April 2023 Dispatch: “There is no house like the house of belonging”
Hey Galaxy buddies, it’s April in the midwest!
That means that we might be starting to feel ready to emerge from our hibernation, but the elements might be reminding us that Sometimes It Snows In April (had to get a Prince reference somewhere in this dispatch). I’m here to encourage you to reach out, reconnect, and if you want to get out of the house, but it’s still too cold outside… well, it’s still really cozy and warm in the studio.
I realized recently that I kind of unconsciously created a Year of Yes for myself, probably as a response to losing my Dad to cancer last summer, and being with him through the hospice process. Emerging from that summer, I felt an incredible urgency to stop putting off things that I perceived that I didn’t have time and space for. In hindsight, the beginning of that year was jumping into opening my own yoga studio, but I’ve put a few other things on my to-do list for the Year of Yes (tattoos, septum piercings, writing songs and singing are all on the list, but you can chat with me about that in person when you come to class).
The first item was a solo weekend trip to San Francisco.
My trip was mainly to do a weekend immersion in Animal Flow, which is a movement modality that I’m currently in love with. But it also was an opportunity to connect with one of my teachers from New York, who now has a yoga studio in the Mission neighborhood: Lotusland.
This is me with the teacher who taught me to be a teacher: Jasmine Tarkeshi!
Something really special happened each time I went to a yoga class at Lotusland. At the beginning of class, the teacher invited everyone to say hello to someone they didn’t know before class started.
The Lotusland community has been through a closure of their original San Francisco studio space of 15 years due to Covid, and they’re still in the rebuilding phase in a new space. It struck me as such a simple, but incredibly intentional way of committing not just to offering yoga classes, but committing to offering a community space - one of my missions for The Moving Galaxy.
Which is why I decided that April was going to be a month celebrating and focusing on Community at the studio! And yes, you’ll probably be asked to introduce yourself to someone you don’t know when you come to class. What’s super delightful is that I already see people who didn’t know each other prior to walking into the studio for the first time, who now know each other - because they kept seeing each other at class, kept hanging around and drinking tea afterward, and they made a connection. So I want to honor that momentum and keep pushing it forward!
A belief that is central to who I am, and central to a great many world traditions and religions is welcoming the stranger. In India, the phrase Atithi Devo Bhava, meaning “the guest is God,” is the basis for their code of hospitality. It’s how we strive to run things at our studio, as well - it’s even in our teacher training manual as a tenet of good teaching methodology. The stranger who walks through your door might be a divine being in disguise, so to be on the safe side, treat everyone as if they were a divine being, which we all pretty much are.
But sometimes, it can be hard to be welcomed into a space or community, or trust that you’re really welcome. It’s a feeling that I struggle with daily, as a natural introvert who has learned how to be an extrovert (I guess that makes me an ambivert?). There’s a quote from Groucho Marx - “I refuse to join any club that would have me as a member,” which runs through my head all of the time. I feel a real struggle with trusting in relationships, connections, and group energetics. Sometimes I think my skepticism serves me rather well. But sometimes it’s a real deterrent to being vulnerable enough to make connections. And vulnerability is actually a big part of it. When we don’t acknowledge that we might have a little space in our hearts that needs filling, then it doesn’t get filled. When you are in need of something, you can wait until someone guesses, and you might be waiting forever, or you can ask for what you need. Part of being in community is choosing to actively engage with the world around you - a hard but worthwhile pursuit.
Which brings me to my next item on my year of yes: adult friendships. Making new friends as an adult seems to be one of the hardest things for people these days. We’re incredibly busy (thanks capitalism), incredibly connected via our phones, yet incredibly out of practice with how to connect IRL. This year, I’m trying to be intentional about connecting. I have a few best friends who are scattered to the four winds - from LA to Detroit to Norway, and if I don’t make intentional time to connect with them, then it won’t happen.
And even though it sometimes takes all the courage and chutzpah I can muster, I’m trying really hard to reach out and make plans with cool people that I’m getting to know in Milwaukee. A really great article about how to make new friends as an adult said that one of the most important tools is to Assume People Like You. This is megahard, I know. For me, it’s an exercise in getting out of my own self-absorption, tapping into faith, and managing my anxiety. And digging deeper, Assuming People Like You means that you are acknowledging that you’re worthy of friendship - and that sounds like a pretty legit and important spiritual pursuit, if you ask me. So the next time you hit it off with someone, be brave and see if they want to go get coffee, or hit up a yoga class, or talk a walk together. You might be surprised. I’m working on it, too - let’s report back on how we’re doing sometime soon.
In fact, want to get coffee sometime and talk about it??? Or maybe we can go dancing at Mad Planet together sometime… We’ll ask the DJ to throw on this gem from LCD Soundsystem and dance with all of our friends. Or just come to yoga sometime soon - we’ll light up the disco ball, move, breathe, play some good music, and celebrate the really special community that we’re starting to build.
Here we go, Like a Sales Force Into The Night,
Anna
What I’m Reading
It was a bit of a tough call, choosing the theme of the month, because April is national poetry month, and if you’ve been around me for more than a second, you know how much I love a good poem. Rest assured, I’ll be sharing lots of poems in class, this month and every month, but I wanted to suggest an eclectic poetry anthology if you’re wanting more poetry in your life, but don’t know where to start. Check out A Book Of Luminous Things, edited and introduced by Czeslaw Milosz, a formidable poet himself. The poems are organized along subject matter, but span a huge variety of times, places, styles and authors.
And because I can’t resist… here’s a great poem about participating in life and community.
The House of Belonging
by David Whyte
I awoke
this morning
in the gold light
turning this way
and that
thinking for
a moment
it was one
day
like any other.
But
the veil had gone
from my
darkened heart
and
I thought
it must have been the quiet
candlelight
that filled my room,
it must have been
the first
easy rhythm
with which I breathed
myself to sleep,
it must have been
the prayer I said
speaking to the otherness
of the night.
And
I thought
this is the good day
you could
meet your love,
this is the gray day
someone close
to you could die.
This is the day
you realize
how easily the thread
is broken
between this world
and the next
and I found myself
sitting up
in the quiet pathway
of light,
the tawny
close grained cedar
burning round
me like fire
and all the angels of this housely
heaven ascending
through the first
roof of light
the sun has made.
This is the bright home
in which I live,
this is where
I ask
my friends
to come,
this is where I want
to love all the things
it has taken me so long
to learn to love.
This is the temple
of my adult aloneness
and I belong
to that aloneness
as I belong to my life.
There is no house
like the house of belonging.
