Here is the last savasana sky...from class Saturday! And just like that, Autumn's here. In passing, a poem for you about the beauty of fleeting things (like summer!); made more beautiful because they're so fleeting.

IN PASSING
by Lisel Mueller

How swiftly the strained honey
of afternoon light
flows into darkness
and the closed bud shrugs off
its special mystery
in order to break into blossom
as if what exists, exists
so that it can be lost
and become precious

Words & poems & lyrics. I love them. It makes me wonder where our likes & dislikes come from... Did I join the planet this way? Was this infused in me from my mother, who studied French and dreamed of becoming a translator? And my father, a poet, writer, and a man who also understood there was a place where "human words get stuck"? I don't know. Maybe a bit of both. I just know, for as long as I can remember, I loved looking at words on the page. And from the day I learned to read, I loved figuring words out and then enjoying how it felt to say them out loud. The lyrical nature of some, when others were so clunky. How words can convey beautiful things and terribly ugly things too. How they can so easily get lost in translation. And how the same word can sometimes have conflicting meanings!

And with this "wordy," meandering intro, here's an episode of On Being, where Ariel Burger talks about some words with widely varied translations and how he makes sense of them still. He talks about how a person who is right in front of us, even speaking our own language, can get lost in translation. Here is Be a Blessing.

What does this have to do with yoga? Everything! Learning to notice. Pause. Listen. Focus. Breathe. Shift perspective. Wake up to subtle shifts. Clear the fog a bit. Open up a bit. And more.... I hope you find some beauty here if you listen; and I wish you "an open heart, in spite of everything."

Here's a little preview of how we'll be playing with props in the upcoming Mindful Movement series; check out this video on how to "wake up" your pyramid pose. Try it out. Let me know how it goes. :)

And finally, a treat for the eyes and the ears. This "end of the summer," greener than green path. And "Autumn's Here," a lovely song by Hawksley Workman. Hope to see you soon!