“Art like prayer is a hand outstretched in the darkness, seeking for some touch of grace which will transform it into a hand that bestows gifts,” Franz Kafka

Utthita Pārśvakonāsana. Extended Side Angle Pose

-It’s maybe not possible to put into words my gratitude for the teachings of Yogācārya B.K.S. Iyengar. How to explain the life that was before and the living that is now? Poets craft with words; his teaching was art— instructions, sequences, postures, lessons aligning with the bliss of the soul... —Jennifer Beaumont

(Excerpts From) TO BEGIN WITH, THE SWEET GRASS —

... Behold, I say—behold

the reliability and the finery and the teachings

of this gritty earth gift. ....

Look, and look again.

This world is not just a little thrill for the eyes.

It’s more than bones.

It’s more than the delicate wrist with its personal pulse.

It’s more than the beating of the single heart.

It’s praising.

It’s giving until the giving feels like receiving.

You have a life—just imagine that!

You have this day, and maybe another, and maybe still another. .... -

What I loved in the beginning, I think, was mostly myself.

Never mind that I had to, since somebody had to.

That was many years ago.

Since then I have gone out from my confinements, though with difficulty.

I mean the ones that thought to rule my heart.

I cast them out, I put them on the mush pile.

They will be nourishment somehow (everything is nourishment somehow or another). And I have become the child of the clouds, and of hope.

I have become the friend of the enemy, whoever that is.

I have become older and, cherishing what I have learned, I have become younger.

And what do I risk to tell you this, which is all I know?

Love yourself. Then forget it. Then, love the world. —Mary Oliver