A moment crystallized exploding into the Self-- Where worry and fears unmasked can be followed or acknowledged. A short practice, collecting negative thoughts into a bowl of my making, consists of simple stillness and just the breath; the structure of my body struggling to be present aware and nonjudgmental-- lessons that Simple isn't easy: my … Continue reading Irresistible Pranayama
Author: erikaaltensee
Irresistible Darkness
“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 #abundance I've been playing around with meditation and movement to stretch into those insatiable moments of perfect clarity within today's darknesses. Most naturally and efficiently, I delve into this in the … Continue reading Irresistible Darkness
A Can of Worms and Other Rituals
It's been tough going back to school. Dealing with my own fractured energy is hard enough, but suddenly I've been thrust into everything else, a day-to-day chaos which teachers must shape into learning in a not so brave new world. And it requires hours of reading and conceptualizing and creating and time! And the consequences … Continue reading A Can of Worms and Other Rituals
αἴκα
If there's one thing I've learned from 2020, it would be that if I put conditions on things, I get nowhere. First my own conditions crumbled (this was pre-Covid, but just barely), followed quickly by conditions of survival, and still lingering today, conditions of how to move in this new world. I learned how to … Continue reading αἴκα
I hear them all
https://youtu.be/yR-1v-Si7bs I hear them all. The voices of my students past and present echo in this circus stripped from the natural place where learning should go into the words of best practices and waivers and emails, and wait! don't move from your computer (like that's healthy), and here's a 100 page document to read yesterday, … Continue reading I hear them all
Of elephants and lions and little birds
When great souls die,the air around us becomeslight, rare, sterile.We breathe, briefly.Our eyes, briefly,see with a hurtful clarity.Our memory, suddenly sharpened,examines, gnaws on kind wordsunsaid, promised walksnever taken.Maya Angelou, "When Great Trees Fall" excerpt For days now, I've hobbled around, tears falling on every inch of our yard and house, crying with great fury and … Continue reading Of elephants and lions and little birds
Fama Volat.
Aeneas at Dido's Court, Pierre-Narcisse Guérin (1774–1833), Musée du Louvre, Paris. The Athenaeum. Today for my 2nd week of summer, I have puttered around the house, straightening and cleaning, fidgeting mostly, like I have some business to do with school or something I wrote down that I need to remember (but I did all those … Continue reading Fama Volat.
One word brings another
Εκ λόγου άλλος εκβαίνει λόγοςEuripides (from The Women of Troy) With the publishing of my husband's 3rd book, The Complete Orlando, Florida, Civil Rights Movement: Cooperation, Communication, and Reflections, 1951-1971, the current state of affair has required much discussion. We tread lightly, Fred and I, around the news of the day and work. Time together … Continue reading One word brings another
la bella Simonetta
"Here in this vague green valleylamb and lion, love and war are unitedby indifference equally to these babies and to each other."Rachel Hadas on Botticelli's "Venus and Mars" Even as the lazy, yet fruitful, days of summer collide into the chaos of back-to-school unknowns and vagaries of the news, not totally unlike our … Continue reading la bella Simonetta
Lessons of Healing
via Sa Ta Na Ma
