Below is my most recent newsletter, sent Summer 2018. Sign up for future newsletters HERE.
Tell all truth but tell it slant —
Success in Circuit lies
Too bright for our infirm Delight
The Truth’s superb surprise
As Lightening to the Children eased
With explanation kind
The truth must dazzle gradually
Or every man be blind —
– Emily Dickenson
Hello summer friends.
I’m just back from a week at Great Vow Zen Monastery, where I was on sesshin, a week of silent dedication. One experience that I brought back with me is encapsulated by the image of facing my busy mind in a canoe, wresting the oar away from that tangled nest of self-fulfilling activity only to rest it across my legs, look out across the water: concentration, spaciousness, and ease. Ahhhhhhhhh
Among many chants, we said this everyday, again and again:
Beings are numberless, I vow to free them.
Delusions are inexhaustible, I vow to end them.
Dharma Gates are boundless, I vow to enter them.
The Buddha-way is unsurpassable, I vow to embody it.
In my own experience, this is the truth told very slant, and I am here for it. Here for titration, gradual accumulation, supportive ritual, radically inclusive awareness that admits always to not-knowing, kindness, and taking. the. time. it. takes.
Connected in the way that all things are connected — through the flesh (not through the illusion of time, let’s be clear) — I have news that many of you know:
After ten years of studio teaching in Portland, and in the thick of practice in both public classes and with private clients that is rich with my Truth shared with explanation kind — I am walking through the Dharma Gate of full time salaried work for the first time in my 38 years. My last two public classes are Sunday the 5th and Sunday the 12th, both at 5pm at the NE Killingsworth studio. I am squeezing in meetings with private clients before the school year begins, and then waiting to see what kind of opening manifests for this very important work later on.
I am committed to teaching Language Arts, Health, and Mindfulness at the Lents campus of Rosemary Anderson High School for the next ten months. My children will both be in our neighborhood school for the first time. I am letting go of my backyard farm, holding reverence for what this little piece of Earth will teach me next. I learned on retreat that I can tolerate the feeling of falling. Each day is an opportunity to trust.
What are you committed to? Does it help you to feel the widening rings of context and influence that hold your choices? What slanted truth have you encountered lately? Where do you go to cultivate trust?
Be in touch.
Yoga for the Body Politic Podcast on KBOO!
Me on Instagram
(Six years ago this summer, during my last big transition)
