Welcome to my Honey Heart Kids Yoga blog!
I plan to post here weekly in order to discuss the story I am presenting in my classes for the week. Because I have been a life-long devourer of stories, I find myself drawn to centering my classes around the focal point of story. I find a kind of poetic romance in the fact that I am becoming as much a storyteller as I am a kid’s yoga teacher.
For parents with children taking my classes, this blog can be a resource for discussing topics that are introduced in class. Maybe a discussion will spark in a child the desire to share a pose with her parent. This sharing can foster the proud experience of having something novel to teach. Such sharing and discussion are the materials we can use to build bridges to span the gaps between the young and not-as-young. When we span these gaps with appreciation and understanding, it is possible to experience the true meaning of the Sanskrit word “Yoga” which means “Union.”
In March, I chose to celebrate spring’s renewal through sharing creation stories from a compilation of Native American tales from the Southeastern tribes called “The Wonderful Sky Boat” retold by Jane Louise Curry. The last story I will share from this book for now is called “Stonecoat,” and comes from the Yamasee and Cherokee people of Georgia, Tennessee, and South Carolina. It deals with many potent themes, but the one I find very powerful is that both good and evil find their source in the heart.
The story of Stonecoat begins with the Creator looking down on humankind and lamenting that we should have such hard lives of sickness and hunger. Creator wants to send a messenger from one of his helpers in the Above World. He entrusts Ocasta with the task of teaching us humans the skills for living in physical and spiritual abundance.
Ocasta agrees, but only because he is afraid of saying, “No,” to the Creator. His heart, which he has hidden, is full of anger and resentment. He secretly harbors ambitions to be a great man in the Above World, and he considers this mercy mission to us barbarian humans to be beneath him. His heart contains equal parts good and evil, but because he conceals his evil, it grows.
When Ocasta arrives on Earth, he witnesses a hunter shooting a deer with a flint arrow. He is fearful that his life could be vulnerable to lowly human technology, so he creates a coat that is covered in flint stones in order to protect him. Then he proceeds to find human villages to teach deceit, jealousy, and black spells. He takes pleasure in creating strife, and as it grows, people band together to discuss how Stonecoat can be taken down given the fact that he always wears his impenetrable coat.
As luck would have it, each village has at least one Bad Luck Woman who can make any man who comes near her gravely ill. When it is determined which village Stonecoat will target next, all the Bad Luck Women are sent to sit by the path where he will have to walk. Through the combined “bad luck” of so many of these special women, Ocasta succumbs to illness and falls to the ground. The last Bad Luck Woman immediately leaps up, removes a flint from above his heart, and drives a wooden stake in.
As the people from all the villages gathered around him, they are amazed to see that the blow to the heart has released it of all his wickedness. Ocasta tells them he will soon pass from this world, and he begins to teach them all the ways of Goodness, Abundance, and Healing that he was originally sent to teach. The ones he teaches the most to become Medicine Men, and when he finishes transmitting his knowledge, he dies. As directed, the people place his body on a pyre of basswood, and as the smoke rises, so too does his spirit to the World Above rise singing. Ocasta has brought evil to the world, but also the power to heal all harm.
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I love this story for illustrating that no villain is thoroughly bad. When we identify someone as “bad” we do a great injustice to ourselves, because we create a distance between the labeled one and ourselves. We lose the ability to see where we are the same as the accused, and then we can no longer perceive where it is possible for us to harbor darkness and operate out of the shadow. Ocasta was able to teach evil, because people could not see the darkness in themselves. They could not see how their own jealousy sprang from the fear, deep down inside, they were not enough. This fear of not being enough is the root of countless terrible deeds and words.
If we can feel safe enough, supported enough to search out the places where we fear we are not enough, perhaps our children can feel secure enough to bring this fear to light also, instead secretly wielding this fear as a weapon to cut others down so they don’t stand so tall. This is a rich tale for discussion, and the possibility of Redemption at the end sings clear and true. The anti-venom must be derived from the venom. For those with courage, there is great hope here.
Below I am listing 3 Poses that I plan to incorporate in the retelling of this story, so you can check in about it with your child. If they don’t remember it, there are excellent images and instructions to google search online, and you can rediscover the pose with your student. I have them listed both in their English translation and their Sanskrit name. If I teach your child in a school setting, I probably will avoid using the Sanskrit name as some people still associate yoga with religion. However, please share the names with your children as you wish. I find kids love knowing them!
Warrior Pose I &II (Virabhadrasana I & II)- We will be using Warrior I transitioning to Warrior II to show the hunter shooting the deer. Start out in Warrior I with arms and hands joined and pointing out in front of you to where the deer is. Then as you turn your torso for Warrior II, draw the arm that will point behind you, across your body like you are drawing an arrow back in a bow. This requires concentration and stillness. When you are hunting, it is critical to make no sound whatsoever.
Powerful thing I just learned about the name virabhadrasana:
vira = hero
bhadra = gentle, blessed
asana = pose
It is the pose, or the stance, of the gentle, blessed hero. We translate it to “warrior.” We can use this stance to help model what a true warrior is- someone who is strong enough to be gentle and therefore blessed. This is important to discuss in a media culture that glorifies violence and domination of people with guns over people without them. My goodness- I am excited for all the conversations you can have with your children about this!
Goddess Pose (Utkata Konasana)- This is the pose we will use to show the Bad Luck Women who bring Ocasta down from his precipice of invulnerability. Ironically, it is their piercing of his heart that heals his poison and makes him an agent for good. I can’t help but chuckle over this lingering cultural idea that there are certain women whom men cannot go near without falling ill. An important point to draw here is that women, throughout history, especially those who didn’t fit into the roles assigned them, have played powerful parts in confronting forces that are beyond conventional means to manage.
Bridge Pose (Setu Bandha Sarvangasana)- This pose will illustrate how when Ocasta’s body is placed on the pyre, his spirit is freed to rise singing back to the World Above.
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