A Prayer for I Love Yoga Studio

(poem written and read at the grand opening celebration of our new location on Feb. 5, 2017)


There was a tree that grew from Chicago, and a tree who hailed from Montreal.
Out they grew – tunneling through America and cracking through the bedrock of a castle in Little Haiti, their branches stretched to the shoreline and into the sea
And out again on Dania Beach, where a lotus grew and grew at 1860 Griffin Road
Not far from here, a place well known to many of us, to you and to me.
A place where people with intention meditated and meditated until the Lotus became a bed, became a boutique,
became a studio,
became an ashram,
became a home,
became a school,
a garden, a place that we could claim sanctuary. With our music, our gifts, our healing hands and words would sew, sew, sew…
Themselves into eachother’s hearts.
There was a tree that grew in Dania, a Lotus that blossomed in Dania, a Lotus that blossomed in each and everyone of our hearts.
It’s seeds spread light.
Hearts filled with light who came and went and came and went again, and travelled the world, some still far, yet always here in Spirit,
always here in Spirt,
Yes, ALWAYS HERE IN SPIRIT
The Spirit that binds and intertwines who unfolds herself in these rhymes and chants we sing time after time after time
The seed sounds residing in our chakras unlocked and locking and unlocked again, as we -
Practice Practice Practice
And do the best that we can as KRISHNAS on the battlefield.
Gods and Goddesses in our right.
We come together, RISE UP together, take a risk, SERVE LOVE MEDITATE AND REALIZE
Together.
SERVE
LOVE
MEDITATE
AND
REALIZE
As MISSIONARIES OF CONCIOUSNESS
In dark times and light we rise rise rise
Like the trees that grew from Chicago and Montreal and from Miami to a beach
where a man took a challenge and gazed out at the sun for 40 days, sang, chanted, and prayed
Till this sacred Lotus that is us twisted and turned in the night -
sprouted across town through the concrete with all it’s might
Up through the mud and the muck
Cracking through the bedrock and limestone beneath our feet...
at 649 East Dania Beach
649 East Dania Beach
649 East Dania Beach
The lotus sprouts, opens and closes
and all things turn turn turn as they should
There was a God named Ganesha - he moved all obstacles,
There was a Prince named Hanuman - who taught us how to serve
There was a Goddess named Saraswati - who gave us poetry and music
A Man named Joseph Campbell who said Follow your own Bliss
A Man named Moses who set the people free
A Woman named Gaia who spread love over the Earth
Become the hero and heroine of your own Myth.
Create your own story, and this story is ours.
Thankful for all who have taken part, put their hands in the soil
to nurture this Lotus,
who sprung from Chicago,
who sprang from Montreal
who burst out of a Castle in Little Haiti
and into the Ocean
To blossom out of the sun
Into our hearts and beneath our feet
At 649 East Dania Beach
649 East Dania Beach
649 East Dania Beach
Where we roll out our mats once more
And rest our hands, our hearts,
our heads, and our feet.