Yoga Encourages Optimism

Yoga heals, nourishes, and challenges us. The practice infiltrates every corner of our lives. ~VALERIE JEREMIJENKO

In my years of practicing yoga, I have observed that those who do yoga on a regular basis tend to be optimistic. They have a positive aura about them and it attracts positive and good things into their lives.

I often start my classes by thanking my students for giving this hour of yoga as a gift to themselves. It is my goal to have my students float out of class feeling physically, mentally, and emotionally refreshed.

The poet Walt Whitman must have been an eternal optimist. Here is a wonderful poem that shares his love of life.
Namaste, (the light in my sees the light in you)
Kathy

Miracles By Walt Whitman
Why! who makes much of a miracle?
As to me, I know of nothing else but miracles,
Whether I walk the streets of Manhattan,
Or dart my sight over the roofs of houses toward the sky,
Or wade with naked feet along the beach, just in the edge of the water,
Or stand under trees in the woods,
Or talk by day with any one I love--or sleep in the bed at night with
any one I love,
Or sit at table at dinner with my mother,
Or look at strangers opposite me riding in the car,
Or watch honey-bees busy around the hive, of a summer forenoon,
Or animals feeding in the fields,
Or birds--or the wonderfulness of insects in the air,
Or the wonderfulness of the sun-down--or of stars shining so quiet
and bright,
Or the exquisite, delicate, thin curve of the new moon in spring;
Or whether I go among those I like best, and that like me best--
mechanics, boatmen, farmers,
Or among the savans--or to the soiree--or to the opera,
Or stand a long while looking at the movements of machinery,
Or behold children at their sports,
Or the admirable sight of the perfect old man, or the perfect old
woman,
Or the sick in hospitals, or the dead carried to burial,
Or my own eyes and figure in the glass;
These, with the rest, one and all, are to me miracles,
The whole referring--yet each distinct, and in its place.

To me, every hour of the light and dark is a miracle,
Every cubic inch of space is a miracle,
Every square yard of the surface of the earth is spread with the same,
Every foot of the interior swarms with the same;
Every spear of grass--the frames, limbs, organs, of men and women,
and all that concerns them,
All these to me are unspeakably perfect miracles.

To me the sea is a continual miracle;
The fishes that swim--the rocks--the motion of the waves--the ships,
with men in them,
What stranger miracles are there?- Walter Whitman (1819 – 1892) was an urban American poet, essayist, journalist, and humanist.