I read this awhile ago, before the resistance movement. Isn’t that what we’re experiencing? Resisting the urge to scream, to shout, to check the news, to get so caught up in it all that we forget the beauty and resilience all around us? Are we resisting the urge to pretend our small actions don’t matter? The calls to representatives, cancelling on-line accounts, shopping local, being just a little bit kinder, listening to the bird’s songs and each others’.
That’s where repair comes in. Like when my dear friend Diana came by to take 5 different colors of thread on a needle with an especially large eye to cross-stitch small holes my cat had massaged into my favorite sheets. Now rainbow colors fill where her claws had been. The sheets are uniquely mine, a work of art, the memory of a morning spent creating and laughing. I don’t want orneed new. That’s a radical act in a consumer culture.
What if we could cross stitch the threads of our being? Repair those small or large holes in our hearts, in our psyche. Those small digs that have made us feel less than amazing? Can we cross stitch over those with multicolored thread? We can. Through yoga, self-expression like writing, painting, planting a garden, painting a wall. Stillness and meditation heal places where the claws have been. Choosing to take care of ourselves and each other cross stitches the fabric of our communities. Practicing random acts of kindness extends the pattern so we can repair and radicalize our lives gently, without starting a war.
Let’s practice peace in our yoga. At Tribal Tulum, we’ll start with a new schedule in April that includes more ways to repair. We’re adding some wonderful meditations, yoga philosophy discussions, new classes and some special events from teachers you probably weren’t aware were so diverse. We’ll sing and be still together as we radically expand our abilities and recognize new abilities in others. We create community where before there was only acquaintance. We heal ourselves, repairing past damage. We change the world using repair as a radical act.
April 1st we’ll start with an 8 am meditation. The same one we do when you retreat here. Think about starting that again with me and start the process to repair yourself and our world, one breath at a time. The new schedule is on the website and here if you prefer.