Poetry: A yoga of heart and mind
Writing poetry can be likened to a yoga of heart and mind. In this primal, creative act, poets gather images, feelings, dreams, sounds, visions and other sense impressions, and translate them into words on the page. These words then tumble into metaphors, symbols, songs, stories and transformative magic.Poetry practice is much akin to yoga (literally, yoga means to yoke together), as it weaves together into a balanced whole body, mind and spirit. Of course, poetry does not work with the intertwined movements of body and breath as in physical yoga. Instead, poetry stitches together the realm of spirit with that of earth in an act of transformative imagination. It is the yoga of heart (feelings) and mind (words). Poems are literally composed of word-feelings. Both poems and yoga attempt to integrate the ultimate (spirit) with everyday experience (earth).
Writing poetry is a kind of alchemical, mysterious process. The numinous energies (sensory impressions, feelings, fleeting and images) are sensitively selected, then transmuted into something grander than their individual parts - something luminous, whole and, ultimately, brilliantly alive and healing. Enduring, universal poems are recalled through the ages because they help us in our own lives now to integrate the ultimate with our daily existence. They help us to live the elemental questions. To quote poet Rainer Maria Rilke: “Who am I? Why am I here? What is the nature of this mysterious universe I find myself birthed into?”
Like alchemy, turning base metals into gold, poetry is an esoteric process. Some poems appear as if out of thin air, like a rabbit instantaneously lifted from the hat. They appear almost magically, whole and complete in the mind, and the poet simply records words as if engaged in automatic writing - mana dropped from heaven.
More often, words and images come in bits and pieces and the process feels more like assemblage, a complex puzzle process full of trial and error - more like real life itself. But when the true pieces come to fit tightly together and the whole is finally realized, the poet experiences a sense of inner balance and equanimity that borders on euphoria, not unlike a yogi who completes the flowing movements and challenging prostrations of 108 sun salutations. Poet Robert Frost called poetry writing a momentary stay against confusion, a place of resting in clarity.
The following poem illustrates some of the ways poetry is a yoga of heart and mind, how a puzzle of words can tie together the realms of spirit and earth. It is also a poem about the process of poetry writing itself. The word "poet" is derived from the Greek word "poiētēs" which means "maker." Through poetry we re-make the world, revitalizing our being over and over again.
MAKING
The poem
writes itself
petal by petal
as the blossom opens.
It gathers itself
and opens outward
fed by the stem
of one's own
seed and cells.
Free and fumbling forward
the poem works itself
to shape,
evolves until
a certain instinct
discerns the surprise
of unity --
a ripened apple
beaming light.
This poem is one of the few that simply poured from the creative unconscious and into my heart and mind, then out through my fingers onto the page. It arrived nearly intact, needing only minor refitting, until the puzzle was whole and complete. It was as if my creative unconscious had been stewing on this matter of the process of writing poetry for some time.
This poem sparked into being with the image of a beautiful, round, red apple sitting in a bowl with other, similarly bedazzling apples, hallowed in sunlight. While gazing upon this luminous apple the poem simply poured forth. The creative urge rumbled up from my gut and I simply began moving my hand across the page with pencil, as if composing the metaphoric evolution of this apple. The apple presented itself to my creative unconscious as the symbol of the wholeness, clarity and perfect expression of beingness that the process of poetry (think also body yoga) can induce when it is fully realized - a feeling of unity and complete balance, like the "ripened apple / beaming light."
And how is this wholeness arrived at? By the unfolding of "petal by petal, as the blossom opens." Poetry, like wholeness, like the benefits reaped from a dedicated yoga practice, is a process. It is often demanding, slow, repetitive acts of discipline and growing skillfulness, "fed by the stem / of one's own / seed and cells."
Both writing poetry and practicing yoga are organic, biotic processes that literally manifest our deepest yearnings out of our very blood, sweat and tears. One of our deepest longings as human beings is to recreate on this earth plane our authentic self (the "ripened apple / beaming light"). In turn, this authentic being can heal (become whole), and ultimately serve as a healing presence for others.
Yoga demands the repetitive practice of stretching the body, holding asanas (poses), breathing the breath of expansion, contraction, letting go, balance, flow and unity. It all yokes together body, mind and spirit in bliss-filled harmony.
Likewise, writing practice demands the mastery of poetic forms, exploration of the devices of sound and the configuration of words and lines of words into shape and sense on the page. The ultimate result in both cases is this "ripened apple / beaming light." This resultant light is not accidental. It represents the long fruition of an organic process of intensive practice, of inner and outer growth toward transpersonal, authentic beingness. This light represents a state of grace known to poets and yogis when dedicated practice has finally ripened.
I believe both yoga practice and poetry practice are inherently driven by an instinct toward expanded vision and wisdom, culminating in dual inner and outer transformation.
Our sacred calling is to affirm the presence of our inner light, to digest and to amplify it, then to project this light outward - embracing all that is with the healing vibrations of light-suffused thought, words and deeds. Our calling as true poets and as true yogis (as true human beings) is to regenerate ourselves into channels of this light-sustaining grace. Beings with the discipline, vision and wisdom to transmute base metals into gold, to integrate the ultimate within everyday experience.
Our day-to-day practice is fundamental to manifesting this noble calling. Poetry and yoga practice are two powerful and transformative paths that can keep us balanced, awake and moving forward to fulfill our self-realizing purpose at this time and in this place.
Whatever specific forms our chosen work entails, discernment, creative ingenuity and endless compassion are required - for both ourselves and all manner of beings. It goes without saying that meditation practice and the other expressive and healing arts are also means to this noble end. And, in truth, whatever we are engaged in moment by moment with awake consciousness can be the substance of this alchemical, transformative grace.
Poems can be beacons and motivators. They can illuminate and spur us on to doing what needs to be done. I leave you with this poem, a prescription for healing, for motivating our most passionate response to a world calling for, dying for, the medicine which we ourselves ultimately are, each one of us.
May you continue to practice your practice, whatever it is, in each moment. Carpe diem!
DREAMS, LIKE POEMS
And how is this wholeness arrived at? By the unfolding of "petal by petal, as the blossom opens." Poetry, like wholeness, like the benefits reaped from a dedicated yoga practice, is a process. It is often demanding, slow, repetitive acts of discipline and growing skillfulness, "fed by the stem / of one's own / seed and cells."
Both writing poetry and practicing yoga are organic, biotic processes that literally manifest our deepest yearnings out of our very blood, sweat and tears. One of our deepest longings as human beings is to recreate on this earth plane our authentic self (the "ripened apple / beaming light"). In turn, this authentic being can heal (become whole), and ultimately serve as a healing presence for others.
Yoga demands the repetitive practice of stretching the body, holding asanas (poses), breathing the breath of expansion, contraction, letting go, balance, flow and unity. It all yokes together body, mind and spirit in bliss-filled harmony.
Likewise, writing practice demands the mastery of poetic forms, exploration of the devices of sound and the configuration of words and lines of words into shape and sense on the page. The ultimate result in both cases is this "ripened apple / beaming light." This resultant light is not accidental. It represents the long fruition of an organic process of intensive practice, of inner and outer growth toward transpersonal, authentic beingness. This light represents a state of grace known to poets and yogis when dedicated practice has finally ripened.
I believe both yoga practice and poetry practice are inherently driven by an instinct toward expanded vision and wisdom, culminating in dual inner and outer transformation.
Our sacred calling is to affirm the presence of our inner light, to digest and to amplify it, then to project this light outward - embracing all that is with the healing vibrations of light-suffused thought, words and deeds. Our calling as true poets and as true yogis (as true human beings) is to regenerate ourselves into channels of this light-sustaining grace. Beings with the discipline, vision and wisdom to transmute base metals into gold, to integrate the ultimate within everyday experience.
Our day-to-day practice is fundamental to manifesting this noble calling. Poetry and yoga practice are two powerful and transformative paths that can keep us balanced, awake and moving forward to fulfill our self-realizing purpose at this time and in this place.
Whatever specific forms our chosen work entails, discernment, creative ingenuity and endless compassion are required - for both ourselves and all manner of beings. It goes without saying that meditation practice and the other expressive and healing arts are also means to this noble end. And, in truth, whatever we are engaged in moment by moment with awake consciousness can be the substance of this alchemical, transformative grace.
Poems can be beacons and motivators. They can illuminate and spur us on to doing what needs to be done. I leave you with this poem, a prescription for healing, for motivating our most passionate response to a world calling for, dying for, the medicine which we ourselves ultimately are, each one of us.
May you continue to practice your practice, whatever it is, in each moment. Carpe diem!
DREAMS, LIKE POEMS
Poems, like dreams
rest briefly in the mind
as skywriting quickly
scrolls then evaporates
from skies.
Celestial communications
breathe mana into bone into flesh.
Awake now. Listen.
Great Soul is speaking.
Here are words
which heal or prick the gut.
Here are sounds
pouring music into the world.
Take this medicine
and live.
Robin Izer is a published poet who has supported herself in various roles within the non-profit sector in the arts, education and human services, including positions at the Denver Art Museum, Penrose Hospital and Harvard University. Robin earned her B.A. in Art History with a minor in English Literature from the University of Maryland and her M.A. in Pastoral Counseling from Emmanuel College, Boston. Robin is particularly consumed with the field of imagination where poetry, spirituality and inquiry intermingle to create shifts in consciousness.
rest briefly in the mind
as skywriting quickly
scrolls then evaporates
from skies.
Celestial communications
breathe mana into bone into flesh.
Awake now. Listen.
Great Soul is speaking.
Here are words
which heal or prick the gut.
Here are sounds
pouring music into the world.
Take this medicine
and live.
Robin Izer is a published poet who has supported herself in various roles within the non-profit sector in the arts, education and human services, including positions at the Denver Art Museum, Penrose Hospital and Harvard University. Robin earned her B.A. in Art History with a minor in English Literature from the University of Maryland and her M.A. in Pastoral Counseling from Emmanuel College, Boston. Robin is particularly consumed with the field of imagination where poetry, spirituality and inquiry intermingle to create shifts in consciousness.