Happy New Moon, radiant ones.
Thank you (every single one of you) for your thoughtful, heartfelt shares on last edition’s prompts. All of your comments were inspiring and honest. I learned so much about you, and feel uplifted for all we have in common, all that connects us in kinship and practice. You can find a compilation of a few of my favorite crowd-sourced links at the bottom of this email.
A thread that seemed to wind throughout our collective writing is a desire to be in deeper, more purposeful and meaningful relationship. My hope is that we are beginning to facilitate that here, as Yogafolk - I am so happy to be in connection with you.
Today, 1 Feb 2022, is the lunar new year, a gorgeous opportunity to reset if this last month of 2022 hasn’t gone according to plan. It is also Imbolc, marking the first seed sprouts of spring. A perfect day to settle into that which you’re celebrating, mourning, and calling into being.
The practice I’m sharing is about 15 minutes long - it invites you to connect to your inner wisdom and sense of center. I’ve shared it above as audio only, and below as a video. There is also a link to the transcript for you visual folk. As always, reach out with questions and comments. And if you know someone who might benefit from the practice, feel free to pass it along.
Thank you for being here,
Erica
P.S. As a workaround to ensure that each of you receives this special edition of Yogafolk, I’ve temporarily made you “Paid Subscribers.” Don’t pay much mind to the backend, you’re not being charged and there is no expectation that you will be a paying subscriber in the future 💛
For the Visual Folk
Welcome, welcome. Find the full practice transcript at this link.
Crowd-Sourced Inspiration
(entangled pathways)
Kindness by Naomi Shihab Nye
Before you know what kindness really is
you must lose things,
feel the future dissolve in a moment
like salt in a weakened broth.
What you held in your hand,
what you counted and carefully saved,
all this must go so you know
how desolate the landscape can be
between the regions of kindness.
How you ride and ride
thinking the bus will never stop,
the passengers eating maize and chicken
will stare out the window forever.
Before you learn the tender gravity of kindness
you must travel where the Indian in a white poncho
lies dead by the side of the road.
You must see how this could be you,
how he too was someone
who journeyed through the night with plans
and the simple breath that kept him alive.
Before you know kindness as the deepest thing inside,
you must know sorrow as the other deepest thing.
You must wake up with sorrow.
You must speak to it till your voice
catches the thread of all sorrows
and you see the size of the cloth.
Then it is only kindness that makes sense anymore,
only kindness that ties your shoes
and sends you out into the day to gaze at bread,
only kindness that raises its head
from the crowd of the world to say
It is I you have been looking for,
and then goes with you everywhere
like a shadow or a friend.
even mermaids need to rest
This mix is dedicated to all those who are brave enough to feel, forgive, live and love —
“Name the color blinds the eye.” | Deep wisdom from Bayo Akomolafe
Spider webbing
is an essential part of arachnids' cognitive apparatus. The animals don't just use their webs to sense with; they use them to think.
Until next time,
ॐ
Wherever You Are