What Happens When Joy Fills You?

Do you break open? Do you fall down? Do you float away?

Are we vessels for joy? Maybe. And, like, a lot of others things, too, right? Like pain and despair and incredulousness and dignity, honor, pride, grief, and boredom, and…

We carry EVERYTHING.

Joy makes us feel alive I think. It feels like the opposite of pain (most times). Sometimes joy makes us cry, though. And sometimes joy can hurt – even though it’s the opposite of hurtful – because it’s all wrapped up in more than one experience, more than one moment. Joy is bittersweet with remembering and pride and impermanence, layers of dark chocolate with raspberries. Maybe.

What was the last thing that filled you with joy?

Some people describe joy as “really really really super happy.” But, you know, happiness comes and goes. Other people describe joy as the thing that is always there because it exists outside of time and space. It’s like this all-pervasive essence because it doesn’t come from material things; it comes from spiritual things. Even if you don’t believe in spirit.

For me, joy is that lasting thing that exists all the time. It is a brightness. It flashes and sparks. It’s like that emoji with three 4-pointed stars of varying sizes.

So, joy’s always there, but it swells. Joy SWELLS. Are you thinking of the ocean? Yeah, I think it’s kinda like that, like waves.

The most recent thing that filled me with joy was watching a genius musician THRILL at the awesomeness of another musician’s art. Watching a musician experience another musician’s song and appreciating the hell out of it is magical for me. I feel it in my face around my mouth where I can’t stop smiling. I feel it in my forehead around my eyes where my brows are lifting. I feel it in my chest around my heart where my blood is pumping.

This also happens to me when I see a writer in awe at another writer’s words. But it’s a little quieter. I feel this kind of joy settling in my gut and connecting me to the chair, and pressing me into the floor. It’s because of the depth.

Those practiced musicians, writers, artists, they know what it takes to create. They understand technique, nuance, texture, tone, subtly, craft, discipline, decision, inspiration, failure, serendipity, dryness, synchrony, expression – which is connection, to self outside of self where you can see it from a different angle. Artists know when something feels unfinished. They know when something feels complete. They know because they live it, too. And they know what happens when they collaborate – WOW – everything is multiplied.

That’s really what joy is: depth and connection – depth and connection that expands and sparkles. Joy is not a surface thing. It bursts from the deepest places and brightens the skies in its explosion.

Joy is not an alone thing either. I mean, I can experience joy when I encounter the scent of wild onions, but it’s not about the scent of wild onions, you know? It’s about the first time I remember smelling wild onions, one of the first times I remember connecting with the earth, so it’s me and the earth. The joy is reliving that connection. In reliving that connection I’m also connecting to another version of My Self. I am re-membering myself, putting myself back together. And because those kinds of moments are so powerful, they exist outside of time. I know there are neurological explanations for this, but I don’t care about any of that right now. In this moment, I don’t care about the explanation.

I want to be
in joy.
Inside it.
I want to create joy
and receive the joy that I create.
I want to thrill at someone else’s joy,
and I want to bring our joys together.
That’s where art is. Even when it hurts
I want joy to swell up from the depths of me and
knock me over so many
waves in the ocean on the shore in the sun
in the morning in the rain in the bright
and glowing dusk of change.

I am a curving vase.
I am emptying at the same time
I am filling,
water holding dying flowers
at the same time I am filling,
dirt holding living flowers

I am dying and living

I am paying attention

I am filling up

I am breaking open

I am remembering and reliving and receiving and
I am
So
Deep
In it
I am
Outside of it,
the vase
I am inside the flowers
I am the water
and the dirt
and the emptiness
I am EVERYTHING

What does joy mean to you?
What does it feel like – if you could reach out and touch it, or lift it into your arms and carry it – what does it feel like?
Where do the sensations of joy show up in your body?
What do those sensations feel like in your muscles? in your bones?

What makes you joyful; what fills you with joy?
What kinds of joy do you create, in your mind and with your hands?
How much joy can you hold before it spills out of your eyes and breaks you into pieces even as it puts you back together?

Joy and gratitude are different,
but my, my, my are they the same.
When you go so deep into the present,
you touch the everlasting instant.

St. patrick’s Breastplate, Yoga, & Armor

I love to put on yoga. There’s power here. The practice is sacred ground. It’s the place I pause, and notice, acknowledge, and welcome, and the place where I decide. The power lies in the ridiculous amount of choice I have access to when I pause, breathe, and feel my feet. I love stepping into Mountain, reaching into Half Moon, slipping into Warrior III. I am the Mountain. I am the Half Moon. I am the Warrior. I love putting on stillness, wrapping myself in concentration, and painting my face with rest and joy. In this I am the lake, the eagle’s eye, the lotus and the alleluia.

This all comes with me into my day.

I love to practice yoga anytime of day or night, but I’ve found it to be especially sweet and effective in the morning. It’s a beautiful invocation of blessing and offering for the day ahead. I don’t wear the yoga as armor to keep people out or keep myself in; it’s more like armor to sustain whatever is present, armor as a set of tools I need to do my work in the world, the work of loving and being loved.

Where there’s yoga, there’s prayer, and when I’m practicing at home, and my mind comes into the same space and time as my body, my spirit wakes up, and I recognize God’s presence within and around me. So, when I can wake and walk into the practice, I have an opportunity to make a connection to myself, situate myself in God’s presence and invoke All the Good.

And, where there’s yoga, there’s power. No matter what kind of sequence I’m practicing: downdog, warrior III, downdog, side plank to wild thing, or: forward fold, sleeping big toe pose, reclined twist, supported bridge to legs up the wall, by savasana I have all the power I need for the day ahead. Regardless of when I practice, I walk into the rest of my day shod with peace boots, grounded, connected, and steadfast. Whether I’ve followed a peaceful, invigorating, or restorative arc, I always leave my mat with strength, spaciousness, and power, the perfect set of equipment to be able to serve, to observe, resist, or engage whatever comes.

Yoga is my morning prayer of peace, protection, and power.

Saint Patrick’s Breastplate, also known as The Deer’s Cry or The Lorica, is a traditional Celtic morning prayer of peace, protection, and power. It is attributed to St. Patrick around the year 377, though exact authorship and date is unknown. It is “written as a hymn calling on Christ to surround the supplicant in all bodily directions and invokes God for protection against [all forms of evil.]”* The Breastplate is a thoroughly beautiful prayer. And even though there are parts of it that I shy away from, and sections I modify or leave out when I recite it, like the patriarchs, holy virgins, black laws of heathenry, and false laws of heretics, other verses resonate deep in my bones, especially these:

Christ be with me, Christ before me, Christ behind me, Christ within me, Christ beneath me, Christ above me, Christ on my right, Christ on my left, Christ where I lie, Christ where I sit, Christ where I arise, Christ in the heart of everyone who thinks of me, Christ in the mouth of everyone who speaks of me, Christ in every eye that sees me, Christ in every ear that hears me.

Meditation 1: A Reading of the Breastplate of Patrick

This is my own variation of the prayer. I took out and added, adjusted, and embraced. I love the rhythms, the repetitions, and the all-encompassing affirmation of Christ’s universality. This prayer came into my mind during a yoga teacher training when my mentor teacher, Michele Vinbury, began our session with her own invocation:

“I allow nothing within or around me
that does not serve the highest good.”

I love the level of trust and confidence inherent in both my teacher’s prayer, as well as in the Lorica. Prayers like these don’t just invoke protection, they are protection: the same way I prayed the Hail Mary for protection as a young child when I was scared, the same way I pray the Hail Mary now, when life and death are both before me. These kinds of prayers are something you can put on, something you can cover yourself with. You feel them in your bones. They have the weight and heft of armor and the precision of a sharpened sword. They get to the very heart of the matter, and in fine detail. These kinds of prayers come to us. Our openness to Divine Flow, Intervention, and Providence allows for it. And the yoga practices have a way of grounding and opening us so that we can be receptive to this kind of experience.

You can find a transcript of this and other variations here.

Meditation 2: The Deers’ Cry

There is a legend telling the story of Saint Patrick who, knowing that he and his accompanying monks were being ambushed and likely to be killed, led his men through the woods reciting this prayer. The enemies saw them in the woods — as a mother deer with calves — and this is how Saint Patrick and his men were saved.

Listen to this beautiful mixed choir acapella arrangement of The Deers’ Cry by the Arvo Part Centre.

An Invitation for your Practice

I invite you to notice what parts of the Lorica speak to you, which words resonate in your bones? Memorize, recite, and chant them deep in your heart so much that your heart chants them always. In this, you will pray without ceasing. You will have an awareness of God as a constant in your life, the God of Presence, Protection, and Power.

Remember, too, that your yoga practice is a prayer. Notice which movements and breathing practices speak to you and resonate in your bones. Memorize and repeat them so that they work their way deep into your neurobiology, your nervous system, your blood. In this way you will be practicing yoga always. You will have with you a sense of deep ground from which to draw your power and a spaciousness surrounding you that allows the essence of others to float through you without disturbance. In this way you will experience the steadiness of the mountain and the spaciousness of freedom.

A Blessing

For your enjoyment, I’ve posted just a few Irish blessings. I think there are millions! Please share your favorites in the comments. The more blessings we share, the better! But first, I’d like to leave you with one of my favorites. It’s my own, so, it’s an Irish-English-German-Polish-Croatian blessing:

May you be blessed like crazy,
And may you have the strength to bear it

Irish Blessings

House Blessing

May the power of protection abide
within all the hearts who dwell inside.

Family Blessing

Bless you and yours, as well as the cottage you live in —
may the roof overhead be well thatched,
and those inside be well matched.
May that roof overhead never fall in,
and those within never fall out.

Health & Prosperity Blessings

May you live as long as you want,
And never want as long as you live.

May your troubles be less and your blessings be more
and nothing but happiness come through your door.

Celtic Rune of Hospitality

We saw a stranger yesterday.

We put food in the eating place,

Drink in the drinking place,

Music in the listening place,

and with the sacred name of the triune God

he blessed us and our house,

our cattle and our dear ones.

As the lark says in her song:

Often, often, often, goes the CHRIST

In the stranger’s guise.

*“Saint Patrick’s Breastplate” Philip Freeman;www.oxfordscholarship.com

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A Getting-Ready Prayer

puts on bracelets:

God be in my arms and in my strength
in my lifting
embracing and letting go

puts in earrings:

God be in my ears and in my hearing
in my listening
understanding and honoring

puts on necklace:

God be in my throat and in my speaking
in my conversing
expressing and silence-keeping

puts on eyeliner:

God be in my eyes and in my seeing
in my viewing
framing and witnessing

puts on lip balm:

God be in my mouth and in my empathizing
in my acknowledging
celebrating and lamenting

looks in mirror:

God let me bring about the kingdom
enter the Flow
and do the work of love