I told stories in my son’s fifth grade class at Creekside Elementary yesterday. I love this age group because after years and years of my children being these “little kids” in which I developed my work, I now have these little beings who have big brains! And they are ready for more complex, sophisticated material.

As much as I adore the charm and artistic simplicity of early child hood education and the early elementary years, these older years are fun and satisfy my craving to teach about our amazing world!

So for stories this Fall I told a few about death. The Bird That Could Not Die from my E-Book the Skeletons’ Ball, and the traditional Hispanic story of Dona Sebastiana. Then I told them the Old Man Who Could Make Withered Trees Bloom Again. Of course for all of these I bust out the globe and locate the country of the story’s origin. Of course we opened up with some breathing and coming to our senses in the body and becoming present and aware and ready to listen and make pictures in their head as I tell the story.

Afterwards I did a creative writing exercise that was fun. I asked them questions about the Old Man and the Greedy Man’s character. What is their name? What is their favorite thing to do? What do they not like? What is their father’s job? First I had them say it orally, then write it down. It was great fun. Characters named Harold who liked to strap pigs on the back of airplanes, father’s who are Joe Plummer. Then they got up to read theirs if they wished.

I love writing and teaching it to kids. Next month I will work on story structure and see if a kid wants to come up and tell the story.

I believe in oral tradition because it’s about the body. My mission is to get us back to our bodies and listen to the wisdom of that voice of the silence. Jung said the psyche has two components, archetypical and instinctual. Archytuypical is our dreams, fantasties, ideas, but then the instinctual is the body, intuition, our senses.  If we get ourselves and kids back to our bodies, back to our senses, back to the present moment where eternity lies, we are grounded and rest in the depth of being and are united with the cosmos around us, that is us. I think ever since the space age we have especially been disembodied and that’s why we have more ADHD kids. I’m amazed at what shallow breathing kids have, and of course adults! People having strokes at age 39 from smoking and stress. Breathing gets us down in the sacrum, that sacred bowl. The pelvis needs stability, and you get it from the psoas. This amazing muscle I had worked on yesterday in rolfing by the amazing Jeanie Manchester. This muscle has a lot to do with that fight or flight instinct, and it holds trauma and fear. During the session it was so intense sometimes my mind completely stopped and it was like some kind of mystical union with the psoas God.

After an intense and sometimes almost unbearable painful session, I came away amazingly lighter and positive. The energy of an underlying sense of dread disappeared. I was free! I wonder how many people would really benefit from rolfing and the deep release it offers on the body and psyche.

Then I taught after school yoga. I ask the kids what kinds of things are going on in their lives, and they don’t really have an answer rather than video games. So I saw the snack lady Lorna and I thought we’d thank her for all these years bringing us snack for after school! Appreciation was the theme, and I used the Zen story of the Cherry Trees, in which a woman refused shelter finds beauty in the moment while sleeping in a cherry orchard. She is grateful for being refused shelter so that she could have this moment in nature.

I work on a lot of alignment with these kids and talk to them like I’m their motivational coach. It’s upbeat and fun, yet really focusing on the amazing body. How wonderful it is that we have this body! Right now! I get them excited about the power of their body and ability to move and be strong. Slowly correcting hands, ankles, having other kids demonstrate poses and corrections. We did sun salutations, eagle pose, crow pose. One boy whose been with me for three years is going from Crow to headstand and I taught him how to go into plank pose from Crow too and he’s excited. They love handstands and just getting them comfortable trying difficult things out empowers them. They see the results and feel them too!

And of course we spend a lot of time in shavasana. And close with meditation and gratitude! And to practice yoga during the week! Just being aware of breathing is practicing I tell them.

 

I hope you practice more yoga! Wring out that psoas! Open your heart and let go! Teach children!

I think this old world is melting away and something new is emerging. It's about letting go of fear and opening up to gratitude. Have courage! Hold to the center and trust in the heart. Ralph Waldo Emerson went through the US Depression of 1837 and wrote Self-Reliance. Lose everything and gain your Self! When everything melts away, what is there really?

Love, community, joy, nature, art. The things that truly make life ALIVE and awesome. 401K? No Way! What an illusion! Death comes all too soon. Make sure you live and love deeply before it’s time to serve your life up as one beautiful expression of the experience.