Dear Friend,
I recently picked up my yoga practice in earnest after a move and pregnancy precipitated a
teacher change. My new yoga teacher frequently starts class by asking students to set an
intention, if they would like, for the upcoming class. On the day the images of Aylan Kurdi, the
3-year old Syrian refugee who drown off the coast of Turkey and washed ashore, showed up in
newspapers across the globe, I decided to dedicate that day’s yoga class to him and his family. I
found, as I engaged in the various poses, my intention was actually broader, so I widened it as I
continued to move through the postures, honoring and bearing witness to all Syrian refugees.
Further into the class, the intention broadened again, to include all refugees in war-torn
countries.
I didn’t think too much of this broadening, as this practice of setting an intention is new to me,
until I was sharing with my husband how I had set the intention, what it was, who it was for and
then how it had broadened not once but twice. As is often the case, a dialogue arose between the
two of us, culminating with him asking me, “Aren’t we all refugees at some point in our lives?”
As I let this thought circle around, I began to drop into my gratitude practice and realized how
grateful I am that I live in a peaceful country, how I don’t worry about bombings or missile
attacks or armed thugs roaming about. I go to sleep at night at peace that things in my home, in
my family, in my neighborhood and town will be much the same the next day. This type of peace
allows one to begin to do things like plant a garden, plan a home improvement project and
engage in a yoga practice…all things that war and strife do not allow. That was a bit of a heavy
revelation to me – and I had to spend quite a bit of time working through the feelings of guilt that
arose around and from that.
The next day, I shared the story of my intention setting with my yoga teacher and talked about
my husband’s question, as well as how my gratitude practice had been touched by my intention. I
found myself saying to her how true it is that at some point or another in our lives, we are all
refugees of sorts. When we leave our parents’ house for college, it’s often years before we settle
back down into our own “space” again. When we divorce, we figuratively blow up our home and
life, in a way. When we get our first apartment, it’s oftentimes one of many as we build and
shape our adult lives. We oftentimes don’t speak about these things, after all, they typically lead
to better lives and happier times, and more importantly, three things typically are going on with
these changes: 1) we are in the driver’s seat steering through these changes, 2) we make the
active decision to engage in these life changes, and 3) we look at these changes almost as a rite
of passage to becoming an adult. For refugees of war and strife, while they will eventually settle
into a new space and life, the upheaval is oftentimes not their doing and of their deepest desire.
More importantly, the whole experience opened me to a new level of empathy and compassion.
There is much being said on the news about how much fear is associated with refugees and with
immigration – and so I’m all the more grateful to have taken her up on her guidance to set an
intention – as while I haven’t changed the refugee crisis, I have changed myself and that is
sometimes all we can do.
From one goddess…