Some days, being happy feels easier than others.  Happiness may sometimes feel far away or difficult to attain.  First you must realize that happiness is a choice you can make each day.  You have the power. As you discover new ways and sources to find happiness each day, the fact that happiness exists within the world becomes clearer.   Today, identify just one thing, person, or place that makes you feel happy, grateful, and alive- let these feelings fill your heart.   This way your happiness comes from within and moves out.

After such a cold spring
your presence is requested to enjoy
one long, delicious downward dog
irresistible to small children who will rush
to climb the universal gesture of a jungle-gym mama

If you topple over or fall
let me be the earth pressing upward
our bellies breathing together
bodies filling with laughter
so ready to lean into
the sun-stained days of summer

And while I’m at it, you’re invited
to the newly hung hammock
No need to call, just swing by
Be prepared to go nowhere and do nothing
but rock gently and stay up late
watching the sky,
that empty channel
even the kids like surfing

Written for Evolution by Jena Strong

All Rights Reserved

Heroic is she who stays even when she wants to run,

sits and watches as the sky darkens and falls all around,

who cries, can track the patterns of loss and find

the truth like a birthmark of her own making,

who speaks when to speak is to risk everything

and is silent when to be silent is to protest

all the noise that drowns out the quiet hum of the love.

Heroic is she who waits, wading through impatience,

willing to sit with rage, irritability, fear, annoyance –

all the makeshift states of the restless mind,

feeds the raucous morning birds whose song refuses silence,

abandons the stories that speed by like traffic going nowhere fast.

Heroic is the one who stays, even as the sky darkens and falls,

and finds herself in a pool of apple blossoms 
after a hard rain.

Written for Evolution by Jena Strong
May 2009

Oh, April. I’d recognize you anywhere,
your somersaults and backbends
spreading the good news all over town
like some fabulous wheel drunk on new flowers.
April, you miracle month
when the crocuses peek up, singing,
What was all the fuss? We’ve been here all along.
April, bending towards the warm wind
and zig-zagging all around like a bee
so blissed out, so blessed by winter’s end
it doesn’t know where to begin feasting.
April, breathless rolling down, down, down the hill
gleeful child covered in new grass and mud laughing.
April, who wakes before dawn to birdsong
spontaneously thankful for that spring smell
that makes you roll down the windows
throw open the doors, wave on the other drivers
at the four-way stop that made you so cranky
back in March. Back in March!
A million marches ago when life was all struggle.
April, you month of nowness,
when everything emerges
from the dark womb, demanding a name
as if for the first time – lamb, tulip, sky.

Written for Evolution by Jena Strong

April 2009

Here is where you set aside
petty grievances and monkey mind,
where you cast away the iron, the weight
of waiting for the perfect moment,
the ideal conditions, the fantasy -
bowing instead to the is-ness of this,
our only real business here.

Here is where you take a bow,
celebrate what’s going right -
how the right ventricle and the left ventricle
speak to each other without interrupting,
how the whole heart reaches up through the hands,
and how the hands do the work
of healing what was broken.

Written for Evolution by Jena Strong
February 2009

by Bill O’Connor

Mudra is a Sanskrit term meaning lock or seal.  In yoga, mudras are the actions of the body, mind and spirit to seal the individual purpose of the action into a result.

All yoga asana, bandhas and hand motions are a mudra.

In the case of hand mudras, consider the hand and foot have over 2000 nerve endings.

If we can configure the fingers to touch the appropriate nerve ending of the sympathetic nerves then we can stimulate various parts of the body, mind and spirit.

Or so say the ancients.

Hand Mudras were explored and developed at the same time as yoga postures, asanas. Mudras, positions of the hand, became an integral part of asana and ritual dance in India as well as Tibet, China and Japan.  In fact hand mudras or hand symbols have been a powerful aspect of human existence; consider the hand symbol for halt or submission. Even now realize the power of the raised middle finger in Western society. Powerful indeed.

In Yoga there are very common and recognized hand mudras.

The most common is called prayer, anjali mudra. This is a greeting and an honorific to the receiver. It is the most common way of saying hello in the East. Try it the next time you order Indian take out, but be prepared. This mudra will balance the right and the left side of your mind and body. For this reason, it’s also a great mudra to practice after any balance poses.

Another common Mudra is simply called chin mudra. By touching the thumb and the fore finger one can align with universes. Cool or what??? The index finger symbolizes the individual and the thumb symbolizes the universe of possibilities. Lightly touching pointer and thumb while softly extending the other three fingers can create a universal flow in the body and mind, carrying meaning and well being.

This is a common mudra for meditation.

Limiting studies to yoga hand mudras, there are over 100 or more to be explored. Each is powerful and distinct for the body, mind and spirit. Generally 2 or 3 are practiced in the morning for five minutes each with a mental affirmation to bind the mind with the intention. It’s a self actualization kind of thing.

We invite you to add hand mudras to your asana practice to create more powerful and enriching aseptic to your consciousness, to be increasingly aware of the position of your body and hands.

Growing up on Crescent Ave, there were many beginnings: half-circles round the block, crossing the street alone, tying shoes on the kitchen floor, saying I’m sorry.

You had to balance being safe with taking risks, bravado with honest show in a backyard of blue violets where the treehouse beckoned you that much closer to the moon, now waxing, now waning, now hanging by a thread like the tooth you so wanted to force to fall.

Oh shining crescent, oh graceful arc where children come to perch, to watch over the warring factions from a safe distance: I’d like to think yours is a symbol of willingness, an invitation to try again, to peaceful negotiations, to balancing strength with softness, heart with might.

Oh rounded insides coveting whispered secrets, oh C in the sky slicing through empty space, oh tipping teacup maybe empty, maybe full: It won’t be long now before we know for sure.

And then, just when we do, just when we’re sure we know you and what you are, you will spill over or fill back up, keeping us on our toes, forcing us to our feet, only to change again, to keep us moving, moving on, growing up, coming around again and again.

Written for Evolution by Jena Strong, January 2008

]]> http://evolutionvt.com/evoblog/poem-of-the-month-january-2009/feed/ 2 http://evolutionvt.com/evoblog/poem-of-the-month-december-2008/ http://evolutionvt.com/evoblog/poem-of-the-month-december-2008/#comments Wed, 10 Dec 2008 20:36:00 +0000 Jena Strong http://evolutionvt.com/evoblog/?p=77 Aparigraha: Sacred Jewels

The seas rise, the ice melts, the jellyfish double and the manatees die, the
burning bush and our numbered days, the hours so precious I want to stash
them for later.

Like a whale, I nurse my young. Push my babies up to the surface every four
minutes, teach them to breath, do everything I can to guarantee them the
future I myself covet and fear.

My cry pierces these deep waters.

I whisper to my beloved in the darkness, trying to describe how transparent
my soul feels, like a membrane. I whisper of greed and hunger. I am
insatiable. I whisper of empty bowls and open hands and full hearts and
stillness.

The days contract. Your tears are my reflecting pool. Sacred jewels in
frozen ground. We have enough. We are enough.

Written for Evolution by Jena Strong, December 2008