I recently bought the book Clarity & Connection, by Yung Pueblo, and the first thing that I have been doing in the morning is to open it randomly and read a page. Here is one poem for you, which I read a few weeks ago in class. heal at the pace you know is right for you what works for someone else may not be what you need each person holds a unique emotional history discomfort is part of growth, but constant discomfort is not healthy self-love is balancing serious inner work

I bumped into this poem, by John O'Donohue, from his book "To Bless the Space Between Us" For Loneliness When the light lessens, Causing colors to lose their courage, And your eyes fix on the empty distance That can open on either side Of the surest line To make all that is Familiar and near Seem suddenly foreign, When the music of talk Breaks apart into noise And you hear your heart louden While the voices around you Slow down to leaden echos Turning silence Into something s

I recently read a phrase by Pierre Alais, yoga teacher, and student of Shivananda & T.K.V. Desikachar, a phrase that stayed with me: "Nous ne défendons pas la Nature, Nous sommes la Nature qui se défend" (We do not defend Nature, we are Nature that defends itself) Mary Paffard, one of my teachers, has a whole workshop dedicated to see our body as part of Nature. Today, on a similar subject, my inspiration comes from this poem by John O'Donohue. To Learn From Animal Being by J

There is a brokenness out of which comes the unbroken, a shatteredness out of which blooms the unshatterable. There is a sorrow beyond all grief which leads to joy and a fragility out of whose depths emerges strength. There is a hollow space too vast for words through which we pass with each loss, out of whose darkness we are sanctioned into being. There is a cry deeper than all sound whose serrated edges cut the heart as we break open to the place inside which i

I wonder if the sun debates dawn some mornings not wanting to rise out of bed from under that down-feather horizon if the sky grows tired of being everywhere at once adapting to the mood swings of the weather if clouds drift off trying to hold themselves together make deals with gravity to loiter a little longer I wonder if rain is scared of falling if it has trouble letting go if snow flakes get sick of being perfect all the time each one trying to be one-of-a-kind I wonder

I worried a lot. Will the garden grow, will the rivers flow in the right direction, will the earth turn as it was taught, and if not how shall I correct it? Was I right, was I wrong, will I be forgiven, can I do better? Will I ever be able to sing, even the sparrows can do it and I am, well, hopeless. Is my eyesight fading or am I just imagining it, am I going to get rheumatism, lockjaw, dementia? Finally I saw that worrying had come to nothing. And gave it up. And took m

I have been in love more times than one, thank the Lord. Sometimes it was lasting whether active or not. Sometimes it was all but ephemeral, maybe only an afternoon, but not less real for that. They stay in my mind, these beautiful people, or anyway beautiful people to me, of which there are so many. You, and you, and you, whom I had the fortune to meet, or maybe missed. Love, love, love, it was the core of my life, from which, of course, comes the word for the heart. And, oh

Will the hungry ox stand in the field and not eat of the sweet grass? Will the owl bite off its own wings? Will the lark forget to lift its body in the air or forget to sing? Will the rivers run upstream? Behold, I say—behold the reliability and the finery and the teachings of this gritty earth gift. 2. Eat bread and understand comfort. Drink water, and understand delight. Visit the garden where the scarlet trumpets are opening their bodies for the hummingbi

Now the seasons are closing their files on each of us, the heavy drawers full of certificates rolling back into the tree trunks, a few old papers flocking away. Someone we loved has fallen from our thoughts, making a little, glittering splash like a bicycle pushed by a breeze. Otherwise, not much has happened; we fell in love again, finding that one red feather on the wind. "Year's End" by Ted Kooser, from Sure Signs: New and Selected Poems. © University of Pittsburgh Press,

Your exact errors make a music that nobody hears. Your straying feet find the great dance, walking alone. And you live on a world where stumbling always leads home. Year after year fits over your face— when there was youth, your talent was youth; later, you find your way by touch where moss redeems the stone; and you discover where music begins before it makes any sound, far in the mountains where canyons go still as the always-falling, ever-new flakes of snow. #poetry #willi

Sometimes I choose a cloud and let it cross the sky floating me away. Or a bird unravels its song and carries me as it flies deeper and deeper into the woods. Is there a way to be gone and still belong? Travel that takes you home? Is that life? - to stand by a river and go. #poetry #williamstafford

Be a person here. Stand by the river, invoke the owls. Invoke winter, then spring. Let any season that wants to come here make its own call. After that sound goes away, wait. A slow bubble rises through the earth and begins to include sky, stars, all space, even the outracing, expanding thought. Come back and hear the little sound again. Suddenly this dream you are having matches everyone’s dream, and the result is the world. If a different call came there wouldn’t be any w

At Blackwater Pond the tossed waters have settled after a night of rain. I dip my cupped hands. I drink a long time. It tastes like stone, leaves, fire. It falls cold into my body, waking the bones. I hear them deep inside me, whispering oh what is that beautiful thing that just happened? #poetry #maryoliver

I like to live in the sound of water, in the feel of mountain air. A sharp reminder hits me: this world is still alive, it stretches out there shivering toward its own creation. and I'm part of it. Even my breathing enters into this elaborate give-and-take, this bowing to sun and moon. day or night. winter, summer, storm, still--this tranquil chaos that seem to be going somewhere. This wilderness with a great peacefulness in it. This motionless turmoil, this everything dance

even a small purple artichoke boiled in its own bittered and darkening waters grows tender, grows tender and sweet patience, I think, my species keep testing the spiny leaves the spiny heart #janehirshfield #poetry

The poppies send up their orange flares; swaying in the wind, their congregations are a levitation of bright dust, of thin and lacy leaves. There isn’t a place in this world that doesn’t sooner or later drown in the indigos of darkness, but now, for a while, the roughage shines like a miracle as it floats above everything with its yellow hair. Of course nothing stops the cold, black, curved blade from hooking forward— of course loss is the great lesson. But I also say this: t

The hour is striking so close above me, so clear and sharp, that all my senses ring with it. I feel it now: there's a power in me to grasp and give shape to my world. I know that nothing has ever been real without my beholding it. All becoming has needed me. My looking ripens things and they come toward me, to meet and be met. "I, 1" by Rainer Maria Rilke, from The Book of Hours, translated from the German by Anita Barrows and Joanna Macy. © Riverhead Books, 1996. P

The birds have vanished down the sky. Now the last cloud drains away. We sit together, the mountain and me, until only the mountain remains. #poetry #lipo

Landscape Mary Oliver Isn't it plain the sheets of moss, except that they have no tongues, could lecture all day if they wanted about spiritual patience? Isn't it clear the black oaks along the path are standing as though they were the most fragile of flowers? Every morning I walk like this around the pond, thinking: if the doors of my heart ever close, I am as good as dead. Every morning, so far, I'm alive. And now the crows break off from the rest of the darkness and b

Enough. These few words are enough. If not these words, this breath. If not this breath, this sitting here. This opening to the life we have refused again and again until now. Until now #poetry #davidwhyte