to the heartwork of lovingly tending to our wounds. and, because some scars never go away, recognizing that our healing continues beyond the restoration of wound to new tissue.
rather, we invite a complete transformation that — like the tree ridding itself of invasive pests that are feeding off it — involves shedding, releasing, eliminating, purging and, ultimately, being renewed. in body, heart, mind and spirit.
healing through transformation is a willingness to be changed by the process of healing!
“Many biologists believe that an early color change is an attempt of a tree to rid itself of insect pests, especially those that feed on the juices in the cells. These insects have evolved with these trees and shrubs, and understand that when the chemical process behind the leaves changing color begins, their meal ticket ends. Rather than feeding on other leaves, many will move on in search of a better food source…
In essence, leaves changing color too early is a defensive mechanism that allows the stressed out shrub or tree to eliminate at least one source of trouble.” ~ Kristi Waterworth
[from Gardening Know How: Early Color Change Of Foliage: What To Do For Tree Leaves Turning Early]
friends on the path: weeding and tending the labyrinth. walking in awareness, aligning with intention, praying with our feet, moving into clarity and wisdom. nourishing ourselves and one another with laughter and good eats.
We closed yesterday’s daylong practice of discernment and self-inquiry by reflecting on how we aspire to show up and carry what we have learned about cultivating radical bodhicitta — what I call the heart and mind of justice, liberation, and healing — into our ever-widening circles of compassionate social action.
After everyone departed, I returned to the room to collect my belongings and stood for a few breaths to rest and revel in the full energy we had collectively generated. In that sacred pause, I looked down at my stuff scattered around me — realizing that I was embodying the wisdom that framed the final segment of our discernment. Have your heart be where your feet are. I had spent the day exactly where my heart had called me to be.
When we value and intentionally cultivate the sacred pause, we can amplify our capacity to listen deeply to the call of our hearts and see clearly the direction our feet will go.
when(ever) + where(ever) we enter, may our hearts be where our feet are.
…we are in fact not where are feet are. We are not here. Or at least we are not all here.
The “where” that our heart is not so much a place but
a different time: past, and simultaneously, the future.
We are everywhere but in the now.
~Omid Safi
read Safi’s full column: Have Your Heart Be Where Your Feet Are
Reclaim. Resist. Rise Up! For Justice. For Equity. For A Future To Be Possible. #MarchOnWashington #MarchOnLansing #SisterMarch
For those who came before me — for their sacrifices, suffering, and will to survive.
It’s in my DNA to give a damn!
I embody privilege and risk as an educated cis-hetero black woman who is the daughter of an immigrant, a mother to a multi-ethnic child, a wife in an interfaith, inter-racial marriage to a survivor of gun violence who lives with a disability.
I cannot, do not, will not co-sign craziness.
For my beloveds and for all the beloveds in generations to come to inherit an Earth that has been restored to wholeness and where integrity, compassion, wisdom, creativity, and deep listening are society’s leading values .
To call out unmitigated and unexamined whiteness, which in its denial of privilege and refusal to take accountability for oppressions and inequities, creates a toxicity that corrodes what unites us.
Because corruption and complacency are killing us.
To build our capacity as a spiritually resilient community that cultivates and protects justice, freedom, and equity through compassionate, creative, innovative and skillful understanding and actions.
To be a beacon of light as a community of refuge and resistance against hate, violence, inequity and oppression.
For Justice, Liberation + Healing!
Today, we march. Tomorrow, we rest, take refuge and restore ourselves to rise up and to take action again.
We begin this historic week with the commemoration of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and the National Day of Racial Healing as we trudge toward the final day that our country’s first Black president, Barack Obama, will stand as head of state. Fueled and aflame, with our hearts and minds resting on justice, liberation and healing, we take refuge in the good works, legacy, and words of wisdom from emissaries of light.
In intimate circles, we draw closer, lean into, speak truths and listen deeply to one another — resisting the temptation to be pulled under by despair, fear, hate, and hopeless. En masse, we gather, convene, rally, and march — using our voices and bodies to resist the normalization of this new swell of injustice and violence that seeks to impoverish, divide, and oppress us. Wherever we are, we reclaim the integrity of King’s vision: to stand firmly in our commitment to serve, liberate, heal, love and cultivate, demand, and protect justice and equity in order to restore ourselves and our communities to wholeness.
_________________________
“You may well ask: “Why direct action? Why sit ins, marches and so forth? Isn’t negotiation a better path?”
You are quite right in calling for negotiation. Indeed, this is the very purpose of direct action. Nonviolent direct action seeks to create such a crisis and foster such a tension that a community which has constantly refused to negotiate is forced to confront the issue. It seeks so to dramatize the issue that it can no longer be ignored. My citing the creation of tension as part of the work of the nonviolent resister may sound rather shocking. But I must confess that I am not afraid of the word “tension.”
I have earnestly opposed violent tension, but there is a type of constructive, nonviolent tension which is necessary for growth. Just as Socrates felt that it was necessary to create a tension in the mind so that individuals could rise from the bondage of myths and half truths to the unfettered realm of creative analysis and objective appraisal, so must we see the need for nonviolent gadflies to create the kind of tension in society that will help men rise from the dark depths of prejudice and racism to the majestic heights of understanding and brotherhood.
The purpose of our direct action program is to create a situation so crisis packed that it will inevitably open the door to negotiation. “
Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
Letter from a Birmingham Jail
#ReclaimMLK
Movement for Black Lives ~
Resist + Reclaim | Schedule of Actions
March on Lansing ~
What We Stand For
Mashable ~ 8 Quotes
Take Part ~
‘Reclaim MLK’ Protesters Kick Santitized King Ideology to the Curb
Zenju ~
Now Is The Time We Have Been Waiting For
from the 3 Jewels Yoga dhamma shelf
toward wholeness: nurturing interdependence in honor of mlk jr
touching the earth | reflections on zenju’s “way-seeking mind of martin luther king jr.”
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!
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)
how naked the heart
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
tscottmiller 