Poetry and Yoga: Find Gratitude and Presence With This Moving Meditation

Welcome to our Yogi Poet Series – a place where poetry and yoga unite to bring you a sensory experience of movement, meditation, mindfulness, and gratitude. Meet Nate Pritts – an English Professor, poet, and yogi.
 
Nate’s words have been published in eight books of poetry, and in his most recent collaboration, has teamed up with YouAligned to bring us the Yogi Poet Series.
 
Nate’s most recent book of poetry, Decoherence, was recently released and is filled with inspiring poems that intersect our environment, emotions, and creativity – a perfect parallel to our yoga practice.
 
Enjoy this poem with accompanying yoga pose and guided meditation.
 

Read the poem then practice the pose.

How to Find Gratitude as You Approach the Poem

Pour yourself a cup of coffee or tea and find a quiet place. Get comfortable and take your time reading the poem below, allowing the words to fill your heart and wash over you:
 

 
It’s warm enough to open the windows
      all of them       & stop worrying
about how much money I owe
 
or that I can’t ever do enough to justify each breath.
But I keep going
      living under immense amounts of sky
 
in a world where we’ve stopped noticing
the clouds. We walk right over the grass
& don’t ever feel sorry
 
           & we can’t notice everything
enough to really show our love.
I fold the laundry &       can’t tell the fresh of the air
 
apart from the scent of the house apart
      from myself. I sit on the bed
looking out the window       & it is a pleasure
 
      to remember breakfast       remember
so many things it doesn’t hurt to remember.
      I know that the only gift we can give to someone else
 
is context for all this light.
           A graceful pair of hands shapes
      memories out of the dust
 
but can only make what it knows how to make
      only the thing it has the pieces for.
I move back & forth       from the living room
 
      up & down the stairs
out to the garage       & back in again
following something.
 
 
This is a poem that acknowledges all the anxiety we feel in our daily lives instead of stuffing it in the closet where it will only accumulate and get worse. And once we train ourselves to see the beauty and depth in these simple domestic chores and gestures, we can recognize the gifts we’ve been given, “context for all this light,” and that we should pass it on.
 
Begin to notice any themes that arise, either in the words or in your thoughts as you read. What do you feel? A sense of mindfulness and presence? An ode to accepting what is and moving through it with gratitude and contentment?
 
Take time to reflect on the poem’s meaning – how do you translate the meaning, and how does it touch your own life?
 

How to Approach the Yoga Pose and Guided Meditation

When you’re ready, read the caption beneath the yoga pose. Get into the pose, and then stay there as you begin to breathe deeply. Maybe you close your eyes, or maybe you set your drishti on something beautiful nearby.
 

Low Crescent Lunge Backbend

 
Remain grounded and move through your feelings of unrest to a place of gratitude, of opening your heart and remaining open to the light and the love that abounds – when we can let our guard down enough to see it.
 
Gratitude is the gateway to all abundance, and when we open our hearts, we unlock our ability to replace fear with love, darkness with light.
 
 
As you hold the yoga pose, reflect on the caption’s message. What in your daily life are you grateful for that you typically take for granted? What feelings of unrest or anxiety are you experiencing, and how can you use presence to help channel these things into something positive?
 

Make Every Day Poetry In Motion

Today, we invite you to take a few moments to enjoy this beautiful poem, center yourself in the accompanying yoga pose, and breathe a little gratitude and presence into your day. Thanks for practicing with us! Stay tuned for more poems and yoga practice from our Yogi Poet Series!
 
Namaste, yogis!
 

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