Think about it...

"Am I helpful?"

Strike a Pose for Saturday...

Vrikasana-Tree Pose
"Vri-kaa-sa-na Vriksha = tree

Benefits: Tones & strengthens leg muscles, opens hip joints, promotes proper posture, improves sense of balance, heightens spinal awareness, promotes centeredness & calmness in all circumstances.
Be Cautious if: have hip issues, pregnant or swayback, cardio issues
Remember: Rotate from hip out, don’t sink into standing leg, keep standing knee soft, place leg above or below knee joint, lift through standing hip, tuck pelvis, bring hands to heart.

Affirmation: "I am calm, I am poised."
Instructions
From tadasana, shift your weight onto your left foot, rooting your foot into the floor. Fix your gaze on a stationary point on the floor or on the wall in front of you. Bring the sole of your right foot to the top inside of your left thigh, toes pointing down. Fix your gaze on something stationary on the floor or on the wall in front of you.
Open your right hip so your right knee swings out to the right, pelvis facing forward. Lengthen your tailbone toward the floor. Find your balance.
On an inhalation, circle your hands out to the sides and up overhead, bringing your palms together as you stretch tall. On the exhalation, soften your elbows and shoulders as you keep your spine long.
Breathe smoothly and naturally as you hold the pose and affirm mentally, "I am calm, I am poised."
To exit, inhale and extend your arms straight overhead; then, exhaling, release and circle your arms back down to your sides. Release your right leg and bring your right foot to the floor, coming into tadasana.
Pause to integrate the effects of the pose, then repeat to the other side.

Variations: Place foot propped against ankle, or place bent leg in half lotus. Arms may be kept at the heart (prayer position), extended over head (prayer position), or extended up and out.

Think about it....

"Do I know how to say NO?"

"Interbeing"

This poem by Thich Nhat Hanh embodies the essence of what he calls "interbeing," the innerconnectedness of all things.

Call Me by My True Names
by Thich Nhat Hanh

From: Peace is Every Step: The Path of Mindfulness in Everyday Life by Thich Nhat Hanh
In Plum Village, where I live in France, we receive many letters from the refugee camps in Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand, and the Philippines, hundreds each week. It is very painful to read them, but we have to do it, we have to be in contact. We try our best to help, but the suffering is enormous, and sometimes we are discouraged. It is said that half the boat people die in the ocean. Only half arrive at the shores in Southeast Asia, and even then they may not be safe.

There are many young girls, boat people, who are raped by sea pirates. Even though the United Nations and many countries try to help the government of Thailand prevent that kind of piracy, sea pirates continue to inflict much suffering on the refugees. One day we received a letter telling us about a young girl on a small boat who was raped by a Thai pirate. She was only twelve, and she jumped into the ocean and drowned herself.

When you first learn of something like that, you get angry at the pirate. You naturally take the side of the girl. As you look more deeply you will see it differently. If you take the side of the little girl, then it is easy. You only have to take a gun and shoot the pirate. But we cannot do that. In my meditation I saw that if I had been born in the village of the pirate and raised in the same conditions as he was, there is a great likelihood that I would become a pirate. I saw that many babies are born along the Gulf of Siam, hundreds every day, and if we educators, social workers, politicians, and others do not do something about the situation, in twenty-five years a number of them will become sea pirates. That is certain. If you or I were born today in those fishing villages, we may become sea pirates in twenty-five years. If you take a gun and shoot the pirate, all of us are to some extent responsible for this state of affairs.

After a long meditation, I wrote this poem. In it, there are three people: the twelve-year-old girl, the pirate, and me. Can we look at each other and recognize ourselves in each other? The tide of the poem is "Please Call Me by My True Names," because I have so many names. When I hear one of the of these names, I have to say, "Yes."

Call Me by My True Names

Do not say that I'll depart tomorrow
because even today I still arrive.

Look deeply: I arrive in every second
to be a bud on a spring branch,
to be a tiny bird, with wings still fragile,
learning to sing in my new nest,
to be a caterpillar in the heart of a flower,
to be a jewel hiding itself in a stone.

I still arrive, in order to laugh and to cry,
in order to fear and to hope.
The rhythm of my heart is the birth and
death of all that are alive.
I am the mayfly metamorphosing on the surface of the river,
and I am the bird which, when spring comes, arrives in time
to eat the mayfly.

I am the frog swimming happily in the clear pond,
and I am also the grass-snake who, approaching in silence,
feeds itself on the frog.

I am the child in Uganda, all skin and bones,
my legs as thin as bamboo sticks,
and I am the arms merchant, selling deadly weapons to
Uganda.

I am the twelve-year-old girl, refugee on a small boat,
who throws herself into the ocean after being raped by a sea
pirate,
and I am the pirate, my heart not yet capable of seeing and
loving.

I am a member of the politburo, with plenty of power in my
hands,
and I am the man who has to pay his "debt of blood" to, my
people,
dying slowly in a forced labor camp.

My joy is like spring, so warm it makes flowers bloom in all
walks of life.
My pain if like a river of tears, so full it fills the four oceans.

Please call me by my true names,
so I can hear all my cries and laughs at once,
so I can see that my joy and pain are one.

Please call me by my true names,
so I can wake up,
and so the door of my heart can be left open,
the door of compassion.

Thich Nhat Hanh

http://www.quietspaces.com/poemHanh.html 

A Blessing For One Who Is Exhausted

--by John O'Donohue, syndicated from awakin.org, Jun 02, 2014

When the rhythm of the heart becomes hectic,
Time takes on the strain until it breaks;
Then all the unattended stress falls in
On the mind like an endless, increasing weight,

The light in the mind becomes dim.
Things you could take in your stride before
Now become laborsome events of will.

Weariness invades your spirit.
Gravity begins falling inside you,
Dragging down every bone.

The tide you never valued has gone out.
And you are marooned on unsure ground.
Something within you has closed down;
And you cannot push yourself back to life.

You have been forced to enter empty time.
The desire that drove you has relinquished.
There is nothing else to do now but rest
And patiently learn to receive the self
You have forsaken for the race of days.

At first your thinking will darken
And sadness take over like listless weather.
The flow of unwept tears will frighten you.

You have traveled too fast over false ground;
Now your soul has come to take you back.

Take refuge in your senses, open up
To all the small miracles you rushed through.

Become inclined to watch the way of rain
When it falls slow and free.

Imitate the habit of twilight,
Taking time to open the well of color
That fostered the brightness of day.

Draw alongside the silence of stone
Until its calmness can claim you.
Be excessively gentle with yourself.

Stay clear of those vexed in spirit.
Learn to linger around someone of ease
Who feels they have all the time in the world.

Gradually, you will return to yourself,
Having learned a new respect for your heart
And the joy that dwells far within slow time.
--John O'Donohue, from "Blessings"
 
http://www.dailygood.org/story/734/a-blessing-for-one-who-is-exhausted-john-o-donohue/