home, in the heart
Buddhist teacher Tara Brach says “We are at a time when we are all homesick. We are all missing a deep sense of home in ourselves.”
In yogic philosophy, when we forget that we are part of everything, every season, every river, every other person, that all our molecules are shared in the most remarkable of cycling exchanges of energy of which we are conscious, this is called avidya. Every teaching of yoga, every technique, every practice is to bring us back to a sense of home in ourselves, and ideally a sense of Home in the great life of the world.
After the election last fall Roshi Joan Halifax gathered authors and activists to speak at her Zen center, Upaya, once a month. I have been a part of what is called Awakened Action since the first meeting. With over 2000 members listening in from around the world, I have found it to be a “home-making” place when other conversations feel fraught or indigestible.
This community that has gathered around my teaching, you as a part of it, I wanted to share a clip from the latest conversation of Awareness in Action and the words of author Terry Tempest Williams because it feels so aligned with what I understand as central to my task of teaching right now.
Enjoy a section here in transcription. At the bottom is the link to the full conversation if you would like to see three wildly wise women in contemporary conversation. Enjoy if you will.
Terry Tempest Williams:
“We are living in a time where we are being brought to our knees - and to speak our truths, to dare, to fall in love with life and share that really is one of the most radical acts we can commit to. Love this beautiful, broken world.
I know I have certainly been brought to my knees recently, and I'm learning to pray again, not to one God, but many gods, and none of the gods I'm seeking look like me. And I’m praying, not in a way I was taught by lay clergy, but in the way I remember as a child, when the Holy ordinary was right in front of me every hour, on the ground or in the Sky, calling forth rituals. Prayer as forms of play that are deadly serious filled with this sense of awe and wonder and delight.
And what is the one question you would most be frightened of being asked? Are you in love with the world? And how are we here to serve?
I really believe that the world right now, the natural world, this right outside the window and door, is alive and reaching out to us. It is a reciprocal world. And Gaia, our mother, Buddha, Allah, God, however we define, the ineffable, is inviting us to respond. It is imperative we respond, each in our own way with the gifts that are ours.
Something is dreaming us into a new way of being. Call it Love or Earth, in all her loveliness and fury, inviting us into a new way of seeing. And can we commit to not looking away.
The human heart is the first home of democracy. It is where we embrace our questions. Can we be equitable? Can we be generous? Can we listen with our whole beings, not just our minds, and offer our attention rather than our opinions? And do we have enough resolve in our hearts to act courageously, relentlessly without giving up ever trusting our fellow citizens to join with them in our determined pursuit of a living democracy?
The heart is the house of empathy whose door opens when we receive the pain of others. This is where bravery lives, where we find our mettle to give and receive, to love and be loved, to stand in the center of uncertainty with strength, not fear, understanding this is all there is the heart is the path to wisdom, because it dares us to be vulnerable in the presence of power.
Our power lies in our love of our homelands. Our inner, outer, and societal places of refuge, provision, and shelter.
Who told us that love was soft? Who told us that love had no bearings? And who benefits when we take love out of the equation?”
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I highly recommend the full conversation of Roshi Joan Halifax, Terry Tempest Williams, and Rebecca Solnit. You can see it here.
There is no charge to see the talk. However, consider, after you have listened, and go back to give as much as you appreciated; give what you feel it deserves, what it gave to you.
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May you be having a peaceful summer of explorations and expanded time. Look to the sky. Let yourself enjoy something outside a little longer than you meant to. Delay dinner and play one more set of tennis, walk just a bit further down the trail, sit and listen to the cicadas and eat a peach. Notice. How remarkable it all is. Notice.
All love, Martha
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On instagram over the past week or so I did a 6 part series outlining the teachers that have had the most influence on my teaching. The more I worked on it, the more sense I made to myself and the way I teach - AND the more I realized there were / are far more influences than those “teachers” on what I bring to the room, the newsletter, the private time you might request.
It is a privilege to gather it all, every inch that I know and that knows me, and try to give it order and experiences to share in my training this fall, The Genius of Yoga. You are welcome to join for all 11 weekends, or just drop in for one. I will offer all I have for you to have both and informational and a transformational time. Yoga is a homecoming. And touching the fact that we can never be lost is crucial medicine for this moment. This is what we will consider in the training. Poses, yes. And the history and philosophy behind it all. Details here. We start September 5, 6, 7.
Always, you are invited to join me for morning kundalini classes online, Monday Wednesday, Friday.
There are two spots open for 1:1 with me this fall. Reply to this email to talk further.
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