Mary Oliver Poem Inspired My Class

Following the session I led at the International Yoga Day celebrations at Alexandra Palace, a few people have written to ask about the quotation I used to open the practice.

It comes from the poet Mary Oliver:

Listen, are you breathing just a little, and calling it a life?

When I first came across those words, they stopped me in my tracks.

Not because they were asking a question about breathing, but because they seemed to ask a much bigger question about how we live.

As I reflected on International Yoga Day and what it means to me, I found myself wondering:

Are we loving just a little, and calling ourselves connected?

In a world that can so easily pull us in different directions, yoga offers an opportunity to return to ourselves and, through that, to one another.

That is why I chose to share a simple practice. Nothing complicated. Just breath and movement, brought together with awareness.

As we moved, I invited everyone to notice not only their own experience, but also the experience of practising as part of a larger whole. For a few moments, breath, movement and intention became shared.

There was something beautiful about that.

People from different backgrounds, traditions and walks of life gathering together, moving, breathing and practising side by side.

For me, this is one of the gifts of yoga. Not that it makes us all the same, but that it reminds us of the connection that already exists between us.

In love and gratitude.