Amy's work centers around the embodied experience of love's spaciousness and is grounded in brain, body, and heart-based wisdom. She teaches yoga, meditation, & writing as a way to cultivate tender self-love that supports empathy and compassion-driven work in the world.
Check out her bio @amysecrist.com.
I’ve been practicing Reiki in the Usui tradition for the last four years and am beginning to offer formal sessions. I received my level 1 reiki attunement in-person in February of 2020, my level 2 virtually later that year, and received re-attunement earlier this month. I look forward to sharing reiki with you both in-person and virtually, in private sessions or small groups.
I’m currently scheduling a variety of private sessions and small group experiences in yoga, meditation, personal writing, resilience-building, and nervous system restoration. All experiences will be personally designed to meet your unique needs, intentions, and goals, to honor your growth, and support you on your journey.
Visit the Class Offerings page to learn more, register, and stay in touch.
There will be no class this evening, 9/16/24. Please plan on attending next week, 9/23/24. In the meantime, keep practicing and playing – just 150 seconds a day 🙂
Important concepts and qualities of many contemplative paths are often described through the metaphor of bird wings. I have received the teaching of wisdom & compassion as two practices that lift a student out of suffering. They are both necessary, and the practitioner cannot fly without access to both.
A few days ago I was reading a translation of Rumi’s poetry by Maryam Mafi and Azima Melita Kolin, and I found this gem:
Seeker, when you feel your soul contracting know it is for your own good allow not your heart to burn with grief. In times of expansion you spend and this expenditure requires an income of painful soul searching. If it was always summer, the roots would burn and the gardens would never become green. Winter seems bitter but it is also kind. When contraction comes, my friend, behold the expansion within be cheerful, do not complain. The eyes of a child are fixed on the wants of now while the eyes of the wise see to the end. When you close your mouth another one will open, seeking nourishment in the mysteries of Spirit. The sugar of sensual joy is the fruit of the garden of sorrow this joy is the wound, the sorrow is the plaster. Learn to embrace sorrow look straight at its face and joy will reappear. All action sways between contraction and expansion both as important as the opening and closing of the wings of a bird in flight.
I’d read this collection before, and so I found my own annotations and underscores. This one touched me deeply:
“All action sways between contraction and expansion, both as important as the opening and closing of the wings of a bird in flight.”
My brain sparkled with connections, synthesizing everything I’ve read, heard, absorbed, and experienced throughout my yoga journey over the last 27 years – breath – movement – and spanda reverberated in my mind: Spanda – the divine vibration – the life force – the song of the sacred tremor of creation – the pulse of existence. Yes – All of THAT.
This made me feel like it’s time I pass some things along: the experiences I know of Tandava and the joys of courageous freedom. And, as Rumi says, “While still in the cage of your being behold the spirit bird before it flies away.”
I hope you’ll join me on the journey with wisdom and compassion as our guides:
Generous Wisdom | Spacious Heart 