Dear friends,

The combination of snow and sunshine in March in Massachusetts is a beautiful, fresh, hopeful thing.

Yoga in the garden will continue at the 5pm time, Tuesdays Thursdays and Saturdays, until it’s dry and warm enough to take it back outside to the BIG garden, when we will return to the earlier 4pm time.

Meanwhile the yoga/garden theme has given me more excitement about what has become my indoor-garden/yoga-studio, and I am buying, cultivating, rooting, and repotting house plants with delight and abandon. As with the outdoor plants, you win some you lose some, but the more house plants I invite into my space and the more I tend to them, the more I am graced with living miracles. Look what happened this week!

This is an Abutilon, (“Indian Mallow” or “Flowering Maple”) and after struggling along all winter, all of a sudden it does this! I have three separate plants in one pot, and it comes in many shades of wonderful. I just read that it roots easily from cuttings, so I will be trying that next. Let me know if you want one!

Speaking of miracles, do you know how people say, “It’s just practice“? These people who can play beautiful music, or perform great physical feats, or build whole houses …. And you say “No, that’s not just practice, it’s a fuc*ing miracle“ and it is, but the thing is, you can invite the miracle every day.

Every day you say, “Come in, I’ve been preparing for you ….“ Stephen Pressfield talks about this in his inspiring book, The War of Art, about sweeping the threshold for the Muse, “so that she may enter and not soil her gown.”

And you don’t have to be afraid. You see the miracle at your doorstep every day and gradually you are not afraid of it. And then it won’t be afraid of you. You, and the miracle, you become familiar with each other. You decide, yes, I can live with this miracle, it is heady, but yes, I can do it, and feeling recognized, accepted, the miracle feels safe with you and says yes, I will grace you with my self. The miracle feels when you are ready for it.

If you see the miracle every day, if you allow yourself to observe it, gradually it will become familiar. Also the practical routines of opening the door, and hosting and caring for something as awesome as a miracle, will become a way of living, and your eyes and heart will adjust to living in this bright light.

These practical routines, this preparation for the miracle, is what constitutes practice. Once you have prepared, and once you have opened the door, you are there. You have already begun.

And we each define “miraculous“ for our own lives. I will never be Herbie Hancock, but for the past few years I have played the piano, a little bit, almost every day, and I can play a few chords and a few songs, and there are moments when the sound that comes from pressing those keys is, for me, miraculous. I may never be able to do a handstand, or firefly pose, or bend and twist like an advanced yogi, but I have been practicing yoga every day for two years and I am 58 years old and my hip pain is GONE, and my back pain is almost gone, and that, for me, is a miracle.

I am not the world’s most disciplined person. But I have learned the power of an invitation. Invite a miracle into your life. Start with just the thought of it. Allow it to delight you, and lift you up. Then go to the door and open it. Decide if you want to let it in. Then sit with it, and have some tea. Watch. Listen. Then act, work. Honor it. Share it.

Be a good and welcoming host. Let it shine.

Join us!

When you sign up as a member you will immediately receive the zoom link. For current and recent members, the zoom link is the same.

I am very happy to offer a free 30 minute private session to new members.

Wishing for all, Peace and Courage,

Christina