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Friday, November 28, 2008

Thanksgiving

For those of you who read this blog, you understand how much I enjoy teaching the kids at JDC, you know that I believe in each kid that comes to my class, and you know that each of them, in my eyes is a beautiful flower. So it will be no surprise to you that the morning of Thanksgiving was spent with the boys of JDC. It was a class that from the minute I woke up, I could not wait to go to. In Wednesday's class, when the boys found out that I would teach on Thanksgiving, it was all they could talk about--most of the boys said that since their incarceration, only their public defender and myself have been their visitors. My class plan was to have a fun gratitude filled class--we did the Metta Meditation on Wednesday and I felt it would lose it's potency if we did it two days in a row. As the boys came in, everyone one of them with a smile on their face, my vessel of gratitude was overflowing--each one of them were glowing--they were happy to be in class. As I started the class one of the boys asked if we were going to do the same thing as yesterday, I asked what he meant, and he said that he wanted to do the meditation again, and that he had been doing it in his cell--in fact that is how he fell asleep last night to the words of the meditation--"May I be happy, May I be peaceful, May I be free from harm." I looked around the room, and each boy was nodding in unison--I was in a state of shock, where I felt the moments of looking around the room were hours and everything was in slow motion. Each boy in that room, told me in that moment that they had all thought about the meditation--and so yes on the day of Thanksgiving, did it again, and today there was a blanket of gratitude and love that wrapped each boy because they opened their hearts to know that in this moment, right here on the mat, they are deserving of happiness, peace, and the ability to be free from harm. We moved through the meditation, slowly giving each boy enough time to really call to mind each person--and then it happened, as it does when the boys are really focusing, every boy in that room was on the same breath rythm--their inhales matched perfectly, their exhales matched perfectly it was Grace moving through that room and through each beautiful boy. Stillness settled in, and in Savasana they were being breathed. There is no place that I would have rather been, and I am grateful and blessed to have been given the ultimate Thanksgiving with the boys of JDC.

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Namaste