Mindful Trees

Hi everyone! Thank you so very much for joining me for our final session in this series of Yoga Storytime at the Lexington Public Library. This week our theme was "Trees," and we did several variations of balancing poses.

We began by breathing together, sharing a call-and-response chant about the breath to the tune of "The Farmer in the Dell":

I am breathing in,

I am breathing out.

I hear the breath's gentle sound,

as I breathe in and out.

The breath moves into me.

The breath moves out of me.

The breath moves in and out of me,

I know that I am free.

Then we moved on to warming up our bodies with songs. I found this week's song, "I'm a Tree, I Have Four Needs" from the Storytime Katie blog:

Song: “I’m a Tree, I have Four Needs” (Tune: Skip to My Lou)

I’m a tree, I have four needs.

I’m a tree, I have four needs.

I’m a tree, I have four needs.

Do you know what they are?

The next verses are:

I need soil for my roots, to grow big and strong (crouch down in a squat with hands on the ground and shift from side to side)

I need lots and lots of sun, to grow big and strong (stand in mountain pose, lift arms overhead like the sun and bend from side to side)

 I need water now and then, to grow big and strong (lift arms overhead wiggling fingers like rain, bending down to the ground)

 I need air just like you, to grow big and strong (spinning around like a leaf being blown by the wind)

Our first book was a beautiful bilingual book by Maya Christina Gonzalez called Call Me Tree / Llámame árbol. This poetic book is a beautiful celebration of diversity. It is also the only picture book that I know of that is intentionally gender-neutral throughout. 

After our story, we linked together the various movements we had learned so far as we pretended to be trees growing big and strong:

seed - child's pose

seed sprouting - child's pose with arm stretches

roots spreading - squat with side bends

sun - mountain with arms wide overhead

wind - mountain with arms overhead and side bends

rain - wiggling fingers like falling rain down into forward bend

tree

We played around with some more yoga poses along with the "That's What They Do" song by Karma Kids Yoga.

Next we tried something a little different. I led us in a mindfulness activity using apple slices as the attention of our focus. We spent time looking at the apple first whole, then it slices, then smelling it, and finally tasting it. 

We began wrapping up with our "Dance for the Sun" and our final story, Picture a Tree by Barbara Reid. Then we brought our attention back to our breath and took our final rest.

Thanks so much for being part of this series of Yoga Storytime at the library. If you enjoyed it and would like to see it offered again, please let your local librarians know. In the meantime, please come join me for another series of Yoga Storytime at Centered, 6/1-6/22 on Mondays at 10:30 AM! This is a donation based program, so you are encouraged to pay what you think is fair based on your own budget. I hope to see lots of library families there! 

It has been such a joy sharing yoga storytime with you this month! Until the next time, NAMASTE.