If you could weave something into yourself, what would that be?
This is the question I posed to my students during our fourth Mind, Move, Make class. I almost told them what I would want to weave into myself, but stopped to hear their ideas first. One girl said she would weave the qualities of a wolf into herself. Another girl wanted to weave a rainbow into herself, and when she smiled her teeth would be multi-colored. Finally, I told them that I would love to weave the flight of a bird into myself so that I could soar over the landscape. Two other qualities I'd love to entwine within myself are humor and kindness.
While the students were laying on their yoga mats relaxing and following their breath, I read one of my favorite poem by W.S. Merwin. It is called "Recognitions" and I'll share it here:
Stories come to us like new senses
a wave and an ash tree were sisters
they had been separated since they were children
but they went on believing in each other
though each was sure that the other must be lost
they cherished traits of themselves that they thought of
as family resemblances features they held in common
the sheen of the wave fluttered in remembrance
of the undersides of the leaves of the ash tree
in summer air and the limbs of the ash tree
recalled the wave as the breeze lifted it
and they wrote to each other every day
without knowing where to send the letters
some of which have come to light only now
revealing in their old but familiar language
a view of the world we could not have guessed at
but that we always wanted to believe
After that, we started to move! I explained that next week we would play the game "Yogi Says" and they would each need to remember what their favorite movement pose is so that they can share it with the class. When I explained this, one student asked, "Can we ONLY choose one pose? I like so many of them!" During this class I taught them several new poses, such as Warrior II (Virabhadrasana II), Triangle (Trikonasana), Pigeon, and Dolphin. I'll be interested to learn everyone's favorites next week!
During the art portion of the class we returned to the idea of weaving qualities and characteristics that they admire into themselves. I printed a self-portrait photograph of each child in black and white and intended for them to draw a picture on a separate piece of paper and weave that drawing into their portrait. One student had the idea to use oil pastels to add color to her self-portrait directly on the photograph, and all of the other students loved this idea! Most of the students spent the rest of the class adding vibrant color to their portraits and didn't have time to weave anything into the photograph. The idea of weaving other traits into themselves was not lost, though, because most students transformed themselves into whatever it was they admired using color. We had some very interesting results!
We also completed the fabric rock pouches that we started the first class! Each session we use the rocks to help us focus during balancing poses.
