Usually on Saturday, Sharon Schlegel has a light-hearted column in the Times of Trenton that warms the heart, but not this week, not after Boston. She wrote…

It… led me to think back on something I only learned when my daughter started driving years ago: No matter how hard parents try, we must eventually face that we can’t fully protect our children. It’s an awful lesson….

But there are things even in this horrible story to be glad about, namely the folks watching who saw the explosion, saw victims fall to the ground bloodied and bent, and ran toward, not away, from the explosion sites. They responded immediately by trying to help. To me, they represent the best in us, inspiring me by their courage and selflessness. 

For the rest of the column, click here. 

Here is another response to the calamity, this one from Terri Walker, a yoga instructor at Rocky HIll Yoga at the first reformed Church in Rocky HIll and at a major pharmaceutical company. She is a mentor in the Yoga Shanti Teacher Training program for Colleen Saidman Yee and Rodney Yee in Sag Harbor, NY. 

 After the news of Boston, I had difficulty teaching yoga in my classes this week. It was hard to find the energy to speak out loud while my emotions were pulling me down. It was was hard to find the purpose of doing asana, while others not so far away were suffering publicly on so many levels.

Then I remembered backbends. I remember my first teacher saying how many full wheels (Urdhva Dhanurasana) she did after the death of her daughter. Every day she opened her chest, keeping spaciousness on a physical level around her heartcenter, so grief could come and go, without 
taking residence in her body; emotionally and physically she didn’t solidify at the
base of a downward spiral.
Backbends, from the most gentle of raising our arms overhead and lifting the breastbone, to the more difficult, are exhilarating. They help keep our upper body aligned and
functioning and enable us to be open to vulnerability. Rodney Yee wrote, in “Moving
toward Balance” that “the more vulnerable you allow yourself to be, the more connected
you are, which enables you to listen and respond to what is occurring in the present
moment.”

Our world is changing and has grown smaller. There are countless sad events occurring
globally all the time. We are all in this together. Backbends help us recover and expose
the part of ourselves where compassion and our helpful natures reign. Backbends help us
stay open and alert to the gracious good moments that also occur globally every day. We
just don’t hear about those as much. Let’s start that conversation.