Basho - Jan 28, Iyengar II & I

I have been feeling ready for a long journey, since that won’t be possible anytime soon, the next best thing is to read about one. Basho was the master of long pilgrimages on foot, walking the length and breadth of Honsu Island many times over. As I was reading his work I came across this gem, for the Full Moon. I love the rhythm.

Oh! The full moon’s light!

Round and round my pond I strolled

All the moon-bright night!

Eavan Boland - Jan 26, Iyengar I

I loved, loved this piece! Chosen for the coming Full Moon. Maybe one of my favorite descriptions of light ever!

HOW WE WERE TRANSFIGURED

Now when darkness starts

in mid-afternoon,

when evening shows an unwelcome

half-sliced winter moon

I remember days

when I never thought twice about

what was farther off

from the four walls of our

house, from the hills

above it, from our infant daughters sleeping

in it or what lay

in wait for us on the Irish Sea

as darkness moved up

and away and we slept late oblivious

to the rain s drizzle,

the tap and flicker of it.

to what was coming

silently, insistently, to render

our lives visible to us again:

light the builder,

light the maker, fitter of roofs to gutters,

of the tree’s root

to the tree's height,

of earth to sky:

assembler of openings at

the river's mouth and the mind’s eye.

Margaret Noodin - Jan 26th, Iyengar II

A poetry loving friend, Sheila Kaplan sent me this. I’ve been saving it for a snowy morning, which finally arrived! Not a lot of snow, but enough, cold, in large flakes!

Landing Here

When it stops snowing in winter and deep cold arrives to crack the

ice

We stop hearing the freezing then listen for the great horned owls

They forgive one another and begin to mate while the world is

frozen

Landing on pine branches as snow falls gently in large flakes

Eventually she lays an egg then ignores the world until it breaks

Philip Larkin - Jan 25, Iyengar III

Sweet, not so sweet, but hopeful!

COMING

On longer evenings,

Light, chill and yellow,

Bathes the serene

Foreheads of houses.

A thrush sings,

Laurel-surrounded

In the deep bare garden,

Its fresh-peeled voice

Astonishing the brickwork.

It will be spring soon,

It will be spring soon—

And I, whose childhood

Is a forgotten boredom,

Feel like a child

Who comes on a scene

Of adult reconciling,

And can understand nothing

But the unusual laughter,

And starts to be happy.

Eavan Boland - Jan 24, Iyengar Sunday Fun

From a very well respected contemporary Irish woman who spent years living between Dublin and Palo Aalto, where she was a professor at Stanford. Sadly, she passed away in the early part of 2020. Beautiful words with a fierce eye of history/her-story! I loved the appreciation for everyday yet profound silence, before the coming storm.

THE JUST USE OF FIGURES

Silence was a story, I thought,

on its own and all to itself. Then

the storm came. It came to us

with bulletins, forecasts, data,

each coordinate warning us

the doors of the ocean were open

to a wind with an appetite f

or roadside bins, roofs,

treetops, the painted henhouse

made to stop foxes that blew away

as lightly as the hat the woman failed

to hold on to as she walked past

Stephen's Green, a sudden gust

catching it: wood and wire mesh

that had once sheltered hands

as they warmed to new eggs

on a winter morning now

stirred into flight over fences

and scoured grass.

Hours earlier

it was quiet in the garden.

The pigeons we were used to

hearing all morning were all gone.

Outside the window it seemed

a space had opened, an emptiness.

I knew then what I wanted

to write was not storms

or wet air, it was something

else: it was metaphor and yet

what was made for language

when language cannot carry

meaning failed here. Instead

I learned in the hushed garden

before the wind rose what

I needed to know. Silence told the story.

Taylor Johnson - Jan 19, Iyengar I

A young poet from Washington, D.C. who lives in Southern Louisiana, “where they listen.” A beautiful, musical new voice. This piece caught my eye because we had a discussion last week, before class, about the origins and meaning of the word portmanteau.

I want a series of mhmms in the language to hold over ecstaticism. The various portmanteaus of my home could do: wylin (wild and wily, maybe some assertion of will) to mean out of place and beyond. To approximate to horn's appearance I can say: that joint go- meaning a continuation, a lack of arrival or departure, a way out through around. That the horn resists audience, it just go. And where are we going getting somewhere?

Martin Luther King, Jr. - Jan 18, Iyengar III

One of my favorite passages from “I Have a Dream”. Happy MLK Day.

…Let us not wallow in the valley of despair.

I say to you today, my friends, though, even though we face the difficulties of today and tomorrow, I still have a dream. It is a dream deeply rooted in the American dream, I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up, live out the true meaning of its creed: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal.”

…

Charles Bukowski - Jan 14, Iyengar II

Formerly, my favorite Los Angeles poet, describes extraordinary, ordinary.

this place

twenty-five thousand fools

lined up for a free hamburger

at the racetrack today and got it.

in 1889

Vincent entered a

mental asylum in

St. Remy.

1564: Michelangelo, Vesalius,

Calvin die; Shakespeare, Marlowe,

Galileo

born.

caught a flounder yesterday,

cooked it

today.

midst the din of this

imperfect life

a blinding flash of

light

tonight:

when I let the

6 cats in

it was so

perfectly

beautiful

that

for a

moment

I

turned away

and faced the east

wall.

Wanda Coleman -Jan 12, Iynegar II & I

More form Wanda Coleman. I hope we’d all “steal the poison from this muthaland”, if we could.

THIEFHEART

were i the queen of sleight of hand

i'd steal the wind from a thunderstorm

if i could

i'd steal the sweetness out of fresh-baked bread

it smells so good

i’d steal the stink from the core of night

i'd steal the thrill in a thief's delight

know i would steal the wings off the flitting dove

the memory

of a brother's love

i'd steal the t from the end of time

i’d steal the wolf of a nursery rhyme

i’d steal the dither from its troubled spin

i’d steal my mind from the brain its in

i’d steal the rose from the end of bloom

i’d steal my son from his cancer’s doom

i’d steal the corners from my frown

i‘d steal your smile if it wasn’t nailed down

were i the queen of sleight of hand

i’d steal the poison from this muthaland

Wanda Coleman, Jan 11, Iyengar Level III

My new favorite Los Angeles poet. Gritty, searing and perfect for right now! Unfortunately she is no longer with us, but a new “selected works”, Wicked Enchantment, has just come out. I’m hoping for dawn…

NOCTURNE

running place

my tongue has grown strong and hard

my pace is steadier my step surer

measured as circles move around me and define

this frayed self the center of at least one stubborn

cosmos

here i sweat the days

humming because rhythm makes persistence possible

occasionally breaking into song-and-dance

aware of the weight that impedes momentum

aware of wind factor and traction

(to wish i were dead? easy. the one wish that

always comes true)

as the hum of unseen fellow runners

urges me on thru this brilliant fruitless flight

point of departure is a certainty

arrival a myth

as i streak along the beginning turning back on

itself again and again, my focus dead ahead

peering, to see if

this is the dark that precedes dawn

or the darkness before the dark

Simon Armitage - Jan 10, Iyengar Sunday Fun

A well-known British poet, writing about his home on the moors of West Yorkshire. A collection of work over many years, inspired by his view from his childhood bedroom window. I remember the view from my bedroom window. Do you?

Snow

The sky has delivered

its blank missive.

The moor in coma.

Snow, like water asleep,

a coded muteness

to baffle all noise,

to stall movement,

still time.

What can it mean t

hat colourless water

can dream

such depth of white?

We should make the most

of the light.

Stars snag

on its crystal points.

The odd, unnatural pheasant

struts and slides,

Snow, snow, snow i

s how the snow speaks,

is how its clean page reads.

Then it wakes, and thaws,

and weeps.

Souvenir Copy: Declaration of Independence and the Constitution of the United States of America - Jan 7, Iyengar II & I

A have a small souvenir copy of these two precious documents. It was given to me by my Father 20+ years ago. He received it during a trip to Washington D.C when he visited the Capitol Building on business. I’ve referred to it numerous times over the years, and that is where I turned Thursday morning after the abhorrent events of Jan. 6th! I hadn’t noticed a brief, well-written, Introduction to the book before. It includes a brief history, some philosophy and technical points about both texts. This is the final paragraph of that Introduction.

In the end, however, no constitution can be self-enforcing. Government officials must respect their oaths to uphold the Constitution; and we the people must be vigilant in seeing that they do. The Founders drafted an extraordinarily thoughtful plan of government, but it is up to us, to each generation, to preserve and protect it for ourselves and for future generations. For the Constitution will live only if it is alive in the hearts and minds of the American people. That, perhaps, is the most enduring lesson of our experiment in ordered liberty.

B.K.S. Iyengar - Jan 5-7, Iyengar II & I

Some of my favorite thoughts from B.K.S Iyengar’s Light on Life.

When an asana is done correctly, the body movements are smooth, and there is lightness in the body and freedom in the mind…

…Do not think of yourself as a small, compressed, suffering thing. Think of yourself as graceful and expanding, no matter how unlikely it may seem at the time…

…The corners of the chest are pillars: They should be firm. Slouching acts like a narcotic to the body. When our parents tell us not to slouch, it is because they instinctively understand that collapsing the chest caves in the very self…

B.K.S. Iyengar - Jan 4, Iyengar III

Returning to the source during this first week of the year.

Light on Yoga - Introduction

…When the restlessness of the mind, intellect and self is stilled through the practice of Yoga, the yogi by the grace of the Spirit within himself finds fulfillment. Then he knows the joy eternal which is beyond the pale of the senses which his reason cannot grasp. He abides in this reality and moves not therefrom. He has found the treasure above all others. There is nothing higher than this. He who has achieved it, shall not be moved by the greatest sorrow. This is the real meaning of Yoga-a deliverance from contact with pain and sorrow.

Alice Oswald, Jan 3 Sunday Fun & Chair Class

A new-to-me poet recommended by a student. Contemporary, English, prize-winning, and lovely. Meant to be read aloud! Felt perfect for where we are; starting over, always.

A SHORT STORY OF FALLING

It is the story of the falling rain

to turn into a leaf and fall again

it is the secret of a summer shower

to steal the light and hide it in a flower

and every flower a tiny tributary

that from the ground flows green and momentary

is one of water's wishes and this tale

hangs in a seed-head smaller than my thumbnail

if only I a passerby could pass

as clear as water through a plume of grass

to find the sunlight hidden at the tip

turning to seed a kind of lifting rain drip

then I might know like water how to balance

the weight of hope against the light of patience

water which is so raw so earthy-strong

and lurks in cast-iron tanks and leaks along

drawn under gravity towards my tongue

to cool and fill the pipe-work of this song

which is the story of the falling rain

that rises to the light and falls again

Rainer Maria Rilke - Jan 1st

A wish for 2021!

Uncollected poem

…

Everywhere joy in relation and nowhere grasping;

world in abundance and earth enough.

George Herbert - Dec 24th, Christmas Eve All Levels

Can we all agree on these? Sing, Dance, Love!

Love

Love bade me welcome: yet my soul drew back,

Guiltie of dust and sinne.

But quick-ey'd Love, observing me grow slack

From my first entrance in,

Drew nearer to me, sweetly questioning,

If I lack'd any thing.

A guest, I answered, worthy to be here:

Love said. You shall be he.

I the unkinde, ungratefull? Ah my deare,

I cannot look on thee.

Love took my hand, and smiling did reply,

Who made the eyes but I?

Truth Lord, but I have marr'd them: let my shame

Go where it doth deserve.

And know you not, sayes Love, who bore the blame?

My deare, then I will serve.

You must s'it downe, sayes Love, and taste my meat:

So I did sit and eat.

W.S. Merwin - Dec 22nd - Iyengar II & I

A real beauty for the day after the Solstice/Conjunction/Meteor Shower. Whew! Merwin, so “dependable”.

Grace Note

It is at last any morning

not answering to a name

I wake before there is light

hearing once more that same

music without repetition

or beginning playing

away into itself

in silence like a wave

a unison in its own

key that I seem

to have heard before I

was listening but by the time

I hear it now it is gone

as when on a morning

alive with sunlight

almost at the year's end

a feathered breath a bird

flies in at the open window

then vanishes leaving me

believing what I do not see

Hafiz - Dec 21st - Solstice Restorative

The strangeness of 2020 seems to have exaggerated the effects of the Winter Solstice this year. Pile on the not-seen-in-800 years visible conjunction of Jupiter and Saturn, plus a meteor shower, all on the same night, and even I have to say it is time for real restorative! Yikes!

"But I don't look like a sun,”

a young star still wrapped in swaddling veils said.

To which I replied,

“But you will my dear. You will.

So, don’t worry. Don’t fret.”

Solstice, Conjunction - Dec 21st

A student sent me this photo of the Conjunction, taken by a friend of his. Pretty amazing! Jupiter, Saturn and Jupiter’s 4 moons.