Today is my birthday and I've been humbled and awed by the outpouring of love and well-wishes that have come my way from my family and friends. I know I've said this before and I'll say it again. I really do live a charmed life.
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I taught my first yin yoga session open to the public last night. It was magical. I really enjoyed it and I hope my students did too! My poem today is another yoga philosophy poem about santosha, a niyama, a "positive duty" as outlined by Patanjali for recommended activities for healthy living. Santosha ultimately boils down to cultivating contentment. I believe contentment is fundamental for healthy living and I also believe that it is something you can practice and build over time. In my poem I tried to capture exactly how I construct my own contentment.
It has been a wonderful weekend of yoga instructor training. I'm relaxing on the couch and luxuriating in peace and comfort. Therefore, I kept my energy output low and wrote about an easy subject - a subject that has received many a poet's attention I believe - a cat. I wrote about my cat, in particular, and his in-home hunting antics. Also, I love onomatopoeia.
P.S. If you're inspired to write a poem about your cat, feel free to share. Bonus poem alert!! Evidently I have plenty to say about toenails, or really, the idea that we all have physical bodies that are going to do their own thing, which was today's theme. I was going to settle with just one but decided that each has it's own charm. Without further ado.
A nod to Brene Brown for the title to my poem. I think her interpretation of the term "wholehearted" is exactly how I felt when reflecting for today's poem. I have found that when I am living authentically, when I am saying yes only to those things that ring true for who I am and want to be, then I have a life of joy and ease.
One of my favorite mantras in yoga is Lokah Samastha Sukhino Bhavantu which means "may all beings everywhere be happy and free." My yoga instructor actually said this mantra in tonight's class - after I had written my poem - and it echoes my day's theme. I wish joy and ease for all beings everywhere and so, I'd like to share my poem, my "recipe," for wholehearted living. My RYT200 training is soon coming to an end and I can't believe how these five months have flown. The experience has confirmed my belief that the world would be a kinder, more compassionate, and beautiful sanctuary if the 7.6 billion of us practiced yoga regularly. And, one of the most amazing things that has been emphatically enforced in my didactic studies is that yoga is a solo journey that ultimately amplifies an individual's connection to everything. As a teacher, I won't be doing the practice for my students, I can't do the work for them- but I can hold the space and the give the tools for their own self-study. So today's poem is about my own experience and understanding of yoga.
I don't often get political on my blog and I think it's passed time I do. It's important to speak up when things are wrong because, as Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. said, "in the end we will remember, not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends." Black lives matter and right now, the institutions of our country, the status quo, does not reflect that fact. We can all do better at seeing and peacefully protesting the institutionalized racism that pervades our daily living.
To my understanding, the BLM movement is not pushing for specific legislation to change, rather, their aims are for people in power to acknowledge the injustices that continue to persist, despite the laws set in place during the Civil Rights Movement, and work to eliminate the micro-aggressions and macro-aggressions hurting and killing black men and women today. At the very least, I feel my words might do something to contribute to that aim. I think there are peaceful, impactful ways that an everyday person can be a catalyst for equality. Writing our legislators, running for office, or simply voting, are all actions to take to spread the movement. MLK said "let conscience be your guide" and "love must be our regulating ideal." I hope you see both statements reflected in my poem. Today's poem is about one of my most favorite places in the universe. Thanks, Lucia, for making a sanctuary.
I'm not sick of the challenge yet. I wrote today's poem in a cozy seat on a warm city bus on my commute out of the city. I reached that place of writer's zen and lost awareness of the world around me as I took my mind back to the experience I was trying to capture, teaching my first vinyasa yoga class to people who aren't family. Now, I'm not prone to nervousness and I love public speaking, however, in this instance, I so desired giving the group an incredible yoga practice that my "stress" response kicked in as my prehistoric brain prepared me for fight or flight. Conveniently, studying yoga philosophy prepared me for this moment and I knew that breathing, taking those full, deep, breaths would bring me back to where I needed to be to hold space for the yogis on their mats- the moment I wanted to share. When I finished the poem I looked up around me, astonished I was nearly home. All in all, a pleasant way to travel and a good way to reflect.
Enjoy - |
AuthorCreative enthusiast, gregarious naturalist, opinionated humanist, MBA, RYT 200. Amy Kay Czechowicz completed a poetry challenge for 2018, 2020, and half of 2023 by posting an original poem daily to this blog. She teaches yin and vinyasa weekly at Green Lotus Yoga in Lakeville, Minnesota and chimes in here from time to time with musings and rhymes. Archives
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