Boo.

I’m still here. For which I’m immensely grateful.

Moving on to related news…

I’m not sure about you, but I can’t quite give the year of 2021 a score of

“10, PERFECT, FLAWLESS!!!!!!!!!”

as if I were watching Michelle Kwan own the ice 20 years ago.

Nope.

It’s felt pretty sucky for me. And yeah, I can dive into the details and mindfully invoke the million pinpricks of starlight to remind myself it wasn’t as sucky as my negativity bias wants me to think.

Or I can just let it feel sucky for now.

Why does it feel sucky?

And because I gave up a whole lotta’ me to get through it.
To get my kids through it.
To get my family through it.And standing back up again, finding my edges, figuring out my way…
none of that is proving to be easy or straightforward.

So there you go.

When my nephew died, I remember this thing my sister, a Latin Teacher to middle schoolers for the past 15+ years, said…

“I don’t know how to be a mother to a dead son, but I do know how to teach. So I’ll do that for now and figure out the other.”

Wisdom speaks.
Grief reveals.
And here we are.

I’m grateful to once again invite you to join me in-person for some much needed yoga. Really and truly a class of few words, and much movement, stillness and breath.
And all for a heart holding cause.

4th Annual Donation class in benefit of Transitions Hospice Care
In Grief and Gratitude –
All-Levels Gentle Flow Yoga class and Share sessionDate: Saturday, December 18th

Time: 3:30-5:30pm

Location: Yoga-Mojo Studio*
1127 Kildaire Farm Road, Cary, NC

Register here – Space is limited to allow distancing

*Please note Yoga-Mojo Studio requires all studio teachers and students to be fully vaccinated.

3:30-4:30pm is the time for our All-Levels Gentle flow and 4:30-5:30pm is the time to share my homemade chai and reflections on grief, gratitude, or the messy mix of both. (So yeah, there’s gonna be more words in that part.) You can journal beforehand and read it, you can speak to whatever arises for you, or you can sit in silence and bear witness to others.

And if you want to practice but are either out of the area or unable to attend, drop me a note and I’ll send you a Vimeo link on the 18th for a pre-recorded class. I’ll also include a few options on how you can submit a donation.This offering means a great deal to me.

It’s in honor of my nephew,
it’s in honor of my dear friend’s father and her brother,
it’s in honor of my dear friend’s husband,
it’s in honor of my dear friend’s mother,
and on and on…

And it’s in honor of the empty space that remains once the bodies are gone.
And it’s in honor of the fact that we’d have it no other way than to
grieve the loss of a life well lived.

People have passed.
Time has passed.
Things are different than we thought they would be.

We must make space for the sadness, the wanting.
We must honor the grief of knowing more, seeing more and feeling more
in these years of 2020 and 2021.

These years of plenty and not enough all at once.

As Frank Ostaseski says, grief needs time and loving attention.

Let us offer it that which it needs.

Register now and we’ll do what we can together.

Take good care,
Rachel