(in response to The Monk and the Samurai parable:
http://healingstory.org/the-monk-and-the-samurai/?doing_wp_cron=1485969090.1977100372314453125000)
Finding Heaven
by Sandra Rossetter (Allie's yoga classmate)
May we return to ourselves.
Riding the current of our breath.
It is here that stillness is cultivated.
Instead of drawing up our sword,
May we find refuge in this safe place
before reacting, speaking, judging.
May the pilgrimage of the breath through the interior of the temple body,
Circle through heart center, chest, shoulders.
Traveling up and down the golden corridor
Of our spine, allowing balance, compassion and kindness.
Lighting dark places, illuminating detail and wisdom inherit within.
Conscious of all the ways we are the same,
Sharing, interconnected.
May the release of each breath be a steady and calm gesture.
Giving back to the plants, to all the things that sustain us.
Gracefully bowing and acknowledging all
We do not understand, all that is different.
Trusting, returning to this space, our peaceful
Resolve, making way for right thought, speech, action.
Making way for us to rise together.
Heaven and hell are mindsets. Our breath and being mindful is such a powerful tool to influence our mindsets.
ReplyDeleteI love the connectedness and cycle of life within the poem, taking and giving, but rising together.
The tone and mood are so compassionate and loving. As if reading it is heavenly, besides the second stanza there are no negative ideas present. Is that what most people would consider heaven?
If heaven and hell are mindsets then maybe the breath creates our mindset, our truth, our Earth.
ReplyDeleteSandra is such a gentle soul of a woman and it reflects deeply in her writing. She is a dancer and a yogi, very thin and tall and fragile, and her words dance as she does. With a lightness that is so wonderful to feel while you read.
There is such a difference in perspective when we ourselves decide to take this journey into the breath, but, as the last line suggests, learning how this brings us back to rise together is a lot more confusing. How does the breath still us and others for the long run?