TENDERLY, I HOLD IT ALL

• Today's suggested practice: Three minutes to feel it all, to hold it all... (see below)

• My playlist while writing today's meditation: Katia Guerriero, O Que For Há se Ser

• My morning practice: 60 minutes, warm-up for legs and lower triangle,  Sat kriya, Linking to the Infinite pranayama and mantra meditation

• My vulnerability practice: I sit and, seeing it all, feeling it all, I allow myself to break open, the heartbreak of so much tenderness offered, trusting me...

—Hans Peter Meyer

MY MEDITATION 

She tells me she is always impressed by me.... What gift is this? And then, to see her tears as she offers her bewildering tenderness... flowers from the mud.

And in this portent of blossoming I feel myself wanting more. Getting in the way of myself, of what I need: stillness, more stillness. Solitude. Time to let all of this settle, nourish. Not brush it away in my haste to ....?

I feel my own vulnerability. Ever more tender and susceptible with practice. Knowing with unreasonable knowing, without words, the strange wisdom of my Oracle. I feel the unseen buds of Spring pushing through the mud that has been nourishing them for many, many seasons. Holding and nourishing. I allow myself now to feel it all, the Spring I see, the Spring still rooting, still pushing, still being born. And it would all be "too much," but for my practice, my own roots deep into the love and discipline I practice with myself, rooting myself, holding myself, feeling myself. All of me.

I sit in the forest. It is so much. Huckleberries beyond pink now blushing green amongst the Fir trunks. Alders, kissed by a moment of April sun, for as long it takes me to do a meditation, opening red buds into a green haze of fresh leaves high in the forest. I sit and see it all, and am on the edge of tears. My heart breaking for joy.

I see it and feel this heart breaking open and I breathe, remember to breathe, to allow it all to keep flowing, this feeling, these sensations, these visions. She, too, is blossoming, moving through her mud, towards her sun, towards that powerful presence that holds her safe, holds it all. That presence unafraid of all she brings.

Are you sad? she asked. I feel tears in my heart and throat, but no, not sad, though it is another heartbreak, another opening to something unknown. Grateful. I know this much: I am grateful for this blossoming from the mud. Feeling it all. Not sad, no. Feeling it all and allowing its unreasonable beauty. I am the sun.

TODAY'S INSPIRATIONS 

🌀I understand now that I'm not a mess but a deeply feeling person in a messy world. I explain that now, when someone asks me why I cry so often, I say, "For the same reason I laugh so often- because I'm paying attention." (Glennon Doyle Melton, The Mind's Journal)

🌀One of the ways this ‘yoga’ has been practiced over the millennia is to connect with the magnificence in everything. Known as Raj Yoga (royal union), it uses rhythm and mantra, combined into what’s called ‘Naad’...a constant mantra in the mind. It delivers a sensation of vastness, of ‘headroom’ to each moment, a sense of being completely free. With this freedom, there are no blockages. You have the probability of every possibility. Ideas and solutions for each moment are inside of each moment...you’re virtually “unstoppable.”... (Guru Singh and Guruperkarma Kaur, Unstoppable)

🌀I'm anyways impressed by you. (My beloved, my Oracle)

TODAY'S SUGGESTED PRACTICE 

Three minutes to hold it all...

Please read through first, then ...

• This needs no special place, but a moment (three minutes) where you can sit or stand undisturbed....

• Set a timer for three minutes.

• Close your eyes.  Let your breathing slow as you inhale through your nose and into your softening, rounding belly. Exhale by gently drawing your navel in to your spine. Breathe even slower and deeper, but without effort.

• Feel the front of your body —from your genitals to your belly to your heart to your throat— softening. Imagine it opening. Imagine it receiving everything that there is to receive.... your cat's demands, your lover's affections, your spouse's frustration, your own frustration, anger, love, sadness, the flowers budding in the garden, your work demanding your attention on this day of rest, your yoga matt calling to you, your best friend who hasn't called or the one who has called with their own demands and heartbreaks and joys, the war in Ukraine, those sick with COVID or cancer or depression —let all of it come to your soft, open front of body and find a place to be held. Breathe deeper. Sustain your straight, firm (not stiff) spine. Roll your shoulders and keep your front of body open. Feel everything —all the sadness, all the joy, all the wonder, all the overwhelm, feel it all. Breathe into it all. Allow it to move through your open body for just a few more moments.... allow allow allow....

• As the timer signals bring your attention to your hands, your beautiful and powerful and healing hands. Hold your left hand (your feminine hand) on your heart. Hold our right hand (your masculine hand) over your left, protecting it and protecting your heart. Feel yourself holding yourself. Feel only this, how capable your hands are, to hold you in the midst of so much feeling. Breathe three long slow deep breaths into your heart, your hands. Open your eyes to your world. Allow your hands to gently come to your lap. Feel how open you are and how strong you are, even with so much feeling moving around you, through you, in you. Feel how stable you are in this brief moment. Now, step into your day, knowing you are this strong. Feel it all. Allow it become nourishment, not overwhelm. Breathe. And with every breath, remember this three minute exercise where you taught yourself to be deep enough, still enough to hold it all.