End of Summer

The summer really feels like it’s ending…. well not the weather here in Florida but school is starting and I am turning my focus to my upcoming retreat in October. I am so excited to be traveling back to Thatch Caye in Belize with 17 students for a wonderful adventure. 

Last week I traveled very briefly back to Irvington so my son could get his braces off. It was great to see some friends and teach a backyard class. My theme for the class was this quote below by Mark Nepo. 

“Everything is beautiful, and I am so sad. this is how the heart makes the duet of wonder and grief. The light spraying through the lace of the fern is as delicate as the fibers of my memory… In the very center, under it all, what we have that no one can take away and all that we’ve lost face each other. It’s there that I’m adrift, feeling punctured by a holiness that exists inside everything. I am sad, and everything is beautiful.” 

We live with impermanence. We live with joy and sorrow often at the same time. We live with gain and loss and pleasure and pain all together all the time. This is the nature of life. What helps us stay connected to the joy through the turmoil is, first off,  an understanding that change is always happening. It is supposed to. From there we can develop the ability to find both resilience and a kind of happiness that can move with change instead of being dependent on things staying the same. At times this can be incredibly difficult. However, when we start to grow our ability to be with a wider and wider range of experiences we are on the path to cultivating that resilience. This practice has been invaluable to me during this time of my own personal transition as well as holding space for the suffering of many special people in my life so I thought I would share it. 

 I am working my way through exploring all of the studios here and figuring out what my teaching schedule may look like both live and virtual. I will keep you all posted once I have more information on that.