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Sun vs. Moon….YOU Decide!

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Election! Election!
Left Versus Right
Moon Versus Sun
Both shining bright!

What serves, what honors
the United States of YOU?
Tune into your breath~
Tune into your view~

Do you need more strength?
more power? more fire?
Then, Sun is your canidate
you most admire~

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Or more sweetness?
More flow? More balance
and wisdom?
Moon is the vote to
cast for your system~

Sun represents your right,
and Moon, your left~
Both equally qualified
to heal and heft~

Each one has a Salutation~
a platform of poses
Practice each one
No need for opposes!

Decide on your term;
May be minutes or years!
and what gets to vote!
Chakras or Ears?

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Who has a voice
in the United States of YOU?
Muscles or bones~
Organs or goo?

And where is the
capital of your nation?
Your Heart? Your head?
Third Chakra vibration?

Choose what qualities
serve your union as a whole~
What is right for your body,
your mind and your soul?

Fernbank Yoga Club voted today. 43 unions saluted the Moon. 27 unions saluted the sun. The rest are undecided. 

“It was interesting to watch the grounded students take their time in each posture of the sun and moon salutations. This fact-finding process took longer for some than others, and a few students needed to revisit certain postures to see what their body thought. The votes were taken, first internally, and then announced to the group. I look forward to hearing how the first days of each parties term goes. Term lengths varied from one week to one year. The excitement was palpable as the students began to brainstorm their new nations flags and colors.”

Mary Quinn Templeton, Elevated Grounded Teacher

More to Explore

  • Namaste

    Namaste

    Said my young friend who wants a connection:
    “I wave. I shake hands, with no objection.
    No pain, no remorse, no one intervening
    a choice I make without much thought or meaning~”

    “…Is there a gesture that honors each other?
    That celebrates greeting sisters and brothers?
    Can you show me HOW to express happiness
    with social and spiritual significance?”

    YES, my dear friend, I can show you a mudra~
    a gesture of sorts, for kings, friends and sudras.
    Place hands together from fingers to wrists~
    like a knife, cut through difference that may exist.

    This immediately gets you to the shared ground~
    of ALL people, of all cultures, of all sound.
    It’s a recognition, a united force~
    that honors equality of all from the Source.

    Close your eyes and tune into your own inner light;
    your divine spark that forever burns bright.
    That’s the key, my dear friend, you must see your OWN
    in order to recognize others’ light shown.

    BLEND your five fingers of action on the left~
    with five fingers of knowledge on the right~
    to achieve the symbol of perfection
    the union of opposites; interconnection.
    FInd the Connection of your brain and your heart;
    your sun and your moon; your stop and your start.
    Marry together reason and emotion~
    unite thoughts and feelings, stillness and motion.

    Join positive and negative; hot and cold~
    theory with practice, silver with gold~
    Wisdom with Method, intellect with instinct~
    talent with genius, and feelings with think!

    Exhalation and inhalation, ,brain and heart~
    Align in harmony, right from the start!
    There is indeed no sphere of our existence
    untouched by the symbolic significance~

    of Namaste~

    Namaste

  • Certified to Teach Kids Yoga in Middle School

    Last night felt surreal.  I was standing in my kitchen with Lee, Amy & Cheryl when they handed me a single piece of cardstock with the words ‘Certified Grounded Teacher.’ I felt my throat clench and my heart skip a beat.  Though I have been teaching Grounded Yoga for over a year, it was this small piece of recognition that let me know that I am now officially recognized as part of one of the greatest movements of my lifetime.

    Once I received my 200hr teacher training in 2012, I had begun leading my daughter’s classes at school once a week and eventually took over the Tween class at my studio.  I pulled resources from all around- other teachers, online sites, books, games…everything I could find to help create a well-rounded class.  It was a year of growth and some things worked and some failed miserably.  What I did know was that I loved teaching children- their honesty in their bodies and mouths and they way it was starting to create a shift in their perspective. My dear friend and teacher, Lee introduced me to Grounded in early 2013 when she came home lit UP from Level 1 training.  I watched her do Go To Your Room and that’s literally ALL it took!  I knew that something special was going on with Grounded…something that hadn’t been done before…something that was about to change how the world looks at kid’s yoga.  We put a plan together to “sell” our yoga program to our school as a full-time yoga curriculum.  And it WORKED!  I decided to take the Level 1 training just after school started so we could teach the same material and use each other to bounce ideas and begin to try to understand the huge undertaking we’d just landed.

  • Inspired by the Velveteen Rabbit…How Teachers Become Real.

    horse

    The Skin Horse had lived longer in the nursery than any of the others. He was so old that his brown coat was bald in patches and showed the seams underneath, and most of the hairs in his tail had been pulled out to string bead necklaces. He was wise, for he had seen a long succession of mechanical toys arrive to boast and swagger, and by-and-by break their mainsprings and pass away, and he knew that they were only toys, and would never turn into anything else. For nursery magic is very strange and wonderful, and only those playthings that are old and wise and experienced like the Skin Horse understand all about it.

    “What is REAL?” asked the Rabbit one day, when they were lying side by side near the nursery fender, before Nana came to tidy the room. “Does it mean having things that buzz inside you and a stick-out handle?”

    “Real isn’t how you are made,” said the Skin Horse. “It’s a thing that happens to you. When a child loves you for a long, long time, not just to play with, but REALLY loves you, then you become Real.”

    “Does it hurt?” asked the Rabbit.

    “Sometimes,” said the Skin Horse, for he was always truthful. “When you are Real you don’t mind being hurt.”

    “Does it happen all at once, like being wound up,” he asked, “or bit by bit?”

    “It doesn’t happen all at once,” said the Skin Horse. “You become. It takes a long time. That’s why it doesn’t happen often to people who break easily, or have sharp edges, or who have to be carefully kept. Generally, by the time you are Real, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out and you get loose in the joints and very shabby. But these things don’t matter at all, because once you are Real you can’t be ugly, except to people who don’t understand.”

    “I suppose you are real?” said the Rabbit. And then he wished he had not said it, for he thought the Skin Horse might be sensitive.

    But the Skin Horse only smiled

    –  From the Velveteen Rabbit by Margery Williams  –