Trees, Spring and Yoga homework

{photo taken by my-oh-so talented little brother Pat}

I've been thinking about trees today. And spring. and how I want the trees to be thinking about spring too...

I love winter, I really do. But here in my new home on the Cape, we haven't gotten a whole lot of snow (at least by my rather high standards about what's a lot of snow) and it

has really put me in the mood for some spring. So images of spring are floating around in my head.

I should do some art work with those images.

But I have been busy this week, finishing up all my yoga homework that is due for the next part of my teacher training. As part of the homework, I wrote the following about trees and spring and the celebration of life:

Each spring, we begin to recognize that trees have this vitality, this sweet inner essence that is lively pulsating through them. In a few more weeks, we’ll begin to notice little green buds starting to quietly emerge on the branches. Trees have deep roots, that go down into the earth and these roots, pull energy up into the core of the tree. The bark hugs onto the tree in concentric circles and this protects the sap the runs through the tree. From it’s trunk, from the very marrow of the tree, it grows and extends out and upwards with its branches each year. We start noticing this each spring, when the trees around us start to shine out with little green buds that eventually burst forth in full celebration of leaves. This pulsation that is happening with the tree, of drawing in through the roots and bark and then shining out through the branches and buds is happening inside of each of us too. We too can draw in and plug into our own sweet vitality and then shine that out in a great celebration of our lives. Yoga helps us to become aware of this pulsation, this spanda. It teaches us that our true nature is this sweet and pure essence and that we can celebrate that by drawing into it and shining it out.

I'm going to go celebrate the idea of spring by eating a warm weather fruit (a pomelo) and going to a hot yoga class.

Happy Shining!

Trees, Spring and Yoga homework