Stands for all things,

even for those things that don’t flower,

for everything flowers, from within, of self-blessing

though sometimes it is necessary to reteach a thing its loveliness,

to put a hand on the brow of the flower and retell it in words and in touch

it is lovely

until it flowers again from within, of self-blessing;

as Saint Francis put his hand on the creased forehead of the sow,

and told her in words and in touch

blessings of the earth on the sow, and the sow

began remembering all down her thick length,

from the earthen snout all the way

throught the fodder and slops to the spiritual curl of the tail

from the hard spininess spiked out from the spine

down through the great broken heart . . .

the long, perfect loveliness of sow

In your light I learn how to love.  In your beauty how to make poems.

You dance inside my chest where no one sees you.  But sometimes I do

and that sight becomes this art.

–Rumi

Rumi’s poem expresses the deep connection he has with the divine.  He is a channel through which the formless becomes form.  And the divine becomes heard, felt, and sensed through his artistic expression of poetry.

We are all artists and creative beings.  Yoga is a practice that reconnects us to the light of the divine, so that we, too, can learn how to love. . . how to make poems . . . how to give creative expression to the life force pulsing through each of  us.  

In our yoga practice each pose (asana) can become a way in which we give artistic expression to the divine.  No one does a yoga pose just like you.  You have a unique gift to give; a unique way to express yourself.  And this expression is emergent — it comes from that energy that dances inside your being.

May your yoga practice today be a gateway to reconnecting with the light and love dancing inside your heart,   that your poses and your life may be become a creative expression of the formless flowing through you, as you.

One day you finally knew what you had to do, and began,

—Hafiz