inspired yoga
  • Home
    • About Me
    • Contact Me
  • Yoga & Reiki
    • Yoga Schedule
    • Reiki
    • Tuning Fork Therapy
    • Waiver- Reiki
    • Waiver- Yoga
  • My Book, Meditation CD & Reiki Online
  • End-of-Life Doula
  • Class Themes/Newsletter
  • Picture Gallery
  • Death Cafe Meetings

Sign up to receive my newsletter

Add to newsletter

Poems from class

11/20/2013

0 Comments

 
The following are the poems I used in class tonight. I really wanted everyone struggling with life right now to remember how strong they really are.




Bird Wings by Rumi

Your deepest presence
Is in every small contraction and
Expansion. The two as beautifully
Balanced and coordinated as
Bird wings.


 

Mary Oliver from the book Thirst

It doesn’t have to be
the blue iris, it could be
weeds in a vacant lot, or a few
small stones; just
pay attention, then patch


a few words together and don’t try
to make them elaborate, this isn’t
a contest but the doorway


into thanks, and a silence in which
another voice may speak.


 

“Heavy” by Mary Oliver

That time
I thought I could not
go any closer to grief
without dying


I went closer,
and I did not die.
Surely God
had his hand in this,


as well as friends.
Still, I was bent,
and my laughter,
as the poet said,


was nowhere to be found.
Then said my friend Daniel,
(brave even among lions),
“It’s not the weight you carry


but how you carry it -
books, bricks, grief -
it’s all in the way
you embrace it, balance it, carry it


when you cannot, and would not,
put it down.”
So I went practicing.
Have you noticed?


Have you heard
the laughter
that comes, now and again,
out of my startled mouth?


How I linger
to admire, admire, admire
the things of this world
that are kind, and maybe


also troubled -
roses in the wind,
the sea geese on the steep waves,
a love
to which there is no reply?



Wild Geese by Mary Oliver

You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
for a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves.
Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
are moving across the landscapes,
over the prairies and the deep trees,
the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
are heading home again.
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting–
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things.


0 Comments



Leave a Reply.

    Picture

    Archives

    August 2022
    December 2021
    November 2021
    October 2021
    September 2021
    June 2021
    April 2021
    March 2021
    February 2021
    January 2021
    December 2020
    November 2020
    October 2020
    September 2020
    August 2020
    July 2020
    June 2020
    May 2020
    April 2020
    March 2020
    February 2020
    January 2020
    November 2019
    September 2019
    August 2019
    July 2019
    June 2019
    May 2019
    March 2019
    February 2019
    January 2019
    December 2018
    November 2018
    September 2018
    August 2018
    July 2018
    May 2018
    April 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018
    December 2017
    November 2017
    October 2017
    August 2017
    June 2017
    April 2017
    March 2017
    December 2016
    October 2016
    August 2016
    July 2016
    June 2016
    May 2016
    April 2016
    March 2016
    February 2016
    January 2016
    December 2015
    November 2015
    October 2015
    September 2015
    August 2015
    July 2015
    June 2015
    May 2015
    April 2015
    March 2015
    February 2015
    January 2015
    December 2014
    November 2014
    October 2014
    September 2014
    August 2014
    July 2014
    June 2014
    May 2014
    April 2014
    March 2014
    February 2014
    January 2014
    December 2013
    November 2013
    October 2013
    September 2013
    August 2013
    September 2012

    RSS Feed

Powered by Create your own unique website with customizable templates.
  • Home
    • About Me
    • Contact Me
  • Yoga & Reiki
    • Yoga Schedule
    • Reiki
    • Tuning Fork Therapy
    • Waiver- Reiki
    • Waiver- Yoga
  • My Book, Meditation CD & Reiki Online
  • End-of-Life Doula
  • Class Themes/Newsletter
  • Picture Gallery
  • Death Cafe Meetings