Eileen Myles – Jan , 11 2022 Iyengar Level I
Trying to be “balanced”. Here’s one for the cat people.
The cat is in
the bag
I leave the bag where
it is
so the cat can get
in it and dream
for a very long
time
while the rest
of my building
purrs
he slipped his head
into the bag's
handles & gently
sniffs it
well then money
well then love
Tess Taylor – Jan 11, 2022 Iyengar II
Funny what we remember and don’t. What’s that old chestnut about not remembering and being doomed to repeating?
At the Dorothea Lange Elementary School
the secretary frowns: We don’t study her.
At Jocko's steakhouse, the bartender nods:
My family's been here 150 years.
Yeah, we know about her.
How she photographed that woman.
The people coming through.
Yeah, the migrant mother:
People in this town are still always coming through—
Eileen Myles – Jan , 10 2022 Iyengar All Levels
Still working my way through New York City book bounty! I loved “jam tiny details in its jaw”. Feels like what I am doing some days.
became
…
it was yesterday
today
is so subtle
I can jam tiny details
in its jaw
& it holds them
it's a strong day
that can withstand change
Tess Taylor – Jan 9, 2022 Fun with Chairs
Tess Taylor used Dorothea Lange’s diaries, notes and photographs as material for a poetic dialog. She followed Lange’s routes and observed the differences, or lack of, in this fascinating collection, “LAST WEST-Roadsongs for Dorothea Lange”. Nipomo, California is the location for Dorothea Lange’s famous “Migrant Mother” photograph.
NIPOMO, SUNDAY, 2019
You're looking for the woman who shot the photo.
Yes. We know about her. My parents talk about her.
People come still, looking for her.
Like you they want to know about her.
We see 'em passing through this town,
trying to find out where she made the photo.
Guess the spot could be lots of places. Don't know where exactly.
Yes: We have a pride in her. We're proud of her.
And: I think you can find it. You can drive there.
Maybe google?
Might be over the bridge
beyond the bluff across the valley—
Find the old people. They would know.
Find them: Ask them to remember.
Anonymous (Japan 8th-9th century CE) – Jan , 2022 Iyengar Level III
One of Twenty-one Anonymous Tanka from Kokinshū, an anthology complied in the 8th-9th century CE. I thought it was perfect for my annual 1st Level III of the New Year. We practice all 29 standing asanas in Light on Yoga. Or versions of them…In 90 minutes. Supper fun!
In this world
what can I point to
and call my home?
Home is wherever
I rest my feet
Otomo No Tabito – Jan , 2022 Iyengar Level II & I
From the 6th century Japan, a time when poetry was part of daily life, and written by anyone. I like the earthiness of this piece.
In Praise of Sake
…
A priceless treasure it may be, but how can it be better than a bowl
of raw sake?
A gem that gleams at night it may be, but how can it compare to
drinking sake and opening your heart?
When you're unfilled in ways of worldly entertainment, you should,
it seems, get drunk and weep
If I enjoy myself in this world, in the world to come I won't mind
being an insect or a bird
Since all living things die in the end, while I'm in this world I'll enjoy
myself…
Brian Andreas – Jan 4, 2022 Iyengar Level II & I
A delightful gift from a friend. This storyteller’s work is deceptively child-like and completely for grown-ups. For Vrksasana.
When I die, she said, I'm coming
back as a tree with deep roots &
I'll wave my leaves at the children
every morning on their way to
school & whisper tree songs at
night in their dreams.
Trees with deep roots know
about the things children need.
Deep Roots
Brian Andreas – Jan3, 2022 Iyengar All Levels
From an artist and “storyteller”, a good attitude for the New Year.
There are only 2
things I take seriously, my aunt
said once. Laughter
& my digestion.
I'm too old to
bother with more
than that.
Digestion
W.S. Merwin – Jan 2, 2022, Fun with Chairs
This has been passed around the internet a lot in the last week. Doesn’t mean it’s not gorgeous. Sorry, I couldn’t resist. Plus, someone might need to hear that they can start again fresh today.
To the New Year
With what stillness at last
you appear in the valley
your first sunlight reaching down
to touch the tips of a few
high leaves that do not stir
as though they had not noticed
and did not know you at all
then the voice of a dove calls
from far away in itself
to the hush of the morning
so this is the sound of you
here and now whether or not
anyone hears it this is
where we have come with our age
our knowledge such as it is
and our hopes such as they are
invisible before us
untouched and still possible
Rengetsu – Dec 31, Iyengar Level III
I love this piece so much, someone hears it every year. Happy New Year to all!
REMOVING THE SOOT
Clearing the soot
From the beams,
Sweeping the dust
From my hearth,
Getting ready for the New Year.
Rengetsu – Dec 30, Iyengar Level II & I
We finally got a cold snap so this piece felt appropriate. We may not have control over much, but we do control our own internal landscape. Make it what you need.
WINTER DREAMS
To forget the chill of
The frozen hearth
I spend the night
Dreaming of gathering
Violets in a lush field.
Joan Didion – Dec 28, Iyengar Level II & I
We might not have her skills, or turn of phrase, but we can “notice things”. If she hadn’t hated exercise of any kind, I fantasize that she would have liked Iyengar Yoga.
…You get the sense that it's possible simply to go through life noticing things and writing them down and that this is OK, it's worth doing. That the seemingly insignificant things that most of us spend our days noticing are really significant, have meaning, and tell us something… - The Paris Review interview (2006).
Joan Didion – Dec 27, Iyengar All Levels
Sadly, we lost Joan Didion just before Christmas. A lion in every way packed into a tiny body. Thankfully we have her words. Although this excerpt is from a college commencement address, I think we can all use to be reminded of the sentiment. It seemed like how she lived.
…I’m not telling you to make the world better, because I don't think that progress is necessarily part of the package. I'm just telling you to live in it. Not just to endure it, not just to suffer it, not just to pass through it, but to live in it. To look at it. To try to get the picture. To live recklessly. To take chances. To make your own work and take pride m it. To seize the moment. And if you ask me why you should bother to do that, I could tell you that the grave's a fine and private place, but none I think do there embrace. Nor do they sing there, or write, or argue, or see the tidal bore on the Amazon, or touch their children. And that's what there is to do and get it while you can and good luck at it…" - UC Riverside commencement address (1975).
Yoko Ono – Dec 26, Fun with Chairs
Post-Christmas festivities might mean we are more “leaning on” than “dancing with” our chairs. I wonderful idea though.
DANCE PIECE
Have a dance party.
Let people dance with chairs.
1961 winter
Yoko Ono – Dec 23, Iyengar II & I
New-to-me, old work by an artist who continues to fascinate.
LIGHT PIECE
Carry an empty bag.
Go to the top of the hill.
Pour aU the light you can in it. home when it is dark.
Hang the bag in the middle of your room in place of a light bulb.
1963 autumn
Rainer Maria Rilke – Dec 21, Iyengar II & I
For the Solstice. Yoga philosophy says, if we are centered in our deepest self, all we we do will benefit our community. Rilke said it better.
You are a wheel at which I stand,
whose dark spokes sometimes catch me up,
revolve me nearer to the center.
Then all the work I put my hand to
widens from turn to turn.
— From The Book of Hours I, 45
May Swenson – Dec 19, Fun with Chairs
Everywhere in New York City feels like a front row seat to the “greatest show on earth”.
AT THE MUSEUM OF MODERN ART
At the Museum of Modern Art you can sit in the lobby
on the foam-rubber couch; you can rest and smoke,
and view whatever the revolving doors express.
You don't have to go into the galleries at all.
In this arena the exhibits are free and have all
the surprises of art—besides something extra:
sensory restlessness, the play of alternation,
expectation in an incessant spray
thrown from heads, hands, the tendons of ankles.
The shifts and strollings of feet
engender compositions on the shining tiles,
and glide together and pose gambits,
gestures of design, that scatter, rearrange,
trickle into lines, and turn clicking through a wicket
into rooms where caged colors blotch the walls.
You don't have to go to the movie downstairs
to sit on red plush in the snow and fog
of old-fashioned silence. You can see contemporary
Garbos and Chaplins go by right here.
And there's a mesmeric experimental film
constantly reflected on the wide
steel-plate pillar opposite the crenellated window.
Non-objective taxis surging west, on Fifty-third,
liquefy in slippery yellows, dusky crimsons,
pearly mauves—an accelerated sunset, a roiled
surf, or cloud-curls undulating—their tubular ribbons
elongations of the coils of light itself
(engine of color) and motion (motor of form).
Billy Collins – Dec 17, Iyengar III
I thought this was beautiful, pre-Christmas. Even made Florida sound beautiful.
Florida in December
From this dock by a lake
where I walked down after a late dinner—
some clouds blown like gauze across the stars,
and every so often an airplane
crossing the view from left to right,
its green starboard wing light
descending against this soft wind into the city airport.
The permanent stars,
I think on the walk back to the house,
and the momentary clouds in their vaporous shapes,
I go on, my hands clasped behind my back
like a professor of nothing in particular.
Then I am near enough to the house—
warm, amber windows,
cold dots of lights from the Christmas tree,
glad to have seen those clouds, now blown away,
happy to be under the stars,
constant and swirling in the firmament,
and here on the threshold of this house
with all its work and hope,
and steady enough under a fixed and shifting sky.
Billy Collins – Dec 16, Iyengar II & I
One of my NYC purchases, a newish collection by Billy Collins. I have gone down the same rabbit-hole he describes, but with film stars. I actually think Cheerios are more interesting…
Cheerios
One bright morning in a restaurant in Chicago
as I waited for my eggs and toast,
I opened the Tribune only to discover
that I was the same age as Cheerios.
Indeed, I was a few months older than Cheerios
for today, the newspaper announced,
was the seventieth birthday of Cheerios
whereas mine had occurred earlier in the year.
Already I could hear them whispering
behind my stooped and threadbare back,
Why that dude's older than Cheerios
the way they used to say
Why that's as old as the hills,
only the hills are much older than Cheerios
or any American breakfast cereal,
and more noble and enduring are the hills,
I surmised as a bar of sunlight illuminated my orange juice.