Greetings Readers, Teachers, Yogis and Librarians!

Library Week and Poetry Month both fall in April and with all of the yoga classes popping up at libraries over the past few years, you will have plenty of opportunities to sit, write and move!  This is the special formula from the Writing Yoga® method that can help you to live a calmer, more creative and compassionate life.  Each Wednesday there is a new prompt to help you do just that.  Scroll down to get right to it. 

When I was a kid, the library was my favorite place to be. It was quiet and calm and I could read all day long without interruption. When was the last time you got to do ANYTHING without interruption?  Mindfulness was not in the dictionary back then, but the world moved slower without the Internet. Libraries today still have one of the few quiet public places anywhere. So take time this week to sit and mindfully read in your favorite chair or at the library. Maybe even try a...

The cranky man on the supermarket line has a lot to say about you and the terrible state of the world. Everything is going to "hell in a handbasket." The lines on his face detail decades of serious frowning. When someone he knows says, "Hi, how are you today?" The man replies, "Could be better" and goes on to list all the terrible things in his life and the world.

Of course it could be better and there is plenty wrong with the world, but what if you never answered, "I'm great, how are you?"

My nephew always answers this way, "I'm great! How are you?" It makes me smile and say, "I'm great too." Even if I am not great, at that moment I feel great, because optimism is contagious. Our brains go with the information we put inside them. Our bodies follow those instructions. You make your own instruction manual. Are your instructions: a) be great or b) go to "hell and an handbasket."

I am not encouraging forced happiness, fake laughter, and blind positive thinking. That can...

If you know me well, you know I am a tropical climate kind of human. You don't see turtles and egrets walking in snow. My family has been coming down to Florida for decades, not in a fancy kind of way, but in a swim in the gulf, grill some veggies and walk on the Pinellas Trail kind of way. 

On a walk in this breezy easy part of Southwest Florida, a turtle blended in with the grass. Unexpectedly large, totally still, and hanging steady on the lawn, we watched her for a while. Was she alive? Where did she come from? How did she get here? 

While we studied her shell, she suddenly turned her head at us and ran away.

Great to meet you turtle, glad you are on your way to bigger and better things.  

WRITING YOGA® PROMPT #2005: Keep Going, Turtle

SIT: Be the Turtle 

Turtles can remain still for a very long time.  How long can you sit before you need to adjust your shirt, scratch an itch or change your posture. In Transcendental Mediation, a...

Much of the year, most of us live and work in climate controlled environments. Bugs are not welcome. Spring invites us to get outside and create.

In the school where I work as a librarian, the kids are developing a native pollinator garden.  I didn't even know it was a thing! The idea is to plant native flowers and hopefully attract native insects and birds to pollinate them. It involves dirt. The delicate among us might complain, but we will work together as a community to make it happen. The majority of my students do not have ancestors who know what the soil looked like 500 years here. Nature returns to Long Island. 

Our students are anxious to plant, but the soil needs to be prepared. We are turning over grass and putting down organic mulch. The hardest part of it all is being patient! The ground is ready but the air is not.

What are you preparing for now? How do you stay patient when all you want to do is get close to the ground and plant?

WRITING YOGA®...

A recent challenge with a coworker left me reeling. I often hear from clients and colleagues about serious challenges, inequities and outright mean-spirited behavior that they must deal with on a daily basis. Maybe that is you?  I rarely experience conflicts and live in a way that makes conflict rare, but as a human, it can and will happen.

In this situation, I compromised, but also took a good look at myself. What could I do better? How can I validate their experience? Were they right? Well, no, they were out of line, outright wrong, but does it matter?  

Acceptance is key. Having healthy outlets like yoga and a meditation practice discharge the negativity of others and so after steaming about the conflict and the injustice of it all, I am back in balance. I said what I needed to say, left them to think about it, and let-it-go.

Reading the Tao Te Ching, translated by Stephen Mitchell, really helps me think about balance and how to live in a...

You can't blame the people of Long Island. Until recently, most cultural, literary, and historic landmarks were hard to find.  As a reader of blog posts with Whitman in the title you might not believe me, but it seems that more Long Islanders have heard of the Walt Whitman Mall than its namesake.

For the record, Walt Whitman was born on Long Island and the mall came second. 

When my children were younger, I would explore the small grounds of his birthplace, have a picnic and visit the museum and interpretive center. So much has changed! The WWBA now offers regular programing and some are over zoom so visits can happen without leaving your house. 

I wrote the poem "Concrete Walt" with all of our multitudes in mind. In the spirit of Whitman, I imagined the Indigenous Long Islanders, the sailors and farmers, shoppers at the mall across the street, bugs and birds hiding in trees, the pollution below. All of it. 

The land where the mall sits...

I've been obsessed with this collection of poetry called Poetry Unbound: 50 Poems to Open Your World by Pádraig Ó Tuama. I bought the audiobook for a trip knowing nothing more than the title.

From my journal: On the plane/close my eyes/relax my hands/ press play. It's familiar words, my former poetry teacher, mystical, brilliant. She is speaking to me. Her voice/not her voice/ every voice: 

I pray for this to be my way: sweet

work alluded to in the body's position to its paper:

left hand, right hand

like an open eye, an eye closed:

one hand flat against the trapdoor,

the other hand knocking, knocking.

- Aracelis Girmay.

Her class was just as magical as those words. Poetry was a place both sweet and haunting. It makes us question, think and feel.   Pádraig Ó Tuama chose poets from all around the world who accomplish all that. We are different. We are the same.

I have studied under, watched, read and listened to most of the poets in this...

What does your Valentine's Day look like?  Maybe you are having an overpriced meal with someone special or perhaps you are staying home with the cats and reading a page turner. This holiday can be rough or wonderful depending upon where you are in life. 

What I love about mindfulness practices and yoga philosophy is that it teaches us to be with "what is" and to not judge ourselves or others. There are so many mental and physical associations with this particular holiday, but what if you could just celebrate the day as it is without any expectations? 

Take a few minutes to focus on your breath if you are feeling anxious today. Allow your thoughts and feelings to pass through you without judging them. If something feels uncomfortable, can you simply notice that feeling, take a deep breath, and watch it pass? 

Writing down your thoughts and feelings in a mindful way can also be a big relief. It is better to have uncomfortable thoughts as energy on the page...

Does the word "creativity" make you think of paint, clay, and kids playing dress up?  We all start out creative, but school and adult life might make us think that creativity is something to be left to artists and geeks. Then we get to the workplace and are expected to be innovative and productive. Hmm, don't we need to be creative for that? 

Life is creative. All of it. We are born from its impulse. We grow up, thrive, and participate in the human experience because creativity is our nature. 

If you have lost your creative spark, here are 12 words to think about: 

1. Imagine
2. Plant
3. Air
4. Mix
5. Illuminate 
6. Collect 
7. Shift 
8. Stretch 
9. Reflect 
10. Propel 
11. Focus 
12. Release 

Start with your imagination. Collect your ideas and then shape them, mix, illuminate, reflect and focus on what you want to bring into the world. When you are ready, release your creation! 

Print out this post, cut out the words, and use as "creativity...

Our principal asked us to pick a word at the start of the school year. The word would be our North Star to guide our goals, inform our lessons, and inspire us to do great work. School initiatives sometimes fall away as the year progresses, but a good administrator won't let that happen.

She didn't let that happen. We revisited our words at the start of the new year. What would your word be?

It feels poetic to pick just one word. No long lists, no big visions, no novels. I thought about it for days. Nothing felt right. If you know my work, you know that there are three words I think about a lot: calm, creative, and compassionate. It is my desire to see all students, teachers and classrooms feel that way in every school around the world.  But these words can't be separated. 

Why?  It is easy to be calm if we feel safe. When we feel safe, we are free to find creative solutions, work harder, and take big risks. Safety means we are not threatened...