Entering a New Room

"Let yourself be silently drawn by the strange pull of what you really love. It will not lead you astray."

~ Rumi

How are you holding up? Our back patio looks like an ice rink, and my news feed looks like civil war. One looks like an invitation to fun; the other to anger and despair. How do we hold these things at the same time? How do we have fun at birthday parties, and yet acknowledge the real pain so many of our fellow humans are enduring? 

This week I invited everyone to Monday Morning Yoga online since we were unable to meet in person here in South Austin. Nearly 30 of us gathered to bring our feelings and bodies to the mat. I have to say, it helped. 

When done with intention and attention, yoga becomes a moving meditation. The practice moves events, thoughts, and feelings through the mind. The movement helps prevent that energy from taking up residence, collecting residue, becoming stagnant in the body, and leading to toxicity. Essentially, it helps us digest what we see and experience. 

I’m convinced that as long as we don’t let ourselves, ahem, freeze up with fear, then love has a chance to guide the way. We can keep our hearts open, our inner light shining on the path of right action, good solutions, and positive change. 

If you’d like to listen to the dharma talk, including a beautiful blessing by Jan Richardson, or do the whole practice, I uploaded it to YouTube for you to enjoy. It’s my offering to all, and my sincere attempt to be helpful during these times.. 

One positive change is coming to our little corner of the world—something that’s been brewing for a while now—and I’m very excited it’s almost time.

These past couple of years have been full of change and transition personally, and I feel my spirit asking for a bigger space, a new container, for what is mine to bring into the world. I’m answering a call that has come quietly, slowly, and humbly, and yet is as insistent as the call to yoga teacher training was twenty-five years ago. 

Beginning February 1, this weekly newsletter will be on Substack. (What is Substack?) I’m moving my blog there in order to create a soft place to land when you want to take a break from the noise and cozy up by the imaginary fire, pour a cup of tea, and read, listen, watch, or join the conversation with other like-hearted folks in the community. 

I’ll still reflect on life through the lens of yoga, and it will be expanded to include some of my latest passions, like labyrinth walking, centering prayer, and Lectio Divina, or Divine Reading. We’ll create a room to have new conversations that explore what it is to stand at the thresholds of life. We’ll explore practices and pilgrimages that take us within, and out in the world. This room will not be about answers–it will be about cultivating the capacity to question and wonder, to hear a call, stay with it, respond to it, and maybe even live into it. 

If you are already subscribed to this blog, there’s nothing for you to do. For now, there is no action you must take. Just know that when you hear from me on Sunday, and all the weeks following, it will come from this new place. If you are a reader but have not subscribed, now's the time! 

So if you’re a lifelong learner, a wonderer, a seeker of life’s deeper truths, you still belong here. If you’re sensing it’s time to grow beyond what has begun to feel too tight, stay with me. And if you find yourself moving through cycles of construction, deconstruction, and reconstruction, this may be a room that can hold you for a while.

May you, too, recognize where expansion is calling, where change is heart-led, and where you feel you could use a little room to evolve. 

Much love