My Ahimsa for America Daily Log #1

Catherine Donovan, the yoga teacher at our school (which is one of the cool things about Tucson High, I mean, how many public schools offer yoga??) sent out an e-mail a few days ago about Ahimsa for America, a 100 day effort to increase peace and aid healing after the shootings in Tucson last month.  Information about the effort can be found here:

• http://ahimsaforamerica.blogspot.com/
• http://www.facebook.com/pages/Ahimsa-for-America/ (Facebook group)

I am only passingly familiar with yoga principles.  Like many folks, I've been to enough yoga classes to have an overly developed sense of how un-flexible my body is,and to realize that I am very uncomfortable uttering anything during my yoga practice.  Given all of this, I have fully enjoyed every yoga class I have ever taken and have drawn on yoga breathing during times of high anxiety.

As my kids get older, and as I get older, I find myself needing a way to mellow out, and I have been curious about meditation.  However, I have never done anything about it.

So, I'm taking baby steps.  I searched the public library catalog for books on meditating with children, and found nothing.

This morning, I asked my children, in the car on the way to school, to stop talking for one minute and imagine something peaceful.  O asked what that meant, and I said to think of something that made them feel calm and loving.  They finally settled for one minute, and when I asked G what he thought of during that time, he said "nothing."  I asked him if thinking of nothing helped him feel peaceful, and he said yes.  O said that she thought about taking pictures with people to give them when they go away.  I told them that I thought of cuddling up together on the couch and having big hugs.

So, that was our beginning.  I'll try to log more of our efforts, and maybe we can make some progress.