Rejoice!

Poetry From My Mat

I’ve always believed that yoga is more than what happens on the mat — it's how we meet ourselves in each moment, each breath, each new beginning. Yesterday, I joined my friend Sue’s monthly yoga and writing circle. After chanting in Kirtan meditation, we flowed into a free writing practice that brought me somewhere unexpected and sacred.

I instantly knew it’s something I could repeat on my own.

Habit stacking is something I teach all of my Wellness Coaching clients because it is wildly effective. Since I happen to often resist free writing practice, it was clear that pairing the practice with a simple and enjoyable meditation would have me crave the adventure of a blank page—with full trust something would come through.

This poem came through in that space.

Writing, I’m learning, can be a kind of yoga — a way of sitting with yourself, breath steady, heart open, pen in hand. Like asana or meditation, it invites you to witness whatever rises… and to stay. It is the practice of something you’ve done over and over again, but doing it with the present awareness of doing it for the first time.

As someone who finds safety in structure and has often been afraid to meet herself fully on the page, this practice felt like a return. A reminder that each blank page — like each new breath, each cycle of the moon — is not emptiness, but an opening.

A chance to begin again.

(A note before you begin. The line ‘still, I rise’ in this poem isn’t just a nod to Poet Laureate Maya Angelou or determination — it speaks to the power of stillness itself. Of letting silence, breath, and presence be the soil for our rising.)

Rejoice

What a radical act

To choose to live free

To honor and claim

Every Holy part of Me.

I have died a thousand times

And shed these masks countless more,

Still, it amazes me what remains alive.

A light, a voice, an embodied Truth,

Proof that like the Phoenix

still, I rise.

Each cycle, rebirth. Rejoice

I am cleansed, a vessel emptied. A clue

that I too am nature —

Fire, Water, Earth and Air

Seasons of life, cyclical and wise.

My ancestors alive in my bones.

Stardust in my veins,

Spirit fills my lungs,

My body, my home.

This life is my choice, a prayer—rejoice!