Honor, Give Thanks, Support & Uplift

Dear Beloved Shraddhā Community Near and Far,

For many months now, I find myself more sensitive to both the fragility and resilience of life. To the many injustices and the many acts of kindness. This heightened sensitivity creates a tender and vulnerable feeling in my body. It pulls me more into the direct and immediate moment. And I notice a desire to savor each moment as it is, with utmost presence and respect.

I hope you will take a few minutes to savor your breath and slowly read through this love letter, all the way to the end, where you will find some invitations.

🍁This week invites us to pause and reflect on the ways that we honor, give thanks, love others, and share nourishment and support in various forms. It's a reminder to honor the Earth, the harvest, ourselves and all beings that are part of this One sacred life.

🌺We can ask ourselves: What does it mean to give thanks. To what do I give thanks for? To whom do I give thanks to? And, what are the qualities or vibration of giving thanks?

Mirra Alfassa says, "The vibration of gratitude feels very similar to the vibration of pure love".
And, "Gratitude opens all closed doors and allows Grace to enter".
And, "The pure flame of gratefulness must always burn in our heart - warm, sweet and bright - to dissolve egoism and obscurity".

🍁The qualities of sincerity, humility, awe, reverence, gratitude, bowing, and honoring are all part of giving thanks. Each day that we are blessed to open our eyes and greet the rising sun, we can pause, feel our breath, and truly give thanks for the new dawn, our bodies as they prepare to move throughout the day ahead (even with limitations), and the presence of Divine Love that wants to carry us on a unified stream of existence.

🌺When we pause to feel the prāna inside our physiological breath, we can touch into the holiness or divinity within our breath. We can be brought into a direct experience of our unified oneness with all of creation. It is only in our minds and protective nature of the ego, that we think we are separate. It is like the Kabir poem, Are You Looking For Me, and the last line that says "god is in the breath within your breath".

💛Try This Simple Practice Now💛

🪷Pause and bring your awareness inside your breath.
🪷Breathe slowly and feel your breath swirling around your lungs in a 3-part, 3-dimensional way as they expand and condense and cradle your heart.

🪷Sense into the life within the life that is inside your breath.

🪷Inside your physiological breath is prāna. (Prāna isn't limited to your physiological breath. The prāna vayus move throughout your body, governing all functions).

🪷Inside that prāna is life force, essence, divinity.

🪷Know this. Right there, inside your breath is divinity...holiness. Just like the Kabir poem says.

🪷The current of the divine river that carries you through life (when you surrender to it), can be accessed right here, inside your breath. It's waiting for you to notice it and to let yourself be carried by it's wisdom.

🪷Put your hand on your heart and allow yourself to be breathed by the One breath that breathes life into existence. The One that breathes creation into being - that permeates all of life and births each new moment.

🔥Just like the drum beat that emanates from Śiva's damaru and the vibrations that give rise to the syllables and sounds of Sānskrit, your breath is drumming existence into new creation each moment. Or just like the great dance of Śiva's Tandava that dances us into creation, preservation, destruction, concealment and revelation/grace every moment.

☀️Every breath, every moment, something new is being created, and this is a Truth that we can approach with curiosity, awe, gratitude, and bowing. Even within the kśana (tiniest measurement of time), creation is being created anew every moment. Anything is possible in each moment, especially when we stay in a vibration of giving thanks, honoring, respect, sharing presence and love.

"Gratitude opens all closed doors." ~ Mirra Alfassa

💚From the āsana (seat) within your breath, inquire into your relationship to our beautiful Mother Earth. How do you give thanks to her and all of her inhabitants? Consider how you can stay aligned with your deepest breath, Self, the Earth and in serving others.

💚Let us re-member our beautiful, natural Earth we are blessed to live within. Let us re-member who was here on these lands first. Let us re-member the native wisdom that lives within every branch, leaf, flower, fruit, stem and root. Let us re-member all the pain and devastation, as well as all the beauty and joy that was and that is.

💚May we re-member the songs sung from the waters, the birds, the animals, the fire and the sky. Let us not only re-member, but let us honor and light a flame of new honoring, giving back and uplifting all who are in need of love, nourishment and safety.

💛Connect ~ Uplift ~ Nourish💛

🌟Our beloved community sister Jesse Rose, who is a healer, medicine woman, herbalist, yoga teacher, ceremony facilitator and more, created this beautiful resource list that I hope you will explore and see if you feel called to connect to or support any of these places, people and movements.

Jesse Rose says, "This resource list is a living, growing list, as an offering of Indigenous, BIPOC, and Earth-rooted resources. It is not complete, but always becoming. May it guide you toward deeper relationship, reciprocity, and remembrance."

🌟Our beloved GurujiMa and Village of Light Ashram's Feed The Hungry Project is currently connected to seven different organizations around the world to help nourish people.

GurujiMa says, "Feed the Hungry came into being in 2018 with the movement of assistance to the Lakota Sioux of the Pine Ridge Reservation. Since that time, this project has focused on helping those in need due to limited access to food and water, worldwide. Our outreach is based on the understanding that we are one human family, united in our divine core, and that all who suffer from deprivation are part of us and we of them. As such, we cannot allow ourselves to be indifferent to the extreme deprivation and inequality of food distribution that exists on our planet, but must help where we can. We invite you to join us in this effort to establish food justice and equality as it is greatly needed."
💛💛💛💛💛

If you made it all the way to the end, I thank you. If you jumped around and made it here, I still thank you. And I thank all of you for being a part of the beautiful Shraddhā Yoga community in the unique ways that you are each here with us. I bow to each of you and send you warmth, compassion and love always.

With love and gratitude,
Corinne