Dear friends and students of DOWNdog,

This is the last DOWNdog POST for 2019! I would like to thank everyone who has sent me warm responses to the DOWNdog POST throughout the session. Your comments, feedback continue to inspire me.

As this year draws to its end, I would like to share with you, this beautiful poem by John O’Donohue, “The End of the Year”.

Its imagery captures so well the yoga philosophy which invites us to embrace and harvest all that life has to offer us: the”gifts” and the “surprises”; the “darkened days” and the “days when beloved faces shine brighter…”

Enjoy!

Wishing you happy surprises, peace and much love in the New Year,

Jocelyne and Dr. Jake

“The End of the Year”

The particular mind of the ocean
Filling the coastline’s longing
With such brief harvest
Of elegant, vanishing waves
Is like the mind of time
Opening us shapes of days.

As this year draws to its end,
We give thanks for the gifts it brought
And how they became inlaid within
Where neither time nor tide can touch them.

The days when the veil lifted
And the soul could see delight;
When a quiver caressed the heart
In the sheer exuberance of being here.

Surprises that came awake
In forgotten corners of old fields
Where expectation seemed to have quenched.

The slow, brooding times
When all was awkward
And the wave in the mind
Pierced every sore with salt.

The darkened days that stopped
The confidence of the dawn.

Days when beloved faces shone brighter
With light from beyond themselves;
And from the granite of some secret sorrow
A stream of buried tears loosened.

We bless this year for all we learned,
For all we loved and lost
And for the quiet way it brought us
Nearer to our invisible destination.

JOHN O’DONOHUE

Dear students and friends,
I sit here this morning witnessing the early dawn from my breakfast table, awed by the beautiful stillness of the rose-coloured skyline. Within minutes the rose light has faded.

What a wondrous gift this stillness is as I begin my day.

I pause to soak in the present moment. I look for inspiration to write this morning’s POST. For some reason, the song, “Silent Night” plays in my mind and I become teary eyed as I think of the first two verses of Silent Night,
Silent night, holy night
All is calm, all is bright….

Those two first verses have an effect on me. I stop to observe what it is in these two lines that has caught my heart strings.

I think it is because this is what we are all really seeking: those moments where life stops and we are transported totally into a perfect, present moment. We are immersed temporarily in a world of peace where all is calm and all is bright.

I think this feeling of calm, of brightness is within our grasp more often than we may realize. We just need to stop and observe and be in the present moment. There are perfect moments every day that we miss.

When we practice yoga, we try to move and sink into the present. In doing so, it is an invitation to uplift our spirits and find calm and brightness… and experience a perfect moment.

See you this week, for a magical Christmas practice!

Namaste!
Jocelyne