The Master Maker appeared today. He’s the master of the forge upon which We craft Our #future. I have been warned since I was a young thing that #fire is dangerous, especially when flames #sing to Me, and sometimes I act too #young, I’m told. Nonetheless, The Master Maker reminds Us to #utilize Summer’s heat along with Our own #burning passions to bring about alchemical change for this is the dance of life; the spontaneity of Our organic movement (in words and actions) with that of the Universe brings Us into this #moment. We decide each #day in Our practices, what will I make of #today? And, knowing Our successes (as well as, being present to Our Own undoings), The Master Maker reminds Us that Day is, truly, a labor of #Love. We may get burned by The Queen of Hearth and Home, or Our bare bums roasted by The Queen of Laughter, but We are protected and given strength by His teachings. And if one thinks upon this for not-so-long, We feel oh-so-lucky that We received this #wisdom here as The Master Maker is a strict task-master, and only Our best will do. This means that We will enjoy Our Summer days, taking advantage of the sudden rainstorms and the splash of Sun for #wild thought soon to be transformed with The Master Maker’s experienced and skillful hands. He practices all the time, rarely taking a break. His work breathtaking, no? And, here, We are, inspired by the the Sunfish leaping! And, like the Earth, like the Sky, like a wave on the Sea, remember that Your very best work is most principled and most applicable to Us all, to Us all. So says, The Master Maker, and so say the Sunfish.
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Irresistible Circumstances and EMYoga are expanding. Please like, subscribe, share, comment, and enjoy Our content on the platfom(s) of Your choice, and thank You!
Please check out The Heart of Faerie Oracle by Brian and Wendy Froud and The Faeries’ Oracle by Brian Froud with text by Jessica Macbeth at https://www.ferniebrae.com/brian-froud. Thank You for reading and receiving a full moon in Sagittarius’s blessing (& You definitely have Mine, too!). May Our #practice together be a catalyst and the healing itself.
As You are reading this, You might wonder where Irresistible Circumstances disappeared into. Or perhaps, You wonder when the irresistible shall return to circumstances. Well, I’m here to share the beginnings of a little story, and perhaps some of Your questions will be answered, and perhaps, You will have many more. And there will be time, I suppose, for those questions, or not. The last three years flew by, so We might as well count on that the next three years will do the same, hopefully with less trauma, uncertainty, and unknowing, but just as many moments of discovery and wonder in gratitude of the Love that surrounds us, even in the darkest hour. However, that, my Friends, is for another time. For the moment, let Us begin with Iris.
This is summer for a veteran teacher–the first in over a decade and some change. It’s rained twice today, as it will in Florida, and there is no stopping the return of relentless heat, and bugs, and costly electric bills. Yet, today also offers the possibility of much more. And what could that be in addition to summer #abundance, You ask?
The word, petrichor, comes to mind. But heart and mind speak different languages, as water and air. And we may wonder if these never talk then at all? Yet Iris, great goddess (at least in my eyes) offers Her help. See what a little Sun shine can do for Us here on Earth in shimmering (or snaking) Their way into Our darknesses? She keeps us going forward, but remembering moment. And, if We can suspend Our rational mind for just a minute, We let a little dreamy romanticism into Our weary, water-logged hearts. So, She gathers with rain drops and wind gusts, cheering Us on. That roof? Your lawnchairs? Your picnic plans? Iris is both the guardian and the guide, letting potentiality show Us world’s true colors, even those We never stopped to see before.
After rain, She invites us to slip into Our gardens, banter with the inhabitants, maybe sipping rainwater from leaf and limb, but (at the very least), touching the wetness, the soothing coolness. We may linger here before returning to where we were before, a bit damper, but grateful. Or perhaps, We drink this all in, never to return, never to return, never to return. For a moment is just that–a moment. We blink and Iris is gone. We forget the work She does to turn rain and wind into a rainbow. How She perfectly manifests Her business deal between regal Sun and storm gods. She is service oriented, and that’s why She can speak the language of air and water, as well as those of the Earth and Sea. She is a mediator, and teaches Us #balance; when We tiptoe between words and actions, She gifts us balance with her commands: Stop thinking, but don’t stop feeling! Presence! Breathe. The future is full of possibilities, and Iris invites us to consider petrichor. Whether it be through movement, through song, or through a growing awareness, let potentiality show Us world’s true colors of Summer, which is really all a part of the great cycle of the Year. However, that, my Friends, is for another time.
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Irresistible Circumstances and EMYoga are expanding. Please like, subscribe, share, comment, and enjoy Our content.
Please check out The Heart of Faerie Oracle by Brian and Wendy Froud and The Faeries’ Oracle by Brian Froud with text by Jessica Macbeth at https://www.ferniebrae.com/brian-froud. Thank You for reading and receiving Iris’s blessing (You definitely have Mine, too!). May Our #practice together be a catalyst and the healing itself.
As in the writing of this blog, I am very mindful of the new year. School is a tough place to be during the continued pandemic. As such, I plan and practice in 2022 with the intent to engender and model compassion for both to myself and others, as well as seek out and build relationship with other-than-human entities without attachment to nostalgia and antiquarianism (Rasmussen, p. 21). As such, my experiences with yogic traditions and practices and its internal and external dialogues are nourished and refined infusing and cultivating these relationships through the language and process of Nonviolent Communication (#nvc). Further, compassionate communication does not occur in a vacuum, nor requires a certain religiosity or ideology or refutation, as consciousness and intent can be expressed through silence and our quality of presence (Rosenberg, p. 7). As such, I strive to cultivate this awareness and connection to moment in community as both the catalyst for and the #healing itself in all interactions and situations.
The simple ways to cultivate connection daily becomes the practice itself; these include, but are not limited to the following for me:
Dancing
Playing xx (e.g., music, music, climbing up a tree)
Learning (e.g., a new languages, skills, perspectives)
Sharing
Today’s first practice of 2022 utilizes mudra, affirmation/mantra, pranayama, movement/asana, and visualization. Please feel free to explore the readings that inform this practice and explore other offerings in platforms listed below. As always, I invite you to practice in the spirit and intention using the processes and language of nonviolent communication (more details below). You can find a link to January’s first LIVE practice here.
Mudras in Today’s Practice
Kalesvara Mudra is dedicated to the deity, Kalesvara, who rules over time. In this mudra, we place our middle fingers together, touching the first two joints of the index finger and thumb tips. Bend the fingers not touching inward with the thumbs pointing toward the chest and spread your elbow widely to the outside (Hirsch, 134).
Benefits: This mudra is said to strengthen memory and concentration as well as calm agitation. It can also support new habits (like those many new year resolutions wish to encompass), helping change character traits, supporting memory and concentration, and/or eliminating addictive behavior; with this in mind, it is recommended that it is practiced 10-20 minutes each day for this intent (Hirsch, 134).
Suggested Affirmation: I enjoy being xx [this] or xx [that] (Hirsch, 135).
Visualization: Imagine a situation or scene in which you act and react in a new way.
Pranayama: Take 10 long deep even breaths, listening and observing your breath, and lengthening the pause after the inhalation and exhalation evenly as we progress (Hirsch, 134).
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Nonviolent Communication (also called Compassionate Communication) carries the assumption that we have a shared desire to give and receive from the heart. Thus, even yoga practice can cultivate compassionate communication which fosters listening, respect and deep empathy and engenders this mutual desire to give from the heart (Rosenberg, 12) both to ourselves and the greater world (when we are ready). Whether this meets you in disbelief or in possibility, I invite you to explore the process through our practice together or further reading. The four components are::
Observation
Feelings
Needs
Request
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References for this practice:
Hirschi, G., Grimm, C. M., & Ito, J. (2016). Mudras: Yoga in your hands. Weiser Books.
Rasmussen, Rune H. (2021). The Nordic Animist Year. Nordic Animism.
Rosenberg, Marshall B. (2015). Nonviolent Communication: A Language of Life. PuddleDancer Press.
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This 50-minute practice is the first of three in a series as the Northern Hemisphere moves into the winter months and busy holiday season. November’s theme on EMY is connection to #moment through practices using visualization, movement in and out of familiar postures, and breathwork using the language of nonviolent communication (#nvc). Be blessed in your abundance and practice.
The hardest part of moving from autumn to winter is #change in sunlight. As the Sun moves further south with each passing day, I am pulled to hibernate, drawn to the warmth of a hot cup of tea, a book, a hot steamy bath, and my legwarmers. Moving into the busiest part of the year causes great conflict within, waves of uncertainty. To combat this, I use my practices to connect to the #moment, spending even the smallest moment of time outdoors in Sun, tapping into this beautiful affirmation. The familiar warmth reminds me of familiar postures that I return to again and again for grounding, balance, and hope through the pain of season, mental fatigue, and existential crisis. I know that winter will make practices like this impossible for a time and I will miss the sweet familiarity of cold mornings and warm afternoons; the butterflies will migrate or hibernate and leave only dried cocoon upon dying perennial, the Cuban tree frogs will return to warmer haunts, and our neighborhood duck families will swarm our lawns picking grubs and bugs and leaving not-so-beautiful reminders that in Spring we will have new little duck babies. The mornings would be shrill without wonder and curiosity, such as that of our last new moon and Samhain reminding us of the tenuousness but abundance of this moment; creativity through winter seasons sustained and fed by our connection to this.
November’s theme is connection to #moment through practices using visualization, movement in and out of familiar postures, and breathwork using the language of nonviolent communication (#nvc). Today’s LIVE practice on EMY’s Facebook goup is the first of three in a series as we move into the winter months and busy holiday season in the Northern hemisphere.
For my friends in the Southern hemisphere, this practice is equally powerful. As the focus of practicing #nvc is the practice of grounding in the return to our familiar Earth, so, too, is exploring and cultivating #space where all the elements are balanced and nourish and support us. May you be blessed in your #abundance and setting.
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Below are more resources for these practices, which draw upon work of Marshall Rosenberg and his student, David Weinstock (links below), and their exemplars of grounding and mindfulness practices to cultivate and sustain the language of nonviolent communication (NVC).
The morning is cooler. I can hear Thursday’s cold front rolling in from the North. I heard it from Crow, who heard it from Mockingbird, who heard it from Cat, who heard it from another Crow, perched at the top of the Australian pine: Hawk, hawk, hawk. Hawk says not a thing, but like this great wise and winged #moment, perched upon my fence, eyeing me with #confidence. She heard it from Me, who heard it from Crow, who heard it from Cat, who heard it from Mockingbird, who heard it from another Crow. The morning is cooler. I can hear Thursday’s cold front rolling in from the North.
It’s a humid Monday morning, the week before Halloween. I’ve been toying with new ideas in the classroom in my head all weekend. Our big district shared a “retelling” of Rikki-Tikki-Tavi to teach author’s purpose and comparing and contrasting the presentation across multiple mediums. I’ve never been a huge fan of this narrative, mostly because of its origins and underpinnings, but our class will get a chance to see Nagaina and discuss her character traits. And I, the teacher, may get to hear those robust ELA words like “cold”, “capricious,” “calculating,” and “cruel.”
The thing about stories is that they retell all on their own through what we read, hear, and tell. To adequately improve reading comprehension, one reads. It helps to have a guide, and thanks to the Internet and the fabulous watered down curriculum, I have everything I need to teach: links, 100 page guides, teacher guides, powerpoints, and a sad, sad retelling. A retelling that no student or teacher would parse those robust ELA words like “cold”, “capricious,” “calculating,” and “cruel” from the district’s retelling of the “epic” battle of Rikki-Tikki-Tavi and Nagaina. Maybe that’s the point (to not replicate another feminine demon?). And after three days of graphic organizers and questions that loop about the point in the roundabout, convoluted way, I told students to submit their work. Let’s read the actual story.
It’s a humid Monday morning, the week before Halloween. I’ve been planning the stories I wish my students to read, hear, and tell, so that maybe one day soon in discussion I’ll hear those robust ELA words like “cold”, “capricious,” “calculating,” and “cruel.” And I’ll be able to counter them–as Nagaina would do for her children. Or better yet, my own students will counter them with new words of their time, place, and setting; but that’s another story.
I’m working on this complicated algorithm in my head. It fits not the rhyme or measure of my #thought and current realities, but patterns itself in #memory: the phases of the moon, the rising and setting of the sun, the taste of the morning breeze, the call of birds in neighboring trees, the traces of summer last in the garden, the footstep of my lover, and the scratch of the cat on the front mat. I can almost, almost hear this algorithm, maybe a frequency undiscovered? There’s a heaviness to it, like gravity or dense matter, but there is infiniteness, too, within its formulas. I’m working on this complicated algorithm in my head and how to write this in symbols and letters and numbers.
It’s Saturday, and I’m sitting down to plan. I had the opportunity for a planning day at school yesterday, away from the constant hums and bangs of the classroom; this being one of the first ones in 5 years or so that involve me carving out personal time, which–since Covid–has seemed so precious. Planning next steps felt a little easier than during the huge uncertainties of 2020, the election of Biden, my husband’s retirement, and hybrid digital format, but the “survival” line of thinking habit is so hard to break. It’s hard to shut down the necessities, self-created in a bygone error for a system that wholly operates digitally now. Learning is, indeed, all about connections, inter- and intra-personal ones. Learning with “survival” thinking–for both the student and teacher–is fodder for getting the same results, declining test scores, especially now that 2021 has brought a new set of uncertainties.
To break out of survival thinking and #moveforward, I’ve been setting myself up with a new set of skills, trying to think away from the idea of higher certifications (although I am pursuing them currently) and into other realms. I learned to do this fluidly last year, creating realities (in this crazy hybrid virtual and realtime, synchronous S&#! show) where there were none for #compassion and #listening so #needs and wants could be heard. I also learned what NOT to repeat from face-to-face past school years, and carry this into planning for the academic school year and retiring common core standards (more to come after training on the NEW new standards once again–my third cycle).
Teachers know the realities of any regular year–the traumas we experience or observe in others, but try to ignore. Once you are aware of an injustice or a circumstance, how can we just ignore it away? The public school systems of the United States have perpetuated many injustices, which cannot be ignored or silenced. Covid laid to bare this at an alarming rate, and we just didn’t have time to argue too much about academic excellence and dress code. Nor plan.
This greater issue for me personally was, and still is, sustainability. I’m constantly looking for an even #exchange of energies here, and constantly reminded we are a business transaction, a human resource (which is smaller in my district than the money dedicated to digital infrastructure). Yet, too, as a teacher and learner, I’m reminded here that I have agency. I try, instead, to learn new skills and explore outside of the box, moving forward. We have to learn how to give and take ourselves, and how to model this #balance in a world under great change. It’s a huge step forward for me to carve out time to plan, to understand its importance, and to be focused in something I once felt a great deal of #passion for, even though its #burdens are not sustainable.
Skill-building is just a fancy way of saying #practice (in my opinion) with a little planning. Here’s some actions I’m currently using as I #plan for opportunities:
Planning – Dream, List, Break apart, Chew On, Brainstorm, Revise, Reflect, Analyze, and Stick To
Getting outside – Camp, hike, sleep, hang out, take pictures, watch the skies, dream
Building intra and interpersonal skills with the goal to be connected to others. To hold and be held in their love. There’s sustainability in this :). What’s your attachment style? – One survey for this here.
Learning a language (or two) – I wrote my first one in German (it’s Haiku–the structure provides me much without getting into my own inner patriarchy) – might share it here.
Reading, writing and creating – A blog, a book, a poem, a video, a website, a masterpiece, a doodle.
Moving – move earth, pick up things, move air, flow like water, breathe the sky, dance, shimmy, move
Learning – Take a class (even if you don’t want to) – Anything! Today’s for me are mostly for professional development but I believe there’s always something to learn and #practice. I practice #NVC in those times of ennui and complete disbelief (there are times when a sense of humor comes in handy and #abandonment is a better course of action).
Practicing with awareness, #NVC, Yoga, Meditation. Turn it into #daily #ritual.
Putting myself out there – EarthmotherYoga is transforming into a business.
Listening without Judgement and Teaching with that in mind and #heart
Here’s one of my favorite videos on how to make #connection and building skills of #listening. May we all be blessed in our #abundance and #practice done and shared in Love.
It’s Wednesday. I am already feeling the pull of rebellious #aquarius, providing plenty of #excuses for Thursday. I look to the #skies for #signs. Wonder about the weather, even though I’m indoors all day long. I look to the skies for signs. Wonder about the weather. And begin #practice.
To embrace the darkness, I focus on the horizon. Night distinct from morning, which creeps even now at 4 a.m. Night is set apart by urban lights, twinkling awake, like the quiet stars hidden from the moment by this process. I draw a #rune, consider the whole and then the parts. Like the #night, there is #wisdom there for me. I embrace this #stillness and say a #spell, words falling deliberately and intuitively, like the quiet stars illuminated in the moment by this process.
Wednesdays bring an awareness of how far I’ve come and how far I have yet to go. It’s a campfire kind of day; I want to sit around and stare into a fire, not really doing anything (because you know you must do something, most preferably, sooner than later).
It’s Wednesday. I am already feeling the pull of rebellious #aquarius, providing plenty of #excuses for Thursday. I look to the #skies for #signs. Wonder about the weather, even though I’m indoors all day long. I look to the skies for signs. Wonder about the weather. And begin #practice.
My Wednesday practice is full of #learning. I listen to podcasts, music, catch up on lessons in classes I’m taking, and focus on hearing other #perspectives. Like Wednesday, this reminds of how far I’ve come and how far I have yet to go.
Here’s one of my favorites. Enjoy! May we be blessed in our #abundance and practices. #loveisall #loveislove #nvc
