#1 – I read Wendell Berry's Manifesto: The Mad Farmer Liberation Front during my Monday 6:30 am Copper Falls Poetry Hike. I said after how that poem has been an important one for me for over 20 years and that his line, “Be joyful though you have considered all the facts,” was one I especially needed to hear in my 20's. A woman on the hike asked for the author and name of the poem again because her son is really pessimistic about the world and she wanted to share it with him.
#2 – I have a lot of flexibility in my position at this retreat center, and so I was able to rearrange my class times last week before I submitted my schedule so I could attend the faculty yoga session from 9-10 am. The instructor was here last year and someone I knew I enjoyed. She said there are so many people now who are teaching asana (physical postures), that she now focuses on the philosophy and other aspects along with it.
This I love. We did a little singing/chanting, some postures and then she talked about the wider yoga philosophy.
#3 – I cheered on a few staff after they returned from a multi-night hike. They said they were just talking about me and that the hiker sign out board wasn't kept up the first summer they were here.
#4 – In the afternoon I taught my “Meditative Doodling” class. At the end when I asked people how they felt, a woman shared she was trying to watercolor earlier that day and had been frustrated by not being able to create what she had in mind. She said this on the other hand was freeing.
#5 – I'm leading a Sitting and Walking Meditation class tomorrow morning. The location where we are to meet got put on the schedule incorrectly. This has led me to adjust the class and do something different than I usually do, which I am looking forward to trying.