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Yin Yoga
Class Poems
BREATH BY BECKY HEMSLEY
She sat at the back and they said she was shy,
She led from the front and they hated her pride,
They asked her advice and then questioned her guidance,
They branded her loud, then were shocked by her silence,
When she shared no ambition they said it was sad,
So she told them her dreams and they said she was mad,
They told her they'd listen, then covered their ears,
And gave her a hug while they laughed at her fears,
And she listened to all of it thinking she should,
Be the girl they told her to be best as she could,
But one day she asked what was best for herself,
Instead of trying to please everyone else,
So she walked to the forest and stood with the trees,
She heard the wind whisper and dance with the leaves,
She spoke to the willow, the elm and the pine,
And she told them what she'd been told time after time,
She told them she felt she was never enough,
She was either too little or far far too much,
Too loud or too quiet, too fierce or too weak,
Too wise or too foolish, too bold or too meek,
Then she found a small clearing surrounded by firs,
And she stopped...and she heard what the trees said to her,
And she sat there for hours not wanting to leave,
For the forest said nothing, it just let her breathe.
JUST FOR NOW BY DANA FAULDS
Just for now
without asking how,
let yourself sink into stillness.
Just for now,
lay down the weight you so patiently bear upon your shoulders.
Feel the earth receive you, and the infinite expanse of the sky grow even wider as your awareness reaches up to meet it.
Just for now,
allow the wave of breath to enliven your experience.
Breathe out whatever blocks you from the truth.
Just for now,
Be boundless, free, with awakened energy tingling in your hands and feet.
Drink in the possibility of being who and what you really are-
so fully alive that the world looks different, newly born and vibrant,
Just for now...
TRUST THE DARKNESS NOW
BY JEFF FOSTER
If you are lost.
If nothing makes sense anymore.
If all your reference points
have collapsed.
If the old life is crumbling now.
If the mind is foggy, tired, busy.
If the organism is exhausted
and longs to rest.
Celebrate.
Trust.
This is a rite of passage,
not an error.
You are healing
in your own original way.
Contact the ground now.
Breathe. In, out.
Make room for the visitors:
The sorrow, doubt, fear, anger.
An ancient emptiness -
They just want to be felt.
They just want to pass through.
You are a vessel, not a separate self.
You are a sky, not the passing weather.
An old life is falling away.
A new life is being born.
Others may not understand.
But trust anyway.
Celebrate.
Contact the ground.
LIFE CAN BE THE SUNSHINE
BY ERIN HANSON
Life can be the sunshine,
On peaceful days with bright blue skies,
Or life can be the raindrops,
That fall like tears squeezed from you eyes,
Life can be the heaven,
That you’ll only reach through hell,
Since you won’t know that you’re happy,
If you’ve not been sad as well,
Life can teach hard lessons,
But you’ll be wiser once you know,
That even roses need both sunshine,
And a touch of rain to grow.
SHE LET GO BY SAFIRE ROSE
She let go. Without a thought or a word, she let go.
She let go of the fear.
She let go of the judgments.
She let go of the confluence of opinions swarming around her head.
She let go of the committee of indecision within her.
She let go of all the ‘right’ reasons.
Wholly and completely, without hesitation or worry, she just let go.
She didn’t ask anyone for advice.
She didn’t read a book on how to let go.
She didn’t search the scriptures.
She just let go.
She let go of all of the memories that held her back.
She let go of all of the anxiety that kept her from moving forward.
She let go of the planning and all of the calculations about how to do it just right.
She didn’t promise to let go.
She didn’t journal about it.
She didn’t write the projected date in her Day-Timer.
She made no public announcement and put no ad in the paper.
She didn’t check the weather report or read her daily horoscope.
She just let go.
She didn’t analyze whether she should let go.
She didn’t call her friends to discuss the matter.
She didn’t do a five-step Spiritual Mind Treatment.
She didn’t call the prayer line.
She didn’t utter one word.
She just let go.
No one was around when it happened.
There was no applause or congratulations.
No one thanked her or praised her.
No one noticed a thing.
Like a leaf falling from a tree, she just let go.
There was no effort.
There was no struggle.
It wasn’t good and it wasn’t bad.
It was what it was, and it is just that.
In the space of letting go, she let it all be.
A small smile came over her face.
A light breeze blew through her.
And the sun and the moon shone forevermore…
WHAT TO REMEMBER WHEN WAKING BY DAVID WHYTE
In that first hardly noticed moment in which you wake,
coming back to this life from the other
more secret, moveable and frighteningly honest world
where everything began,
there is a small opening into the new day
which closes the moment you begin your plans.
What you can plan is too small for you to live.
What you can live wholeheartedly will make plans enough
for the vitality hidden in your sleep
To be human is to become visible
while carrying what is hidden as a gift to others.
To remember the other world in this world
is to live in your true inheritance.
You are not a troubled guest on this earth,
you are not an accident amidst other accidents
you were invited from another and greater night
than the one from which you have just emerged.
Now, looking through the slanting light of the morning window
toward the mountain presence of everything that can be
what urgency calls you to your one love?
What shape waits in the seed of you
to grow and spread its branches
against a future sky?
Is it waiting in the fertile sea?
In the trees beyond the house?
In the life you can imagine for yourself?
In the open and lovely white page on the writing desk?
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