living poetry

for several years now in late december or early january, i choose one word to guide my being through the new year (click here and scroll down to see previous years' words). this practice has really helped me refine my dreams and intentions. i love to look back during this week between christmas and new years day and see how the soul of the word manifested throughout my life and year.

for the past week or so i've been thinking about which word i want to choose for 2016.  i chose an intention word for my upcoming yoga teacher training (trust), but that felt very focused on my yoga goals as compared to my whole life.  so i kept searching.

one of the things i like to do to help narrow it down is look and listen for a word that is in heavy rotation in my current vocabulary and conversations.  there are a few right now:  wonder, precision, frontier, practice, poetry...

poetry was the word that kept lighting up in neon when it fluttered through my brain or escaped my lips.  still, it felt quite mysterious and undefined to be a guiding word (unless i was to become a full time poet).  then i ran across this string of words by poet and mystic rumi, let yourself become living poetry.

so it shall be words of the year for me.

for me, living poetry is:

• having a structure, the components and some guidelines for how to lay life out on the page...inspiration, imagination, rhythm, precision, choice, selection, refinement, commitment
• being able to throw all of that out the window and just live from my soul in the messy moment
• seeing beauty in the ordinary
• seeing opportunity for exploration and empathy in the un-beautiful
• using words in provocative and inquiring ways to open understanding and connection
• storytelling embodied in words, paint, dance, work, image, play, clothing, food, yoga, home, relationship
• truth, spoken plainly and kindly
• reading more poetry, discovering new poets, writing more
• staying open to the twist, to changing beat, to unfinished words put aside to rest, to acceptance, to rejection, to editing, to uncrumpling those pages littering the floor and having another look
• exploring the human heart and how it shows up in the world at any given moment

a happy, poetic year to you loves.

be the soul

a few of my favorite words magically strung together by rumi are, "wherever you stand, be the soul of that place."

this is my fifth year of collecting (the now ubiquitous) foot self-portraits.  this simple practice really does serve a purpose for me.  when i stop what i am doing to document where i am at that moment, my presence and awareness and groundedness intensifies.  the end-of-year collection is also a lovely lookback at some of the places i've stood and some of the moments i want to remember.

twenty-fourteen was made of color, flowers, farm markets, making, forests, new friends, books, dogs, yoga, and tiny adventures.

i'm happy i was here to experience, to be, the soul of it all.

more of the same please in 2015.  and these feet, they need to touch sand washed by the ocean called pacific.  they long to stand upon the motherland and be the soul with her sunsets and her tide pools and her fog and her wildflowers.  there is a clear call to be with my own history.

see previous years here.

be the soul

wherever you stand, be the soul of that place.

{rumi}

(beautiful unknown hoop dancer at this year's floyd yoga jam)

sunday grace

“very little grows on jagged rock. 

be ground. 

be crumbled, 

so wildflowers will come up where you are.”

-rumi

grace keeps showing up as summer flowers, both wild and tamed, and endless opportunities to practice. 

some things i am practicing this summer:

• being crumbled (reading pema chödrön helps)
• being ground (ditto)
• softening the edges
• rest
• wellness
• using what i have
• growing a garden
• avoiding news 
• allowing tenderness and accepting help
• not always having to be right
• and when i am, not always having to assert it

if you have been here before, you might notice that not one of these things is new.  i have to remind myself to practice each one.  over and over and over again.   this summer i'm exploring my pockets of resistance around these practices. it seems i've been given extra (not huge, but persistent) opportunities to practice some of the more challenging items on the list.  with each step of progress and every awkward gaffe on the journey, i reach a new level of understanding and integration, a fuller definition of how these things are true for my individual life.

grace is also showing up as opportunities to be curious and learn.  i'm not sure if i've mentioned it here before, but om yoga teacher cyndi lee relocated from nyc to our little burg last summer.  next weekend i'm so happy to participate in her yoga body, buddha mind workshop. 

and there are a few flower workshops, art classes and virtual gatherings on the horizon.  

and travel, for work and for fun, always a learning experience.

and nights out back, sitting under the stars with him, talking about beautiful things.

how are you experiencing grace this summer?

sunday grace (on a saturday)

don't you love it when you hear a message, perhaps one you've heard a million times before, and it suddenly resonates and shifts your thinking?  maybe this time it is presented with language that speaks to you or it is delivered by just the right messenger, someone you respect and admire.  or maybe this time life events have swirled into the perfect magical vortex of time and space and experience and in this moment the message radiates with glowing truth in the center.  maybe your mind became quiet and still and open enough to finally hear it.  maybe it's grace in action.

a big part of my focus on aliveness this year involves paying attention to and exploring those things that keep me from living the life i want, from being the human i intend to be.  a resource that has been extremely helpful to me is jen louden's book, the life organizer.  jen was one of the facilitators at the creative joy retreat i attended last october.  especially resonant for me in jen's work is the concept of shadow comforts, those things we dive into when we are overwhelmed, bored, anxious, sad.  food and sleep are two of my comfiest shadow comforts; they tend to get the most airplay around these parts.  but as i explore more, i am noticing other more subtle, more insidious shadow comforts i run to on a regular basis.  one that i'm paying particular attention to is being right.

what i love about jen's message it that we don't have to abandon or give up our shadow comforts, because often they are valid components to a life well-lived.  what we need to do is pay attention to when and why we choose them; partner with them for understanding rather than battle them for domination.  this mind shift is a pure moment of grace for me.

jen louden is teaching the life organizer navigation course starting later this month.  i'll be there, doing the work, paying attention, soaking up grace and wisdom, moving into aliveness.