A note from Erin:
Let’s start right off with a gorgeous poem for the new year, shall we? It’s from a beautiful poetry book by Mark Nepo, The Way Under the Way.
Be A Circle
I wish you the ability to breathe
after pain, to begin again, though
nothing else seems possible.
I wish you resilience: to part like
the ocean and accept like the sky,
to be held like a root.
I wish you survival: to take in life
like a trapped miner finding an
airhole and praising it as God.
I wish you courage: to ask of
everything you meet, “What
bridge are we?”
I wish you chances to listen:
to all that holds us up.
I wish you the-kindness-that-you-are
coming to brighten your face
like orange leaves scattered
at the end of fall.
I wish you endless journey that
seldom appears as we imagine.
I wish you curiosity: to make a
boat of wonder and an oar
of gratitude.
I’d like to add my own lines:
I wish you brave self-friendship: no matter how much you weigh, no matter how many small and giant mistakes you made, no matter what – may you never abandon yourself.
I wish you bone deep knowledge of your worthiness: no matter how your bank account looks and no matter how much the insatiable minions of “not-enough” wail their terrible cries.
I wish you beautiful moments: that you look yourself in the eyes in the mirror when brushing your teeth and say, “I wish you well,” and mean it; that you look up into the sky and marvel. A sky! That you pause to remember often – it’s passing. It’s impermanent. Pay attention.
I wish you full embodiment: that you feel at home in your own skin and bones right here and now; that you let yourself fully land right here in this perfectly imperfect vessel before it’s all over, which will certainly be too soon; that you revel in having legs and eyes and lungs and hands and lips and a one-of-a-kind life.
I wish that if self-critical words come to mind, you quickly notice the worry and suffering behind them and send love to that nervous little darling, and don’t even think about saying those critical words out loud because, as my friend Laurie says, ‘The world doesn’t need more of that noise.”
I wish that you look away from the screen and enter your moments as often as possible, and if you do stare at your phone, at least hold it up high enough so your spine can be long and dignified and not bent and bowed.
I wish for you to know you can be the encouragement of light for the world you want to protect and that you let yourself in turn be protected as well; that you let yourself be protected by mountains, protected by water, protected by wilderness, protected by diversity, by friends, by beauty, by love.
I wish that as many times as you need, you let yourself begin again.
I wish it all for me too.
We can always begin again.
My favorite line from the new Star Wars movie is when Rose says, “That’s how we’re gonna win. Not fighting what we hate, but saving what we love.” I cried one day last week, sitting on my red couch, repeating it to my friend. Like the gorgeous poem we shared last week – it feels like such a ripe time to keep imagining that beautiful future we’d love to see.
To remember what in the world we love and are determined to save.
Now that it’s near the turning of the calendar to 2018, and now that the sun is shining brightly and melting the snow outside my office door, I’m feeling the possibilitarian vibe with my whole body.
As MLK said, “Darkness cannot drive out darkness, only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate, only love can do that.” A challenging orientation – but the one we need.
Like the underground life of the dark roots and the spring that’s hiding right here in winter’s stillness, there’s a lot happening with us and we look forward to sharing the blossoming with you soon. Friends, we have so much juicy goodness to share with you in the new year!
Our wonderful webmaster is redoing our site for us to make it even more user friendly – and the new site reveal will be coming soon. Woohoo!
We’re looking to March 2018 for the launch of our podcast, Embodiment Matters, which we’ve been envisioning for years. We’re beyond thrilled! We can’t wait to share some of our inspiring conversations with visionaries with you.
We’re in the work of writing our first book, also tentatively titled Embodiment Matters. Woohooo!
We have many beautiful offerings coming up this year – from online offerings (look for our brand new Fifteen Favorite Feldenkrais Lessons coming online in January) to local classes and workshops to retreats in various gorgeous places.
We’re looking forward to offering embodied sitting meditation, community grief rituals, weekend workshops in Feldenkrais, Embodied Life and more.
We’re delighted to be hosting guest teachers, including Russell Delman (3/16-18) and Bayo Akomolafe (3/23-24) and more.
We are looking for more ways to offer beautiful iterations of this work we so deeply love to our beloved community (that’s you) – in ways you can engage it from wherever you are and at whatever amount of energy you want to invest.
From listening to inspiring interviews on our free podcast, to participating in local or online workshops, to diving into our amazing local courses like Women Embodied and Embodying a New Masucline, to traveling with us to Torrey, Utah for an Art of Sitting Retreat or joining me and Nan Seymour at Ghost Ranch, NM, in September to free your creative genius, to watching short videos on our upcoming YouTube channel, to joining us for a sitting meditation or a community grief ritual or an afternoon of Awareness Through Movement – we have so much goodness to come. Thanks so much for caring! We’ll have a big schedule update coming your way soon.
We’re wishing you a beautiful new year,
blessed with a fierce determination to save what we love,
and the courage to envision and embody that beautiful new world our hearts know is possible,
together….
Erin