A 5-Minute Note with [Over] A Week of Excerpts & A Video (for anyone who is interested) December 4, 2025
Posted by ajoyfulpractice in Changing Perspectives, Gratitude, Healing Stories, Hope, Life, One Hoop, Philosophy, Suffering, Yoga.Tags: 16 Days of Activism Against Gender-based Violence, 988, Ann Patchett, Anna Freud, Aristotle, Art, Arthur Frank Wertheim, Arthur L. Humphreys, Barbara Bair, Books, C. S. Lewis, Claudette Colvin, craic, D. P. Chase, discernment, ethics, First Friday Night Special, Hesiod, Joanna Macy, Joseph Conrad, Movember, Ozzy Osbourne, Phillip Hoose, Philosophy, Psalms, Rainer Maria Rilke, Religion, Restorative Yoga, Rosa Parks Day, Tehillim, Thanksgiving, Will Rogers, World AIDS Day, yoga, Yoga Sutra 3.35
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May you be safe and protected / May you be peaceful and happy, during the 16 Days of Activism Against Gender-based Violence (November 25th – December 10th) and on all the other days of your life.
“As for him who neither possesses nor can acquire them, let him take to heart the words of Hesiod; ‘He is the best of all who thinks for himself in all things. He, too, is good who takes advice from a wiser. But he who neither thinks for himself, nor lays to heart another’s wisdom, this is a useless man.’”
— quoted from “Book I, Chapter II” of The Ethics of Aristotle: Volume The First by Aristotle (London: Arthur L. Humphreys 1902, Revised from the translation by D. P. Chase, published at Oxford in 1847)
Everyone needs a moment (or two) of discernment; a moment (or two) to pause, reflect, and reevaluate. Part of me wishes I could say that that is all I did over this last week. However, I am very grateful to note that my week away from teaching include a lot of craic: good food, music, laughter, and stories (sometimes in the form of movies) with some of my chosen family, friends, and a couple of wonderful doggies.
There were also some unexpected complications and those, it turns out, led to quite a bit of insight. Some of which I will share with you at a later date. In the meantime, here are excerpts (and a video) from some of the blog posts related to the last week of classes.
THANKSGIVING
“Enter into his gates with thanksgiving, and into his courts with praise: be thankful unto him, and bless his name.”
— Tehillim – Psalms (100:4), KJV
MOVEMBER
“Will Rogers, billed as the Oklahoma Cowboy, in a rope act is a feature at the Orpheum this week. He does wonders in rope spinning but you get so much interested in his ‘patter’ that you forget to watch the tricks, as he calls them. He is a monolinguist disguised in chaps, and one of the best ever….
PD. Printed in Kansas City Post and Journal, ca. 26 October 1914. Scrapbook 1914, CPpR”
— quoted from The Papers of Will Rogers: From Vaudeville to Broadway: Volume Three, September 1908 – August 1915 by Will Rogers, edited by Arthur Frank Wertheim and Barbara Bair
Cowboy, I Moustache You To Go… Over Here (the “missing” Sunday post)
C. S. Lewis (b. 11/29/1898)
“The reader who finds these three episodes of no interest need read this book no further, for in a sense the central theme of my life is about nothing else. For those who are still disposed to proceed I will only underline the quality common to the three experiences; it is that of an unsatisfied desire which is itself more desirable than any other satisfaction. I call it Joy, which is here a technical term and must be sharply distinguished both from Happiness and Pleasure. Joy (in my sense) has indeed one characteristic, and one only, in common with them; the fact that anyone who has experienced it will want it again. Apart from that, and considered only in its quality, it might almost equally well be called a particular kind of unhappiness or grief. But then it is a kind we want. I doubt whether anyone who has tasted it would ever, if both were in his power, exchange it for all the pleasures in the world. But then Joy is never in our power and pleasure often is.”
— quoted from Surprised by Joy: The Shape of My Early Life by C. S. Lewis
Civil Rights Stories
“‘Mine was the first cry for justice, and a loud one. I made it so that our own adult leaders couldn’t just be nice anymore. Back then, as a teenager, I kept thinking, Why don’t the adults around here just say something?’”
— quoted from Claudette Colvin: Twice Toward Justice by Phillip Hoose
First Friday Night Special #38: An Invitation to “(True) Stories Before You Sleep” & An Excerpt
Ann Patchett (b. 12/02/1963)
“Love was action. It came to you. It was not a choice.”
— quoted from Bel Canto by Ann Patchett
What the Heart Knows
Yoga Sūtra 3.35: hṛdaye cittasaṃvit
— “By making samyama on the heart, one gains knowledge of the content of the mind.”
Gazing into the Heart, redux…again (a “missing” and “long-lost” post)
Rainer Maria Rilke (b. 12/04/1875)
“Quiet friend who has come so far,
feel how your breathing makes more space around you.”
— quoted from Sonnets to Orpheus, II.29 by Rainer Maria Rilke (translated by Joanna Macy)
Breathe, Question, Change (a Monday Moving Meditation reflection)
There are audio recordings for several of the December 4th practices, but only one video (so far).
We shall breathe and break things down (i.e., metabolize things) during the First Friday Night Special on December 5th, 7:15 PM – 8:20 PM, CST)
&
I will offer in-person classes at the beginning of January 2026. (*DETAILS COMING SOON!*)
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 an 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.)
### AUM / OM ###
Breathe, Question, Change (a Monday Moving Meditation reflection) December 4, 2023
Posted by ajoyfulpractice in Art, Baha'i, Books, Changing Perspectives, Depression, Healing Stories, Hope, Life, Loss, Meditation, One Hoop, Pain, Philosophy, Poetry, Religion, Suffering, Wisdom, Writing, Yoga.Tags: 16 Days of Activism Against Gender-based Violence, Franz Xaver Kappus, Joanna Macy, Masáʼil, Questions, Rainer Maria Rilke, Robert Temple, Walt Whitman
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May you be safe and protected / May you be peaceful and happy (and curious), during the 16 Days of Activism Against Gender-based Violence (November 25th – December 10th) and on all the other days of your life.
This is just a reflection related to Monday, December 4th. There is no recording for 2023; however, you can request an audio recording of a related practice (as listed below) via a comment below or (for a slightly faster reply) you can email me at myra (at) ajoyfulpractice.com.
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.
Check out the “Class Schedules” calendar for upcoming classes.
“Here, where I am surrounded by an enormous landscape, which the winds move across as they come from the seas, here I feel that there is no one anywhere who can answer for you those questions and feelings which, in their depths, have a life of their own; for even the most articulate people are unable to help, since what words point to is so very delicate, is almost unsayable. But even so, I think that you will not have to remain without a solution if you trust in Things that are like the ones my eyes are now resting upon. If you trust in Nature, in what is simple in Nature, in the small Things that hardly anyone sees and that can so suddenly become huge, immeasurable; if you have this love for what is humble and try very simply, as someone who serves, to win the confidence of what seems poor: then everything will become easier for you, more coherent and somehow more reconciling, not in your conscious mind perhaps, which stays behind, astonished, but in your innermost awareness, awakeness, and knowledge. You are so young, so much before all beginning, and I would like to beg you, dear Sir, as well as I can, to have patience with everything unresolved in your heart and to try to love the questions themselves as if they were locked rooms or books written in a very foreign language. Don’t search for the answers, which could not be given to you now, because you would not be able to live them. And the point is, to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps then, someday far in the future, you will gradually, without even noticing it, live your way into the answer.”
— quoted from Letter #4 (dated July 16, 1903) addressed to 19-year old officer cadet Franz Xaver Kappus, published in Letters to a Young Poet by Rainer Maria Rilke
Look back over the years (or check out the links indexed below) and you will see that I often reference and quote Rainer Maria Rilke, who was born today in 1875. I am particularly fond of the aforementioned advice the poet gave the 19-year old officer cadet Franz Xaver Kappus in the fourth letter, dated July 16, 1903. I go back to them again and again, in every season of every year of my life (to paraphrase Walt Whitman); because, I think it is great advice for everyone: “Live the questions….”
Of course, to live the questions requires us to breathe (into) the questions and notice what happens.
“To breathe! Oh poem we cannot see!
Pure space exchanged continually
For one’s own being. Counterpoise,
In which I come to be, a rhythm.”
— quoted from Sonnets to Orpheus, II.1 by Rainer Maria Rilke (translated by Robert Temple)
Just as there is something divine (universal and sacred) about the breath, there is something divine about questions. I am not sure we can be alive and not have questions. Additionally, in the Bahá’í Faith, each month is named after a virtue or attribute of God. One of the months is Masáʼil, which means “questions,” and it begins at sunset exactly a week after Rilke’s birthday. How serendipitous! So, I think this is the perfect time to ask ourselves questions; to live those questions; to breathe those questions; and to change with those questions.
That, as it turns out, is also good advice from Rilke. It is advice we can take on and off the mat.
“Want the change. Be inspired by the flame
where everything shines as it disappears.
The artist, when sketching, loves nothing so much
as the curve of the body as it turns away.
What locks itself in sameness has congealed.
Is it safer to be gray and numb?
What turns hard becomes rigid
and is easily shattered.
Pour yourself like a fountain.
Flow into the knowledge that what you are seeking
finishes often at the start, and, with ending, begins.
Every happiness is the child of a separation
it did not think it could survive. And Daphne, becoming a laurel,
dares you to become the wind.”
— quoted from Sonnets to Orpheus, II.12 by Rainer Maria Rilke
If you are interested in previous posts (and practices) related to Rainer Maria Rilke, check out the following:
- The very first “First Friday Night Special” was a little “Bedtime Yoga” in 2020.
- The 2021 vinyasa practice coincided with Chanukah… and was part of a series of questions.
- Click here if you are looking for the 2022 vinyasa playlist for this practice.
- This 2018 Kiss My Asana offering was inspired by Rilke’s poetry about breathing (and dealing with life’s challenges, including unexpected grief).
- This 2016 Kiss My Asana offering was the answer to a question (about questions).
A Joyful Practice 