Learning from life’s teachers is a great gift. This weekend, a friend suggested I attend a yoga workshop, of which I did. It was inspiring to say the least. I am still ingesting and digesting what was offered but something I wanted to share was a poem that the teacher, Djuna, read to us. For me, in its simplicity, the experience of being read this poem, was profound. So I have learned from the teacher of the workshop, from the author of this poem, from the subject matter of which it is composed of, and from my response to the words. But moving beyond linear, there’s more– I realize I’m still learning from other Sources, what I’ve learned before, and what I always knew, shared now from different voices. I guess tonight I’m thinking about how amazing wisdom, knowledge, experiences shared…can be, if we are open to seeing beyond or between or within and from the teacher who stands before us at the moment, who speaks the words of others spoken before her. From, of course, the teacher who cradles everyone, equally the same, with the same gentle hold, undiscriminitory. For those who will be joining me Monday night for yoga class, let’s share as we practice together. I’ll read you this poem…
How surely gravity’s law,
Strong as an ocean current,
Takes hold of even the strongest thing
And pulls it toward the heart of the world.
Each thing-
Each stone, blossom, child-
Is held in place.
Only we, in our arrogance,
Push out beyond what we belong to
For some empty freedom.
If we surrendered
To earth’s intelligence
We could rise up rooted, like trees.
Instead we entangle ourselves
In knots of our own making
And struggle, lonely and confused.
So, like children, we begin again
To learn from the things,
Because they are in God’s heart;
they have never left him.
This is what the things can teach us:
To fall,
Patiently to trust our heaviness.
Even a bird has to do that
Before he can fly.
Rainer Maria Rilke
