Yesterday on the way to teach my benefit class for Thanksgiving Day I saw not one, not two, but three rainbows over the course of about 5 minutes. It was breathtaking, it was awe inspiring and it also reminded me how much I had lost touch with every day wonder and joy. These past two years have felt overwhelming at best as we navigate all the challenges of our social and political systems. Instead of taking moments in the day to see joy, I'm often focusing my energy on what is broken. It made me take the gratitude I practice on Thanksgiving all the more seriously. Its not to say I won't stop paying attention and I won't stop fighting injustices I see in the world, but it is recognizing that I need to spend more time practicing gratitude around the every day miracles and wonders happening in my life around me. It was a powerful reminder and one I was so grateful to receive.

Having just returned from the Sleeping Lady Fall Yoga Retreat, I find myself reflecting with gratitude on the gifts I took away from that weekend. Beyond the beauty of community, nature and time for retreat was the very real need to refill my well. I'd found myself running on empty and found much needed nourishment in the spaciousness and quietude of my time away. 

As part of the weekend I shared three of my favorite. poems from Danna Faulds' book Go In and In. Enjoy!

Allow 
There is no controlling life.
Try corralling a lightning bolt,
containing a tornado.  Dam a
stream and it will create a new
channel.  Resist, and the tide
will sweep you off your feet.
Allow, and grace will carry
you to higher ground.  The only
safety lies in letting it all in –
the wild and the weak; fear,
fantasies, failures and success.
When loss rips off the doors of
the heart, or sadness veils your
vision with despair, practice
becomes simply bearing the truth.
In the choice to let go of your
known way of being, the whole
world is revealed to your new eyes.


Paradox 
Fear and love seldom
stand, shoulder to shoulder;
Its rare to laugh and
lie in the same breath.
But strength and weakness,
failure and success,
faith and desolation –
they are different ends
of a single stick.
To pick one up
is to receive both poles –
stark contrasts contribute
to a knowledge of the whole.
What is life but growing
wide and deep, so
open from weeping
that opposites, ambiguity,
and a thousand shade
of gray can co-exist
without despair?

Healing
There is healing in the laying on of hands;
in the letting go of fear, in asking for help,
in silence, celebration, prayer. There is
healing in speaking the truth and in keeping
still, in seeking sunlight and not shunning
struggle. Laughter and the affirmation of
wholeness hold their owwn healing.  When
the soul dances, when the day begins in
delight, when love grows and cannot be
contained, when life flows from moment
to moment, healing happens in the space
between thoughts, and the breath before
the first sung note.  Healing is a birthright
and a grace.   When we dare to be open to
the unknown, when we extend ourselves
in caring, when we welcome in the vast
expanse of life, healing comes from the
heart, and blossoms from the inside out.