A Joyful Practice

A Quick Note & Excerpts RE: Love & The Ones Who “taught us all how to move – through life” May 11, 2025

Many blessings to everyone and especially to anyone celebrating Buddha Purnima / Buddha Jayanti, Counting the Omer, and/or observing the fourth week of Pascha.

“When I was young I studied with Martha Graham; not to learn to dance, but to learn to move on the stage. If Martha Graham could have had her way, she would have taught us all how to move – through life. That has been and will be her goal: proper movement through life, the relationship of the body to the mind and the body to the spirit. Martha Graham is a compulsive student of the human heart.”

— actor Gregory Peck on Martha Graham (in a documentary)

Happy Mother’s Day to all of the moms. No matter how you came to be a mom (or what your kiddos call you), you have been in a position to “[teach someone] how to move — through life.” In fact, in most cases, you are someone’s first teacher, cheerleader, mentor, coach, confidant, spiritual/religious/moral guide, and friend.

You may also be the short order cook, personal assistant, driver, and the business manager who handles entertainment, the schedule, and the finances. You do all of this and more — maybe even including a second job as a spouse and a third job as something other than a mom. (Of course, you may also list those roles in a completely different order.)

While today, Mother’s Day in the United States, doesn’t explicitly state that it is a day when we celebrate all of your roles… it absolutely is exactly that day!

“I hope and pray that someone, sometime, will found a memorial mother’s day commemorating her for the matchless service she renders to humanity in every field of life. She is entitled to it.”

— quoted from the end of 1876 Sunday school lesson by Ann Reeves Jarvis (words that inspired her daughter Anna Maria Jarvis)

Click on the excerpt title below for more about Mother’s Day.

The Ties That Bind (a short “renewed” post for Mother’s Day)

In addition to being Mother’s Day in the United States, today (May 11^th) is also the anniversary of the birth of the revolutionary dancer and choreographer Martha Graham (b. 1894) and the printing date (in 868 A. D.) of  the oldest (surviving) book with a printed date: a Chinese copy of The Diamond That Cuts Through Illusion, a sacred Buddhist text commonly known as The Diamond Sutra. For some people, it is also the Buddha’s Birthday!

Click on the excerpt title below for more about The Diamond Sutra and Martha Graham.

FTWMI: [Love] Letter to the World

“Furthermore, Subhūti, in the practice of compassion and charity a disciple should be detached. That is to say, he should practice compassion and charity without regard to appearances, without regard to form, without regard to sound, smell, taste, touch, or any quality of any kind. Subhuti, this is how the disciple should practice compassion and charity. Why? Because practicing compassion and charity without attachment is the way to reaching the Highest Perfect Wisdom, it is the way to becoming a living Buddha.”

— The Diamond Sutra (4)

While I don’t know if I will ever go back to teaching on Mother’s Day and Father’s Day, I will continue to offer the 2020 recordings and a philosophy-based alternative recording for those who are on my Sunday mailing list (or who request a recording via a comment below or (for a slightly faster reply) you can email me at myra (at) ajoyfulpractice.com).

The Mother’s Day playlist is available on YouTube and Spotify. [Look for “Mother’s Day 2020”]

The playlist for May 11^th is available on YouTube and Spotify. [Look for “05112021 Martha and the Diamond”]

Feel free to also check out the 7 practices I posted on YouTube for this year’s Kiss My Asana yogathon!

If you are thinking about suicide, worried about a friend or loved one, or would like emotional support, you can dial 988 (in the US) or call 1-800-273-TALK (8255) for the Suicide and Crisis Lifeline. You can also call this TALK line if you are struggling with addiction or involved in an abusive relationship. The Lifeline network is free, confidential, and available to all 24/7. YOU CAN TALK ABOUT ANYTHING.

White Flag is a new app, which I have not yet researched, but which may be helpful if you need peer-to-peer (non-professional) support.

If you are a young person in crisis, feeling suicidal, or in need of a safe and judgement-free place to talk, you can also click here to contact the TrevorLifeline (which is staffed 24/7 with trained counselors).

In the spirit of generosity (“dana”), the Zoom classes, recordings, and blog posts are freely given and freely received. If you are able to support these teachings, please do so as your heart moves you. (NOTE: You can donate even if you are “attending” a practice that is not designated as a “Common Ground Meditation Center” practice, or you can purchase class(es). Donations are tax deductible; class purchases are not necessarily deductible.)

You can still click here to Kiss My Asana Now! (Or, you can still also click here to join my team and get people to kiss [your] asana!) 

### “Keep the channel open.” ~MG ###