Hello Dear Kin  –

During these dark and difficult times I sometimes struggle to find the words, for myself and for you. Sometimes it seems so fruitless to share simple practices and bits of poetry and then I am recalled back to myself with just that…a simple moment of connection or a phrase of beauty. I believe things are going to get much worse before they get better and the way through this Long Dark as Francis Weller has named it, is to do all the things that empire and capitalism wants to squeeze out of us. It is key to gather in community simply for the joy of it. To read poetry daily. To offer simple acts of care to our loved ones and to strangers. To slow down and resist the culture of grind and push and fast. To find our unique ways to feed the world that, under all the devastation, is also trying to figure out how to rebirth itself.

So I rely often on the wisdom of others…words that land in my inbox, images that meet me in the world and all around and the daily cards I pull and place on my altar. Who can teach me, remind me, guide me today? Where can I offer my presence as balm and support? And here I will share the words of Lisa Olivera (whom I don’t know but was quoted in a dear friend’s sub-stack recently)…

“Stay devoted to compassion, even when it isn’t reciprocated. Stay devoted to compassion, even when it is misinterpreted. Stay devoted to compassion, even when it at times feels more like a performance than an embodied felt sense. Stay devoted to compassion, even when you will inevitably forget, only to remember you’re just human, just an animal with impulses and history and patterns and needs and longings like everyone else, just ever-practicing.” 

I love this call to the arms of compassion…in all the places it is needed and even when it may not be wanted. This is the time we must practice and not just on the mat or cushion but in the all day, everyday of uncertainty and confusion. Our practice can be many things…a kind word, a slowing down, really seeing the other, dropping into our bodies to notice and tend the sensations…and on and on. The profound practice of simply showing up daily for the heartbreak and the beauty, showing up for this holy life.

May we continue to find ways to nourish the world that is burning and needs balm

May we stay devoted to showing up even when it is heartbreaking

May we continue our practicing of love and life daily

May we bring wild blessings and fierce love to all we encounter

Practice Prompts:

• Offer 10 minutes a day to words and images that nourish and guide you. Perhaps pulling a card from a deck that inspires and speaks to you or reading a poem by a favorite poet…maybe even reading it aloud and leaving it as an audio message offering for a loved one.
• Recommit to any of your practices of presence…sitting, moving, drawing, journaling, picture taking. Let this be a way you witness the world back into its own remembering…and yours too!
• Consider what you are craving (quiet, being seen, connection, empathy, etc.) and see if you can give it to another. Is this another way to bring it close and feel it and be nourished by it?
• I offer one to one sessions, in-person in Bend, Oregon, and virtually all over the world. These sessions are centered on supporting you find nervous system capacity and resiliency through various practices including but not limited to Somatic Experiencing®, Continuum Inquiry, Safe and Sound Protocol and various emboding practices.  Please email me or schedule a free 20 minute Exploratory Session.

Practice Opportunities:

• Yoga for Resilience, Mondays, 9:30-11am PT, livestream through Body of Insight (no class June 30 and July 7)
• All Levels Yoga, Sundays…June 29, July 13, Aug 17, Aug 31, 9:30-11am PT, livestream through Two Dog Yoga
• On Demand Yoga Practices…All Levels… through Two Dog Yoga

Inspirational Wisdom

The Night I Fell in Love with the Whole World

It was the boy at baggage claim who started it.
His elation! Each time a new bag would drop,
he would point at the suitcase and squeal,
then turn to his grandmother with incandescent delight.
His grandmother deepened my joy. How she beamed
at her grandson, praised him in Spanish, her words
a bright blur I interpreted more through hunch
than through certainty. And sooner than you’d think,
I fell in love with every single person at baggage claim sixteen.
Didn’t need to know their stories to know
they were worthy of love. Every one a grandchild.
Every one a light. It was like, how on these midsummer
nights, the late sun shines long though the cities and fields
and everything, everything is beautiful.
Oh, people of Iran. Israel. Palestine. Ukraine.
Russia. Somalia. Yemen. Maine. I will never know you,
yet I honor how you carry inside you your own strange
and beautiful spark. How each of you, too, is a grandchild.
Each of you, too, longs to belong. No matter what our leaders do,
the light is right to see how much, you, too, long to be safe,
to be seen, to be kind, to be loved, to be trusted, to be home.

~ Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer