Joy Harjo, For Calling Spirit Back from Wandering the Earth in its Human Feet

Put down that bag of potato chips, that white bread, that bottle of pop.
Turn off that cellphone, computer, and remote control.
Open the door, then close it behind you.
Take a breath offered by friendly winds. They travel the earth gathering essences of plants to clean.
Give it back with gratitude.
If you sing it will give your spirit lift to fly to the stars’ ears and back.
Acknowledge this earth who has cared for you since you were a dream planting itself precisely within your parents’ desire.
Let your moccasin feet take you to the encampment of the guardians who have known you before time, who will be there after time. They sit before the fire that has been there without time.
Let the earth stabilize your postcolonial insecure jitters.
Be respectful of the small insects, birds and animal people who accompany you.
Ask their forgiveness for the harm we humans have brought down upon them.
Don’t worry. The heart knows the way though there may be high-rises, interstates, checkpoints, armed soldiers, massacres, wars, and those who will despise you because they despise themselves.
The journey might take you a few hours, a day, a year, a few years, a hundred, a thousand or even more.
Watch your mind. Without training it might run away and leave your heart for the immense human feast set by the thieves of time.
Do not hold regrets.
When you find your way to the circle, to the fire kept burning by the keepers of your soul, you will be welcomed.
You must clean yourself with cedar, sage, or other healing plant.
Cut the ties you have to failure and shame.
Let go the pain you are holding in your mind, your shoulders, your heart, all the way to your feet. Let go the pain of your ancestors to make way for those who are heading in our direction.
Ask for forgiveness.
Call upon the help of those who love you. These helpers take many forms: animal, element, bird, angel, saint, stone, or ancestor.
Call your spirit back. It may be caught in corners and creases of shame, judgment, and human abuse.
You must call in a way that your spirit will want to return.
Speak to it as you would to a beloved child.
Welcome your spirit back from its wandering. It may return in pieces, in tatters. Gather them together. They will be happy to be found after being lost for
so long.
Your spirit will need to sleep awhile after it is bathed and given clean clothes.
Now you can have a party. Invite everyone you know who loves and supports you. Keep room for those who have no place else to go.
Make a giveaway, and remember, keep the speeches short.
Then, you must do this: help the next person find their way through the dark.

David Whyte, The Journey

Above the mountains
the geese turn into
the light again
painting their
black silhouettes
on an open sky.
Sometimes everything
has to be
inscribed across
the heavens
so you can find
the one line
already written
inside you.
Sometimes it takes
a great sky
to find that
first, bright
and indescribable
wedge of freedom
in your own heart.
Sometimes with
the bones of the black
sticks left when the fire
has gone out
someone has written
something new
in the ashes
of your life.
You are not leaving.
Even as the light
fades quickly now,
you are arriving.

David Whyte, Start Close In

Start close in,
don't take the second step
or the third,
start with the first
thing
close in,
the step
you don't want to take.

Start with
the ground
you know,
the pale ground
beneath your feet,
your own
way of starting
the conversation.

Start with your own
question,
give up on other
people's questions,
don't let them
smother something
simple.

To find
another's voice,
follow
your own voice,
wait until
that voice
becomes a
private ear
listening
to another.

Start right now
take a small step
you can call your own
don't follow
someone else's
heroics, be humble
and focused,
start close in,
don't mistake
that other
for your own.

Start close in,
don't take
the second step
or the third,
start with the first
thing
close in,
the step
you don't want to take.

David Whyte, What to Remember When Waking

In that first hardly noticed moment in which you wake,
coming back to this life from the other
more secret, moveable and frighteningly honest world
where everything began,
there is a small opening into the new day
which closes the moment you begin your plans.
What you can plan is too small for you to live.
What you can live wholeheartedly will make plans enough
for the vitality hidden in your sleep.
To be human is to become visible
while carrying what is hidden as a gift to others.
To remember the other world in this world
is to live in your true inheritance.
You are not a troubled guest on this earth,
you are not an accident amidst other accidents
you were invited from another and greater night
than the one from which you have just emerged.
Now, looking through the slanting light of the morning window
toward the mountain presence of everything that can be
what urgency calls you to your one love?
What shape waits in the seed of you
to grow and spread its branches
against a future sky?
Is it waiting in the fertile sea?
In the trees beyond the house?
In the life you can imagine for yourself?
In the open and lovely white page on the writing desk?

Carrie Williams Clifford, Quest

My goal out-distances the utmost star,
Yet is encompassed in my inmost Soul;
I am my goal—my quest, to know myself.
To chart and compass this unfathomed sea,
Myself must plumb the boundless universe.
My Soul contains all thought, all mystery,
All wisdom of the Great Infinite Mind:
This is to discover, I must voyage far,
At last to find it in my pulsing heart.

Jane Clarke

From breath to breath from dusk to dusk
let there be rainfall when the soil is parched as rock
let there be sunshine when the barley bends to be cut
let there be rainbows when the days are short of light
let there be wind when our boats are turned for home.

Danna Faulds, Breath of Life

I breathe in All That Is-
Awareness expanding
to take everything in,
as if my heart beats
the world into being.
From the unnamed vastness beneath the mind,
I breathe my way into wholeness and healing.
Inhalation. Exhalation.
Each Breath a “yes,”
and a letting go, a journey, and a coming home.

Claudia Cummins, Surrender

This blessing wants you to remember the gift of surrender.
It wants you to unclench your fists and soften your mind.
It wants you to let go of your ceaseless, empty struggles
in order to reclaim a cleaner breath and a deeper peace.
This blessing wants you to let life be, just as it is,
It wants you to reshape your vision until you can see
the gifts that arrive unbidden when we simply
relax into what is without holding on to a single thing.
Surrender calls us, over and over, to let go, to
relinquish tight control over our lives, to settle in,
perhaps sometimes even to sink. And it requires faith that despite
the letting go, we are still held in steady arms of life.
This blessing wants you to remember the deep blue relief
that comes when accepting life on it's own terms, full and free.
It urges you to walk across the threshold of acceptance
and all the way home to contentment and love.

The heart is the inner face of your life. The human journey strives to make this inner face beautiful. It is here that love gathers within you. Love is absolutely vital for a human life. For love alone can awaken what is divine within you. In love, you grow and come home to your self. When you learn to love and let yourself be loved, you come home to the hearth of your own spirit. You are warm and sheltered.

Yoga is the journey of the self, through the self, to the self. – Bhavaghad Gita

A mammoth with a heart, found in the Pindal cave in northern Spain, is estimated to be between 13,000 and 18,000 years old. Via Donsmaps.com

Your vision will become clear only when you look into your heart. Who looks outside, dreams. Who looks inside, awakens. – Carl Jung

We will be contemplating and discussing finding awe in the everyday. To support you in the coming weeks as we prepare to gather and share, I can offer a pdf mini journal to support you*. I hope for us to begin right away in preparation for our next meeting.

What is awe? For some of us “awe” might be something we touch into easily, while for others it’s too “special” or “grand,” it might feel too exalted to be something easily felt. Does it have to be so grand? Why might we struggle with touching a sense of deep wonder and awe?

If this word does not resonate with you… consider what are more “accessible” variations of awe? Perhaps… deep, heart-felt appreciation, inspiration, or admiration? What other words come to mind for you? Please, write them down and bring them to our circle. How do these other words feel similar or different to “awe?”

Aside from considering just the definitions of various words here, let’s bring them into our daily experience.

Each day let’s TRY to touch into the sense of awe and its variants. Begin the practice of NOTICING and then write it down. It could be a word or a novella – totally up to you. Please bring your notes and observations to our next Constellations circle on June 4th. Sign up to save your spot!

I am excited for us to cultivate this practice over the next couple of weeks and join together. Even if you can’t make our next meeting, I hope you will find this practice nourishing to your soul.

With love,

Laela

P.S. – regarding my pdf… Once you sign up for our June meeting, you will find the attached pdf file in your follow-up email. Or, you can email me and I will send you one ;)

P.P.S. – CONSTELLATIONS hard cover journal – If you would like to order one and have delivered to your home, please use this link (https://www.allheartyogastudio.com/shop/hardcover-journal). If you would like to purchase one from me, I can place a bulk order and manage the delivery – just let me know!

Autumnal updates at All Heart Yoga!

Please meet our newest instructor: