So MUCH happiness

Reading from December 4, 2012, yoga class

Well...here I am again, teaching yoga, first class since the end of April.  It feels good and I am very grateful to be able to continue to share my knowledge of yoga.

In May 2012 I went to Lisle, Illinois, and studied restorative yoga with Judith Lasater.  She was such an inspiration...humble and tough at the same time.  I am now certified as a Relax and Renew trainer.  We had a project to complete and mail to her.  She graded it and sent it back.  It was thrilling to read her remarks of what I put together.  I have my certificate hanging on the wall of the studio and my bumper sticker (proudly displayed on my car) that she sends with certificate that says: "Changing the world one Savasana at a time."

In September, my yoga buddies, Bev and Becky and yours truly went to Columbus, Ohio and took two classes with Rodney Yee.  Yes, THE Rodney Yee. He was very approachable, funny and humble.  His wife, also a wonderful teacher, Colleen Saidman, and just as kind and approachable, was with him.  We met Rodney and Colleen and had our picture taken with them.  THRILLING.

In October, I went to Kripalu, in Lenox, Massachusetts and took a week-long chakra teacher training with Anodea Judith, author of "Wheels of Life" and Eastern Body, Western Mind."  Again, a wonderful teacher, humble and kind. 

So... all of these teachings I have received, are ready to be shared with all of you...flowing out, in who knows what ways.  Enough of my rambling already...here's my reading from an article written by Claudia Cummins that appeared in the Yoga International magazine, Fall 2012 issue:

"I'm standing in the middle of a blueberry patch, the long arms of the bushes reaching out to me, practically begging me to relieve them of their berries.  The sun is hot and the air is cool. My sons charge ahead of me, picking and eating and musing about the best way to nudge a blueberry off its stem.   I stop picking, look up at the clear blue sky, and sigh.  I catch myself smiling.  I realize that I am happy, right here and right now--in this moment.  I continue massaging the branches and enjoying the plunk-plunk-plunk as the berries fall like raindrops into my bucket.  I move on to the next abundant blueberry bush.  The words of the poet Naomi Shihab Nye bubble up from the depths of my body.  "It is difficult to know what to do with so much happiness," she writes in one of my favorite poems.  "With sadness there is something to rub against,/a wound to tend with lotion and cloth."  I pause as I struggle to recall the rest of the poem, where surely she has something to teach me.  I recall her words "happiness floats" and that is exactly how I feel right now.  Everyone around me, in fact, seems bitten by the happiness bug.  My sons have been chattering and plotting and discussing and (sometimes) picking, but miraculously they haven't bickered once.  The families around me have been kind and generous to one another, as sweet and as smooth as the blueberries we pick.  Perhaps it's the weather or the blueberries themselves.  Or could it be the incredible sense of abundance we all feel right now?  Blueberry-laden bushes extend in all directions, so there's plenty for all--no need for anyone to feel territorial or threatened or greedy.  I wonder what the world would feel like if we all lived with our hands held open like this, in total faith of the world's abundant generosity.  We return home.  The boys carry in the berries while I dash upstairs in search of Nye's poem.  When I find it (it's called "So Much Happiness") I devour it hungrily and happily."  Here's the poem:

                       SO MUCH HAPPINESS by Naomi Shihab Nye

It is difficult to know what to do with so much happiness.
With sadness there is something to rub against,
a wound to tend with lotion and cloth.
When the world falls in around you, you have
pieces to pick up, something to hold in your hands,
like ticket stubs or change.

But happiness floats.
It doesn't need you to hold it down.
It doesn't need anything.
Happiness lands on the roof of the next house, singing,
and disappears when it wants to.
You are happy either way.
Even the fact that you once lived in a peaceful treehouse
and now live over a quarry of noise and dust
cannot make you unhappy.
Everything has a life of its own,
it too could wake up filled with possibilities
of coffee cake and ripe peaches,
and love even the floor which needs to be swept,
the soiled linens and scratched records...

Since there is no place large enough to contain so much happiness,
you shrug, you raise your hands, and it flows out of you
into everything you touch.  You are not responsible.
You take no credit, as the night sky takes no credit for the moon,
but continues to hold it, and share it, and in that way, be known.


"I float back downstairs and pull out all the plastic give-away bowls that I can find.  I rinse our berries in cool water, and I ask the boys to consider who might need a little happiness today, who might like an offering of fresh berries.  We begin naming names, and sending out wishes for happiness, as we spoon shiny purple berries into bowl after beautiful bowl.  Because, of course, when you find yourself surrounded by a bumper crop of blueberries--or perhaps with an abundance of happiness--the proper thing to do is to share it, to spread it, to give it all away."