10/22/2025
Big Congratulations to Sasi Wilkins for earning her “Resting Buddha” for attending 520 Saturday Morning Yoga classes! (That’s 10 years’ worth of Saturdays!)
Sasi, May you know how much you matter and how much you are loved.
Love and Namasté
Augusta
This is the poem I dedicated to Sasi…
YOU, MADE OF DIRT AND WATER
sometimes it is necessary to reteach
a thing its loveliness—Galway Kinnell
There is nothing wrong with you.
Just ask a redwood if it ever thinks its trunk
too thick, or an aspen if its branches too bare.
Neither does a dandelion look at a sunflower
and wish it could be one. And the black dahlia
certainly has not learned to reject the color of
its petals. There is just no way you could be
ugly. No way you are wrong. Whatever it is
they had you believe about your inherited sin,
and who you must be. Whatever the violent
conditioning—Remember, you are made of
dirt and water, shaped by light.
Your ancestors imagined you in a vision,
their mud bodies galloping in stride—
let their wisdom bite down into your shoulder.
You, loved into breath. You, the pinnacle of
a determined lineage. You, the beginning of
a dream, the divine’s uttered expression.
Just as a river hugs its banks. Just as a bee
opens blossoms. Just as the sun wakens
the earth, again, so are you, beloved, made in
the image of inimitable belonging, shaped from
a reservoir of tenderness, so deep and clear,
so certain, there is no question of your loveliness.
Place a hand to your heart. Breathe. Feel again
the pleasure of being. Learn, once more, how
it is to praise. Then stride yourself, humbly and
curious, into this immeasurable new day.
Moudi Sbeity
