Beloved friends,
The Side Door is now open! I'm beginning to offer some small group yoga classes in my home studio/temple: some chair yoga, some mat-based yoga, and 1:1 healing sessions are underway. What a joy this is. I hope to see you here one day.
Our guest space is also shaping up sweetly; this one-bedroom apartment has a kitchen, bathroom, shower, and truly comfortable sleeping arrangements -- the same bed we bought for ourselves, and a sleeper sofa that's so comfortable that we slept on it ourselves when I was painting the bedroom.
I'll be offering small group retreats soon. If you'd like to be the first to come try a private personal retreat, drop me a line! We're a couple of hours from Seattle and you can arrange from a cozy day to a week of with yoga, healing touch, meditation, and home-cooked meals here in the beautiful forests of the Olympic Peninsula. In time there will be a menu for such offerings; for now I'll be glad to explore and improvise with you.
New
Coming up next week will be both my spring meditation course: Lovingkindness, and the new book for the Reading Circle. I've spent the past week alone in the forest and I'm in heavy blossom right now. Excited to share the details with you sooooooon! I had previously said that Lovingkindness would start at Valentine's Day, but I'm going to slide that out a little so that folks in my current courses can integrate for a bit before shifting gears if they want to flow on with me.
Resources
Song
Abigail and Shaun Bengson's Keep Going On Song was a viral hit during the pandemic with lines like:
I pray my pain is a river that flows to the ocean that connects my pain to yours
And I pray my happiness is like pollen
that flies to you
And pollinates your joy.
They've recently released a beautiful little invitation, "Don't Numb To This", which brought me instantly to the best of cathartic tears. May it crack you open and soothe you as well, friend.
Stay soft to this, don’t numb it out.
Let yourself breathe in and out.
You’re strong enough to feel it all,
and keep your heart alive.
Embodiment
The NY Times had a great little piece this week on our very-small but ever-growing knowledge of fascia, the fine and powerful layers of connective tissue and water "that surrounds and holds every organ, blood vessel, bone, nerve fiber and muscle in place." May it inspire you to pull on your sneakers, put on some good music to move to, or meet me on Saturdays for yoga!
Speaking Out
Humanity is in time of crisis, and there is painful news on many fronts. People tell me often that they wish to be more active but don't know how. A simple action that you can take from home with very little energy and for free is to raise your voice to your elected officials. Five Calls offers education on current issues, scripts for speaking, and contact information for your elected officials. Resistbot will text you daily to facilitate sending letters to your representatives electronically for free and by fax or paper for small fees. Thanks to Jennifer and Itzel
Friluftsliv (free-loofts-leev)
Usually I try to make the titles of each little resource a sort of categoric description, but friluftlsliv was just too delightful not to set up there atop these words. It means," 'open air life' and captures the sense of freedom found in connecting with nature regularly and all year, whatever the weather", says this intriguing little article in the Seattle Times. The National Nordic Museum is holding an online workshop on embracing winter with this technique hosted by health psychologist Kari Leibowitz on Tuesday Jan 30th online. I'm looking forward to this as I learn to embrace winter up on the 48th parallel. Perhaps you'd like to join me? Thanks to Leah
Incantation
Last week I shared a video of Mary Oliver reading her famous poem Wild Geese, whose line, "Let the soft animal of your body love what it loves" inspires the tone and name of my Saturday morning drop-in yoga class. I love to see a poet give voice to their work, but honestly, Mary isn't my favorite reader, heh! My mama sent me this glorious version of Helena Bonham Carter reading Wild Geese, and it is a treasure! Thanks to Sheri