The relief of grief

Dear Ones,

1/

It has been a revelation this year to discover that from the 5 element theory of ancient China, grief and sorrow are a part of the autumn season. 

I can remember standing in my red velvet dress and white tights surrounded by the church congregation for midnight service on Christmas night. It is a memory in my body, the Wisconsin winter outside biting cold and the warmth of all the people lit only by candlelight. We stood as we sang the hymns and I would cry through all of it. I longed to sing along, to be part of the current, but it was so overwhelming - the fleeting inclusion of the moment. I felt how precious it was, how miraculous and whole, and how soon it would be over. 

I’ve always felt a shadow of sorrow in the holidays. 

This is a time of conclusion, leaves falling, plants settling into dormancy, the birds migrate and the animals settle deep into nests and dens. The bustle of life for the year is ending. That’s all.

I have come to see grief as the decomposition of past joys. The entangled life of fungal forces in the soil breaks down what was alive so that it can return in new form. The more I make myself available to the ebb and flow, the light and dark, the forces that are digesting and providing all around me, the more I can welcome in ease with similar familiarity to joy. My own soil is enriched.

Here is a poem from Rosemary Wahtola Trommer, writing just now, a year after her son took his life...

Of Course I Am Grateful, And

December 12, 2024 by Rosemerry
 
Forgive me if, as we wade through
December’s blue shadows,
if, as we pull the wood toboggan
across the basin of field,
if, as we wander through spruce,
as we traverse the crystal petals
of hoar frost, forgive me if, on this most
perfect day when I am so deeply
in love with my girl and my husband
and the day itself, forgive me if
as we cut down the finest,
most symmetrical Christmas tree
we’ve ever found, if in the midst
of beauty and luck and laughter and joy
I also feel inside me the ache
for the boy who would now
be a man who is not
with us here. Forgive me.
It’s all so beautiful. And still
this sorrow. How they mix together
like vinegar and pure water—
completely dissolved into each other.
I couldn’t begin to tell you what it means,
this tear.

2/ 

The depth of autumn was a stranger to me. I’ve found the grief creates a softening, an opening and I am more available to wherever I am. What is here with me? I am available to the unfamiliar; even and especially the aspect of me and my loves that I just don’t know yet; seeing the adult arriving through my child and meeting them there, anew. And as I noticed, of course other conversations of ‘strangers’ showed up in the magic of my life.  I share one here with you:  A Stranger's Love discussed and recited by David Whyte. absolutely worth the 8 minute listen. Enjoy.

3/

My crying in the candlelit church had a desperation. Please don’t go, I was calling to the light and the sound. Please stay. Please don’t change. But true Nature is change, and change is everything. 

I devoted the past year to the deeper wisdom of the seasons. I am grateful-er and grateful-er for the practices that make it possible to see instead of run.  They enabled me to revel in a moment even as it passes. 

In the coming year I will keep my 40 day online offerings aligned to the outer seasons and in 2025 we will add the wisdom of our inner energies, the chakras. 

Join in as you will. Live practice Monday Wednesday and Friday mornings 8am EST starts Monday, December 30 for Winter 1. Register here. 
...
Take your time. Let your heart be heavy and slow sometimes. I think this is part of the colds and flus of the year, a general running against the pace of the dark. If we slow sometimes, listening, there is plenty of space and energy for the light of the holidays as we gather. 

my best to you, Martha
...
TRIBE will be closed December 23, 24, and 25. We reopen to a regular schedule December 26.

I will teach the morning of December 31, 8:30-9:45am for a special end of year class.

I will lead Kundalini by Candlelight January 1 4-5:30pm (note the time!), 

and a half-day retreat with Lola January 4 to trace the maps of the year ahead through our bodies, minds, and spirits. Will be a remarkable journey! January 4, 1-7pm at TRIBE. Register here. 

Online with me Monday Wednesday and Friday mornings 8am EST starts Monday, December 30 for Winter 1. Register here. 
...
"I have spent my life learning to love these shapeless hours before the light finds us, these shadowsome nights when my whole being seems to stretch beyond the bed, beyond the room, beyond the home, beyond the valley, beyond even the globe, as if I rhyme with the dark all around us, the dark that holds us, the dark that surrounds this whole swirling spiral of galaxy." - Rosemary Wahtola Trommer

Lessons from an end-of-life course

Dear Ones,

This week I conclude my elder care / death doula course from Choose Nurture. The biggest learning has been that I find I am far more aware of the ending in everything. Everything has a beginning, a life of its own, a conclusion, and then a return. This newsletter begins, you read through, you finish, you open the next. And there are systems within systems that are living and leaving as well. For example, you get emails from me and finish with them, and new ones can follow. And you get emails in general which you sit down and read. Once concluded, you can use your time for something else.

Finishing is essential. And often not my strong point. I don’t want to finish a good book; I want the story to go on and if I don’t finish, it is still there. But in that lingering presence, still alive in my time, it starts to block the current of other books, other activities. I start another, I start another… There is actually a neurological chemistry that is set in motion when we begin that waits to be completed and bring the brain to rest.

To be honest, this has hampered me all my life and stems from a sense of deep shortage that there just won’t be enough; not enough time, not enough soap, not enough love, not enough awareness. So I hold on and hope what I have doesn’t end.

While the course was practical in health directives, difficult conversations, bedside manner in hospice, for me it was beneficial for the simple direct confrontation - all things end. Time with a community of people to discuss and resources to explore was life-changing. My life has a new quality of flow and participation as I learn to apply all of the death and dying lessons to the dailiness of each day and action. Overall, these were my top take aways for instruction on being with the dying:

1/ Witness. Be present. I notice my inclination to rush around, do things. I notice my inclination towards being overwhelmed when I experience grief or loss. I notice both of these are enormous depletions of energy that take me away from an experience at hand rather than towards it or better yet, through it. Haste, drama, blame are all a means to be absent from the intensity of the moment. I know better. I know the fortitude of my physical form, I know the steady, relentlessness of my breath that is always with me. Be present, Martha. Steady, girl, as my father would say.

I am learning to slow down, to stand in the thick of it, to let it wash through, to let it conclude, whatever it is, and then return in new form.

If I can show up with grace and order and presence, this can be the greatest balm to all involved.

2/ It’s happening everywhere. SA TA NA MA as our mantras teach us. Birth, Life, Death, Rebirth. It is everywhere. Death is everywhere. As is birth. Seeing one I can see the other, and then relish what lies between them more fully. Mourn the loss. Feel. Move it through. There will be more to feel. And more to feel. And more to feel.

I sat in the sun with the cat on my lap and felt her breath on my arm as she slept. I felt her breath on my arm. So precious, each little, moist puff, knowing she would wake and hop down.

Our homeschooling has ended. My dinner has ended. My sister’s dog has passed. A new family has moved in who homeschool. Breakfast is packed and prepared in the fridge. Aware of the smaller cycles of starts and finishes I feel more prepared for the larger endings of marriages, jobs, and lives. I feel more awake.

3/ My practice is essential. I have new appreciation for my time on my mat, new dedication to pedaling uphill and meeting the places I’d rather get off, and building the neutrality of mind for one more, one more, one more so I can stay..

Not only have I learned to call on this before engaging in a charged environment where other hearts are feeling big feelings, but also as a means to process what I have accumulated so the return can be clearer, the flow more free. Go walking. Find a rhythm, walk and walk and walk it out so that there is clarity at the end. Write. Sing. Shake. Scrub the floors and dishes and desk, re-home what I’m done with so that new things can come through.

It takes routine, consistency, and boundaries. It requires a form of basic human hygiene: regulate to ride the disregulation, not to ignore it or stop it. Build systems of time and attention in my world so that the joy and pain of these modern days can be seen and felt without building into symptoms to force us to stop and attend.

Don’t stop, Martha. Don’t close down in fear that it won’t last. It’s passing. All of it. But you can prepare to stay moment by moment. Steady, girl.

May these thoughts serve you.

All love and blessings, Martha

…

UPCOMING:

RETREAT I will be teaching at a retreat / min-festival with 3 other teachers. We are hosted by ChoZen in Sebastian, FL which is a eco-sanctuary / retreat space that integrates land, farm, community, and retreat space.

March 13-17, 2025 ChoZen Retreat Center

There will be daily kundalini, vinyasa, breathwork, hot/cold plug, even stand-up paddle board classes and dharma talks. Plenty to do, lovely varied accommodations to rest in, and farm-to-table meals for all. Please let me know if you are interested. Registration is accessible through my website.

I don’t make any money from this gathering. But I am keen to support an effort to be more ecologically aware of how we can gather in Nature with less impact and more collaboration with the site, the teachers, and the community. If you are interested, take a look at the retreat home page hosted by FloYo Wellness and the site of ChoZen. All the information and links are also on my website.

…

AND mark your calendars, I will teach my annual January 1 class : Kundalini by Candlelight - with the cards around the room, candles, and an amazing practice that will take us through body and through the seasons of 2025. 4 - 5:30pm @ TRIBE

I am with you

Dear Ones

Part 1/

I was in meditation this morning with the cat on my lap.

She was deeply asleep, draped over one of my knees.

A loud sound from the corridor caused her to jolt awake, it was the clatter of a box being thrown hurriedly into the recycling room. And I tried to tell her this, I reached out to her, I cooed and coaxed but she had bolted into the closet and wouldn’t be reassured.

I knew what the sound was.
I knew it wouldn’t harm her.
I knew that it was safe for her and that she could come back to the cozy lap with me.
I knew and I could protect her if needed, but it wasn’t needed. It was ok.

It was suddenly clear to me, how often I must seem to be doing exactly the same thing. Loud, unfamiliar things happen in my life and I bolt for the closet.Forces larger, wiser, kinder than I have a perspective that is more than I can imagine. And still, I think I need to protect myself. I think I am the only one who understands the full ramifications and I am the only one with a plan that can save me.

And what if there was Grace, as large as I am to the cat, cooing, coaxing me back out to her lap to sit again in her safety? What if her safety was larger and more comprehensive than anything I could conjure for myself? And what if I could unravel the story that I must protect myself from the unknown, the unplanned, the seeming disaster? What if I could practice daily to allow a connection to such Grace and trust in a care around me that can barely be named?

I am with you.

These words materialized in my mind.

I am with you rang through my silent seated self as I softened my perimeter, the space around me. 

I am with you. 

Part 2/

Elizabeth Gilbert’s Letters from Love are a practice of what is called 2-way prayer.

1-way prayer is the supplicant calling out for help or in praise, thanks, or awe. It’s prayer moving from me to you. But 2-way prayer is the permission to open ourselves, to write a letter to ourselves through the energy of Love as we could imagine or feel Love would correspond with us. I can write the question, “Dear Love, what would you have me know today?” And, remarkably, I can reply in the voice of Love. (Try it. Let me know. What comes to me has always been a surprise.)

And here, in this morning’s meditation, in this phrase, as soon as it came to mind, it doubled back and found another dimension.

I am with you.

A whisper. A reminder. I am not alone.

And in that, a dissolving. I, Martha, can join in. I am with you, was my reply as I listened to the tumble of the river outside. the clattering of the October wind through the drying leaves. I am with you, I say to this season, this morning, this sound and light. I am with you, is the answer but I don’t know anymore whose voice it is. 

Part 3/

This comes, I think from the readings and reflections of my choose nurture death doula course, and our current Kundalini practice of Awakening the 10 Bodies where day after day we are moving through out energies and cleaning house. I feel that for 20 days I’ve been opening windows and doors that had closed through past experience and conditioning. I am ready to pass through them, pass out of the limits I’ve known and into something quite different.

To sit deeply with the considerations of death, to let this form dissolve daily, to know that as it does I am not lost but instead part of larger, different things - these are big thoughts. And just for a moment this morning, after trying to console the cat who couldn’t see that the unknown was not annihilation, for a moment, I could feel that I was in everything.

I am with you.

All love, Martha

…

Yesterday was Indigenous People’s Day. The more disaster I feel us bring upon ourselves, the more respect I have for ways of thinking in which humans can keep company with the living world with respect and over time. 

I highly recommend an amazing documentary entitled The Last of the Sea Women. It is about the Haenyeo of South Korea, incredible women who dive for seafood without oxygen tanks.  Everything about these women is worth celebrating and learning from but I will focus on one statement: “As Haenyeos, the ocean feeds us, and feels like our mother's arms.”

I pass on this note from Chris Knapp of Maine Local Living School:

“I am learning to feel the embrace of the earth. We feel strongly that this is a right of all humans and an experience that informs responsibility and creativity in caring for the one who hugs us. This is not a claim of indigeneity but an exploration of the capacity of all humans to experience profound connection to land and place. To echo the words of the Haenyeo, this is hard work but the joy of living in reciprocity feels like a hug.

On this day and every other let us join our hearts and heads in recognition of the knowledge keepers, the elders, the stories, and the modeling of mutually nurturing human-earth relationships held by the world's Indigenous peoples.”

...
I am reading Ishmael by Daniel Quinn and rewriting the cultural mythology I stand on.

I am listening to Tim Ferris talk with Liz Gilbert and taking notes.

I am learning from choose nature's end of life course which concludes next week. It has changed everything. Next session starts Jan 22 - April 16, 2025

Lessons from 10 years of homeschooling

Dear Ones,

For years I wondered if I was doing a good job of homeschooling. When you are an outlier, creating as you go, it can be disconcerting to try to get a read on where you are, where you are headed, and how it’s going. All I knew is that I wanted my kids to be kind, creative, and skilled at learning so they could keep learning their whole lives long. 

At the Wild + Free conference I attended last weekend I had the chance to finally feel done - I’d done it. We’d homeschooled. And we’d done it well. Whew. 

These were the three ideas that seemed relevant to all of us, homeschooled or not: 

1/ Learn, move, live at your own unique pace. And, this will change month by month, project by project, day by day. When we tune in and really provide a full choice for ourselves about our pace we are in a totally different dimension. There are times when full throttle is perfect and I am bringing in the groceries on two wheels while licking the stamps for the post and updating my website. Then there are other days when I am reading three things at once, basking in being off the clock, marinating in the ideas that surface to thrill and to guide me. If I were to reverse them I’d be pulling unripe ideas out of the ground like angry carrots and wandering the grocery aisles hoping for inspiration to strike. Realize that there are multiple paces on any give day and be sure your are dialed into your choice and let it last as long as it need to support you.

2/ Go deep on what feels important to you. Lean in. Yes, buy the books! Sign up for the course, even if you only show up for one of the live sessions and watch two of the replays. Maybe that’s all you needed. Trust your interests. Book the tickets. Get the magnifying glass and spend hours on details no one else would appreciate. Revel in your own curiosity. I believe our wonder is our compass, charting lives no one else could guess or understand. 

Each of us has a particular role to play - yogis call it dharma. It’s why you’re here. And your interests are how you are prepared for your dharma. And it is going on our entire lives. Comparative Literature was not a big vocational preparation except for book editing. My love of movement and yoga seemed like a hobby and personal therapy.  A graduate degree in experiential curriculum design couldn’t find a home. Over 1,000 hours in philosophy and yoga courses and retreats seemed like overkill. But it all fit together into a life I love so fully and truly that I could never want another.  I believe we are all being prepared to live our dharma. Keep leaning into the quirks and the questions and the things you really really really love to do. It’s adding up.

3/ Read. Read with friends, read outdoors, keep a book in your bag always - for times of just in case. Yes, be discerning and notice the pile of unread books. But here’s where I’m at… I have unread books too. In the past they haunted me. But I am learning that books have deep duration - they have holding power. Sometimes, the times we buy them are not the times to read them. Now, with the kids out, with a clearer path ahead of my own, I am digging into books that have been sleeping since their purchase and I am so glad they are right here for me right now. 

Plus, reading uses and trains our brains in ways nothing else does. Reading daily is a mental restructuring that repairs the quick and fractured nature of online life.  Every topic has a book. Or reach back into something you got but never opened. Try it out. Let me know how it goes. 

I’ll never stop homeschooling. It’s just learning outside of the box. It’s what I do all day. It’s what I teach and how I teach it. New classes and events on the schedule.

And if you feel called, join me for an immersion of learning at Tribe in Baltimore.

Ownership is the first installment of three courses to convey what I’ve learned from 30 years of practice. When we take ownership we take hold of our lives and our circumstances, look them in the eye, and decide how we would proceed. There are so many reasons not to. There are so many ways we have been rewarded for doing what we are expected to. But that leads to burnout, resentment, despair, and disease. The longer we live, the longer the wrong choices can accumulate in us. There is time to turn to a new page and to build the strength to be fully in our choices. Take Ownership.

October 4, 5, 6 and 11, 12, 13
Fridays 6-9pm, Saturday 12-3pm, Sundays 12-3pm

Register at Tribe. $350 both weekends or $175 for one (yup, you can come for just one)

Come join in. I’ll meet you there.
All love, Martha 

From disability to superpower

Dear Ones,

I’ve taken to choosing three texts (books, articles, recipes, even Tarot) and reading from each then letting them talk amongst themselves inside me as I walk or work. 

Which to choose? They tell me. I’m just the listener. The more open my inquiry, the more remarkable the combination. 

I’ve been hard on myself all my life for not being more linear, straight to the point, checking the box. I often wake already feeling behind, knowing the doing won’t get done. 

Recently, in deep conversation with my mom who has taught Myers Briggs Type Indicator for decades, I am learning to understand my ways more closely, I am determined to find my superpowers. INFP here. Introverted, iNtuitive, Feeling, Perceptive.

Often I am in the middle of many books, courses, articles. This has felt like failure. But it has also felt like home. I worked with mom and MBTI for insights - how to find what I am truly equipped for in this lifetime? 

I can handle multiples. 

I love the composite. Complexity. Chaos. 

I've given myself full permission, rather than trying to reign it in, what if I let it loose?  Mornings recently I read from three sources and then my natural ability of letting them integrate moves them from three to One. Every morning so far has been a little miracle. 

I am kinder with myself from this perspective; the morning feels fertile and messy and alive. It feels true to me, and that feels on target.

I will post occasional findings from my three-book mornings on my substack. Read there if you like.

Thank you, mama. 
Thank you, body. 
Thank you, Martha. 

What are you trying to fix that might hold your miracle?
Let it be a consideration, a door. 
I believe in who we are before we tried to be someone else.

All love, 
Martha

Learning to “see no stranger”

Dear Ones,

Throughout our current 40 days of Summer 1 online practice together we have been refining vishuddha - the energy at the throat. In the Kundalini Upanishads it is written that vishuddha (vi-very, shuddha-purificaiton / clarity) is the place of harmonization. As we activate and organize this energy it affects how and what we say and hear, internally and externally. 

Adam and I were out picking blackberries to store for the winter recently and I greeted everyone in line as we stood to buy our boxes. I smiled at the families, the fidgety kids, the foreign grandparents. It felt like sharing sunshine to look at them and say good morning, and they returned my smile - not just a cursory, polite “hello” but a real connection, their eyes bright and a smile with teeth and even some dimples. 

Most of you know me as a teacher and as a teacher it is my role to be welcoming and to be inclusive. But outside of my work I can be a downright hermit. I can wait along the edge of the aisle at the grocery so the coast is clear and no greeting is needed. Ever since I was little I would cringe at the enormity of interest my mom would take in the grocery cashier or the usher at church or the bus driver or my 3rd grade teacher. Interest in their studies or their family or their recent move. Oh, mama, come oooooonnnnn, leave them be, I would grown internally. I wondered if that would be how I greeted when I grew up.

Nope. I have not greeted in this way much in my adult life. I think I have been afraid of how I would be perceived. I would fall short if I was noticed, I was sure of it. Or something more would be asked of me and what if I did a poor job of it? Either way, just be invisible by way of not really initiating contact. These are rusty, ancient stories in my system.

But here, in the blackberries, I couldn’t help myself. It felt so good. 

“I see no stranger, said Guru Nanak, “I see no enemy.” Guru Nanak taught that all of us could see the world in this way. There is a voice inside each of us called haumai, the I that names itself as separate from You. It resides in the bowl that holds our individual consciousness. But separateness is an illusion. When we quiet the chatter in our heads through music or mediation or citation or song, the boundaries begin to disappear. The bowl breaks. for a moment, we taste the truth, sweet as nectar - we are part of one another. Joy rushes in. Long after the moment passes we can choose to remember the truth of our interconnectedness, that we belong to one another. We can choose to “see no stranger.” 

- from See No Stranger by Valerie Kaur

The Kundalini Upanishads go on to say that this space of vishuddha, the space of the throat between the heart and the head, this is the place that “transmutes poisons into nectar.” 

Old stories of fear, shortage, insufficiency create discouragement / dis-couragement / separation from our hearts (French cœurs = heart). Old stories are known in the mind, but told in our words. And in my words I describe my circumstances, I reinforce my reality. Old stories are also stored in the body. To transmute them we can move the body, move the patterns of energy we hold there, elevate our energies to new frequencies so that the water in the cells is shifted and re-known / re-expressed. This is the energy of this sequence. 

The result of days and days of practice is that the poison of separation held in my cells can be transformed into a nectar of bliss, the pleasure of reaching out, wholeheartedly saying hello when otherwise I might look away. I didn't decide this change. It just feels better to greet and acknowledge and connect than not to. Magic.

“Hello,” I say to you right now. Hello. I offer a smile, an embrace, an honest inquiry of “How are you?” I am so very glad for your eyes upon these words, may they be the bridge between us. Hello. Hello. Hello.

This energy of engagement has also reached through the ether to result in invitations from colleagues, other studios, other organizations - come work with us, they say, we would appreciate your time. We choose you. We are not strangers.

This deep connection is the opportunity of every moment, the purpose of each practice. The deep summer is a time for fire, a time for transformation.

Shift your frequency in whatever way you will: walk, sing, pet your cat, make quiche with the girt of the neighbors’ eggs, stand in the rain, pedal your bike. Move. And then roll your head forward and back, side to side, flush out what you find and let your smile grow. 

Now is the time. Shift poisons to nectar.

See no stranger.

…

If you like, you are invited to join in for the final week of this vishuddha sequence:

LIVE I will be teaching it live at Tribe (107 E. Preston St) Monday and Wednesday noon, Tuesday and Thursday at 6:15pm. 

ONLINE Or reach out to me and join live on zoom 8-9am Monday, Wednesday or Friday or ask for a link to the replay. 

ALWAYS The door stands open. You are no stranger to me.

FREE ON YOUTUBE I will be teaching vinyasa + a quick kriya live on YouTube next Wednesday July 31, Thursday August 1, and Friday August 2. Join in free. Links will be posted on my homepage. Bring a friend. Share it with a friend who would be interested in a 40 day practice. 

Summer 2 sequence starts Monday August 5, 8-9am on zoom. Register on my website. The first 20 days we will be doing Surya Kriya - the kriya for the sun, we are solar bodies, made of light - and Kriya for the 10 Bodies for the second 20. Align with the season. Get organized from inside out. Portable as you travel through the summer. Indispensable as you navigate the months ahead. 

Learning how to decompose

Dear Ones,

Whew, i’m scooty. Indecisive. Scattered. Moving from one thing to another. Both hungry to be totally still and itchy to get moving. I start something, it feels dissatisfying, I start something else, I go back.

Do you feel this? This is the transition. The place where the ground is softening, but the seeds are waiting waiting waiting for the right duration of light to emerge. To emerge. Waiting.

Here in Maryland beside the river where I live, all the trees are still brown. Today the sky is grey. And yet, right now, if you took the time you would see the mosses are their brightest green. They take in this soft light, this misty day, the kindness of 40-50 degrees. When the days brighten, the new leaves of the undergrowth will cover them and the mosses will protect and provide for the soil. Such perfect design. 

I think of this because I know I am a part of these cycles. I know my body knows these seasons. I know my agitation is a first stirring of what will come in just a week or two. A perfect clear, breezy spring day will arrive and my mind will clear and the projects will align and the work will be a channel running fast again. For now, I am part of the spring mists.

I am learning to lean into what is going on around me in the woods and in the water. It is indicative of what's going on inside of me. Our current 40 day sequence is aptly named Nearly Ready - that moment when you are awake, but not yet out of bed, the stretch and yawn and then the pause - nearly ready. The woods still grey but almost humming with what’s to come.

This morning sequence has built my stamina to stay in what I feel, to open the aperture of my capacity so I can feel more with less agitation. So I can feel more agitation with less reactivity.  This is training ground for the action of the summer ahead. Let it start softly, personally. Let it slowly build my capacity for calm in the discomfort, in the direct seeing of my shortcomings or abilities, just learning to stay in a gesture, moving my arms and breath steadily for 3 minutes is enough to learn to expand rather than contract - this is the message of Nearly Ready. Take my time. And trust any agitation in the days ahead. Know I are a being of Nature. And how good that is. Everything everything everything changes. And so too will this season. 

…

For this time of change, of decomposition, I highly suggest this podcast. For the Wild talks with Merlin Sheldrake, author of Entangled Life, which is an incredibly poetic and revelatory exploration of the world of mycelium and rhizomes, the networks of fungi that circulate intelligence and nutrients into nearly every living thing. These are the forces of this moment in our year, the space between the death and void of winter and the fertile return of light and life. 

Fungi are the place that stitches death into life and makes life out of death. 

Don’t roll your eyes at a podcast about fungi, my loves! This is the piece i’ve been missing. This is the ongoing force and wonder that stitches our whole world together. Everything you ate today was made possible through the processes of fungi. All the plantlife we see around us, love around us, relies on the mycelia. They are the rumination after a long talk when you finally understand a friend in a new way. They are the integration after a loss or a separation or a hurt begins to feel bearable. They are the digestion after a big meal. They are the network between us that took these words from my laptop to a server to other servers to others and out to you. This mycelial process is everywhere and deserves such wonder and respect.

“Decomposition is a rearrangement of possibility; it is a restructuring or transformation vs a destruction. Decomposition can include ideologies, laws, societal structures, physical structures. It can rearrange our thinking to consider what are the conditions we can create to hasten decomposition on its way? What are the nutrients and healthy by-products, how could we be nourished by the transformation of unhelpful constructs?

We aren’t in control of the organisms as they ferment and change one thing into another, they will respond in the ways they choose, especially when working with wild cultures and microbes. There is a dance where some things are in our control and some aren’t. Our opportunity is to be in community with the fungi. What if I give them control? What lures can I offer to attract an outcome? How can I tempt an outcome vs. forcing or pushing or dominating something which stems from our own assumption or expectation?”
...

CLASSES
1/ Come connect to the seasons. Join the next 40 days starting March 20 - April 29, live MWF 8-9am. Details here. 

If you are curious, but unsure, email me and I will send you a recent recording to try for yourself.

2/ I will teach live Sunday March 17 - a free class at the R House Garage 10:00-11:30, all levels. Mostly standing warm-up, asana, a standing kriya, and Yoga Nidra. A journey of the heart. Register here. If you plan to come, BRING A BLANKET xx

3/ My full in-person schedule starts April 8 at TRIBE. Details and schedule are on my homepage. 
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READING
This winter has been unexpectedly rich in great reading for me. Such a perfect time to curl up and go in, into ideas, into recipes, into stories. Such winter travels are my favorite. 

Check out my bookshelf Best of 2024 (so far) on Bookshop. It is a mix of fiction and non. Resources and revelations. The fiction in particular has been very moving, and almost more informative than the non-fiction, especially in the retelling of women’s stories. As I read new stories, my sense of my self as Woman changes, my sense of place in myself is enriched and explored. Tell me how they strike you.

Returning to studio teaching

Dear Ones,

I'll be teaching live studio classes starting April 8.

AND my online classes will not change. 

MOST IMPORTANT. MOST BELOVED.
My 40 day seasonal online classes will continue.
Monday, Wednesday, and Friday 8-9am via zoom
These are the real work of my heart. I love showing up for this close community and working our way through the energies that surround us, support us, and change as we are changed. 
Right now we are savoring the last days of the winter season and preparing for the spring energy return on the spring equinox, March 19. 

The next sequence starts March 19 - April 27
Register here. 

AND now to Tribe...

It's been since March 16, 2020 that I've had a regular studio position. I feel trepidation and excitement to be creating classes and sequences and thinking of workshops to share.

Tribe will be located in the old Charm City / YogaWorks midtown building. There will be studio classes every day with the addition of a cold plunge, an infrared sauna, and people with the wisdom to guide you through their use.

Starting Monday April 8 my studio schedule will be
Monday noon - 1pm radiant body kundalini 
Tuesday 5-6:15 vinyasa yoga flow
Tuesday 5-6:15 vinyasa yoga flow
Wednesday  noon - 1pm radiant body kundalini 
Thursday 5-6:15 vinyasa yoga flow 
Thursday 6:15 - 7:30 radiant body kundalini

For the Tribe opening we each wrote about our teaching.
Here's what I said,

Welcome. Here we are, you and me, both in these miraculous bodies. All my life I’ve been enthralled to be in my body. At eight when it rained I would strip down and run naked around the house to feel the cold on my skin. I was the youngest on the gymnastics team, basketball, field hockey, soccer. But I also had decades of an eating disorder, deep postpartum depression twice, and as much as my body could do I felt ashamed and could never see it as beautiful like others around me. I walked out of my first yoga class and felt momentarily completely at peace, completely at home. All the competition, all the injuries, all the comparison had momentarily fallen away. Here. Here I am. That’s how it felt. For me, this is yoga. It isn’t something I do, it is something I remember, something I become, something available to us all.⁠
⁠
Through 30+ years of personal practice and 500+ hours of teacher training yoga is the temple I revere and explore. This is the philosophy I study and teach. This is the center that holds the spinning threads of my life. I have been a corporate trainer for Fortune 500 companies. I have been an academic at major institutions. I have been a homeschool mama for a decade. I have dared and faltered, risen and failed like all of us. And through all of it, I have made sense of my life through my yoga practice. ⁠
⁠
I weave music, movement, kriya, breath, and stillness so that you can feel you as the light that you are. I will use blessing and ceremony, candles and petals, to show you your magnificence. This is my passion, my joy, and my constant inquiry. I offer an invitation to access the Self that you are beyond all that you know. ⁠
Discoveries and integrations to support this vessel that carries us all through life. TRIBE is a portal into that shared vessel, a place where we can learn about each other through ourselves and through new ways of being in motion and stillness, heat and cold, function and freedom. Join the TIRBE and find new ways into your body’s intelligence and wellbeing.⁠
⁠
I bring to the TRIBE community practices for self-authority, elevation, and instruction on creating ceremonies to keep our lives intimate and blessed.

Want a free preview? 

I'll teach at R House Garage on 29th street March 17, 10-11:30am. All levels, Martha-style flow into kriya, a meditation and a Yoga Nidra to let it all out of your system and leave you shining and bright. Register at TribeBaltimore.com 
Come get a big Sunday hug from me. Such a pleasure to see you in person! 

So that's where you can find me - online MWF or in the studio starting April 8.  

All love, Martha
...
"Beware the imagined toxicity of disagreement."
- Stephen Jenkinson 

What 1:1 means to me

Dear Ones,

Community. Relations. Connections. Crowds + intimacy.  These are moving me deeply lately. 

There is a magic when someone is with me, when I am in the spotlight of someone’s attention. 

Working 1:1 means I have committed to being the one seen and heard. I don’t have to worry about what I say, the editor can rest and a new layer is revealed. I don’t have to worry about keeping track of what I say, someone is listening with me, for me, as me, handing back what comes through. I don’t have to be the guide to initiate or the boundary at the end. I can be in a place of trust and exploration. 1:1 has been huge for my own growth.

Recently someone said she’d been part of this community for years and never knew I offered privates. Privates are my very favourite means of teaching.There is so much that could be shared and I navigate constantly how to best serve a broad span of participants when we practice as a group. But 1:1 means I can distill and refine all that I know, just for you. I am here with you, invested in your forward motion. If a companion through a topic, a concern, an illness, a change or challenge sounds like it would be welcome, reach out. 

Yes, we can design practice for you. Yes, we can design writing to match it. Yes, we can find books and resources and soundtracks to enrich it. Ultimately, I meet the need you bring.

I even work 1:1 in the kitchen, designing menus and sharing FaceTime dinner-making until cooking on your own feels possible. Nothing is too small. Sometimes the smallest shifts (What’s the best breakfast for me in the winter months? How do I make that? Where can I find it? Why does it matter?) create the lasting change we seek. 

That said, my Kitchen page is updated. Food matters. As the season shifts it can seem harder to find local sources but there are locations on this page for where I go year round in the Baltimore /DC area. Search Google for markets in your area. It matters. To your health, to the health of your local economy, to the health of your local soils and land. Share out what you find with your neighbors so they know there is local food everywhere. Sometimes we just have to go treasure-hunting to find it. 

Reply to this email if you are interested in my support or contact me through my website.

More to come. All love, Martha

What I Consider When I Am Away.

Dear Ones,

I am away this week.

Lily’s SATs are done, early college applications are in, and she is away on her expedition in Colorado. In essence, my role as homeschool mom for the past 10 years is complete. 

I am away 1/ to check the patterns that have been gathered and refined during 10 years in this role. What served us well then will no longer serve and I don't want to go forward blind in my ways. So this is a chance to slow down, see the momentum and make space for new choices to arise. 

And 2/ to celebrate, to mark the occasion, to heal the thought of all the ways it could’ve been ‘better,' to make sure that this is concluded with respect for every effort. Looking back, it is tempting to think less of certain days, occasions I didn't acknowledge, courses I could've for them I could've given more time or depth. But I want to let the dust settle and trust that in every moment I was doing what I could.

I respect my past self. She is as wise as the present one. And tending to the way I think of my past will give my future self more courage because she isn’t afraid of criticism in retrospect.

I walked in gorgeous woods today and stood rooted in front of this sign:

You Are Here. And you can see where everything else is, and where you could go, and where you were when you started. I want this view. I want to step back and back and back from my life and see the sign saying You Are Here. I would know I was at a crossroads, i would see the distance ahead. 

Better yet, i would see this sign:

I would love to know the gradient upcoming.

Is it a mild downhill slope that feels like coasting?

Or maybe steep, slow, rough going?

And how long will it last? 

Some days I want the adventure of not knowing.

And some days, a sense of the gradient ahead and its duration seems miraculous.

This week away is giving me deep long hours of being with not knowing, of coming to rest in my maplessness. AND it is this very resting place that is also providing the reassurance that that not knowing is a safe place, a creative place, a supported place. 

My job is not the map or the terrain but the vehicle. I am becoming a 4x4, something where bumps and hills are fun, jostling the groceries and making me grab on to the side rails. My practice builds me an inner stamina that can settle into the long haul with a relaxed breath and see what’s on the other side, even if it means walking through the dark. I want a life with lots of people to stop and see along the way, to ply me with snacks and supplies and make the going a group effort.

I am away this week building my next vehicle and honoring my last one. HIt reply. Tell me of your week, or if not, pause and consider the state of your vehicle and let me know now I can help. 

Back soon.

All love, Martha

Letter from Love: It’s still you

Dear Ones, 

A writing prompt from Liz Gilbert is to sit each day and ask, “Dear Love, what would you have me know today?” and let Love answer. 

As I do the work of inquiry and stillness and growth, I find an edge that won’t shift. So I asked Love. And the reply was a surprise and a gift and if any of you are growing and edging and yet limiting at the same time, may this be of use/service. 

Dear Love, what would you have me know today?

You are vast, little flame. There is more to you than you know. As you grow, the agitation you feel is you coming up against the ‘size’ and territory you’ve known. At one point it was plenty to explore, plenty to be. Now you’ve grown and the ability makes new pace possible. Like a child sleeping in a bed that once felt perfect and safe, now the bed is cramped and the outlook after sleeping there is cranky and ill-shaped. Stand tall. Don’t fold yourself back into the space you’ve known. No need to expend precious energy to be less than you are.

Here, see the walls fall flat and the horizons are now new and distant. Still, still my disbelieving wunderkind, still this is you. This is your landscape. Now you are ready for more of yourself.

Imagine.

Imagine my simplest of stones, imagine how it will feel to outgrow this new capacity, because you will. For now, unfold, charge through the hills, get lost, run out of gas. It is big, bigger than the equipment you currently have. You’ll require more ink, march through tougher boots. A new sweater is called for with stripes of yellow and red from shoulder to hip. A hat. Equip yourself for new territory. Enjoy.

And know,

1/ It is still you. All of it.

2/ There is more beyond it. Again this will happen. And again. You will outgrow what you know of yourself and again there will be more.

3/ Some things will change. Be that change. Holding back to fit the old won’t serve the new.

4/ I am with you in you as you and I love this size and this expansion.

Thank you for your courage. In courage, go forth. Encouraged, go forth. You can’t fall out of you. You can’t run out of you. More of you in the directions that are truly yours will still be you. I am here through and through all of it. 

All, Love.

The ethics of slowing down

Dear Ones, 

You are vast. You are spacious. You are music & laughter. Be so. As you can. Be so. Ready?

Over the summer I heard about an ethics research project. Princeton Seminary theology students were taught about the Good Samaritan story Fromm the Bible and given the assignment to write their own sermon on the parable to deliver to classmates. In simplified form, a traveler from Samaria encounters a stranger in distress beside a road, stops to help them up, and finds them a room at a local inn. The students are to write their own sermon on this topic. 

The day they are to present, they are to leave their classroom and go to the lecture hall in three groups. The first group is told they are 5 minutes late, the next group is on time, the last told they have 5 extra minutes. On the path to the lecture hall is a stranger, staged to be in obvious distress. The experiment was to note how time constraints affected ethical predispositions; what happens to our ability to see and assist each other when we are hurried. Most of the students who were told they were late reported they didn't see a stranger and didn't stop on the way. Those who were on time reported seeing the stranger but went past to arrive on time to the lecture hall. But those who were early, who had 5 extra minutes, over half of them stopped to see what was wrong. 

This knocks me down every time I think of it because I can FEEL it in my home. I can feel how my half of the partnership wanes when I get 'busy'. I put it in quotes here to remind myself that it is a choice not a truth. I have often thought that running 5 minutes late only affects me and the appointment to which I'm headed. But this points out that my five minutes late affects my ability to see, to act, to help. This is not the character I would like to share with the world. And yet it happens.

Retreat is a chance to let the momentum of my day-to-day life slow, to allow myself to be cared for with great meals, great movement, great great big skies. I adopt a different pace. The little box of my assumptions and plans can loosen and allow in a breeze, the stars, and a perspective that I had forgotten - who I am here to be. 

This is Magic Time. 

So we will arrive and decompress. The first practices will be playful, helping to ease us out of the intensity and seriousness we can cultivate around Getting It Done and start to redefine Getting it Done Right. Later practices will become caring and replenishing, and then releasing, and then rebuilding. We will walk, lots of time for yourself, a great local chef will have us in her care. A different structure to our outer days invites a different structure inside.

When we feel full and tended, our generosity arrives.

Magic Time is something we inhabit and remember. iIt is something that is shared with us, and then something that fortifies our ability to share what we are here to do, to be. and this is the work we all seek. 

“When we are involved in a task so fully that we lose track of time, that is when we are at our most God-like, immortal, outside of time.” - Stephen Mitchell

If you want more details, if you have questions, if you are undecided and want to talk it out, for these reasons and for more, I am here for a conversation if you like. Reply to this email and set up a time to talk to me. Maybe you've never gone on retreat and it feels intimidating. Let's talk. Maybe you've been on retreat but this seems different. Let's talk. I'm not here to sell you, I'm here to help answer questions and listen and be sure this fits for where you are and what you want. 

Like nearly every teacher, I'm teaching what I need. I feel hurried. I feel busy nearly all the time. It feels as though my days are set on ‘gallop’. And so the chance to set time aside and reboot is important and I am going on retreat to reset to ‘walk’ for a while.

"Everything that's stuck gets better when you unplug it for 5 minutes, and that includes us."  - Anne Lamott

If you would like to try a smaller version, a one evening-one day-one morning home immersion, try out this weekend with me. Details +  registration.

Check your schedule. Check your heart. Check your pace. Check out the website. Set up a call with me. 

Most of all, choose your pace with deliberation, and see who’s around you, what’s around you, what’s within you that requires attention. Slow down so your generosity can bloom again. I will. 

I am ready to see what’s around me and how I can help. 

All love, Martha

…

Retreat details here. 

Home immersion here. This Friday PM, Saturday AM +PM, Sunday AM. 

I will have free morning classes live on Zoom + YouTube MWF 8-9:30am Oct 16 - Nov 10. 

Vinyasa for 50 minutes, breath for 10 minutes, and meditation for 15 minutes. 

Leave when you need to. Zoom link will be on the front page of my website. Door’s open xx

…