How do you start your day?

Reading from Tuesday, May 28, 2014 yoga class

I have a friend, Grace, who published a book on meditation.  It is SO fabulous!!  Grace is such an interesting lady who has lived in so many different places and in many different cultures.  I feel honored to call her a friend.  I am quoting the following from her book, "Yoga Meditations"  by Grace A. Kellawon.

"In Humble Treedom live two cats that are master yogis.  Each morning they rise in silence before the sun comes up and prepare a magical cup of offering.  They sit next to the window to watch the light breathe life in the sky as it gradually touches the mountain peaks, the tall buildings, the tree tops, the streets below, and all they can see after that.  They hear the sound of light softly purring through the universe, and they sniff their surroundings with their powerful nostrils, acquainting themselves with the newness of everything that begins again and again forever.

This routine and ordinary practice of Sitting, although the same each morning, becomes different in each practice.  Those who Sit and meditate listen to the call within and heed the need to Sit and quiet their minds in order to savor their existences.  This savoring sweetens them immensely; it is a sweetening they cannot resist.  After this pleasant practice, they find it elevates them to extraordinary beings.

The cats listen to the morning sounds, sniff the smell of all life, visible and invisible, all that moves and is still.

Soon their human companion awakens and joins them by the window with a cup of magical offering.  And she too takes her Seat and savors the morning freshness and newness and slowly beholds a world that has never been before.  This silence enfolds her like a warm cloud of cotton, which brings on a profound peace and wondrous calm; she seems to know she is especially deeply loved.  These three sit by the window every dawn, before the strong sound of light beat against them, and here in the cool quietness, renew themselves. They reactivate their newness each daybreak, a daybreak that has never been before."

Thank you Grace for your beautiful words.