Christmas Eve-People Gotta Eat

Thank you to everyone who joined the Christmas Eve practice at Potawatomi Conservatories, we raised a total of $821 for People Gotta Eat!!
Happy Holidays and Namaste-

Jamie

reading

 Tell everyone you know: “My happiness depends on me, so you’re off the hook.” And then demonstrate it. Be happy, no matter what they’re doing. Practice feeling good, no matter what. And before you know it, you will not give anyone else responsibility for the way you feel.
~Abraham

reading

Making Peace

BY DENISE LEVERTOV
A voice from the dark called out, “The poets must give us imagination of peace, to oust the intense, familiar imagination of disaster. Peace, not only the absence of war.” But peace, like a poem, is not there ahead of itself,can’t be imagined before it is made, can’t be known except in the words of its making, grammar of justice, syntax of mutual aid. A feeling towards it,dimly sensing a rhythm, is all we have until we begin to utter its metaphors, learning them as we speak. A line of peace might appear if we restructured the sentence our lives are making, revoked its reaffirmation of profit and power, questioned our needs, allowed long pauses. . . .A cadence of peace might balance its weighton that different fulcrum; peace, a presence, an energy field more intense than war, might pulse then, stanza by stanza into the world, each act of living one of its words, each worda vibration of light—facets of the forming crystal.

Reading

Be Thankful

Be thankful that you don't already have everything you desire.
If you did, what would there be to look forward to?

Be thankful when you don't know something,
for it gives you the opportunity to learn.

Be thankful for the difficult times.
During those times you grow.

Be thankful for your limitations,
because they give you opportunities for improvement.

Be thankful for each new challenge,
because it will build your strength and character.

Be thankful for your mistakes.
They will teach you valuable lessons.

Be thankful when you're tired and weary,
because it means you've made the effort.

It's easy to be thankful for the good things.
A life of rich fulfillment comes to those who
are also thankful for the setbacks.

Gratitude can turn a negative into a positive.
Find a way to be thankful for your troubles,
and they can become your blessings.
~Author Unknown

Reading

Awake awhile. It does not have to be forever. Right now.  One step upon the Sky's soft skirt would be enough. Awake awhile.  Just one True moment of Love will last for days. Rest all your elaborate plans and tactics for knowing Him, For they are all just frozen spring buds Far, so far from Summer's Divine Gold. Awake, my dear. Be kind to your sleeping heart. Take it out into the vast fields of Light, And let it breathe. Say, “Love, give me back my wings. Lift me, lift me nearer.” Say to the sun and moon, say to our dear Friend, I will take you up now, Beloved, On that wonderful Dance You promised.
~Hafiz

reading

What I Believe

I believe there is no justice,
but that cottongrass and bunchberry
grow on the mountain.

I believe that a scorpion's sting
will kill a man,
but that his wife will remarry.

I believe that, the older we get,
the weaker the body,
but the stronger the soul.

I believe that if you roll over at night
in an empty bed,
the air consoles you.

I believe that no one is spared
the darkness,
and no one gets all of it.

I believe we all drown eventually
in a sea of our making,
but that the land belongs to someone else.

I believe in destiny.
And I believe in free will.

I believe that, when all
the clocks break,
time goes on without them.

And I believe that whatever
pulls us under,
will do so gently.

so as not to disturb anyone,
so as not to interfere
with what we believe in.
~Michael Blumenthall

reading

Ready or not, someday it will all come to an end.
There will be no more sunrises, no minutes, hours or days.
All the things you collected, whether treasured or forgotten, will pass to someone else.
Your wealth, fame and temporal power will shrivel to irrelevance.
It will not matter what you owned or what you were owed.
Your grudges, resentments, frustrations, and jealousies will finally disappear.
So, too, your hopes, ambitions, plans, and to-do lists will expire.
The wins and losses that once seemed so important will fade away.
It won’t matter where you came from, or on what side of the tracks you lived, at the end.
It won’t matter whether you were beautiful or brilliant
Even your gender and skin color will be irrelevant.
So what will matter?
How will the value of your days be measured?
What will matter is not what you bought, but what you built; not what you got, but what you gave.
What will matter is not your success, but your significance.
What will matter is not what you learned, but what you taught.
What will matter is every act of integrity, compassion, courage or sacrifice that enriched, empowered or encouraged others to emulate your example.
What will matter is not your competence, but your character.
What will matter is not how many people you knew, but how many will feel a lasting loss when you’re gone.
What will matter is not your memories, but the memories that live in those who loved you.
What will matter is how long you will be remembered, by whom and for what.
Living a life that matters doesn’t happen by accident.
It’s not a matter of circumstance, but of choice.
Choose to live a life that matters.

By Michael Josephson

reading

PEACEit doesn't mean to be
in a place where there is no noise,
trouble, or hard work.
it means to be
in the midst of those things
and still be calm
in yourHEART

Weekly Reading

I will not die an unlived life. I will not live in fear of falling or catching fire. I will choose to inhabit my days, to allow my living to open me, to make me less afraid, more accessible, to loosen my heart until it becomes a wing, a torch, a promise. I choose to risk my significance; to live so that which came to me as seed goes to the next as blossom and that which came to me as blossom, goes on as fruit.
~Dawna Markova

IRest/Yoga Nidra Class Series

November 7-December 19
6:30-8PM(No class Nov.28-Thanksgiving)

Live a contented life, free of conflict and fear.
Open your mind and body to its inherent
ground of health and wellbeing. 
iRest/Yoga Nidra is a research-based
transformative practice of deep relaxation
and meditative inquiry that releases negative
emotions and thought patterns, calms the
nervous system, and develops a deep capacity
to meet any and all circumstances you may
encounter in life.Research shows that iRest/Yoga
Nidra effectively reduces PTSD, depression, anxiety,
insomnia, chronic pain and daily stress levels.
$72 (includes practice cd’s)
Space is limited.

Sign up with Barbara
babawawa@comcast.net

reading

“Fear less, hope more; eat less, chew more; whine less, breathe more; talk less, say more; hate less, love more; and all good things are yours.”
~Swedish Proverb.

reading

Who made the world? Who made the swan, and the black bear? Who made the grasshopper? This grasshopper, I mean—the one who has flung herself out of the grass, the one who is eating sugar out of my hand,who is moving her jaws back and forth instead of up and down—who is gazing around with her enormous and complicated eyes. Now she lifts her pale forearms and thoroughly washes her face.Now she snaps her wings open, and floats away. I don't know exactly what a prayer is. I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down into the grass, how to kneel down in the grass, how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields, which is what I have been doing all day.Tell me, what else should I have done?Doesn't everything die at last, and too soon? Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?
~Mary Oliver

reading

When I ask you to listen to me and you start giving me advice, you have not done what I asked.When I ask you to listen to me and you begin to tell me why I shouldn’t feel that way, you are trampling on my feelings.When I ask you to listen to meand you feel you have to do something to solve my problem, you have failed me, strange as that may seem. Listen! All I ask is that you listen. Don’t talk or do – just hear me. Advice is cheap; 20 cents will get you both Dear Abby and Billy Graham in the same newspaper. And I can do for myself; I am not helpless. Maybe discouraged and faltering, but not helpless.When you do something for me that I can and need to do for myself, you contribute to my fear and inadequacy. But when you accept as a simple fact that I feel what I feel, no matter how irrational, then I can stop trying to convince you and get about this business of understanding what’s behindthis irrational feeling. And when that’s clear, the answers are obvious and I don’t need advice. Irrational feelings make sense when we understand what’s behind them. Perhaps that’s why prayer works, sometimes, for some people – because God is mute, and he doesn’t give advice or tryto fix things.God just listens and lets you workit out for yourself. So please listen, and just hear me.And if you want to talk, wait a minutefor your turn – and I will listen to you.
~Gary Jones

reading

“…Our life might be much easier and simpler than we make it…Why need you choose so painfully your place, and occupation…? Place yourself in the middle of the stream of power and wisdom which animates all whom it floats, and you are without effort impelled to truth, to right and a perfect contentment.”

Spaces available in Kula Yoga practice!

Monday 7:15 - 1 opening
Tuesday 7:15 - 1 opening
Wednesday 7:15 - 3 openings

Email me to hold a space!

Kulayogasb@gmail.com

weekly reading

Wild Geese

You do not have to be good.You do not have to walk on your knees For a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.You only have to let the soft animal of your body love what it loves.Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine. Meanwhile the world goes on. Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain are moving across the landscapes, over the prairies and the deep trees, the mountains and the rivers. Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air, are heading home again. Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,the world offers itself to your imagination, calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting --over and over announcing your place in the family of things.
~Mary Oliver

weekly reading

Then it was as if I suddenly saw the secret beauty of their hearts, the depths where neither sin nor desire can reach, the person that each one is in God's eyes. If only they could see themselves as they really are.If only we could see each other that way, there would be no reason for war, for hatred, for cruelty ...I suppose the big problem would be that we would fall down and worship each other.
~Thomas Merton

weekly reading

Then it was as if I suddenly saw the secret beauty of their hearts,the depths where neither sin nor desire can reach, the person that each one is in God's eyes. If only they could see themselves as they really are.If only we could see each other that way, there would be no reason for war, for hatred, for cruelty ...I suppose the big problem would be that we would fall down and worship each other.
~Thomas Merton

weekly reading

Let me not pray to be sheltered from dangers,
but to be fearless in facing them.

Let me not beg for the stilling of my pain,
but for the heart to conquer it.

Let me not crave in anxious fear to be saved,
but hope for the patience to win my freedom.

~Rabindranath Tagore

No classes on Labor Day

Weekly Reading

Birdwings
Your grief for what you’ve lost lifts a mirror
up to where you’re bravely working.
Expecting the worst, you look, and instead,
here's the joyful face you’ve been wanting to see.
Your hand opens and closes and opens and closes.
If it were always a fist or always stretched open,
you would be paralyzed.
Your deepest presence is in every small contracting and expanding,
the two as beautifully balanced and coordinated
as birdwings.
~Rumi

Weekly Reading

Singapore

 In Singapore, in the airport, a darkness was ripped from my eyes.

 In the women’s restroom, one compartment stood open.

 A woman knelt there, washing something in the white bowl.

 Disgust argued in my stomach and I felt, in my pocket, for my ticket.

 A poem should always have birds in it. Kingfishers, say,

 with their bold eyes and gaudy wings.

 Rivers are pleasant, and of course trees.

 A waterfall, or if that’s not possible, a fountain rising and falling.

 A person wants to stand in a happy place, in a poem.

When the woman turned I could not answer her face.

 Her beauty and her embarrassment struggled together, and neither could win. 

 She smiled and I smiled. 

What kind of nonsense is this? Everybody needs a job.

Yes, a person wants to stand in a happy place, in a poem.

 But first we must watch her as she stares down at her labor, which is dull enough.

 She is washing the tops of the airport ashtrays, as big as hubcaps, with a blue rag. 

 Her small hands turn the metal, scrubbing and rinsing.

 She does not work slowly, nor quickly, but like a river. 

 Her dark hair is like the wing of a bird. 

 I don’t doubt for a moment that she loves her life. 

 And I want her to rise up from the crust and the slop and fly down to the river.

 This probably won’t happen. But maybe it will. 

If the world were only pain and logic, who would want it? 

 Of course, it isn’t. 

 Neither do I mean anything miraculous, but only the light that can shine out of a life.

 I mean the way she unfolded and refolded the blue cloth, the way her smile was only for my sake;

 I mean the way this poem is filled with trees, and birds.

~Mary Oliver

Weekly Reading

"The thought manifests as the word
The word manifests as the deed
The deed develops into habit
Habit hardens into character
So watch the thought and its ways with care
And let it spring out of love
Born out of concern for all beings
As the shadow follows the body as we think, so we become..."

~Buddha

Weekly Reading

Love Poem With Toast

Miller Williams

Some of what we do, we do
to make things happen,
the alarm to wake us up, the coffee to perc,
the car to start.
The rest of what we do, we do
trying to keep something from doing something,
the skin from aging, the hoe from rusting,
the truth from getting out.
With yes and no like the poles of a battery
powering our passage through the days,
we move, as we call it, forward,
wanting to be wanted,
wanting not to lose the rain forest,
wanting the water to boil,
wanting not to have cancer,
wanting to be home by dark,
wanting not to run out of gas,
as each of us wants the other
watching at the end,
as both want not to leave the other alone,
as wanting to love beyond this meat and bone,
we gaze across breakfast and pretend.

weekly reading

your life is your life
don’t let it be clubbed into dank submission.
be on the watch.
there are ways out.
there is a light somewhere.
it may not be much light but,
it beats the darkness.
be on the watch.
the gods will offer you chances.
know them.
take them.
you can’t beat death but,
you can beat death in life, sometimes.
and the more often you learn to do it,
the more light there will be.
your life is your life.
know it while you have it.
you are marvelous the gods wait to delightin you.
~Charles Bukowski

Weekly Reading

Snow Geese Oh, to love what is lovely, and will not last!What a taskto ask of anything, or anyone, yet it is ours, and not by the century or the year, but by the hours. One fall day I heard above me, and above the sting of the wind, a sound I did not know, and my look shot upward; it was a flock of snow geese, winging itfaster than the ones we usually see, and, being the color of snow, catching the sun so they were, in part at least, golden.  I held my breath as we do sometimes to stop time when something wonderful has touched us as with a match, which is lit, and bright, but does not hurt in the common way, but delightfully, as if delightwere the most serious thing you ever felt. The geese flew on, I have never seen them again. Maybe I will, someday, somewhere. Maybe I won't. It doesn't matter.What matters is that, when I saw them, I saw them as through the veil, secretly, joyfully, clearly.
~ Mary Oliver ~

Weekly Reading

A yogi’s prayer

May all who are mean return to good;
May all who are good obtain true peace.
May all who are peaceful be freed from bonds;
May all who are free set others free.
Blessings upon all the earth;
May all of the world’s rulers uphold righteousness.
May only good fortune reach everyone;
May all the world’s creatures be happy.
May rain fall when the earth is thirsty;
May all the storehouses be filled.
May everyone here be free from injury;
May all who are good be free from fear.
May everyone know a life of joy;
May everyone live a life of health.
May everyone see only good in the world;
May everyone soon be released from pain.
May everyone overcome all their woes;
May everyone see only good in the world.
May everyone realize all their desires;
May everyone everywhere be glad.
May our mother and father be blessed;
Blessings upon every creature on earth.
May our works flourish and aid everyone,
And long may our eyes see the sun.
Om shanti, shanti, shanti (peace).

Weekly Reading

Choice

I do not respond in predicatable ways
like a rat in a maze.
I am not controlled by people or events.
I make concscious choices that put me
in control of my life.
I think, then act and watch my life transform.
Spirit turns the darkness before me into light.
When blind to solutions at hand, when the
way seems blocked, I trust devine intelligence
to reveal the way to paths I have not known.
~Gabriel Halpern

Weekly Reading

At the very center of our being is a great spaciousness that is untouched by sin and illusion.A point of pure truth which is inaccessible to the fantasies of our mind or the brutalities of our will.It’s like a pure diamond – blazing with the invisible light of heaven. It’s in everybody. And if we could only see it and integrate it – we would radiate a peace that would make all the darkness and all the cruelty vanish forever.

Saturday Yoga May 18

Coffee, tea, & chocolate after yoga, Hosted by Ten Thousand Villages

Weekly Reading

What is the greatest gift? Could it be the world itself-the oceans, the meadowlark,the patience of the trees in the wind? Could it be love, with its sweet clamor of passion?Something else-something else entirely holds me in thrall.That you have a life that I wonder aboutmore than I wonder about my own.That you have a life-courteous and intelligent-thatI wonder about more than I wonder about my own.That you have a soul-your own, no one else's-thatI wonder about more than I wonder about my own.So that I find my soul clapping its hands for yours more than my own.
~Mary Oliver

weekly reading

The Guest House
This being human is a guest house.
 Every morning a new arrival.
A joy, a depression, a meanness,
some momentary awareness comes
as an unexpected visitor. Welcome
and entertain them all! Even if they're a
crowd of sorrows, who violently sweep
your house empty of its furniture, still,
treat each guest honorably. He may be
clearing you out for some new delight.
The dark thought, the shame, the malice,
meet them at the door laughing, and invite
them in. Be grateful for whoever comes,
because each has been sent as a guide
from beyond.
~ Rumi ~

New Digs

The High Noon Yoga practice has
moved to 904 E Jefferson in
South Bend. 904 E Jefferson is also
the address for Therapeutic
Indulgence. Check back for more
yoga classes in the upcoming weeks.

Reading Saturday AM

If the Earth were only a few feet in diameter, floating a few feet above a field somewhere, people would come from everywhere to marvel at it. People would walk around it, marvelling at its big pools of water, its little pools, and the water flowing between the pools. People would marvel at the bumps on it, and the holes in it, and they would marvel at the very thin layer of gas surrounding it, and the water suspended in the gas. The people would marvel at all the creatures walking around the surface of the ball, and the creatures in the water. The people would declare it precious because it was the only one, and they would protect it so that it would not be hurt. The ball would be the greatest wonder ever known, and people would come to behold it, to be healed, to gain knowledge, to know beauty, and to wonder how it could be. People would love it, and defend it with their lives, because they would somehow know their lives, their own "roundness", could be nothing without it.

Reading Saturday AM

Why I Wake Early

Hello, sun in my face.Hello, you who made the morningand spread it over the fieldsand into the faces of the tulipsand the nodding morning glories,and into the windows of, even, themiserable and the crotchety best preacher that ever was,dear star, that just happensto be where you are in the universeto keep us from ever-darkness,to ease us with warm touching,to hold us in the great hands of light –good morning, good morning, good morning.
Watch, now, how I start the day in happiness, in kindness.
~ Mary Oliver ~

Weekly Reading

Mornings at Blackwater

For years, every morning, I drank from Blackwater Pond. It was flavored with oak leaves and also, no doubt,the feet of ducks. And always it assuaged me from the dry bowl of the very far past. What I want to say is that the past is the past, and the present is what your life is,and you are capable of choosing what that will be, darling citizen. So come to the pond, or the river of your imagination, or the harbor of your longing, and put your lips to the world. And live your life.
~Mary Oliver

Weekly Reading

The god of dirt came up to me many times and said so many wise and delectable things, I lay on the grass listening to his dog voice, crow voice, frog voice; now, he said, and now, and never once mentioned forever, which has nevertheless always been, like a sharp iron hoof, at the center of my mind. One or two things are all you need to travel over the blue pond, over the deep roughage of the trees and through the stiff flowers of lightning — some deep memory of pleasure, some cutting knowledge of pain. But to lift the hoof! For that you need an idea. For years and years I struggled just to love my life. And thenthe butterflyrose, weightless, in the wind.“Don’t love your life too much,” it said,and vanished into the world.
~Mary Oliver

Weekly Reading

What Will Matter?

Ready or not, some day it will all come to an end.

There will be no more sunrises, no minutes, hours or days.
All the things you collected, whether treasured or forgotten
will pass to someone else.

Your wealth, fame and temporal power will shrivel to irrelevance.
It will not matter what you owned or what you were owed.
Your grudges, resentments, frustrations
and jealousies will finally disappear.
So too, your hopes, ambitions, plans and to-do lists will expire.
The wins and losses that once seemed so important will fade away.

It won't matter where you came from
or what side of the tracks you lived on at the end.
It won't matter whether you were beautiful or brilliant.
Even your gender and skin color will be irrelevant.

So what will matter?
How will the value of your days be measured?

What will matter is not what you bought
but what you built, not what you got but what you gave.

What will matter is not your success
but your significance.

What will matter is not what you learned
but what you taught.

What will matter is every act of integrity,
compassion, courage, or sacrifice
that enriched, empowered or encouraged others
to emulate your example.

What will matter is not your competence
but your character.

What will matter is not how many people you knew,
but how many will feel a lasting loss when you're gone.

What will matter is not your memories
but the memories that live in those who loved you.

What will matter is how long you will be remembered,
by whom and for what.

Living a life that matters doesn't happen by accident.
It's not a matter of circumstance but of choice.

Choose to live a life that matters.
~Michael Josephson

Weekly Reading

This World

I would like to write a poem about the world that has in it
nothing fancy.
But it seems impossible.
Whatever the subject, the morning sun
glimmers it.
The tulip feels the heat and flaps its petals open and becomes a star.
The ants bore into the peony bud and there is a dark
pinprick well of sweetness.
As for the stones on the beach, forget it.
Each one could be set in gold.
So I tried with my eyes shut, but of course the birds
were singing.
And the aspen trees were shaking the sweetest music
out of their leaves.
And that was followed by, guess what, a momentous and
beautiful silence
as comes to all of us, in little earfuls, if we’re not too
hurried to hear it.
As for spiders, how the dew hangs in their webs
even if they say nothing, or seem to say nothing.
So fancy is the world, who knows, maybe they sing.
So fancy is the world, who knows, maybe the stars sing too,
and the ants, and the peonies, and the warm stones,
so happy to be where they are, on the beach, instead of being
locked up in gold.

~ Mary Oliver

Weekly Reading

I Pray to the Birds

I pray to the birds because I believe they will carry the messages of my heart upward.  I pray to them because I believe in their existence, the way their songs begin and end each day–the invocations and benedictions of Earth.  I pray to the birds because they remind me of what I love rather than what I fear.  And at the end of my prayers, they teach me how to listen.
~Terry Tempest Williams

Weekly Reading

This World

I would like to write a poem about the world that has in it
nothing fancy.
But it seems impossible.
Whatever the subject, the morning sun
glimmers it.
The tulip feels the heat and flaps its petals open and becomes a star.
The ants bore into the peony bud and there is a dark
pinprick well of sweetness.
As for the stones on the beach, forget it.
Each one could be set in gold.
So I tried with my eyes shut, but of course the birds
were singing.
And the aspen trees were shaking the sweetest music
out of their leaves.
And that was followed by, guess what, a momentous and
beautiful silence
as comes to all of us, in little earfuls, if we’re not too
hurried to hear it.
As for spiders, how the dew hangs in their webs
even if they say nothing, or seem to say nothing.
So fancy is the world, who knows, maybe they sing.
So fancy is the world, who knows, maybe the stars sing too,
and the ants, and the peonies, and the warm stones,
so happy to be where they are, on the beach, instead of being
locked up in gold.

~ Mary Oliver

Weekly Reading

Feeling Good

I attune to feeling good.

I allow the well being
that is natural to flow.

That which feels good
I look at most often.

That which does not feel good
I look at least often.

I identify what is important to me.
I align with the energy
that is really me.

I take the path
of least resistance
to that which most benefits me.

I appreciate rather than criticize.

I hold positive expectation
rather than negative anticipation.

I am life giving,
not life draining.

I observe what I make
my dominant vibration.

I make what I want
the essence of
my point of attraction.

Because things go better
when I am happier,
the law of attraction
helps me discover that more.

~Gabriel Halpern

Weekly Reading

“Darkness cannot drive out darkness;
only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate;
only love can do that.”

"Hatred paralyses life; love releases it.
Hatred confuses life; love harmonizes it.
Hatred darkens life; love illuminates it."

"I have decided to stick with love.
Hate is too great a burden to bear."
~Martin Luther King, Jr

Weekly Reading

"Someone I loved once gave me a box full of darkness. It
  took me years to understand that this too, was a gift."
  ~Mary Oliver

Weekly Reading

The Gate of the Year

I said to the man who stood at the gate of the year
'Give me a light that I may tread safely into the unknown.'

And he replied, 'Go into the darkness and put your hand into the hand of God
That shall be to you better than light and safer than a known way!'

So I went forth and finding the Hand of God
Trod gladly into the night
He led me towards the hills
And the breaking of day in the lone east.

So heart be still!
What need our human life to know
If God hath comprehension?

In all the dizzy strife of things
Both high and low,
God hideth his intention
~ Minnie Louise Haskins

Weekly Reading

Change! Change! Change!

change! change! change!
everybody talkin' about change.

change your look,
change your luck,
change your politics,
change your religion...

change the country,
change the world....
change the day!
change your underwear!

loose change, pocket change,
winds of change, march for change....

but all real change begins within...
let's work on that,
and then everything else
will change in turn!
~Eric Cockrel