“As you live deeper in the heart, the mirror gets clearer and clearer.” ~ Rumi Hello friends!
This time of year in West Michigan, maybe especially in Saugatuck/Douglas? It’s impossible to miss the shifts happening all around. Everyday it seems something new is bursting into bloom. Today it’s warm and bright. Tomorrow it’s cold and blustery. Adaptability, and lots of wardrobe options, are required. 😉 One by one our neighbors are returning to town. Local businesses are gearing up for “the season.” New events, new merchandise, new menus are popping up everywhere. Those of us in the service industry? We’re getting excited and may want to fit in one more getaway and/or a little more respite before swinging into high gear. These shifts, these phases are all representative of life. It’s a continual flow state. And just like the weather, life requires a lot of adaptability from each one of us. As I prepare for our upcoming Full Moon Yoga Circle, I was reflecting upon our Winter Solstice Yoga Celebration. That night, it was dark. We took time to sink into the darkness, rather than try and avoid it. We meditated on the power of hibernation. We breathed into the time of rest and gathering of nutrients (strength, ideas, energy, creativity) that winter provides. Nature does not apologize for its season of rest. I’m trying to learn the same. And now, we are witnessing the results of that hibernation. Our surroundings are literally (and, yes, this is the correct moment for the overused word 🤣) bursting into bloom everywhere! Gathering to celebrate the upcoming Full Moon / Flower Moon will be powerful. I love that this is the beginning of our Full Moon Yoga Circle Series at Satya. It’s extra special that at the end of May? We will have another Full Moon, making it a Blue Moon. (Yep, once in a Blue Moon there are 2 full moons in one month) 😀 It’s a special opportunity to think about what within is ready to blossom? What truth of us wants to be brought into the light? Our thoughts, our ideas, our inspirations don’t have to be fully formed to emerge. Just a week or two ago my irises were barely a glimmer. Now, they’re a foot tall! I’ve been resting into these two sentences: I am enough. I am evolving. That’s it. Allow that to settle into your belly. Your heart. Your throat. If you are nearby and considering joining us for the Flower Moon, please do! Only a few spaces remain. Teresa and I would love to see you. Love, light, and longing for peace, m P.S. Thank you Rhoda Thurston-Lewis for capturing, and sharing, the gorgeous moon photo featured at the top of the page. P.P.S. It’s our last LATE START Yacht Club Yoga this Saturday. See you @ 9:00
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“Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom.” ~ Viktor Frankl Hi friends!
Wow! What a phenomenal return to Yacht Club Yoga! When I arrived, Lake Kalamazoo was super foggy and misty. Soon after, the sun broke through and the fog cleared. It was pretty special. Thank you to ALL who joined me! And, shout out to my two friends from high school who made their way from afar. What a wonderful surprise! 💕 Class continues at SYC this month on Saturdays, 9 - 10 AM. All are welcome. Recently I read a study that was trying to figure out if there’s a difference between the way longtime meditators experience pain vs. the way those who do not meditate experience pain. Being a participant in this study would have been miserable. Because, it involved basically scalding hot water being piped onto your wrist, repeatedly. Ten seconds before the hot water? A sound let you know , . . pain incoming. UGH! Thankful I was not someone involved in the study, I am fascinated by its results:
It’s this fourth fact that I find very interesting. The non meditators continued feeling the pain. In other words, they continued suffering. The meditators made a much quicker recovery, returning to a baseline that was free from pain. Here’s how Cortland Dahl, a participant in the study explains the significance of this: “So what they were seeing -- what the scientists found here in this particular study -- was the neural signature of the difference between suffering and pain. This is super important. Normally, we think that pain equals suffering, and this underlying assumption drives many of the things we do in our life. We're basically trying to avoid pain and discomfort because we think that by doing so, we will be able to avoid suffering. What this showed is that there's actually a hidden variable that most of us are completely unaware of. Suffering does not equal pain. Suffering equals pain times resistance. So if you can dial resistance down to zero, you are not doing away with the pain, but you are completely eliminating the suffering. Super, super important fact. So if you understand that fact, this is a total game changer for how we live our lives.” I fully understand life is not only made of glimmers. We have physical bodies. We will get sick. There will be pain. We are in relationships. There will be loss. There will be pain. The real question is: How do we help ourselves deal with, recover from, the pain? How able are we to return ourselves to baseline? Not by burying things. Or suppressing them. Or pretending they did not happen. But by experiencing them fully. And then releasing ourselves from suffering. If you missed the Viktor Frankl quotation up above, go ahead and take another look. Here’s to our collective growth. Love, light, and longing for peace, m 
“Ultimately, we have just one moral duty: to reclaim large areas of peace within ourselves, more and more peace and to reflect it towards others. And the more peace there is in us, the more peace there will also be in our troubled world.” ~ Etty Hillesum Hi beauties!
The long awaited moment has arrived: Yacht Club yoga is THIS SATURDAY! 9 - 10 AM ALL are welcome! Please bring your own mat and whatever else to keep yourself cozy. Space is filling up for our first Full Moon Yoga Circle @ Satya Yoga | Friday, May 1 | 6 - 7 PM. Teresa and I would love to have you join us for this special evening. 🌕 Amidst the chaos and tumult of our current world, today I want to talk about something each of us can do to make OUR OWN world a bit brighter. Look for glimmers 💖 What are glimmers? Well, think of them as the opposite of triggers. Instead of our nervous system being hijacked by things that upset us, a glimmer is something that helps soothe, calm, and maybe even sparks some joy! Here’s the thing. There are glimmers around us, all the time. There are also potential triggers surrounding us. We have discretion about where we direct our attention. Notice I encouraged us to LOOK for glimmers. This means it’s an action. A choice. Something we decide to do. Try it with me this week. Actively look for small, good things that are around you. And, stay there with your attention and your presence for a few relaxed breaths. Maybe allowing the corners of your lips to curl up into a smile. Not sure where to start? How about enlivening your senses with that first smell of coffee in the morning. Or, tuning into the sunlight dancing on the water. The moments don’t have to be big, but the reward system activated in the body is huge! And, the more we do this, the more readily the brain recognizes the glimmers around us. 🌟 Here’s to cultivating internal peace. Om shanti, shanti, shanti (peace, peace, peace) m 
“We cannot have a healed society, we cannot have change, we cannot have justice, if we do not reclaim and repair the human spirit.” ~ Rev Angel Kyodo Williams Hi friends!
My time in El Salvador was enlivening, busy, wonderful, and exhausting. I loved being with our producer partners from Honduras and Guatemala. Our team also got to make LOTS of new connections. I REALLY need to improve my Spanish! But outside of that, I believe we accomplished what we set out to do. Next up? 4 of the OBIIS team are traveling to Florida. This time, we are meeting with people from within the BIGGBY sphere about our Farm-Direct program. It will be a quick trip, and I still need to pack plus practice my presentation a few more times. 😉 Before I go, a few reminders about upcoming events:
I hope you’ll take just a few moments to watch something profound and powerful. Here’s to moving forward and healing, one step at a time, m |
AuthorMichelle Shaw: Archives
May 2026
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