Sustainability

I've been doing yoga all week. I determined in Meeting for Worship last week that this week I would take a person retreat. I would (and have) read, write, work, and do yoga each day. I work so hard during the year that over the summer it is easy to get into an inertia that doesn't always feel good.  I go to lots of talks, but I do less of the internal stuff that I find sustaining. This week I changed that. I've never done so many days of yoga in a row, and each day I feel new parts of my spirit opening up.   I have often, though, been thinking about the connection between strength and peace, and about how they seem to come from the same source, which is the light within each of us. I've had a specific image of this in my head throughout the week, and tonight I decided to draw it:

Drawing is part of my sustaining practice as well. When I was in an educational leadership program a few years ago, we were all given a copy of a booklet called "Running on Empty" by Paul A. Lacey, which insists on the importance of finding sustainable practices that engage all parts of ourselves, especially through reading, writing, and drawing. He states that "The secret is to find the meaning diffused in our lives as fishes breathe water, drawing the life-giving oxygen from the medium in which they live and move and have their being." Yoga reminds me of that sentiment as well. All that my body offers me is a gift. All the ways in which I am privileged to engage the world are a gift. I am most grateful.