Intention Tower
Gratefully, I wake up every morning, breathing, heart beating and mind wide open. As I breathe into my heart I pray, “God, thank you for this day, thank you for this breath and thank you for this life.” I am passionate about living life through peace and love rather than through fear and hate. My passion in embracing love pours forth in my teaching and my parenting. We are all born with love in our hearts and taught to fear later in life, and at a very young age. This is one huge reason why I chose to become Grounded Certified. As a mother and wife I attempt to fill our home up with the power of love. Each morning I begin my ritual, curtains opened, sunshine pouring in, incense burning and candles lit. I have hot tea or coffee brewing and as I wait I practice the Sun Salutations to get my juices flowing. I begin to feel love dangling on the curtains, flowing through the air and seeping into my pores. Maya Angelou once said she is convinced that negativity has power. And if we allow it to perch in our house, in our mind, in our life, it can take us over. With love it is the same. My sophomore year of high school, at Shamrock High School (now Druid Hills Middle School), Coach John DeVore taught myself and my fellow peers the importance of setting intentions. He said, “write it on a Post-It and put it on your mirror or your wall to look at every morning.” I started doing this and I felt the universe shift around me. When I was about twenty-two I received a life changing gift from my Aunt Ellen, a box of intention cards. Words like integrity, strength, and grace filled my bedroom and settled in my heart. It is those tiny cards today that I share with my family in an attempt to create peace throughout our day. Marianne Williamson, author and speaker said “God created us to co-create with Him a world of harmony and peace and joy, which the love in our hearts gives us power to do. With every thought, we choose heaven on earth or hell on earth, for ourselves and for all the world. We have the power to bless or blame, to forgive or judge. With our thoughts we have the power to honor or mock, to believe in miracles or deny the possibility that they ever happen. When our minds move in harmony with love—through forgiveness or prayer or the simplest tender thought—then mountains move and the universe shifts.”
In my family we practice gratitude and we teach each other the importance of compassion. I teach Grounded Yoga to children of all ages and although I often begin each practice with a word of intention I wanted to create a game. Somehow I wanted to incorporate the intention cards. I wanted the game to lift my students up so they could go out into the world and lift others up as well. So, my five year old daughter and I sat down and brainstormed. Nothing. A few days later we came across some scrap pieces of wood left over from a tumble tower game. The idea blew up in my mind like fireworks! I grabbed a variety of permanent colored markers and my daughter and I got straight to work. We wrote an intention on each block, decorated them and began building our Intention Tower.
To set an intention is to have a purpose or plan in mind, to direct the mind and to aim. When we lack intention, we stray and often find ourselves surrounded by chaos. But with intention, we become aligned and our eyes open to the miracles which surround us.
Intention Tower is easy to create and can be played in a variety of ways. Build your tower and carefully pull your intention without peeking. Pull an intention block per class or per day until the tower falls and rebuild. Another way to play is to have children sit in a circle around the tower. Each child will take a turn choosing a block and/or intention. When the tower falls remind children that when we fall we must pull ourselves back up.
Found: This Fear escaped from a very Grounded 9 year old’s first chakra. Her thighs were rooted and her connection to the earth was solid. She faced her fears, and actually whispered to herself, “I have the Right to be Here.” After the Fear escaped she felt even more Grounded and Elevated and aware of where she was in space.
As Earth Day approaches this year, I am struck by what it means to truly foster Peace on this planet. I remember as a child, learning about anti-nuclear protestors who chained themselves to fences and were forcibly removed and jailed. These brave souls became my heroines and heroes in the late 1970’s and 1980’s. I was moved to tears singing Dylan’s “Blowing in the Wind” and hearing stories of civil disobedience and the message of non-violent resistance. Later in the 1990’s, when I danced barefoot on my very first Earth Day, a lump would form in my throat when I celebrated each small victory (and the Gigantic Hearts) of environmental protestors who sacrificed so much to save a single tree and worked to preserve open space for our children’s children. Peace.
In celebrating Dr. Seuss’ birthday we learned how to work our feet and our hands. Just as Suess’ Mr. Brown Can Moo!, Mrs. Cat can MEOW! In “Mrs. Cat Can Meow! Can You?” A Poem of Wacky, Wonderful Noises – While Clawing the Mat we allowed our inner animal out on the mat while paying close attention to our hands and feet. Are they wacky? Are they flat? Are they clawing the mat? When practicing this wacky flow while making Suesserrific noises you too will learn the importance of clawing the mat. In playing “Stop Foot, Go” (a zany spin on the all time favorite game, Musical Chairs) and studying the 4 corners of our feet we checked on our left foot and our right foot making sure they were fuzzy fur feet. While “Roaring”, “split – splatting” and “meowing” along with Mrs. Cat we learned that when our four paws are aligned we feel more steady, more grounded, and in balance with the universe.